Simon Bridges disgraces himself with appalling attack on beneficiaries in wake of pandemic relief

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Someone needs to sit Simon down, pour him a really strong whiskey, let him have a couple of slugs, bitch slap him with your ring finger, and state in a very clear calm manner…

“Simon, you are never going to say something as malicious and spiteful as that again because it is beneath you and what you actually believe”.

I like Simon Bridges. I do. I know him better than I’ve ever known any of the previous National Party leaders. When Matthew Hooton and I were hosting the IPredict Election series in 2011, Simon appeared on the show and I’ve always found him to be personally very funny, really pragmatic and a lot less of a dick the role Opposition Leader demands of him.

I wouldn’t ever in a  million years vote for Simon, but there is a person in there you can reason with and genuinely talk to.

Which is why his comments on the relief budget were so ugly. That type of vicious divisive malice has no place in mainstream politics.

To begrudge beneficiaries being given an extra $25 per week to help cope with a possible full blown pandemic is beneath the National Party and NZ politics.

Simon, mate, buddy – you can’t fucking say this

“Bluntly, what we see in this package today is money flowing faster into the hands of beneficiaries than the workers and the businesses that will lose their businesses and their jobs over the coming weeks and months.”

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…if all you have to add are criticisms of the other desperate people in your life boat while arguing why they should just be tipped out of that life boat, then maybe you’ve had a wee bit too much time in the pressure cooker of the debating chamber and you need some chill space, because attempting to specifically rip at the cultural wounds between beneficiaries and the working classes purely for political theatre is fucking nasty.

You are a better man than this Simon. A far better man. This pandemic is calling for bi-partisanship, not pointless rancour.

History is watching how we are tested here Mr Bridges, your country needs you to step up, not stand over right now.

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TDB Team 2020.

103 COMMENTS

  1. “You are a better man than this Simon. A far better man.”

    Nothing I have ever seen of this man makes him a decent human being.

    • I am a beneficiary and suffer severe traumatic depression inclusive of suicide. In another life I was a Corporate Manager running over 590 employees. I have a degree. I represented New Zealand. I travelled the world. But now due to this debilitating illness I am a mere shell of my former self. I paid taxes from 17 through to 55 years of age
      So Simon now I am labelled as a beneficiary and in your eyes the scourge of our country. In your eyes I am nothing and worth not an ounce of empathy. My intelligence is still on point. For you to state that I dont matter deflates me even more. Tell me Mr Bridges how would you feel if most days you spent trying to crawl out of an abyss of darkness only to repeat the same exercise the following day. Knowing what I was and what I am now Mr Bridges is crushing
      But I your eyes I am nothing but a curse. Walk one day in my shoes and I guarantee you would change your opinion

          • Fake christians who know nothing of Jesus …The Jesus who said Love thy neighbour, have compassion, feed the masses/the poor with bread & fishes. The Jesus who threw down the tables of the moneychangers in the temple, who said you cannot worship both God & Mammon (Wealth/Money), who said as you giveth so shall you receive, who said it is easier to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man man to reach Heaven, who said not to worship/follow the letter of the law but fulfill it’s spirit. Jesus was a Socialist!

      • I think you should take this content even more public. Giving your pain a voice would help others , and your self esteem

      • The benefit system needs to change, us disabled need a different set up to the unemployed because we get treated the same way the unemployed do, its not our fault we are where we are but we receive the same spite and hate as the unemployed, just isnt right.

        • I agree that the system should be changed back to different benefits for different reasons but the unemployed don’t deserve spite and hate either. There are going to be a lot more unemployed now. Are they now undeserving when they weren’t last week?

        • disabled need a different set up to the unemployed

          They used to be separate, once upon a time. I think it was under the Key govt that they sort of merged?

          we receive the same spite and hate as the unemployed, just isnt right.

          No one should be receiving spite and hatred. It poisons our society, our communities, our world. (Having just written that, I realise I have to think more carefully about what I post 🙂

          Anyway, a UBI would solve the immediate problem that you (Mark) are referring to, I think. And I hope very much that the govt will see that to be the case, and will act on it as soon as possible.

          All the best to you, Mark. (I had not understood your situation.)

      • Jackie, Thank you for writing that. It really is helpful, at a deeper level than just ‘the facts of the matter’. Just, thank you.

      • My respect, Jackie. The beauty of NZ is we are all brothers and sisters. Despite … the spite. Despite so much.

    • 1000% AGREE with you, Bert!!!

      (I’m feeling so angry about all this that it’s difficult to write …)

    • Yes @ Bert. Dead on.
      @ MB? You’ve had the wool ( Now, more a blend of polyester and cheap course, cross bred wools @ $2.00 a kg. ) pulled over your eyes by a narcissistic sociopath.
      Be careful. They can be very convincing.
      If you look very closely at soimons rear you can see roger douglas’s hand up his arse?
      See? There? That withered stump? From fingering the money of others?

    • Totally agree. He is whatever he thinks you want him to be.

      He wanted to be John Key. Even tries talking like him.

  2. Perhaps Simon Bridges should be tested for ‘Blue Rabies’ ,,, a virulent disease which destroys the brain and makes those infected want to attack the poor,,,

  3. A number of us lifetime political types, and activists, over the years have got to know public figures personally. And even become friends with some of them. A few do exhibit charm and appealing human angles regardless of their publicly perceived personas.

    The thing with Mr Bridges, is that to try and somehow plead his humanity-sure he has kids and claims to like Led Zep in the car-gets you into “banality of evil” territory. That well explored notion says that even the worst arseholes among us go home for dinner after causing misery, and worse, for others all day.

    Soymun crossed the decency line sometime time ago for many, and seems little more than a “mini Trump” wannabe these days.

  4. I am appalled at your lack of empathy and disgusted in your beneficiary bashing. Try walking one day in my shoes and your opinion would change

  5. Simon Bridges is a nasty little guttersnipe, small minded and spiteful he and Paula Bennet make a good pair.

  6. Simon is a nasty little guttersnipe he and Paula Bennett are cut from the same cloth. Spiteful, small minded and elitist

    • But at least they are SMALL !!!

      Human beings have been shown to migrate towards familiar , recognized images… so no wonder why Bridges and … who ? … are so popular…

  7. Perhaps Simon is just trying too hard altogether to show of his ‘leadership skills’. Which, the reality is (!!) that it only shows his leadership remains under threat.

    I agree, it was a very poor, almost immature showing on his part today replying to Robertson’s speech.

    And his questioning of the government at Question Time is always very repetitive, and even boring. So much so that the PM threw her hands up in exasperation today and then sat down without completing her answer – probably because she had given him the same answer already to the same or very similar questions. And Simon’s boorish political mates kept loudly interjecting so most in the Chamber couldn’t hear the answer anyway!

    Simon simply isn’t cutting it. And the antics of the drama queen sitting beside him doesn’t enhance his leadership team or their reputation. Even Paul Goldsmith um-ed and ah-ed and regularly tripped over in his delivery today in an uncharacteristic speech.

    Perhaps today’s government’s package was so comprehensive and timely that it left them with nowhere to turn and nothing of substance to say!

    • Soymon has a very fragile ego, I remember the days when Jacanda and he would give a political round up on one of the breakfast shows and she would wipe the floor with him every single time. He was self-promoting arsehole back then and nothing has changed….he must be so jealous that Jacinda got to be PM before he did and his little head ego telling him its not fair I’m the big man and I deserve to be PM, farkin pathetic and the beneficiary bashing is absolutely disgraceful these people dont deserve to have this arsehole as PM. He and that pig deputy have no morals and will ruin NZ if they get back in again.

  8. “I like Simon Bridges. I do…………………..”

    I bet you must have had more than a couple of whiskeys to write that.

  9. I call Simon Bridges the Village Idiot. He deserves that name so well because every time he opens his mouth he sounds like and comes across as a bloody stupid idiot.
    I often wonder since Bridges became leader of the Opposition as to why he has been so selective and conveniently forgetting – perhaps by selective amnesia – all the awful things John Key and Bill English did to NZers whilst there was a National government.
    Here are some examples of events that I recall to this day and reason why I would never ever vote for a National MP ever again:
    John Key promised no increase in GST. Well low and behold look what happened.
    John Key said to John Banks at Cuppagate that the older population are dying off and so less votes for Winston. Does that mean now here in March 2020 that Simon Bridge is comfortable(one of John Key’s pet words)with the older population dying off from a Corona Virus? And if so then that confirms Bridges doesn’t merit voting for.
    But also there was not a peep out of Simon Bridges at the time of Cuppagate saying that comment of Key was unacceptable and disgusting even towards the elderly voters in the Tauranga electorate.
    John Key made disparaging comments about NZers at every opportunity and again not a peep out of Bridges for these awful comments. In fact it now seems Bridges has echo-ed and same low opinion about NZers as John Key in his(Bridges)attitude towards beneficiaries. Which shows National just cannot be trusted one bit when their very leader behaves in such a unacceptable to merit a vote manner.
    Bill English happily Double Dipped on the NZ taxpayer purse. And there was not a peep out of Simon Bridges about all that. But then didn’t Simon Bridges do a “get to know me(Bridges)” tour around NZ and naturally passed the bill for his self-promotion onto the NZ taxpayers to pay?
    I think the behaviour of Simon Bridges is a true indication that National just hates anyone that isn’t on an income that is enough to make donations to the NZ National Party.
    Maybe Simon Bridges is behaving all irrational and insane because blame for the Corona virus appears to be focused upon China and we all know the NZ National Party will always court China for donations especially as this year is an election year.

    • Right has three legs to tripod Immigrant-Bashing, Beneficiary Bashing & Tax-Cuts. NZFirst has a lock on immigrant-bashing & National ceded that ground by importing well-off moneyed Chinese & Indian Students which caused house shortage & drove up housing prices & congestion (meaning need to spend billions to add/ugrade roads which benefits Big Businesses & foreign businesses) who used bullshit courses to get 20 hour jobs in hospitality & used that to transition to residency via all being recognised as ‘Chefs’ who now are dominating all the low-level jobs here formerly filled by young, poor/uneducated whites, Maori, Polynesian workers & mostly voting for their benefactor (and their classs interests as they mostly originate from the well-off classes of their homelands). Without the votes of Chinese & Indian new citizens & residents National would be a shadow of itself. So National left with tax-cuts which generally just gets a tepid response as general mass of people aren’t clamouring for tax-cuts but rather for greater social investment spending on public health/education etc so they’re left with beneficiary-bashing which gets some level of enthusiasm from a subsection of the pop.

  10. Martyn!
    Sometimes nice blokes can also be complete arseholes. There’s a lot of it about.
    And clearly when someone behaves consitently and repeatedly like an arsehole for whatever reason, they’re not as nice as you may have thought.
    This sort of shit now comes naturally to Simon. He’s inserted himself in among a group of people who feed off each other. If he was such a nice bloke, he’d get the hell out of it

  11. On a positive note, National has probably just lost the election. What hopeless sack of concentrated misery is going to vote for Bridges after that performance?

  12. We are in a pandemic, right????

    Or has it all been some sort of illusion?

    What frigging reality does that stupid little boy simie live in????

  13. If ever there was an argument for MPs to be paid ONLY as much as the lowest beneficiary recipient, with all the associated rheeeems of red tape and “conditions”, mr bridges asinine comments in parliament following the coronavirus recovery budget provide that argument.

    He makes the statement “Let them eat cake” seem like a blessing.

  14. Beneficiaries have been “given” $5 a day.
    Big whoop.

    Is that enough to even get them to the doctor when they get the virus (or any other winter sickness)? Is it enough for transport to the Med centre, or to pay the medical fee? Certainly not enough to get a coffee while they’re in town.

    These are people who are living right on the edge. They are hungry. They are cold. They are facing a long, dark, cold winter. Some will not survive this winter. And most have landlords, some of whom will be immediately converting that $5 a day increase into their own pockets via rent increases.

    All in the time of a worldwide pandemic and a national crisis.

    Yet mr bridges begrudges any movement at all in the direction of trying to help those most in need. And there at his elbow is the woman who ensured that this is how it would end up, for all those on benefits. Ms Bene herself.

    • Last time I checked there was a 3hr wait for HealthLine. It sounds like their advice is to see your GP if you do manage to get through so not sure what their role is.

      Clearly waiting for 3 hours on Health Line is hard if you have to pay for calls or can’t afford a phone/credit.

      Also there are less landlords left now, so the woke can sleep easy (sarcasm) knowing less landlords are available under COL and that rental people are now worse off, out on the streets, or in a 1 room motel worrying how the $1000 p/w is going to be paid back, or worrying about Corona virus at their brand new Compass accomodation costing the taxpayers millions, where they share the kitchens with everyone else…..Great plan for viruses!!!! Not!!! Bullying and sexual harassment comes free with the accomodation.

      Like the roads, hospitals, schools, waste water, sewerage, COL should have had the supply available before they had their brain farts on housing and infrastructure while adding more hundreds of thousands more people on temporary, permanent visa demand for dumb businesses!!!

      Can’t wait for the tourists and new visitors to NZ to come down with the virus and take up the hospital beds that are not there because NZ grew it’s population for low cost restaurants and retail ponzi’s and like Italy started being reliant on massive tourism – now looking like a bad idea under coronavirus!

      Yes Natz started the stupidity that led to our infrastructure and environmental and medical crisis at breaking points, but COL are neoliberal lite…. Natz and COL are both consistent on impractical, ideological, globalist export trade related, solutions on anything important!

  15. What is most needed now is secure housing for all those who need it, before winter arrives. This includes the need for a rent freeze and rent cap, – meaning some of the OTT exorbitant rents need to come down.

    The govt can use emergency measures as required by the pandemic, to achieve this. There are around 40,000 empty homes around Auckland alone. Please, those who have some say in the matter, do something about this!!

    If they fail to get people into safe housing before winter, with all the usual winter flu’s and ills, then the pandemic will blast through NZ. How do you even have a lockdown, when so many have no secure home in which to self-isolate?

    • Yeah homeless & car/van dwellers & those sharing 3 br houses with a large extended family of 12-15 with converted garages, sleeputs, caravans, van in drive etc are in trouble.

  16. Yesterday was a nightmare for Simon Bridges. We all witnessed impressive leadership from Ardern when it mattered most. The speech by Finance Minister Grant Robertson was terrific. It was an enormous confidence builder when NZ needed that most. It was about so much more than money. The two told ALL of NZ regardless of who or what you are that you all matter as much as each other and we will help you when you need it most and get through this together. Inclusiveness personified.

    Mr Irrelevant, Simon Bridges watched it unfold and knew the divisive contempt he preaches to his trolls 24/7 to pass on was all unraveling. The welfare etc of all New Zealanders mattered not one jot to Bridges. All that really mattered to him was that his one chance at achieving his sole quest to be Prime Minister was slipping away. Bridge confessed early in his leadership of National what was his number 1 priority.

    “SCORING HITS” on the Government. In reality, it’s more “SCORING PERCEIVED HITS”. His narrative yesterday was as divisive as ever and entirely in keeping with his one and only method of becoming PM.

    It was the most inappropriate time for beneficiary bashing in NZ…..but for Bridges and his trolls, it was the perfect opportunity. What a sad sad man. He leads his trolls in the most selfish, divisive, contemptuous way. They gleefully follow his lead.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oArDFU_IESQ

    If Bridges had boxed smart he would have acknowledged the enormity of the package yesterday and what was behind it. He could have discreetly spoken about middle NZ appearing to get less than others in the package via his 100% faux concern. Bridges couldn’t help himself.

    My wife and I pay around $1100 a week between us in income tax. It’s bloody frustrating but we love our country and most of the people within it so accept we are just paying our share. There was little in the package for us but that was to be expected. Others need it far more than us.

    Bridges may have been a decent enough guy in the past. I never knew him at that time so can’t comment. The man I see now is a vile divisive individual totally unsuited to leading our country. National got a few things right in their 9 years but got the big things that matter most horrendously wrong. I grew up in an inclusive NZ where we all gave a shit about each other. That dramatically changed under National and most of us saw the results of that daily. Money mattered most. Selfish greed was promoted like it was Manuka honey. Divisive hatred and contempt for the enemy was promoted both in policy and the narrative. Who was the enemy? Anyone doing it hard. Anyone who wasn’t a National Party voter. They saw the housing crisis unfolding for example and actually encouraged it to worsen as there was huge money to be made by them and their supporters. They happily denied there even was a housing crisis despite the devastating impact it was having on so many kiwi’s, especially young Kiwi’s. Those people were unlikely to vote National where as all those making a fortune off their misery were without doubt life long National Party supporters.

    Also no coincidence in that around 9 out of every 10 Chinese that came to NZ under Key are National Party voters. Many of those same people own multiple homes in Auckland.

    I sincerely believe that Bridges is even more divisive than any other National Party leader they’ve had. If we think their previous 9 years was shocking, you can very confidently wager that under Bridges those 9 years will seem like a tea party. Our beautiful country and it’s people just can’t afford that.

    • +1 JacindaFan.

      You can see now by the stripping of the supermarket shelves (starting in the North Shore) what sort of country we have become. My elderly Dad went in during that time and couldn’t believe what he witnessed going on, he said people were shoving and ramming trolleys everywhere and buying everything, he had to leave without buying anything. Luckily it was localised on the North Shore by the sounds of it, but sounds like the strippers have created a trend and now more of the country is being stripped of food and medicines and hoarded.

      Like the baby milk powder, who knows if it’s being sent around the world to be sold by people profiting. (Although maybe they have to, because maybe it aint all sweetness and roses in Asia and the containment might be leading to starvation or just another opportunity to make $$$$). Who knows!

  17. I work in a large organization with a lot of people. In our smoko room yesterday afternoon there was many comments and moans and groans about beneficiaries getting more money when they were in no danger of losing the jobs they didnt have. Yes it is lunacy and spiteful but dont be too quick to right off Bridges just yet. Many kiwis feel how he does about beneficiaries. Rightly or wrongly.

    • Many kiwis feel how he does

      Well they don’t seem to be on twitter today. I stumbled there by accident and don’t know how to link to the entire thread, but if anyone does a search for twitter – trending – simon bridges, it should be all there. 99 out of 100 echo thoughts expressed here today (which alleviates some of my own anger).

      • 99 votes for Greens, Yippee! Sarcasm. Look where the elite woke are not on, and you’ll see a different picture! Just delete yourself, bro.

        But I guess that is how Greens who could have been on 20% if they concentrated on environment for every race, by now are in fact hoping to make 5% voters.

        • Greens who could have been on 20% if they concentrated on environment for every race

          Probably more than 20% by now.
          As long as they had followed through on that, and did what they said they would do. Sage has been a big disappointment 🙁

          • The whole Green party has been a disappointment compared to Greens who started the party, and those who ran it up to recently.

            Sadly the rest of the government is just as bad, maybe that is why Natz is so solid with support, people who believe in killing the environment, capitalism and cronyism are not let down by the Natz.

            Labour made a u turn on what they stood for in 1884 and NZ First did a u turn in the last few years possibly influence by developer donations.

    • I wouldn’t agree with much of your comments normally, but this one-“Many kiwis feel how he does about beneficiaries. Rightly or wrongly.” Unfortunately you are dead right MickeyBoyle. My smoko room experience also. Fuckwits, the lot of them. These people are despicable, that’s my opinion. I have often commented that the Natzi party are only as bad as there voters/supporters. They are representing their followers, or seen to be leading them if you like. But they’re not leading as such, they are just stirring up this hatred on TV and other media. And there’s a shit load of them out there.

    • Your smoko room must be full of a load of selfish idiots. If you work for a wage you could find yourself a WINZ any time! And tell your moaners to try to live on $200 a week. And will you are on the job explain the meaning of empathy to them.

    • You should ask the muppets that populate your smoko room to follow that train of thought to its inevitable conclusion. If people aren’t provided for in a time of crisis, they will resort to desperate measures to survive. What’s worse? Topping up the benefits of those at the bottom of the heap… or letting things deteriorate to such an extent that people are being mugged in the street and their homes broken into because it’s the only way for people to acquire the necessities of life.

      I don’t envy Jacinda’s task at this moment in time. I can only imagine the horror that would unfold were John Key still at the helm. The National Party have a made a number of things clear over the years, and one of those things is that they absolutely don’t give a toss about the less fortunate. They’ll throw you a bone once in a while because it makes for good press in the run-up to an election (ask Aroha Ireland of McGehan Close all about that — I’m sure she’d have nothing but good things to say about John Key), but for the most part they’d much prefer it if you crawled into a hole and died.

      People who hoard food in a time of famine tend to meet an unpleasant end. This is no time to be selfish. We’re all in this together, every man-jack of us. The sooner we realise this and come together the better for all concerned.

    • How can they be so stupid as to not realise they’ll benefit from increase if their jobs go south? …plus in real terms it only takes benefits back to the 1991 cut in benefits.

  18. Bridges is an intellectual midget surrounded by spiteful, ignorant, greedy, dishonest, pea- brained arseholes.When you lie down with dogs you get fleas.
    Some of you who comment here will be aware I am no fan of Grant Robertson. He has come thru for the general populace quite well with this package. He deserves praise . I give him a an 8 out of 10 and watch this space.

    • Natzis may well be “spiteful, ignorant, greedy, dishonest, pea- brained arseholes” but they are puppets for Business NZ who have professional PR firms driving their public image and working on the other “spiteful, ignorant, greedy, dishonest, pea- brained arseholes” in our community and some of them live in smoko rooms.

  19. “money flowing faster into the hands of beneficiaries than the workers and the businesses that will lose their businesses and their jobs”. Where does Simon think the $25 is going to go when the beneficiaries spend it? This $25 will keep the economy and the businesses working normally to some extent as it will pass through many hands. Something economists and politicians often dismiss. This pandemic is different to an economic crisis. You cant increase demand by putting more money into a system where people are isolating themselves from each other and by doing so the businesses they normally frequent. This “helicopter money” is going to be more effective than the wage subsidies or the loans. I would suggest a basic education in economics before you grab the levers of power, Simon.

  20. Bridges will always be condemned by those on this forum but there’s some truth in what he says. He’s not attacking the beneficiaries as Martyn would have us believe. He’s clumsily pointing out that the Government doesn’t make the money the beneficiaries need it’s the business’s and the workers that work in them that do that. It’s timing. Make sure you can save the business sector first or in the end there will be no money generated for anybody.

    • save the business sector first

      When the business is tourism and tourism is dead in the water then how is it “generating money” to prop up those businesses?

      • You must be able to work it out Kheala.
        If you don’t maintain a healthy business sector eventually there’s no money for beneficiaries or those with out work. The Government has no other income except borrowing and eventually that has to stop. The more the Government tries to support business now the less failures there will be. Money doesn’t grow on trees, the business owners and workers generate it. The beneficiaries spent it but only if it’s there.

        • Again, The businesses being boosted now are mainly tourism related. Are you suggesting that the govt keep propping them all up, even if no more tourists are projected to arrive? And if so, for how long? Does the cost of that propping up of, in effect an empty shell, or a collection of empty shells, cause you any concern?

          • Quote me where the Government has boosted the tourism sector above others. Go anywhere now where group’s of people gather and the surrounding small businesses will be suffering. Local restaurants and caterers just naming two are not reliant on tourism but are suffering a severe downturn in some areas. With the reduced spending because of job losses the result will be to reduce spending in many communities. Forestry another that quickly comes to mind. Of course you may not be aware of what doesn’t affect you. Wherever you live you will see the effect of this downturn soon enough and there won’t be a tourist in sight.

            • Look at Italy, and the locals are now dead and dying. Relying on tourism and cruise ships, is not a good strategy for NZ and it should have been nipped in the bud long before 5 million tourists turned up per year and demanded hundreds of thousands of cheap workers which has imported in more poverty and a whole heap of new problems from lack of medical beds to schools .

            • This is not a difficult question. I am just asking for your opinion. Trying again:

              In your opinion, should the govt continue to pour support money into tourism ventures when, as you note, tourism is disappearing.

              And if so, for how long?

              (I am just asking for your thoughts on this??)

              • @Kheala No I think they should send the workers on temp permits in tourism and hospitality home that have no work in NZ. That is the point of their visa aka they are only here for a temporary purpose and if that changes their visa is no longer valid.

                And going forward have a strategy of only sustainable tourism of under 1 million visitors that is geared towards making more profit for tax payers of this country not just having everyones relatives living with them in NZ using the tourist visas to get in, and using the health system when things go wrong. Even before coronavirus things were going wrong from the poor victims of the White Island tragedy and all the bus crashes of tourists, to the relatives who need extensive health care. aka
                ACC approved for the “Not-Botulism” Kochumman Family
                http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1801/S00585/acc-approved-for-the-not-botulism-kochumman-family.htm

                Two with carbon monoxide poisoning after using brazier in bedroom at Papatoetoe home
                https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/114070065/two-with-carbon-monoxide-poisoning-after-using-brazier-in-bedroom-at-papatoetoe-home

                There are a lot of discretionary people living in NZ on temporary visas who compete with services with people who actually live here full time and that must be stopped going forward.

              • In addition the Ponzi visa schemes of overseas businesses and nationals buying up NZ tourist ventures is reducing the quality of the tourism offerings in many cases.

                Went to Rotorua about 2 years ago, stayed at what was supposed to be a 4 star accomodation on the lake and paid accordingly.

                Hmm, looked good in photos but got there and it was a very different inside. The fridge was stinking, bits falling off everywhere, only 2 Indian staff for the entire site ( probably under/ not paid), toilet not cleaned, stains on carpets, rat bait boxes under the bed, I’m not kidding!!! It was that bad. etc…

                The foreign tourism business was expanding and this was one of the many sites it had bought up!

                In a few years, even if coronavirus had not happened high end and domestic tourism will be dead as there are too many tourist operators entering NZ who are appalling and below any quality standard. The cleanliness was more akin to a poorly run backpackers. I have not been back to Rotorua since.

                Bad tourist operators give the entire area a bad name and stop people returning.

                Domestic tourism is very important to keep encouraging and that is what OZ did when they had the bush fires.

                Tourism is not a business that you can rely on – as a mountain of things can go wrong and you should not plan your economy and put government money into tourism.

                Tourism is not sustainable with climate change and the way NZ does it, is highly polluting.

    • He will be condemned on any forum if he continues to make arrogant and dumb statements. As an aside, who makes businesses profitable? Business, its workers or consumers, consumers, including beneficiaries that purchase products? If a business fails there will always be one to popup and take it’s place. Man was around long before business was created.

      • Crook thinking Bert. It’s a real simple chain. No consumers without business. They need each other but you have to have a business to start with. Man survived and gathered food because he developed skills to do it. These days the only skill some people have is tearing the plastic wrapper off the pack of toilet paper and clogging the drainage system with wipes. You need to be a little more generous in your thinking about business Bert. If you’re not already on a benefit you must realise that for those that are through no fault of their own, it’s the businesses and workers that pay for it.

        • Agreed New View, some through no choice of their own, some through mental illness whether it be psycho social or biochemical trauma. My statement therefore is not that business pays for it, we all pay for it, even those on the benefit whom have worked for many years, thus paying tax. To simply imply business and workers pay for it`is as you say, a bit crook.
          Where you have misplaced your loyalty is that business itself has commended the government for continuing with it’s increase.

        • So many of the commentators seem to be delighted that business and especially corporates will suffer over the next few months but they seem to forget it is these are the employers who mold together those that work for them into productive units who pay taxes that pays for the 1st world lifestyle we enjoy. The government package is a good start and I think the benefit move was a good idea but where is the help for the bigger businesses

          • Listen to Robertson around bigger business.As he has stated they have the buffer to survive for many months. We do not wish harm on big business, we just recognize that they are financially viable and will survive this crisis, others not so lucky

        • Chicken & Egg …Right will say business comes first & without business workers & beneficiaries in the shit …but the left quite reasonably in response says without consumers (which includes both workers & unemployed) there would be no business. Business First posits trickle down via jobs/wages. Austerity & trickle down do not work. Consumers First posits trickle-up. Gov spending provides stimulus. Trickle Up works. If everybody at bottom 50% has (extra) money they spend it (ie demand is enabled ie they can buy stuff they couldn’t before). More spending is good for business, more demand equals more sales equals more profit, more jobs hopefully. Support the bottom & the top will survive & thrive. UBI is necessary both now dealing with massive potential job displacement & future coming automation/AI/robotics. If this gets bad it could well speed up automation/A.I…

    • Well businesses survive with customers, more money in peoples hands means more spending. Best rapproach would have been 12 billion for UBI instead of this melange of a bit here, a bit there …trying to please everybody in haphazard fashion. Now is the time for UBI. Benefit with this raise gets to just over $250 per week. To cut off the division of them bludgers & us hard workers, convert Unemployment to a $250 pw UBI & gradually extend to all of working age 18-65. That would truly put truth to the words “we’re all in this together”

  21. The govt has responded and acted well, given the plethora of conflicting advice they are getting – both solicited and unsolicited! But they’ve taken the sensible course.
    With a hostile media ever ready to pounce on whatever they do, the fear factor will have been significant. But they’ve broken through that apparent inertia to take necessary action, and for that they have earnt my respect and thanks.

    The Opposition, on the other hand, has plumbed new depths. I am NOT surprised, since their modus operandi has unashamedly been to lie and character assasinate where possible, and sow divisiveness, hate and envy as per the election campaigns of fellow right wingers like Trump and Boris. They are unfit for office, and there must be a few decent people in the National Party considering their ongoing participation in that organisation.

  22. Simon’s #1 job is to get himself and his mates onto the government benches.
    He will do or say whatever he thinks that will take.

  23. As a recent retiree, I don’t see why I should receive more money. I am unaffected by the economic consequences of this virus so we’re the last people who should get more cash.

    • Andrew, you may be able to help your family or friends. We have a long strange pathway we all have to navigate together because of this pandemic. Some retirees will be minding children if the schools close. Those extra dollars might be very welcome.

  24. Grant Robertson presented an excellent emergency economic measure yesterday, designed to keep money flowing in the communities of NZ at this extraordinary time in our history. What more could he have done?

    Simon Bridges needs to get over himself and remember we are all in this together and together we will be making individual effort to keep covid-19 at bay the best way we can, while looking out for our fellow Kiwis. Stop politicising Simon. Like the rest of us, do your bit to help NZ get through this.

  25. It has been said that Simon Bridges in a previous life was a prosecutor in the courts system. I have been attending court lately and seen quite a few prosecutors in action. None of them were much to look up to. The last visit there the Judge made a dog’s breakfast of the Defense and Prosecutor telling them that they’d better have dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s and have all the relevant documents in front of them or they would be getting a lashing from him. The Judge didn’t suffer fools gladly, had a droll sense of humour if you could call it that, on this “occasion” and was the star of the show, so to speak. So all this praise about his previous profession and skill – yeh well I am not convinced one jot.

  26. Squeezed by the rich, no sympathy for the poor. Except that’s where our heart lies, unlike that vile republic, Rome, or America in the modern.

    We didn’t talk about truth unlike Scandinavia. The people and reason are our only true north. We got carried away with diversions. Which of course aren’t necessarily diversions.

    Except we left the field of public management to the powerful who suited themselves to the 99 %’s detriment.

  27. Bridges has read the rules, hence his attacks to the Left of what Labour presented at their budgets.

    He’s taken notes from Oz, but unlike them, he is neither illusioned like their Christian ( Cretan) PM nor without a conscience. He just knows attacking beneficiaries is a good whop.

  28. I wonder if COL are still processing visas for more people to come to NZ and import more poverty and their business be propped up by our government paid for with the taxes that quite a few of us paid, not expecting it to be redirected to somebodies underpaid takeaway, fast food restaurant, tourist venture, https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118329341/migrant-worker-speaks-out-against-exploitation-at-rural-reporoa-holiday-park https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12014023 https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/112128450/bakery-owner-to-pay-back-33800-illegally-deducted-from-workers-wages

    While other countries close the borders to protect their people, NZ is still pushing as many people here as possible to be future beneficiaries and now helping exploiters by paying their workers wages, for actually no work here!

    Time to cancel the temp visas as those Ponzi industries don’t need the workers anymore and that is supposedly why NZ felt compelled to issue hundreds of thousands of visas in the first place aka job shortages, which we now don’t have. The visa is invalid due to coronavirus and they should return home, to reduce pressure on housing and everything else like welfare in NZ.

    • No jobs, no housing, no infrastructure, no hospital beds, but our government is thinking of extending temporary visas for thousands of visitors to NZ, who now don’t have that fake or low paid job, they were supposedly given the visa for, instead of asking them to go back home until after the coronavirus recovery before they return back here.

      Nope in NZ competition is the way to go!!!! Get everyone competing for that toilet paper and sanitiser… or if things go bad, that ventilator or ED bed.

      As for those hotels moaning about not being filled, isn’t there a housing crisis and shortage of emergency beds to fill????? Maybe they will have to reduce their hotel rates, like ordinary folks are forced to do with their labour for the last 20 years….

  29. We live in trying times Trev. It seems that words of the prophets are written on the subway walls mate. You reap what you sow, (so) if Big business’ have operated in an equitable manner with employee’s and have encouraged excellence in team performance and shared the wealth with your team on the front line you should stand a better chance of surviving this reset of Globalisation and this Neoliberalist cluster fuck that has your friendly Banker breathing down your spreadsheet.
    If you’ve managed your employees with some understanding, human compassion and appreciation that show those who serve your interest (your Tax Units) that you value them because you realise they are your best assets, you should be ok and have a workforce that will do everything they can possibly do to preserve (their) good thing in tough times like these, those (Tax Units) will do whatever necessary to pull the whole collective thru this..
    From the sound of your pomposity (both now and in past posts), this is a concept you have failed to learn. So in your failing to grasp things like appreciation, compassion, generosity and sharing your pot of gold (at risk of disappearing) when the Neoliberalist meritocratic market rolls over and pisses on its tummy for the final death knell, you would have had the slim chance to feel some confidence that when the gates open and the hordes of angry pitchfork wielding huns come screaming from their hovels to the castle gate, you probably won’t be asking for your handouts in such a loud croakie voice like Simon is using. You will reap what you SOW! Have a nice day… Tick tock…Mirror mirror on the wall mate… Officially, EVERYONE is a beneficiary today, slip on those jandals and go to the back of the cue and humbly wait your turn…

  30. Congratulations to the 99 above me who thought fighting about people who don’t vote matters to us.

    • fighting about people who don’t vote

      That comment doesn’t make a lot of sense. The world is heading into a humanitarian crisis unlike anything we have seen before. Measures are being put in place to try to ameliorate the ramifications of that crisis. Much is changing, even from hour to hour. People’s thoughts and responses are highly relevant.

      • Genuine congratulations to my fellow NZers, Kheala. I’m deeply sad about the leaving the desperate behind that was integral to the free market coup of 1984. And refreshed by renewed interest in the people who I consider our NZ heart.

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