Janelle Hocking

Business Owner, Mother, passionate about rural NZ and advocate for the lost art of common sense & personal responsibility.

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

@aniobrien 💯 🙋‍♀️ been asking many a question around this on AI this afternoon.

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

@2ETEKA I believe NZ first also voted Yes on all these policies back in the early 2020s. Not just ACT or National.

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

Tell us you’re governed by the Labour Party without telling us…

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed https://t.co/12Da2ZVzJZ

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

@PronouncedHare 100%

[NickMowbray @NMowbray23]

Like a lot of what Winny says but this is terrible policy - at our scale and broad geography this wont work. 1.) its already a cooperative 2.) this will become more inefficient. Better spending time and energy getting a operator with a simplified model and global scale of supply
chain to enter like Aldi. The profits supermarkets make are low single digits - this wont help only make it worse.

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

This is popularity politics at its finest.

Of course your first reaction is: “Great! Go Winnie!”
Hot topic. Easy win. Sounds good in a headline.

But stop for a second and think it through.

If supermarkets in NZ were printing money… where are all the global players?
We’re 5 million people stretched across 2000km at the bottom of the world. It’s not exactly a gold rush market.
If it was Tesco, Aldi & Walmart would already be ‘cashing in’.

Here’s the part no one puts in the headline:

Supermarkets make about 2–3 cents for every dollar you spend.

That’s it.

Not 20 cents. Not 50 cents.
A couple of coins out of your $100 shop.

And yet somehow the narrative is they’re the villains bleeding everyone dry.

Reality check:
There are multiple steps between farm and checkout… growers, processors, transport, distribution, retail. Every single one has costs. Every single one needs to make a margin to survive.

So ask yourself this:

When has making a business smaller ever made things cheaper?
It doesn’t. You lose buying power. You lose efficiency. Prices go up. That’s basic economics.

If the government actually wanted to lower grocery prices, they’d focus on the real issue:
Cut the red tape across the entire supply chain so it costs less to produce, move, and sell food.

That’s how you get prices down, not by chasing headlines.

And one more thing…

If the government can force private businesses to sell or break up, where does that stop?
I thought we wanted less government, not more.
We’ve already seen what happens when politicians decide how businesses should operate (lockdowns anyone).

This sounds like Labour policy to me, which begs the question, is Winnie still hedging his bets?

At some point we need to decide:
Do we want policies that sound good… or ones that actually work?

Because making supermarkets smaller won’t make your groceries cheaper.
It’ll do the exact opposite

[Ian Wishart @investigatemag]

Not only did Labour leader Chris Hipkins know that a second dose of the covid vaccine posed a heart damage risk to young people, but he appears to have doubled down by then urging teens to get a THIRD dose.

A Beehive press release dated April 6 2022 appears to be a smoking gun

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

Quick civics recap first:
(Because only a few years ago that I didn’t realise this.)

Parliamentary Services is not the Government.
It’s a neutral, taxpayer-funded body that supports all MPs, Government AND Opposition alike. It’s meant to be politically impartial.

Now here’s the interesting bit.

X is currently the No. 1 News & Magazines app in New Zealand. That’s where a huge number of Kiwis are getting real-time news and political updates.
(Personally it’s where I go to get all of my news now.)

And Parliamentary Service has decided to stop posting there.

The reason given? Concerns about AI misuse and content moderation.

Those are real issues. But they’re not unique to X. Every major platform is wrestling with AI risks.

So the question becomes, should a politically neutral institution remove itself from the country’s most-used news platform?

Parliament’s job is to be accessible. To meet New Zealanders where they are. Not to quietly step away from the biggest digital town square in the country.

This isn’t about liking @elonmusk or not.
It’s about consistency and access.

If you’re neutral, you don’t pick platforms based on vibes, you go where the public is.

What do you think?
Feels like another way to moderate messaging to me.

#NZPol

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

Is “blunter” a word?
Maybe. Maybe not. Not really the point of this wee vid anyway.

What is the point?
The ridiculous pen-pushers and their ever-growing list of “rules” (read: one of many extra costs) piled onto food producers and retailers.

Happy Friday everyone!

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

@dpfdpf It’s the law here already. 0%’s require ID.

[David Farrar @dpfdpf]

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has made a secret in principle decision that they have the power to hear complaints and censor any audio or video content transmitted over the Internet. This is an outrageous power grab from a government censorship body and must be fought.

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

Always go to the source.

Because more often than not the Media only runs with sensationalist clickbait.

[Brooke van Velden @BrookevanVelden]

Disappointing to see the NZ Herald misrepresent practical reforms like this. Of course farmers use common sense, but under current Worksafe rules, that’s illegal. We’ve inherited a system where kids helping on farms risk triggering liability for parents over minor, everyday tasks. That’s ridiculous. Also, for a reality check, here’s what Federated Farmers actually said: https://t.co/v11hgKbIrW

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

Let’s look behind this sensational click bait from Chippy & compare ourselves to Aussie, as we like to do.

🧈 500g Butter
•🇳🇿 NZ: $8.49
•🇦🇺 Aus: $7.00 (no GST on butter in Aus)
👉 NZ price without GST: $7.22
👉 Aussie price in NZD: $7.67
➡️ NZ is 45 cents cheaper.

[Chris Hipkins @chrishipkins]

The price of butter is up nearly 50 percent since this time last year.

That’s it. That’s my X post.

[Federated Farmers @FedFarmers]

Banks should focus on banking. Leave the regulating to regulators and let farmers get on with farming! 🚜

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

@McDonaldGinette This, ladies and gentlemen, is NOT a real post, just something blindly shared by an angry person who doesn’t fact check before reposting. 🤦🏼‍♀️

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

@ElizabethMouat The calendar is set at the beginning of the year, 2nd scrutiny week is also held this month.

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

Don’t listen to the ‘noise’, listen to the facts.

[Christopher Bishop @cjsbishop]

Labour’s claims about our KiwiSaver changes making people worse off are made up. Here are the facts:

[David Farrar @dpfdpf]

It is astonishing that media have run multiple articles condemning sexist attacks on female MPs from social media users, but then turn around and run a column from a journalist that calls female Ministers c**ts. The hypocrisy is massive.

[Janelle Hocking @HockingJanelle]

For the dim ones in the back.
https://t.co/Tuizrkm0DN.still.illegal!

Stop spouting the bs.
Calling someone a ‘see you next Tuesday’ in a news article is reductive, nasty and shouldn’t be tolerated.
Andrea Vance hang your head in shame.

A fantastic article below by Nicola.

[Nicola Willis @NicolaWillisMP]

Having the C-word directed at me by a journalist in a mainstream publication wasn’t on my bingo-list for Mother’s Day 2025. Nor was being accused of ‘girl-math’. Enough with the slurs, now for some facts: https://t.co/v4ZwuvVZDb