We don’t just live in Māori things, we suffer the same health stuff as everybody else, we go to the same schools as everybody else.
What electoral roll I’m on didn’t change my Māori blood, didn’t change my Māori genealogy, didn’t change my Māori language, didn’t change my Māori family. None of that changed. What’s changed is my ability to choose more widely who I can potentially vote for. – TeRata Hikairo
New Zealand farmers are in a better position to be able to identify the combination required than anybody in the central city. Allowing them to be innovative to achieve the required outcomes will bring back a sense of worth. And maybe then the next generation of agribusiness professionals and food producers will appear. – Jacqueline Rowarth
We must inject some common sense back into the classroom and society more generally. The classroom is a place where fact should be taught as fact and opinion as opinion. Children should be able to indulge their imagination in the playground, especially when they’re little, but it goes without saying that absolutely no child should be forced to affirm a classmate’s identity as an animal or inanimate object. – Gillian Keegan
Against National’s weekly churn of new policy, we’ve seen basically nothing big from Hipkins since the Budget. At best, Labour has been invisible. At worst, it’s been making headlines for ministerial conflict of interest scandals.
Labour will need to seize back the narrative soon, if it wants to bolster its chances going into campaign season. Otherwise Luxon, armed with his array of policies on all of the key issues, starts to look like the Prime-Minister-in-waiting. – Marc Daalder
There’s absolutely no doubt that Labour has reduced the numbers of people in prison. The prison population has fallen by 20%. And they’re saying it’s going to be really expensive to put more people back in prison. But the cost of crime on society is expensive. I mean, just look at the numbers of security guards having to be employed by just about every retail store.
And criminals have to be punished, otherwise we lose faith in the justice system, and we lose faith in our authorities, and we lose faith in each other. If you do wrong, you have to be seen to be being punished. But at the same time, criminals must be rehabilitated as best they can be. Otherwise, it’s just an expensive money-go-round and a complete and utter waste of human potential. – Kerre Woodham
A $8000 rebate, as prescribed by Government policy, is a story of rank hypocrisy.
But two planes, one empty, to transport 45 people is somehow not news?
I just can’t work out how it is the media has ended up with such a questionable reputation.
Go figure.- Mike Hosking
If one in three students fails to finish their degree, who are they delivering to?
Clearly, young people decide university is not for them and they are left with the student loan that still has to be paid off and nothing to show for it. Universities themselves can’t seem to attract enough people to fund themselves.
So what is the taxpayer getting out of it? Do we have to rethink the whole university model, instead of coming up with rescue packages that are just going to prop up a system that seems to be failing. – Kerre Woodham
Banks have had a big target on their backs because they make big profits, and banks should be making big profits because they’re really big entities. – Cameron Bagrie
You look at credit card charges… those numbers are pretty eye-watering – up around 20 percent – but, if you want to make a really big difference to what happens across retail banking, one of the big steps we should be pursuing is actually improving financial literacy.
Where the banks make a lot of money out of credit charges is because people don’t know how to manage their credit cards from month to month. – Cameron Bagrie
Free speech is not the tool of the elite but the marginalised, who have not money nor power to set the agenda, but simply their voice. – Adam Young
Homepaddock 
[…] Quotes of the week […]
LikeLike