Also; the law of return only applies to Jewish people. yes. So others that used to live in what is now called Israel but were ejected during one of the progroms can't return to their homelands purely by right, but could if they were Jewish.

nice straw man argument.

No, you don't because the supreme court in Israel has ruled that there is no such thing as 'Israeli nationality'. All Israelis have citizenship but have varying nationalities, and your nationality defines your rights.

Hamas isn't a country or a nationality. False equivalence.

that's not true. People who are citizens in Israel have rights that are defined by their nationality. An Israeli citizen with Araa nationality exists under different rules to a Jewish Israeli citizen. Examples: the law of return. the absentees' property law. Jewish National Fund land.

why would those (pretty powerful) industries voluntarily share 'their' tracks with passenger trains, when it would mean sticking to a strict timetable and needing to plan ahead

Because the industries using the tracks have been able to get lazy about how they use them - and use tracks as storage space and to solve logistics problems. You just have to observe how often trains sit on the tracks between Port Tauranga and Kawerau.

But we can't disrupt the freight system 🙄

It would be so great. Even if I had to drive to Tauranga to get a train, at least I'd have productive time for the rest of the journey rather than staring through the windscreen of a car.

That would be so good. There used to be a tunnel under the Kaimais. Maybe it's still there but not sure what condition it's in. The train line used to come all the way down to us in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and through to Gisborne. Unfortunately a lot of the rail corridor has since been lost.

And I bet all the transport consultants are sitting somewhere nodding and saying 'yes, that's what we said would happen'.

Oh. OH.

haha, love it

IKR. I mean, how do they think people are going to do it? Take a photo of the QR code with their phone, then scan the photo with their laptop??? the mind boggles.

LOL. I have a QR code on my laptop that I'm supposed to scan so that I can reach the help desk. And then it theoretically will automatically detect which laptop I'm using once I've scanned it. Which I did with my phone. Which is not my laptop.