Beef bones were $8/kg a month ago. They take hours to cook then you have to pick the beef off the bones so it's not exactly convenient. But I could put enough meat into a stew or a soup for a meal and the kids could get some iron that's not plant based for a change. Meat shouldn't be a luxury. Offcuts shouldn't cost $11/kg when most of it are bones.

Because GTA6 is coming out.

Labour has quietly signed the death sentence of the compulsory monopoly that uniform shops have on school clothes, and the upcharge attached logo’d (though not patterned) items.

I’m now 31 but I‘m still nursing a grudge against my highschool for openly banning branded reusable shopping bags from places like Supre due to receiving kickbacks from Postie Plus. No exaggerating, Peggy Burrows and her deputies at Rangiora High School (she is now principle of Haeata college) used to hold “uniform assemblies” at Rangiora High where we would be told at length that ONLY postie plus shopping bags were allowed because Postie Plus provided kickbacks to the school. Also banned were black puffer jackets (the school sold an $80 logo’d windbreaker and god-knows-how-much optional blazer), and the policy that year 13s could wear mufti was abolished just before I reached that in favour of instituting a second brand new uniform for year 12s and 13s. Instead of getting to our “optional year” and getting to not wear the most uncomfortable clothing I’ve ever been forced into, we had to shell out literally hundreds of dollars for new skirts, shirts, etc because the school now required parents to buy TWO seperate uniforms. Now that’s a money making scheme if ever I saw one.

Never mind the determination schools and parents have to crush any demonstration of individuality children might try to cultivate via their appearance, which I think is bad for our youth in a totally different way to placing unnecessary financial pressure on parents and giving kids yet another reason to not show back up for year 12 and 13, when many kids already don’t have to or want to be there. Which is especially effective if your parents are poor.

Why is it the death knell? Because ACT are also promising the same thing. Which means that IF both parties stick to their promises and National doesn’t go hard in negotiations on its “Parents making their own parenting decisions is bad” stance, regardless of the flavour of government that follows this election, requiring branded items at huge costs to parents will be banned.

Side note: this is why you should join your school board, and think about the parents who don’t have the same means to send their kids to school that you do when making decisions on that board. School boards are grossly middle class and also lack student representation of any sort (which especially at highschool should be the case — these kids are 16, 17, 18 even, and schools supply leadership opportunities and create entire leadership teams without actually giving kids the opportunity to meaningfully interact with the policy being made that primarily affects them). The rollout of compulsory uniforms in order to better fundraise for the school via muftidays and retailer kickbacks is hugely hostile to the sorts of parents who usually don’t sit on school boards. And of course, they are longstanding school community members and not parents who’ve needed to move around a lot (and therefore shell out for more uniforms).

I wont pretend I don’t ideologically hate uniforms on principle and in my ideal version of New Zealand they’d be banned fullstop, but it is with absolute glee that I read Labour’s promise to make uniforms equitable and accessible for all families. The comment about families getting through a costly Christmas just to be hit with back to school expenses including potentially thousands of dollars worth of branded uniform items (if you have enough children, especially at the secondary level where uniform item prices reach ridiculous heights) felt especially in-touch. I wouldn’t expect Luxon or any of his well-salaried MPs can possibly understand how much of a stretch that is for normal families.

For the first couple of years of my primary, uniforms were optional. Over the course of thirteen years of schooling, I watched uniforms go from entirely a parental preference to one secondary school requiring the purchase of two seperate uniforms across just five years of schooling.

RIP the uniform monopoly, you won’t be missed. Get fucked.

No fault to Olivia Dean, she sounded and put on an amazing show. But western springs was such a poor venue tonight’s

They ran out of wrist bands at the gate and made everyone wait over 15 minutes until they found more and got them to the gate.

Obviously the technical issues were shocking to have 40 minutes of dead concert after it started, with barely any updates (one guy came on and said 5 more mins and it was another 20).

Then the actual crowd control getting out was so bad, roads blocked and no real plan to filter so many people out.

The embankment was horrible too, so far up for so much money is a bit greedy

From RNZ article:

The Employment Court ruled that five dancers were employees of Calendar Girls when they worked at its Wellington club and if the parties are unable to agree on costs, the plaintiffs had 21 days to lodge their case and Calendar Girls a further 21 days to respond.

Fines for wearing underwear and strict appearance rules: Calendar Girls dancers ruled employees, not contractors. Stuff. October 15, 2026.

‘Hard-earned closure’: Dancers speak out after landmark Calendar Girls ruling. Stuff. October 16, 2026. Last line:

Permanent name suppression remains in place for the five dancers.

Previous articles and posts

• Fired up: Calendar Girls Wellington dancers stripped of jobs after failed collective bargaining attempt. NZ Herald. 16 Feb, 2023. Post.
• Strippers unite to fight for employment rights. Saturday Morning, RNZ. 25 February 2023. Post.
• The strippers fighting for better work rights. The Detail, RNZ. 28 February 2023.
• The 'unchecked power' of strip clubs and the workers pushing back, Stuff. March 25, 2023.
• New Zealand strippers allege exploitation and wage theft. Sunday, 1news. April 2, 2023.
• 'No one should be exploited at work' - Frustrated strippers meet with MPs. RNZ. 4 June 2023. Post.
• Calendar Girls strip clubs forced to take down posts about women involved in employment dispute. NZ Herald. 27 Jul, 2025. Republished by RNZ. Post.
• As there's talk about fines etc. There were some examples of the fines in a 2018 article posted in this sub but not part of this dispute. Post with fines listed in a comment. Article: Two former strippers lose complaint over Calendar Girls' 'unfair dismissal'. Newshub. 26/09/2018. Internet Archive and Stuff.

And I don’t mean which party or person are you ticking at the ballot. I mean who are you voting on behalf of? Which the group of people who is front of your mind when you consider our current situation and select the politicians who might improve it?

Maybe you have disabled friends or family and you’re thinking about them as you assess your options. Perhaps you’re considering the pensioners, or overworked nurses, or kids and teens who can’t vote for themselves.

Obviously we all vote with some degree of self-interest but I’d like to think even the most inconsiderate of us contemplate the effects of their choices on others and have people or groups in mind who they believe will be helped by their party.

Personally I am thinking a lot of the homeless. I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t see a trajectory where that could become me some day, but for now at least I have a lot of buffers between me and that unfortunate situation. But in a society that has plentiful accomodation for all when we actually try to house everyone, it seems unconscionable that anyone should be allowed to suffer like the unhoused and housing-insecure do.

Who do you keep in mind when casting your vote?

I heard an Aussie pronouncing the word "nougat" as "NOO-gah" but my wife, my sister-in-law, many of our friends, and I (all kiwis from both rural and urban backgrounds) pronounce it as some variation as "NOO-git." Apparently the Aussie way is the way Brits pronounce it, whereas the way we pronounce it is American.

My wife did some research on Papers Past and found a reference which showed that Kiwis pronounced it the Aussie/British way back in 1938.

There seems to be some granularity in pronunciation and I'm curious to know in the comments: fellow kiwis, how do you pronounce this word?

Apologies if this has been raised on the sub before, but why is Stuff giving a platform to Chris Penk (a sitting MP) to publish what amounts to political campaigning drivel under the guise of an opinion piece? I read his story on Nicky Hager's book, and the opening line is literally "I haven't read the book." How can you credibly publish a critique of a book when the author openly admits he hasn't even bloody read it? There's a difference between publishing political commentary and giving actual politicians a platform to push a narrative without engaging with the material they're commenting on. Stuff should hold its contributors to higher standards.

And to be clear, my issue isn't with Penk himself. A few of his stories are reasonable and relatively insightful, but his pieces on the Greens, TOP and Nicky Hager barely go beyond National Party talking points.

My flat is managed by a property manager (Ray White) and they do flat inspections every 3 months, which is fine. My previous property manager was pretty chill and accommodating when I asked if he could come on a different day (I would prefer to be out of the house so would ask him to come on a day when I’d be in the office and not working from home).

My new property manager won’t accommodate this request and has informed me she’s coming on one of my work from home days. And the worst part is she won’t even tell me what time she will be there, not even a general timeframe (morning or afternoon).

I have bad anxiety, so I know I’ll spend all day a ball of anxiety waiting for her to come over. Terrified she’ll arrive when I’m in the middle of a meeting. Feel as though I can’t pop out to run an errand or go for a walk in case she shows up then.

It’s so inconsiderate to expect someone to wait around all day. Surely tenants should have some say in this? Has anyone experienced this?

I've read some of what happened about the case and I'm surprised there have been no protests against the victimisation of Ms. Z or the rampant police corruption involved. Why is that? Is it classic Kiwi apathy or our idolisation of NZ police as perfect little angels?

Kind of random, but I was given this pin a couple years ago. I know it’s a New Zealand artist, and likely an LGBTQ+ artist, as they were given to my teacher to give to leaders of the schools pride group. Now that I’m running it, I want to find these pins to give to the students and carry on the tradition! Any help is appreciated :)

Hi, we’re from the UK and have been travelling through NZ for 2 weeks in a rental car and have absolutely loved it!

However I must say the standard of driving has been slightly shocking compared to what we’ve seen in most of Europe and the USA, especially in Auckland.

Most of the drivers have been great, and obviously in any country there are good and bad drivers, but the issue mainly seemed to stem around drivers here being completely unaware of what’s around them. For example, there were a number of times when we were driving on the highway minding our business and the car in the lane beside would swing across into us, forcing us to brake and honk for them to notice, as if they didn’t even look. Obviously there are bad drivers everywhere, but these situations occurred frequently, maybe even once an hour or so where we needed to take drastic action to avoid a crash.

Another issue we faced was that when merging onto the motorways, the cars in the right hand lane would be going slower than in the middle lane. Where we’re from, it’s understood that the right lane is reserved for cars going the speed limit and if you want to go slower you move over.
We also faced a situation multiple times where the car in front would pull over to the left without warning or indicating and place their hazard blinkers on, as if they were picking somebody up? No warning whatsoever and often would block the lane so we would need to drive around.

Again, most of the drivers we saw were amazing and we loved your country! I just wanted to write a post as the poor standard of driving really stuck out to us for some reason here. Since we were in a rental car it was stressful experiencing these situations which may have contributed to them sticking with us.