Ben Thomas
@BenThomasNZ
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PR person and NZ's unrivalled no. 1 craft beer tweeter
Auckland
Joined November 2015
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Efeso Collins was the first person I saw up close, as a teen, who was a natural, outstanding leader, so obviously marked for greatness no one even stopped to consider it. One of the country’s best orators and such an incredibly warm, positive and kind person. RIP Fa’anana
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In a lot of respects Level 2 - life can continue as normal, but no Six60 concerts - is the best possible outcome for everyone
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Nothing says kiwi summer like trundling along SH1 at 85k/hr ahead of ten cars in your hiace and then flooring it to 110 as soon as there’s a passing lane in sight
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The Key govt finally doing something to help young people into homes
Max Key snaps up $1.4m Mt Albert villa with help from mum and dad
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Tova looks like she's about to do a dead drop of stolen military secrets while the leadership contest distracts everyone
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When Key resigned we did a GBLT emergency pod & I wrote a couple of quick takes for the Spinoff & Stuff - when Ardern resigned we did a GBLT emergency pod & when I checked my phone afterwards there were requests for comment from CNN, NYT, NPR, Singapore Radio, The Times, etc
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can't wait til landlords, who are so sensitive to overheads, reduce rents by 20% to reflect lower mortgage interest rates
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Anyway not making the same mistake I did last lockdown, I’m using the next three days to get ripped
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I’m at the cricket at Eden Park but I don’t care about the game I’m just preloading for making a racket outside Helen Clark’s house on the way home
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How the hell has the taxpayers union made people sympathise with parking wardens
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It was excessive for media outlets to stake out Nikki Kaye’s house after her sudden resignation, and it’s wildly excessive to stake out Ghahraman’s home now (and publish photos of police knocking at the door!). It would be inappropriate without even bringing up MH issues
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in the same way that 1 in ten people in the world are descended from Genghis Kahn, a quarter of New Zealand is ultimately related to Paul Goldsmith's absolute slayer great-granddad
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Andrew Little professionalised the union movement & then did the same for the beleaguered 2014- Labour Party, and did an Ali Lauititi-grade offload assist to Jacinda Ardern in 2017. Then a fine Treaty and Intelligence minister - great career, great guy
Andrew Little has confirmed he will not take up his list seat and will retire from politics.
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Simon Bridges using social media the only right way - revenge on your ex by looking hot and showing off your great life
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Winston Peters called Jack Tame “a Philadelphia lawyer” today, an insult he’s trotted out often over the years, so I finally googled to find out what it meant
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It took NZF two and a half years but you gotta hand it to them they delivered
PM announces from 11.59 pm NZ border closed to any non-resident or citizen. Stopping tourists, temporary visa holders including students and temp workers. Includes the Pacific.
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NZ Twitter: NZ is a vile racist cesspool built on violent white supremacy
NZ Twitter @-ing any American account: We r the greatest little country on Earth u know
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A dude coming out of the supermarket just dropped his bottle of wine at the top of the 30m queue down to the car park, this is the most excruciating walk of shame I have ever witnessed
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Can’t believe I studied woke subjects like English and Latin instead of training to be an Auckland house
In which a country has houses that 'earn' NZ$1,184 per day tax-free, but the most popular Prime Minister in a generation says she won't tax capital gains in her political lifetime.
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I’m no Ihumātao expert, but one thing that strikes me is that whatever the merits of SOUL’s objections to Fletcher building on archaeologically/historically significant Auckland land, a single Mt Eden Baby Boomer could have stopped the development by saying it ruined his view
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Just like gang beatings shouldn’t get home d, neither should a psycho who almost kills a stranger in a “moment of insanity” with the, uh, samurai sword he drives around with in his $70k car
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In a crowded field the person who has shown the worst political judgment in the past fortnight is whoever called their pal Gaurav Sharma to debrief in confidence about the Monday meeting
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Personally I support the govt’s plan to prep the nation mentally for a community outbreak bc I don’t want the population to go bugshit when it inevitably happens
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The centre right/left divide in NZ can be most accurately characterised as jocks (John Key playing golf with Obama) v nerds (Dr Jacinda Ardern earning her PhD at Harvard)
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James Shaw has now been rolled by youths enough times that he qualifies as an Auckland liquor store
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The 600 tweet limit is basically the most significant mental health initiative by any individual, organisation or government this century
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We all had a lot of fun with the Labour-NZF-Green government’s “year of delivery” but now Air NZ is about to be nationalised, the border is closed to foreigners, and carbon emissions are plummeting so who’s laughing now
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“we need new voices in parliament” Jami Lee Ross, MP since 2010, professional politician since age 18
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Anyone heard from the beleaguered landlords who have had to sell up bc they can’t afford a heat pump recently
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MPs cancelled by Jacinda Ardern: Metiria Turei, Clare Curran, Meka Whaitiri
Senior ministers safe in their jobs: Phil Twyford, David Clark
As a friend pointed out, what does a white man have to do to get fired by the PM?
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Going in on 18 year olds - especially for stuff they did when they were 14 - is not hugely edifying for anyone involved, but parties are really not doing kids any favours by letting them stand for Parliament
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“Ok boomer” - me, resignedly, as I hand over approx half my income in rent & taxes to subsidise over 65s retirement travel
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Is anyone - has anyone ever been - as happy as Gaurav Sharma is right now
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The annoying thing about these takes is that they’re not just tone deaf and insensitive, they’re fundamentally incorrect - the driver is a change in economics and society, not a failure of standards whether one exists (not afaik) or not
Pity, that if
@NewshubNZ
had been remotely interested in integrity and investigative journalism over the last few years there is a high chance it would not be shutting down and its employees would still have their futures intact. What a waste.
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Here’s a piece I banged out about Mt Albert/Owairaka, Treaty settlements in Auckland & how the protestors are continuing a long and ignoble tradition of ingratitude for the generosity of the iwi of Tāmaki Makaurau
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Under this government New Zealand has lost the Rugby World Cup and now the Nobel Peace Prize
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This is madness, public service officials don’t have to be received like visiting royalty for turning up at work
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I mean, no-one thinks the Treaty is a partnership between races. It was a political treaty between the Crown and Māori tribes
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Did anyone ask Jacinda Ardern if she would accept the result of the election? Or did they conclude that would be a patronising, demeaning and pointless thing to ask a NZ politician?
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The Guy Williams-dinosaur thing is a new low for how willing otherwise sensible people are to debase themselves to believe bad things about politicians they dislike
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It is with a heavy heart I accept the mantle of last centre right commentator standing in NZ
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Judith Collins gets Economic Development and so has returned to her favourite portfolio, Ruining Phil Twyford’s Life
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Can people now pls stop trying to will US culture wars into existence here
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At this point we just have to admire David Clark's relentless dedication to breaching lockdown rules
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As one of twitter's leading epidemiologists I can say with certainty that every time a NZer posts "this is what a summer WITHOUT COVID looks like" an extra day gets added to the lockdown when the super-strain arrives
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Oh man how will the Ministry for Pacific People cope with a 50% reduction in staff
'Brutal': Almost half of Ministry for Pacific Peoples' workforce to be cut under proposal
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This is a good example of trying to will facts into existence: Paddy says “the guy voted to keep abortion criminalised, that’s the end of it” - except Luxon didn’t vote that way and wasn’t an MP when the abortion law reform was legislated
Paddy Gower becomes the first NZ journo to see straight thru
#LyinLuxon
& nail him for who he is while Maria Slade confirms women's distrust of him.
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What if Winston refuses to concede to a peaceful transfer of power and everyone just has to step carefully around the desk Jacinda sets up for him in the hallway with a disconnected phone for the next three years
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In the space of a week Collins has become the most outwardly religious major party leader of my lifetime?
Judith Collins stops for a quick prayer before heading to the polling booth
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If I was Simon Bridges I would simply turn off notifications
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10.30pm on a Saturday night, time to log on and persuade some strangers to abandon their deeply held political convictions
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Taking the Auckland light rail through the undersea tunnel to my free dental appointment
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The first media question asked at Muller’s speech, where he said marae were a fundamental unit of our society and tino rangatiratanga would guide National’s social policy, was “are you a racist?” - maybe our news orgs could engage with NZ politics rather than US social media idk
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Has anyone noticed that basically every local authority in nz sits on a spectrum from absolutely dysfunctional to merely incompetent and overwhelmed, and that it's probably time to wind them up into a department of parks and sewage?
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Election over, first majority ACT government declared October 14
Sick of ineffective cold medicine? ACT will change that.
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It’s important that Andrew Little calls the health situation a crisis so it can be addressed with the same urgency as the climate crisis
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Literally every NZ law is written in English, and the default for Parliamentary proceedings and dealing with the Crown is English, what do they think an “official language” is exactly
Did you know that English is not an official language? Well, we're changing that by delivering on a key campaign promise - we are making English an official language of New Zealand. We will continue to fight for common sense ideas and work in the interests of all New Zealanders.
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Okay Helen White is not only right that her result isn’t bad if you add in the votes the Green candidate got, but it’s even better if you add the votes Melissa Lee got to Helen’s total, if you look at the stats
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Kayleigh McEnany is an incredibly impressive spokesperson for Trump, just an absolute deadset psychopath, none of Sean Spicer’s embarrassment or fleeting self-reflection
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Okay for real this time if we go back into lockdown I’m getting ripped
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Walker hasn’t just been complicit in an awful breach of privacy of NZers who have done absolutely nothing wrong - he’s also seemingly gone off on his own with a major debacle while keeping his leader and health spokesman in the dark. He’s a massive liability
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Chris Hipkins can’t catch a break, first pursued by Vision NZ supporters through Otara and now confronted by a local TOP candidate
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Nikki is a big loss for National - the hardest working and most passionate electorate MP I’ve ever come across (among v stiff competition), a good minister, a fighter and a very decent person
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Wait so Tim Van Der Molen is guilty of nothing more than finally standing up to Shanan Halbert?
'Manipulative', 'scheming', 'narcissist': Labour's Shanan Halbert labelled bully by multiple former employees
#Newshub
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If we lose tonight I look forward to and endorse the PM’s statement that the ABs were competing as independents
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What if the three remaining issues turn out to be potable water, wastewater and storm water
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Look I really like Kiri but she could have just asked MOJ for a legal opinion instead of conducting field experiments
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Getting pretty close to the election, probably time for Jacinda Ardern to politically execute a Greens co-leader for good luck
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Fully expect to be proved wrong by the fast-evolving landscape of cranks and low level depression, but seems wild to me that the Nats are using the electoral manna-from-heaven of a community outbreak to focus on unarticulated conspiracy theories instead of actual covid management
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Wow thanks for this inspiring pep talk, Napier airport parking machine
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Everyone hates Tova O’Brien, the muckraking Newshub journalist. *Five minutes later* we regret to inform you Tova is very funny
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Demonising immigrants for wanting to come and work for low pay in an understaffed health system is a new one
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Me, listening to PM Jacinda
my gf’s boring Ardern facing a
problems housing crisis
🤝
“Wow, that sucks”
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We can’t let the Fins get away with this, we need to install
@_chloeswarbrick
as Prime Minister immediately
34-year-old
@MarinSanna
becomes the 46th Prime Minister of Finland next week 🇫🇮
She will be the
- youngest ever PM of Finland
- youngest currently sitting PM in the world
- youngest ever female PM in the world
➡️
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One of the most important learnings of this crisis is the overdue recognition of those workers who are genuinely essential to society: supermarket shelf stackers, nurses, teachers, good tweeters, rubbish collectors, cleaners, strategic comms consultants, etc
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I mean you’d expect Advance NZ to be on at least 1% tonight because the 5G truthers will all have landlines
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V good Hooton piece on how what’s been portrayed as Luxon failing to rein in his coalition partner(s) may just signal a return to more genuine cabinet-style government and a departure from obsessive media management that stifles political creativity
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Gonna offer my services to all political parties to run induction seminars for new MPs explaining that House of Cards and Scandal are fiction
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This is an incredible example of a govt agency that has lost sight of the world outside itself
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Don’t be mad PJ “bought” the election, be embarrassed the World’s Best Little Coffee Capital was worth $50k
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Oh no! Winston Peters has agreed to meet Luxon to sign a coalition proposal but has placed the document on the peak of the highest mountain on an island in a lake surrounded by four dragons
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Sad that our hard working govt dealing with a crisis has to respond to unverified scaremongering rumours spread by (checks notes) the deputy prime minister
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National has been restored to govt twice since 1990 and both times the leadership eschewed race baiting (Bolger and Key). National’s lowest ever result came when it campaigned on “one standard of citizenship for all” in 2002
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The reason the housing thing is so visceral is that it represents a fundamental break from the middle class egalitarian creation story of NZ (and elsewhere) - you can work hard, value education, and - even if you have a humble life - you can give your kids something better
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I was never worried about dying from a landmine in NZ until Phil Twyford became Minister for Disarmament
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My godson wants to play world domination Risk over the school holidays & has assured his mum he thinks it will take 1-2 hours, so I have blocked out a day and a half in late December & am going to teach him about the harsh realities of war
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I wore a business shirt to my flu jab yesterday since I don’t want anyone to think the lockdown means lowered standards, but that meant I couldn’t roll the sleeve far enough up my shoulder & had to unbutton it and basically flop my tit out at the doctor’s, so standards maintained
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Oh my god just get rid of him
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Judith Me, talking man
Collins stuff with the guys
🤝
“I drive a car that uses petrol”
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Incredible revelation that a member of a public Parliament tour group joined the first Cabinet photo to get free sausage rolls and has been serving as minister of health for three years
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With 11 new cases, a still unexplained sub-cluster and a “yellow flag” mystery patient in ICU, will people finally get that level changes have always been political decisions guided by but not determined by health factors?
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