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6:00 am, August 16th, 2026 - 38 comments
Categories: open mike -
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
I have to say that the $146 dollars I spent on a year subscription to the Post has been worth it so far. I don't agree with a lot of it, but compared to the black propaganda, mendacity, dishonesty and cynicism of the Grennon Herald it's refreshing honesty is a delight to read.
Cancelled my "Herald" sub after the 2005 General Election. Won't have it in the house. My partner checks the Death Notices online every day to make sure we are not dead. That is it.
Not sure if I'd even trust the death notices in the Herald.
Sometimes they're dead wrong.
Which is of grave concern.
They should undertake to be more reliable.
OMG, Mercurio, hang your head in shame – those puns are beyond the pale!
Supplied for me by my ghost writer but I agree with the spirit in which they were written.
All a cunning plot between you and the ghost-writer, eh?
Ahem! ahem! (Sound of coffin')
If you keep this up you'll drive me off the Standard to Kiwiblog!!
A fate worse than death!
No, don’t go there! It’ll be like doing graveyard shifts for the rest of your life and you’ll be bored stiff.
That's a very cryptic response, Incognito.
I felt it was time to resurrect a response because I thought things were get a bit dark and doomy & gloomy.
One of those Kiwiblog commenters, a compatriot, I think, of Brooke van Velden, comments here on The Standard under a pseudonym and says unkind things about Lefties.
Watch out for him.
Real name, "Al".
He's got form, Al de Hyde.
Al causes a stink with his rotten comments.
Is the Granny Herald now overseas owned by Grennon who funded the latest Court Case for someone who believed he was being racially disadvantaged?
Seems to be a lot of Overseas Influencers in NZ Politics these days, ie Atlas Group and other media companies and influencers steering the direction of NZ Politics towards Right Wing Factions?
Some New Zealand groups such as the NZ Initiative and Ngai Tahu are aligned to Atlas. But the only active Atlas intervention in NZ has been them supporting the Free Speech outfit OPPOSING the gang patch ban.
Pray do tell.
Ngai Tahu belong to NZ Initiative, NZ Initiative are signed up to Atlas.
"Ngai Tahu are aligned to Atlas.."
Bull
Shit.
"I didn't challenge for the leadership."
Erica Stanford thinks we're all stupid. She thinks we don't know how people deliberately lie by carefully not literally lying.
No doubt it's true that when Penk failed then Stanford did not "challenge for the leadership". Formally. With a declaration. On the record. In the caucus room. She knew she had lost.
The challenging had already happened, which is why Luxon called the meeting.
'I didn't challenge for the leadership': Erica Stanford says in first media appearance this week | RNZ
A Clintonesque excuse.
Good on the Opportunity Party for vowing to regulate lobbying and reform political donations.
Unfortunately, their proposal doesn't go far enough.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/08/16/opportunity-party-urges-lobbying-and-donations-reforms/
Take the money out of politics
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/915271/large-anonymous-political-donations-climb-to-almost-500k-so-far-in-election-year
“The system we are creating is actually more attractive to people with high incomes – if they don’t own property or if they own modest amounts of property, they will be paying less tax because of the citizen’s income,” Qiulae Wong
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2026-kiwis-left-17000-worse-off-by-opportunity-tax-plan-should-look-at-the-bigger-picture-qiulae-wong-says/H7UQTOMAJRB2BG6LBLP3LWAWEU/
So the system TOP is creating is actually more attractive to people with high incomes.
A party created by a multimillionaire, funded by multimillionaires, spruiking policies that could well have been written by Friedman's Chicago Boys is actually more attractive to people with high incomes.
Really?
/
The surprising thing is the support they seem to have garnered from the left
Te Pāti Māori launches its 2026 election campaign today
Labour plan to strongly contest the 7 Māori seats
Māori voters are likely to do what they did last election and give Labour their party vote IMO
I also think the Māori Party will safely win 3 to 4 seats out of the 7
As I commented under another Post, neutrality is being weaponised to ram through changes that suit hard-Right ideology. It has become a loaded Trojan term, a dog whistle.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2608/S00114/act-wants-public-service-to-be-a-bad-employer-exposing-the-real-agenda-behind-its-reset.htm
Goldsmith proposes that a 14-year-old can be "mechanically constrained" if suspected of shoplifting.
Suspected… by whom? An 18-year-old supermarket employee?
How might that employee know the shoplifter is 14 years old, rather than 12 years old, or 10 years old before applying the zip-ties?
This is totally nuts!!!
NUTS
NUTS
NUTS
What are they thinking???
Yup, dangerous madness. But ideology Trumps facts, evidence, and stakeholder feedback.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2608/S00063/alarm-bells-ring-as-citizens-arrest-laws-pass.htm
Dangerous madness indeed.
It's going to be the wild west out there.
Citizen's arrest – Police's guide to doing it legally
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/08/16/citizens-arrest-rules-now-in-force-polices-guide-to-doing-it-legally/
Thinking??? Weren't – Don't – Can't.
Pricks did the job on him.
https://newscord.org/editorials/jason-arday-pile-on
Exactly the same as the hits on Benjamin Doyle. A smear dropped on social media from a rw commentator (in this case a white eugenecist who lost his position at Cambridge). Then amplified by mainstream media opinion pieces in the culture war.
One fantasist academic (who even so is good at his job), but who is black. Therefore all black people in academia are boosted into their positions without earning them.
"I didn't challenge the party leadership." Stanford.
Ritual abasement before Dear Leader and the public as a price for keeping her portfolios?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/1011589/i-didn-t-challenge-for-the-leadership-erica-stanford-says-in-first-media-appearance-this-week