Some interesting data from Sam Crawley using NZES data on immigration. The first is the proportion wanting a reduction in immigration levels at each NZ election:

• 1996: 57%
• 1999: 32%
• 2002: 49%
• 2005: 44%
• 2008: 55%
• 2011: 49%
• 2014: 49%
• 2017: 52%
• 2020: 53%
• 2023: 34%

So support is close to 50% from 2002 to 2023, but dipped in 2023.

The support in 2023 to reduce immigration levels by party vote is:

1. NZ First 54%
2. ACT 40%
3. TPM 39%
4. Labour 36%
5. National 33%
6. Greens 19%

The percentage of all voters saying it is the most important issue was:

• 2008: 0.2%
• 2014: 1.3%
• 2017: 6.0%
• 2020: 1.5%
• 2023: 0.6%

I have no doubt it will be higher in 2026, as NZ First campaigns on it.

On Patreon (paywalled) I write:

I have calculated paper margins for all 64 general electorates, and ranked them in order from most marginal to least marginal.

These are what I call paper margins. They take the split vote analysis for each seat in the 2023 election. The 2023 party vote is recalculated based on the new boundaries, and then the 2026 party vote is calculated based on the change is the nationwide party vote since the election in public polls, and the split vote analysis applied to the projected party vote.

It is important to be clear on what these do not take into account. They do not take account of any change of candidates, of how well an MP has done locally since the election, of any changes in how people might split their votes, and of whether the change in party votes is unevenly spread. They are basically the 2023 results adjusted for the new boundaries, and the current nationwide party vote.

Closer to the election I will do an individual profile of each electorate, which will apply a qualitative analysis to the election data, which will take account of candidate quality etc.

In the table below, I show who is leading on paper in each of the 64 seats, and what margin they lead by on paper. They range from 0.7% in Kapiti and Whanganui to 51.1% in Mangere!

Currently National is ahead on paper in 36 general electorates and Labour in 23 general electorates. The Greens lead in all three of their electorates, but by 5% or less for two of them.

The table of all 64 electorates is at Patreon.

Less than 12 months ago Australian Labor Leader (and PM) Anthony Albanese was asked “Can you rule out any changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax?”

His answer left no doubt He said “Yes. How hard is it, for the 50th time?”

He has now broken that promise. The latest Resolve poll now has him 3% behind the Opposition Leader as Preferred PM.

Their net approval ratings are now Albanese -22% and Taylor +8%.

A good reminder that you can’t trust Labor or Labour on tax.

The Herald reports:

That’s a good headline.

Schools, hospitals and the motorists of Waikato are the winners of Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ final Budget of this term, with major losers including banks, which will face an additional tax worth $209 million.

The Budget included no direct fuel crisis relief for households, although there is additional relief for some services that are exposed to high fuel costs, including increases in mileage rates, which were previously announced. The Government has given itself a $450m contingency fund for fuel-related costs in the future. 

Looks a highly responsible budget with more spending in key areas, but funded by way of cuts in other areas so we are on track to get back into surplus a year earlier.

David Seymour announced:

For the first time, the full scale and structure of New Zealand’s regulatory landscape has been mapped, exposing decades of overlap and complexity, Regulation Minister David Seymour says. 

“In New Zealand there are over 260 regulators. This includes 95 in central government, 79 in local government, and 57 statutory bodies, committees, or tribunals,” Mr Seymour says. 

The total number is bad enough, but look at how many one entity may have rot deal with.

As you can see here, the dog control system actually has five regulators – the Department of Internal Affairs, the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Ministry of Health, the Department of Conservation, and the Ministry of Justice.

What’s more, those five regulatory agencies govern dog registration and control with 11 Acts of Parliament, so not just the Dog Control Act.

Day-to-day, the task of carrying out dog control, split between central and local government, is delegated to at least a dozen different groups of people, depending on where you are and what dogs are doing, from various types of rangers, authorised officers, the Police, the SPCA, DOC staff and public health.

So five regulators for dogs!

Law News reports:

Labour will introduce evidence-based policies to combat crime if it wins this year’s election, not the “bumper sticker” populism promoted by the current government, the party’s justice spokeswoman Camilla Belich says.

Let’s look at the evidence, shall we.

This is the number of violent crimes victims from the NZ Crime and Victims Survey. It has dropped 79,000 in the last 16 months.

How’s that for evidence.

A record six bills were drawn from the ballot. They are:

My summary and thoughts on each bill:

1. Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill: Is meant to strengthen the role of the Mayor and Councillors in relation to chief executives. Well intentioned, but unclear what the actual impact would be. Definitely worth sending to select committee. One issue worth exploring could be to clarify that the Council, not the Chief Executive, is the employer, and the chief executive is the manager of staff, but must get Council agreement on any staff policy or restructuring (as a board would be involved in any significant restructuring).
2. Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Mining on Conservation Land) Amendment Bill: Would ban not just mining but even exploration and prospecting on all conservation land regardless of the value of that land. It treats the Fiordland National Park just the same as some scrubby stewardship land.
3. New Zealand Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief Medal Bill: Established a New Zealand Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief Medal, to recognise service undertaken in the context of humanitarian aid or disaster relief activities on behalf of New Zealand. Sounds good.
4. Oranga Tamariki (Suitable Accommodation on Leaving Care) Amendment Bill: Requires Oranga Tamariki to Act 1989 to provide arrange suitable accommodation for a young person exiting care. On the face of it, this seems sensible. I would have thought this would already happen. There could be an argument against, but worth supporting to select committee to be considered.
5. Residential Tenancies (Requiring Landlords to Provide Curtains) Amendment Bill: Requires landlords to provide insulated curtains and blinds. I’m reluctant to impose further costs on landlords as we saw the impact under the last Government of ever increasing rents. How many houses have just normal curtains rather than insulated curtains? AI says insulated curtains can cost $400 a window so this could be a huge cost on landlords. Not 100% against the bill, but would want data on how many houses would be impacted, and what the cost would be. Also would it lead got fewer houses being available for renting?
6. Crimes (Impeding Major Bridges, Tunnels, and Roads) Amendment Bill: Would establish a new criminal offence for those who deliberately block people from lawfully accessing roads, bridges and tunnels with a maximum 2 year term or $20,000 fine. Would see an end to the sociopaths who think they have a right to glue themselves to a highway without consequence. Great bill.

Paul Goldsmith announced:

National will continue to ensure there are real consequences for crime by abolishing good character assessments at sentencing for all sexual offending, National’s Justice Spokesperson Paul Goldsmith says. …

“As the law is written today, judges are required to take into account testimony from individuals willing to speak to an offender’s character – former coaches, employers, and family members willing to state on the record that any offending is the exception, not the rule.

“That might serve the interests of well-connected offenders, but it rarely serves the interests of victims.   

“The consequences for the victim remain, regardless of the former reputation of the perpetrator.  

“Under National, judges will be prohibited from treating good character as a mitigating factor at sentencing for all sexual offending.

I can understand the anger victims feel when offenders get lighter sentences because they are well connected and have dozens of people provide character references.

However it is hard to see why you would abolish good character as a mitigating factor just for sexual offending.

The Herald reports:

A sexual violence campaigner is “stoked” that National is planning to ban judges from considering good character references while sentencing sex offenders, but lawyers warn the change could lead to less fair sentencing.

While character references could still be provided to the court under National’s planned law change, judges will not be able to take the submissions into consideration.

Defence lawyer Samira Taghavi said the references matter because they help the court assess true culpability, likelihood of reoffending, and prospects of rehabilitation. 

Taghavi said it was “dangerous” and “knee-jerk populism” that would cause real injustice in practice. …

“For repeat sex offenders, I doubt you would find anyone writing meaningful character references in the first place. Their prior convictions make ‘good character’ claims implausible – judges already give such evidence little or no weight in those cases.”

It would be good to have some hard data on this issue. How often is good character given a discount in sexual offending cases? The problem is it is almost impossible to get this data.

I’d love a future Government to legislate that all court sentencing notes be made publicly available. This would allow AI analysis of thousands of cases and get hard data on sentencing factors.

Two AUT academics write:

Our research used Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure to follow more than 250,000 school leavers from the 2015 to 2019 cohorts.

We examined whether the first-year fees-free scheme affected participation, programme choice, retention and completion.

Tertiary participation was already falling before the fees-free scheme began. After accounting for that trend, it does not appear to have increased tertiary participation.

We also found no clear evidence the policy encouraged students to enrol in bachelor’s degrees rather than certificate or diploma-level study, or that it improved retention or completion.

Our findings on equity are especially important. Students from higher-decile schools were already more likely to enter tertiary study and a key question was whether a fees-free scheme narrowed that gap. 

It did not. Students from lower-decile schools did worse relative to higher-decile students on participation, bachelor’s enrolment and retention.

The fees-free scheme did not widen the gaps but it failed to narrow them.

So Hipkins’ scheme failed on participation, programme choice, retention and completion!

Even reading our results as generously as possible, it may have affected the enrolment decisions of only about 400 students per cohort – more than $800,000 for each student whose decision may have changed.

The $800,000 per student is the best case scenario.

Almost $3 billion has been wasted on this scheme. It is coming to an end thankfully, but imagine the opportunity cost. Think if $3 billion had been invested in early childhood education instead.

Simon O’Connor writes:

Do you believe in law and order? Believe that being proud of your country is a good thing, and that managing who migrates here is prudent? Think children having a mum and dad is preferable? Can you define what a woman is? Are you perhaps skeptical of climate change alarmism or believe in free speech?

Well, congratulations, you are officially far-right according to various media commentators.

Far left activists tend to call anyone slightly to the right of them as far right. That is to be expected. The real issue is the media go along with them.

Search for “far right” and “far left” on NZ media websites and you get ten times as many results for far right. And ironically almost every “far left” mention is actually just a photo caption.

Radio NZ reports:

The government will pass a law preventing companies from being sued over climate change damage in many cases.

The law, which applies to current and future cases, will stop a High Court case against Fonterra and six other major emitters in its tracks.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the Climate Change Response Act would be amended to prevent courts from making findings of liability in tort from damage or harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

I am 100% in favour of the law change. We have judicial activism gone mad. The courts invented a new type of tort where companies engaged in 100% legal activities can be sued because someone doesn’t like the Government’s climate change policies.

It is for Parliament to set climate policies, not the Supreme Court. This is not Parliament retrospectively amending a statute they got wrong. This is Parliament reasserting its sovereignity.

A privilege to attend the above event last Friday.

As opposed to ill-informed assertions that “every brain learns the same” world leading Neuro-Scientist David Eagleman (Stanford University); …

” … suggests that while the basic neural architecture is similar across brains, individual brains learn and adapt in unique ways due to life experiences and genetic predispositions. He emphasizes that the brain is highly malleable and constantly rewiring itself, but the specific pathways and connections formed are unique to each individual.” (The Brain: The Story of You)

I have known Tennille and Gavin Murdoch, the Forest School founders, for a while. They are wonderful educators and the Forest School has existed for 10 years as a one-day a week provision for students near their Orewa base. They thoroughly deserved the approval to create a Charter School.

The key theme of the opening was very much that across NZ there are many children, for a range of reasons, who need a different provision and a range of teaching/learning methods to thrive in education and begin to find their place in the world.

The children attending this school are clearly loving it. It was also obvious that the parents of the children are a HUGE part of the provision.

Having been to a significant number of Charter Schools in NYC and the wider USA I do hope the government can get the settings right in their second term (assuming that they are re-elected). The huge need is for large schools/chains to provide in a pathway changing way for marginalized groups. New Zealand has the biggest achievement gaps in the OECD and the current government has barely attacked the problem and even seems comfortable with Ministry made predictions that the new qualifications will accentuate the gaps. As present less than 0.2 of 1% of children in NZ have the Charter School opportunity. Keep in mind the Ass. Minister’s post-election promise was:

“Seymour says he’s learnt much from his previous attempt to establish the charter model here, although most of the lessons were political rather than pedagogical. This time, he’s going big and going fast.

“There’s probably going to be a couple of hundred of these schools by the time Labour gets back into power. And it’s going to be big, powerful communities with lots of capital and lots of lawyers.

As an aside; my wife came from Brazil 17 years ago. What a privilege for her to meet and have a photo with Deputy Prime Minister Dave Seymour.

The Herald reports:

The Skotel Alpine Resort owner in Whakapapa Village claims the Department of Conservation is pandering to failed businesses in the Tongariro National Park when it comes to allocating staff accommodation.

Sam Clarkson is seeking village accommodation for at least eight Skotel employees, essential for fire evacuation, he said, but all buildings currently vacant are reserved for a possible future operator of the derelict Chateau Tongariro. ,,,

Clarkson said he’s at a loss to figure out how Skotel can warrant just two staff beds, while the Chateau commanded 116 staff beds when it closed in 2023. (The measure of beds is based on bedrooms.

Skotel has 56 guest rooms, a dining room and 35 fulltime staff.

The Chateau has about 115 guest rooms and a dining room, and, for many years, included the operation of a cafe and tavern. In its deeper past, its operations also included ski field businesses such as rentals. 

It had about 36 staff when it closed, but, according to the Ruapehu District Council, its staff numbers averaged 75-100 from 2015 to 2020.

This seems bizarre. The Skotel is actually there and operating (I stayed there with the kids recently, and it was great) yet they can only get two beds for their staff, while 116 are reserved for a defunct hotel.

Why not allocate eight to Skotel for this season, and revise the following?

The ratio between the two seems out of kilter, even if the Chateau is open. Wouldn’t a better way be to just auction off the beds each season and allow any local business that wants on site accomodation for staff to apply?

The Herald reports:

Resources Minister Shane Jones invited leaders from the minerals sector and diplomats, including a high-ranking official from the US State Department, for a critical minerals roundtable at Parliament today. 

Jones spoke frankly with attendees about the US’ keenness to develop minerals supply chains and about the Government pondering minimum prices for certain resources in order to establish viable operations for their extraction. 

During the part of the meeting open to media, Jones said he wanted to create a “narrative” that critical minerals were a “legitimate part of the New Zealand economy”.

Critical minerals are, well critical. We should absolutely be mining them – both for our own use, and to export. Any anyone against that should hand in their cellphone, computer and electric car.

A major concern of the meeting was price. Resources prices can fluctuate wildly. Resource powers, including China, have been accused of dumping resources on the market to collapse prices, making those states’ competitors unviable. This allows those states and firms to retain market dominance for certain minerals. 

Jones discussed the possibility of establishing a price floor to combat this in a discussion with Sloper, the Australian High Commissioner. 

“It’s been reported to me there are firms in Australia and at various times in New Zealand who do shutter because there’s no point in them operating if the price for a certain key mineral collapses,” he said.

But Jones said there were challenges in establishing a minimum price for resource exports because it potentially violated provisions in New Zealand’s free trade agreements, which generally prevented the Government from intervening in pricing. 

‘We’ve struggled with how do we commit to a floor price without violating the provisions of a host of trade agreements that successive New Zealand governments have signed up to,” Jones said. 

He added it was “fair to say there’s been an allergic reaction from some of the senior politicians to the idea of a floor price”.

As there should be. We got rid of minimum prices for farming in the 1980s, so let’s not bring them in for mining.

Like many I am not against cycleways. I am against cycleways done badly.

The new shared path cycleway between Wellington and Petone is a great example of one done well. The existing cycleway is terrible and actually ends 1 km before Petone – on the wrong side on SH2!

What I like about this one is:

• Is totally seperate to the road, so much safer
• Is big enough for both cycling and pedestrians
• No car parks were destroyed in making it, so doesn’t cripple local businesses (in fact would be good location for pop up coffee places)
• Connects two cities together
• Also acts as a seawall barrier protecting SH2, and the rail link, adding resilience

I am keen to try running it soon. Run to Petone, have a coffee there at one of their great cafes, and then run/walk home.

The NZ Herald reports:

The audio of an exercise by Labour candidates and supporters in the Wellington region on how to avoid answering difficult questions from the public has been widely leaked. …

Edmonds: “Every week I have to stand up in the House and ask a duck-faced horse – did I get that right – questions every single week, and I have the glory of being able to question her, or debate her in debates and to talk through media …

Charming. Don’t you recall all the outrage over anonymous trolls on Twitter comparing Ardern to a horse, and here you have the No 3 in Labour calling Nicola Willis a duck-faced horse.

The Post reports:

Wellington is set to lose what is described as its only sexual harm prevention organisation, with Government funding cuts blamed.

RespectEd Aotearoa ‒ founded in 2015 by Wellington Rape Crisis, WellStop, and HELP ‒ has announced it will close in August. Three staff will lose their jobs. …

The Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi (PSA) said the closure would lead to preventable sexual violence unless the Government restored funding.

“Prevention works,” said PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons.

“When you cut prevention funding, more people will be raped and subjected to sexual violence.”

Locking up rapists works also. Where is the proof that this particular organisation has been effective? Just because you have good intentions, doesn’t mean you are effective.

“Without a change of course, RespectEd Aotearoa will not be the last to fall,“ Fitzsimons said.

“The blame for this, and the consequences of rising sexual violence, sit squarely on the Government’s shoulders.“

RespectEd staff member Juliet Leeming said the closure came as sexual violence was on the rise.

It is not surprising that a former Labour candidate blames the Government for everything. But do we actually have rising sexual violence? The best data in the Crime and Victims Survey. The media just report claims without checking them, but we like to look at data. So what has been the annual prevalence rate for sexual assaults:

• 2018: 2.0
• 2021: 2.1
• 2022: 1.9
• 2023: 1.8
• 2024: 2.1
• 2025: 1.6

So the prevalence rate is actually lower than any time in the last seven years. An inconvenient fact.

The ODT reports:

Jo Galer is on track to win the Dunedin City Council by-election over former mayor Aaron Hawkins.

At 1.30pm today, Ms Galer (8845 votes) was in first place and Aaron Hawkins (8099 votes) was second, followed by Conrad Stedman (6482 votes) in third.

The result is based on counting of about 85% of returned voting papers.

It takes a special talent to go from being elected Mayor, to being unable to even win a ward seat. Tory Whanau managed it, and now Aaron Hawkins. The final result was very close, but again so rare for a former Mayor to be unable to even win a seat.

Ms Galer, who was endorsed by Crs Russell Lund and Lee Vandervis, stood on a platform of prioritising basic infrastructure including in South Dunedin, capping rates and stopping cycleways.

Sounds a popular position.