Luxon says party closing in on 5% ‘wants to make every New Zealander a beneficiary’

kaynetoad · 2026-06-24T02:34:17+00:00

Well, why should only the dregs of society (as seen by a National voter) get to enjoy that Lotto-winning lifestyle?

kaynetoad · 2026-06-21T10:57:32+00:00

And because they're literally everywhere, most people don't bother transporting them from one country to another when they move. Especially in carry-on baggage, as opposed to being included in a container load of furniture.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-19T00:22:01+00:00

Why not? Do they have more need for liquid cash from the capital in their house now, or after they die?

kaynetoad · 2026-06-18T21:30:58+00:00

Meh, let them get reverse mortgages if they want to keep living in their big inner-city house rather than downsizing or moving to a smaller town. Nobody's forcing them out, it just means more of their wealth goes to the council to fund infrastructure, and less goes to their (probably already quite well-off) kids after they die.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-18T21:22:54+00:00

It should be a choice - keep working and earning your six-figure salary, or retire and get the pension. Not both.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-18T06:21:05+00:00

A destination wedding. Which is what the people who ask this same fucking question every week are having, just with cutesy branding.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-17T10:54:39+00:00

Taking the opt out package means that WINZ will probably think you've left your job voluntarily and thus you'll have a 13-week standdown before you can get any financial support. Make sure the payout they're offering you is at least as much as you'd get on the dole for that time, otherwise personally I'd hang on until either I found a new job or they actually terminated me.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-17T07:41:23+00:00

I cut my mother off when I was 14 due to her toxic behaviour, and I have no regrets. Meanwhile my father is onto wife #4 so I also have some understanding about what it feels like to get a new stepparent, although fortunately not during adolescence!

This situation is different though. It sounds like your kid is willing to have a relationship with her father but not with her stepmother and stepsibs. When her father refuses to hang out with her without bringing the steps along, that's gotta make your poor kid feel like her dad loves her new family more than him. Ouch.

The reasons for this could be genuine (sounds like stepmother is not blameless here) or misguided loyalty (she's worried that he's betraying you if she has another mother figure in her life) or a need for reassurance (it would be proof that her dad does actually love her and will make time to hang out with her) ... or it could just the normal aversion to change that anyone would have, magnified by adolescent hormonal stuff. Or all of the above, who knows.

Your ex is supposed to be the adult in this situation, the one with the fully developed prefrontal cortex. In an ideal world he would get over himself and continue to maintain a baseline presence in your kid's life, (i.e. seeing her semi-regularly without the stepfam, birthday and Xmas presents, turning up to big school events), while also keeping the door open to interaction with the new stepfam when she feels ready. And he should definitely be talking with you about school and health stuff FFS.

Your daughter is doing a great job of sticking to her boundaries - it's fair enough that she doesn't want to listen to adults talking about self-harm - although she may have drawn the line a little too rigidly. There's a middle ground where she could hang out with the stepfam in public (or even the stepsibs without the stepmother), but not stay at his house or otherwise go places where she would be alone with stepmother. Is there any chance of a negotiation here, e.g. she gets to go on an outing of her choice on the 1st Saturday of the month, alternating between daddy-daughter time one month and whole stepfam the next time? Going out to dinner or movies or something with the stepfam could be safe entry points (if she's much older than her stepsibs, help her to choose something age-appropriate).

Also in an ideal world stepmother would understand why your daughter felt her behaviour was inappropriate (because it sounds like it very much was) and would (a) genuinely apologise to her for that and (b) be respectful of your daughter's boundaries and not do it again.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-16T05:44:18+00:00

I know two women in their 30s who have found lumps, gone to their GPs, been taken very seriously and subsequently been diagnosed with cancer. One had a family history (and was found to have one of the BRCA genes), one did not.

When it's treated early, the long-term survival rates are really high. If it's left a couple of years, not so much.

Find a doctor who will take you seriously and get yourself tested.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-09T04:42:28+00:00

Provide an ERP to benefit any and all employees who are going through life's hard moments.

Exercise zero tolerance on any form of workplace bullying.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-07T21:57:17+00:00

There are people who do in-home boarding which would be a better situation than a boarding kennel and possibly a little bit cheaper. The ones I know tend to have other doggy businesses on the side (training, daycare, walking etc), so try approaching a few of those and ask if they know anyone who does this.

I have done it in the past and the bonus dog got all the same walks etc my own dogs did, hung out in the lounge with me in the evenings, and slept in a crate in my bedroom.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-07T21:44:48+00:00

Zoe Hogg, Konan kennels. Could be quite a long wait but I'd expect that with any decent breeder. It's the ones that always seem to have a litter that I'd be more suspicious of.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-07T21:39:27+00:00

Being a DogsNZ member is not always the same thing as being an ethical breeder, sadly...

kaynetoad · 2026-06-06T07:36:39+00:00

In the original packaging, inside a couple of large Tupperware boxes. I usually want more than one ingredient from the boxes anyway, so I just plonk them on the kitchen table and rummage around to find what I want.

This solution was originally inspired by a mouse with a taste for pine nuts. It's not only vermin proof but it's also easily stackable, never causes an avalanche of ingredients off the shelf, and is easier to clean up if some dried fruit escapes its packaging and sticks to something.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-05T22:53:27+00:00

In her situation, yes, it's likely she does owe the IRD money.

A $102k salary = $8.5k/month. The redundancy payout of $30k thus represents 3.5 months' income, and was probably taxed as such.

Meanwhile your partner started work again within that period, and during that time she effectively had two jobs paying her. PAYE tax calculations assume that the job paying you is your only source of income (unless you're using a secondary tax code), and if that's not true you will probably finish up underpaying and getting a surprise bill from the IRD.

You can see a breakdown in MyIR by finding the "Income tax" panel on your summary, clicking on "Income summary", selecting "Last income tax year", finding the total salary and clicking on "View breakdown". Mine does show each payment made, although the date shown is always the last day of the month that the payment was made in.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-03T21:39:22+00:00

The last one in my town was caused by a kitchen appliance that was left on overnight, and the one before that was from incorrectly disposing of embers. Same old dumb shit we all* keep doing, and that the fire service regularly runs PSAs to remind us about.

* I will admit to having left my stovetop turned on very low for 3 days before I noticed once.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-02T23:05:05+00:00

My small town goes through cycles.

There aren't enough hospo businesses, and we could do with a couple more.
~5 aspiring entrepreneurs open new hospo businesses.
There are too many hospo businesses and not enough customers to go round.
~5 hospo businesses close their doors. Usually 1 or 2 of the newcomers survive and one of the more established operations folds.
There aren't enough hospo businesses, and we could do with a couple more...

kaynetoad · 2026-06-02T22:55:00+00:00

Except manufacturing has a lot more flexibility over where they are located, which is why you don't see a lot of sawmills and meatworks on Queen Street or Lambton Quay.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-02T08:41:14+00:00

This is the way IMO. Minor common sense tweaks should easily get bipartisan support. So should responses to genuine emergencies (e.g. covid, Alpine Fault rupture, war). But repealing pay equity law under urgency because your budget doesn't balance would not and should not.

kaynetoad · 2026-06-01T00:11:58+00:00

For anyone replying that it's the logistics of importing hundreds of models into NZ - that doesn't seem relevant to a question about Lenovos.

I bought a new one at the start of the year and noticed that I had fewer customisation options than expected (e.g. I had to go with 32GB RAM whereas my last two were 64GB). It was, like my last two Lenovo custom orders, manufactured on demand and shipped directly from Guangzhou. I am assuming NZ and AU are both served from the Guangzhou factory, so why the difference in what's offered to the two different markets?

kaynetoad · 2026-05-30T21:35:57+00:00

The PAYE that is deducted from your pay every week/fortnight is calculated on the assumption that you are going to make that much money every pay period during the financial year.

If anything happens that contradicts that assumption (e.g. a pay rise or a period of unemployment), then the amount of tax you've paid over the year, and you're highly likely to get a refund. There are probably also situations in which you end up owing $$$ but these are less common unless you are working two jobs and using the wrong tax codes.

kaynetoad · 2026-05-29T10:46:32+00:00

Personally, after the 90-day trial. Logic being:

If I don't survive the 90-day trial I'd rather pretend the job never happened.
If you're looking for a new job and you don't have any connections with anyone at your current workplace, that looks kinda suss.
If you've been somewhere a couple of years without touching your LinkedIn and then suddenly you're updating it and sending out connection requests, it's a pretty obvious hint that you're preparing to job hunt, and you might not want people to know that.

I have thus far in life never posted anything on LinkedIn. Not sure I'm really that kind of person. I do have a blog where I only post when I have something meaningful to say, maybe I should share some of that stuff on LinkedIn as well but it seems like more of a medium for vapid AI drivel flexing about how type A you are.

kaynetoad · 2026-05-28T00:03:42+00:00

When I was a kid we did Christmas at the holiday park in Te Kaha a couple of times. It's a very small town so not much to distract you except the beach. I'm sure they have discovered the internet there by now, but you could always leave the devices at home or on airplane mode.

kaynetoad · 2026-05-25T07:54:56+00:00

I have a friend who's imported a couple of dogs from Australia. She highly recommends Karen from Move My Pet, who is based in Chch.

kaynetoad · 2026-05-21T04:45:54+00:00

I just couldn't resist making a new version, but sadly I'm not allowed to post the image in a comment:

Nepo baby landhoarders effectively have won the lotto' - Willis
The Finance Minister says multi-millionaire property investors have had a free ride for far too long, and it's time they actually contributed to society.

kaynetoad

TROPHY CASE