Chris Bishop and Simon Court announced principles for the RMA replacement, and they generally look very good (but not perfect). Some key aspects:

The new system will be based on the economic concept of “externalities”. Effects that are borne solely by the party undertaking the activity will not be controlled by the new system (for example, interior building layouts or exterior aspects of buildings that have no impact on neighbouring properties such as the size and configuration of apartments, the provision of balconies, and the configuration of outdoor open spaces for a private dwelling).

This is very good. However how externalities are defined will be crucial, and also making clear trivial externalities should be excluded.

Both Acts will include starting presumptions that a land use is enabled, unless there is a significant enough impact on either the ability of others to use their own land or on the natural environment. 

Great.

Nationally set standards, including standardised land use zones, will provide significant system benefits and efficiencies. The new legislation will provide for greater standardisation, while still maintaining local decision making over the things that matter.

This may be the most important aspect. We currently have 1,175 different planning zones. The idea behind this is you have say 12 – 15 zones (low density, medium density, commercial, industrial etc) and Councils just pick and choose a zone for different areas.

A guest post by Lucy Rogers:

Within hours of the 156 page Independent Police Conduct Authority report coming out on 18 February everyone seemed to have an opinion on it. There seemed to be an immediate consensus that it was a threat to free speech and I saw someone on Twitter say dismissively that the IPCA’s response to police misconduct at Albert Park was to give more powers to the police. I mention in passing that by far the most stupid response I have seen was the following cartoon by Emma Cook:

(It’s so out of touch with reality it’s unreal. The report covered two Israel/ Palestine related arrests: Daniel Maxwell’s case and mine. Maxwell was waving an Israeli flag and I was holding a sign criticising the pro-Palestine protesters for being hypocrites. The idea that the IPCA’s report is motivated by hostility for innocent pro-Palestine protesters is downright absurd.)

Anyway, suffice it to say that I suspect many people criticising the report haven’t actually read it. (In fact, my nasty, cynical side thinks the only people who are going to read it in full are politicians, academics and me.) Having read it in its entirety, I have noticed some points of critical importance that absolutely nobody seems to be pointing out:

The report recommends making it “mandatory” to notify the police of certain categories of protest 21 days in advance, but does not recommend making it a criminal offence not to do so. Whether or not you agree with the proposal, this is an enormously important point. If you’re curious as to why the IPCA is recommending what arguably amounts to an optional notification system or why a protest would voluntarily provide notification in advance, I suggest reading the report in its entirety but in particular the thoughtful arguments set out in paras 198-200.

The report makes important points about this proposal. I shall list only four:

1. Every other democracy in the world requires protest organisers to provide more advance notification of protests to Police than New Zealand does (in fact, pretty much all we have are a collection of disused council bylaws applicable only in certain parts of NZ.)

• The IPCA’s proposed reforms are on the moderate end of the spectrum relative to overseas (where in some places, like the UK, it is a criminal offence not to provide police with notification of a protest in advance.)

• The development of social media means that protests are being organised far more quickly than in the past, making it difficult for police to arrange the deployment of adequate staff at short notice (to say nothing of organising, say, traffic management plans). For example, police were provided with only two days’ notice of a major protest in Riccarton recently. By contrast, you can imagine that in the pre-internet era to sufficiently advertise a protest one might have to take out an advertisement in a local newspaper and wait for people to see it.

• The notification regime would apply only to certain limited types of protest. The report acknowledges “[a] blanket requirement for notification of every assembly in a public place, enforced by criminal penalties, would be unjustified” and says that part of the reason for this is that it would be “an unreasonable limitation on spontaneous protests” (para 201).

I am not saying I agree with the report (in fact, I have some criticisms of it) but I think it at least merits a fair hearing. My own thoughts on the proposal both praise and fair criticism will be forthcoming in due course. But I do have a practical suggestion for the IPCA: issue a condensed summary of such reports in future which are more accessible to members of the public.

AKA: Our actual spending to try and improve things is tiny!

AKA: The current government is a very long way from keeping their promises to reduce the spend on bureaucracy.

1. Our government education spend for 2024-25 is $20.5billion (exclusive of tertiary education).

2. 31.3% of the public sector work-force is for education (150,800 employees).

3. This is all paid for by taxpayers. Any government likes to say “they are spending” … it is never true. They are only allocating other people’s money.

4. The Ministry of Education budget – after excluding property (where they are known to be incompetent) and frontline services for learning support – is $547million.

5. The National and ACT parties promised to reduce the Ministry employment of “full time equivalents” to 2,700 (the number before the recent Labour government). Halfway through their term the Ministry FTE is at 3,949 with a “head-count” of 4,217 employees (which does not include teachers). i.e. A massively broken promise that I hope the Taxpayers Union is investigating. We have a hugely bloated Education Ministry and on their way to this staff blow-out all achievement statistics for NZ students have declined.

It should also be noted that the oversight of the MOE by the Minister and State Services has not been able to appoint a new Secretary for Education despite the old one walking out the door in October 2024. The current senior leadership of the MOE is to Education in NZ as Mike Tyson is to Ballet worldwide. They MUST employ someone from well outside the current system!

6. The percentage of spend for food for supporting education for early childhood and schools is: $273,548,000 / 20,500,000,000  = 1.33%. i.e. recognize the current social/educational situation and feed the children well. Afterall – parents are paying via tax. Doing crazy things to save $120 million here is like not building the best sand castle on a NZ beach as you are worried about running short of grains. Seymour saving $120 million – while creating all sorts of havoc and providing only 15% of daily nutrition to the kids who are:

– actually at school.

– eligible to school lunches

… is like the savings you get from playing the neutral game in the car for the last 400m to home after you have driven from Wellington to Auckland.

7. Funding to improve attendance is: $34,000,000 / 20,500,000,000 -= 0.17% of the education spend. Attendance and the 10,000 children enrolled nowhere are the biggest problems for our system and we have a barely attentive Ass Minister and are spending copper on improving it.

8. The failing Charter School roll-out is only $123,000,000 – $30,000,000 on the Charter School Agency – both over four years = 0.12% of the education spend. Not a chance of being “game-changing”.

9. In term 4 of 2024 the overall attendance by school students in NZ was 58.1%. This is marginally up on T4 2023 but it was 64.7 in 2021.

For Maori the full attendance figure was 44.1%.

For Pasifika the full attendance figure was 42.4%.

NB: David Seymour is the Associate Minister in charge of school lunches, attendance and Charter Schools. He has negotiated with National to enable himself to allocate funds like Scrouge McSeymour.

10. The MOE direct funding for Early Learning, Primary Schooling, Secondary Schooling totaled $8.382billion.

Direct funding for supporting parents in education totaled: 2.97 million. i.e. 0.04% of the education budget. Those figures speak to the fact that we often blame parents but barely lift a finger to actually assist them.

The National/ACT education mandate was for change. At best change is currently glacial. The curriculum changes have some positive aspects but are at the margins for many and the NCEA changes that have now been embedded are crushing Maori, Pasifika and low income students.

In terms of education National/ACT is governing for their voters and not the general population and those that need improvement the most.

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com

The Herald reported:

A West Auckland woman who repeatedly subjected a boy to horrific torture – including stabbing him with a chef’s knife and a screwdriver, forcing him to eat faeces, pouring boiling water on to him and encouraging him to commit suicide – has been ordered to serve a lengthy term of imprisonment.

All child abuse is terrible, but this is a special kind of evil.

I guess I divide abuse into three categories:

1. Abuse by neglect – where the kid is just not cared for and looked after
2. Abuse by temper – where an adult physically assaults a kid after they lose their temper
3. Abuse by torture – where the adult actually enjoys torturing the child

All are terrible, but this third category suggests a high degree of sociopathy.

Selica Romana Wright, 34, came to the Auckland District Court with a letter of apology this afternoon as she appeared before Judge Kirsten Lummis. Prosecutors, however, were adamant that she remains unrepentant – using her own words in intercepted letters from prison to prove their point.

“Haha. Do it all again in a heartbeat,” she wrote.

Definite sociopath.

Judge Lummis noted that the defence took issue with the term torture, so she read the definition aloud in court.

“In my view, that term is entirely appropriate,” she concluded, describing the “extreme violence and sadistic nature” of the offending as at a level rarely seen in New Zealand courts.

If this wasn’t torture, nothing was.

“It is clear [the victim] would like you to be locked up as long as possible.”

We all would.

She ordered a sentence of 10 and a half years of imprisonment.

This isn’t a short sentence, but to me it still seems too short when you consider what she did. A summary:

• beating the victim with a metal vacuum cleaner pipe, whacking him on the body and the head with such force the pipe was damaged beyond repair
• used a hammer to strike about the head, body, legs, knees, feet, back, arms and his hands
• attacked him with a sword and a spade
• stabbed him in the back of his head with the screwdriver
• beat him with her fists and a length of wood leaving him unable to use his arm for several days
• tipped a jug on to him, severely burning his back and arm and then sprayed his wounds with Janola
• used a chef’s knife to stab him “about the body”, including a wound deep enough to cause air to enter his chest cavity
• told the youth he should kill himself via hanging. When he refused, she threatened to forcibly hang him
• stood over him and threatened to hit him with a hammer until he ate dog faeces. She then refused to let him drink water afterwards.
• made him eat her soiled toilet paper. He complied, but when he started to vomit she began to stomp on his face, stomach and legs.
• thrust the end of the hammer at his mouth forcefully and repeatedly until a front tooth snapped and he began to bleed

This is one of the rare times I regret we do not have the death penalty.

Fascinating to compare the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump on two countries.

Country A

• Has zero tariffs on US imports
• Has a Free Trade Agreement with the United States
• Imports ($34.6 billion) twice as much from the US as they export (16.7 billion) to them meaning the US has a trade surplus with them
• Is a very close and formal ally of the US, in multiple alliances with them
• Has had a 10% tariff imposed on them

Country B

• Imposes tariffs on US imports, above the level allowed by the WTO
• Has no Free Trade Agreement with the United States
• Imports ($526.1 million) one sixth as much from the US as they export ($3.0 billion) to them meaning the US has a trade deficit with them
• Is a historic geopolitical foe of the US
• Has had a 0% tariff imposed on them

What great work. I am sure most people can work out who the two countries are.

In 2017, the geniuses of the Labour Party decided to have an experiment. They said, let’s cut the prison population by 30%. Someone (hopefully) said, you mean by reducing serious crime by 30%? But the geniuses said, no no – just cut the prison population by 30%, regardless of whether people are committing serious violent and sexual crimes.

It was the law & order version of the unfortunate experiment. They opened the doors, and New Zealanders suffered the consequences.

Violent offences increased from 50,110 in 2017 to 76,808 in 2023 – an increase of 53%.

Sexual offences increased from 5,952 in 2017 to 7,312 in 2023 – an increase of 23%.

This is the price New Zealanders paid for Labour’s unfortunate experiment of trying to empty the prisons.

The White House released a list of countries and the tariff rates they charged the US. It was clearly wrong as NZ has an average tariff of around 1.7% on US imports and the list said 20%. I thought it was because they were including our GST of 15%. That would have been very dumb, but the truth is even dumber.

The rate listed for each country has nothing to do with tariffs. It is simply the trade deficit for that country divided by the level of exports.

A trade deficit between countries can (and usually is) nothing to do with tariffs. It is just supply and demand. You run trade surpluses with some countries and deficits with another. It isn’t even really a country to country thing. It simply reflects decisions by individual businesses in a country about where they buy goods and services from, and sell them to.

It is astonishing that the US White House released a document that is just patently false. You can’t just call a trade deficit a tariff. Well you can, but it doesn’t change reality. It’s like claiming that the inflation rate is actually the unemployment rate! These are in no way reciprocal tariffs.

As a tool for policy making, it is incredibly flawed. The geniuses have said that the trade deficit with Cambodia is 97% of total exports, so there must be a tariff of half that or 49%. Now Cambodia doesn’t have a trade surplus with the US because it has tariffs (I suspect they have none) on US imports. It is a very poor country and just can’t afford many US imports.

And just to prove that they are morons who can’t even do basic research, they have announced the following tariffs:

• A 10% tariff on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which has been unpopulated since 1877
• A 10% tariff on the British Indian Ocean Territory whose only population is military staff who work on a US airbase there!

I’m glad that New Zealand never ended up doing a free trade agreement with the US, because it would now be worthless. Trump has reneged on every single trade agreement the US has signed. The Australia-US FTA is now defunct.

The best response by countries impacted by these US tariffs, is to increase trade between ourselves. We should be talking to China, Japan, Korea, Canada, EU etc and saying hey let’s reduce any remaining tariffs between us, so that our exporters can divest from the US.

Simon Watts and Scott Simpson announced:

The Government is accelerating Local Water Done Well for the Wellington region to provide greater transparency at Wellington Water and ensure it is delivering value for money for ratepayers, say Local Government Minister Simon Watts and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Scott Simpson.

“Over the last few months, I have had serious concerns around Wellington’s water services,” Mr Watts says.

“Recent reports have shone a spotlight on high costs and unsound financial management at Wellington Water with clear evidence suggesting the ratepayers are not getting good value for money,” Mr Watts says.

“I am not satisfied by the progress made to address these glaring problems and without clear and decisive action, Wellingtonians face a decade of hefty rate increases with little to show for it.”

The Government is bringing forward Local Water Done Well for the Wellington region by imposing early economic regulation on Wellington Water. This means the Commerce Commission will begin its role as a monitor for the Wellington region’s water services sooner than other water services under Local Water Done Well.

“Given the current issues, Wellingtonians shouldn’t have to wait for the full economic regulation regime to be in place to have greater visibility over how their money is spent on water services,” Mr Simpson says.

This is a good move. I certainly have greater faith in the Commerce Commission to monitor Wellington Water than Campbell and Tory!

The Herald reports:

A submitter known only as “Amy” has schooled the Commerce Commission on a regulatory change that could, she says, cause her parents grief.

The commission said earlier this week that it is assessing whether to deregulate mobile termination access service (MTAS) rates – or the wholesale charges mobile phone companies charge for terminating calls or texts from other fixed or mobile networks (which may or may not be passed on to customers).

Shortly after 2degrees launched, it complained that Telecom and Vodafone had cheaper rates for calling people on their own networks, making it harder for the newcomer to attract customers.

The market watchdog waved its big stick, helping to create a more level playing field – and an environment where most of us are on plans with unlimited texts and local calls.

Every five years, the regulator reassesses whether it needs to stick its nose into MTAS. The rates aren’t directly regulated, but the option is in the commission’s toolbox.

I know a bit about this area as we did some research for 2 Degrees many many years ago on this.

Back then the free calling only to other mobile phones on the same network had a huge impact on purchase behaviour. Entire schools would basically be with either Telecom or Vodafone, so they could text their friends without limits.

But today is very different. Not only is the market diverse enough that it would be self-defeated for providers to attempt this today, but there are so many alternative ways to message – iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Signal etc etc.

It was very necessary regulation once upon a time, but the market has evolved so it is no longer needed.

President Trump has announced massive tariffs on most countries, including a 10% tariff on all NZ exports to the US.

The table he released claims that NZ imposes an average 20% tariff on US goods. This is just fantasy. The actual level of average tariffs is around 2%.

What the Trump Administration appears to have done is include any GST or VAT in a country as a tariff. This is of course moronic as a GST or VAT applies to all goods and services, not just imported ones. It doesn’t advantage local suppliers at all.

The reality is that Trump just loves tariffs. He sees them as a great way to raise money. It’s the biggest tax increase in US history.

Because he has imposed tariffs on so many countries, I suspect US prices will increase more than if he had done them on just a few countries. There will be less pressure for exporters to absorb more of the cost.

The direct cost on NZ exports looks to be around $900 million a year. However how much of that is paid for by NZ exporters and how much by US consumers remains to be seen.

The other impact likely to be seen by NZers is KiwiSaver account balances tumbling as global sharemarkets fall. We may also see weaker economic growth and a slight uptick in unemployment, plus more cuts in interest rates.

Edelman reports on their annual trust survey in institutions. The net trust for each institution (60+ is trust, under 50 is is distrust) is:

1. Business 54
2. NGOs 53
3. Government 45
4. Media 35

What is especially interesting to me is how these differ from the global average. The differences are:

1. NGOs – 5 lower in NZ
2. Govt – 7 lower in NZ
3. Business – 8 lower in NZ
4. Media – 17 lower in NZ

That media rating (35 vs 52 globally) should be a wakeup call about why media companies are failing. The solution isn’t taxing Internet companies to fund them. It is to restore trust.

Radio NZ reports:

The article, released on Friday and written by Otago University Professor Nick Wilson, researcher Dr John Horrocks and George Thomson, discusses the growing international concern around impaired leaders, especially in a world of heightened geopolitical instability.

Horrocks noted former United States president Joe Biden during his election campaign debate against opponent Donald Trump last year when Biden shocked viewers with poor skills and slurring words.

The article referred to previous research that concluded: “Who ends up in office plays a critical role in determining when and why countries go to war”.

It examined the four New Zealand cases and called for further research into other impaired former prime ministers, and a discussion around possible safeguarding against such situations including requiring independent medical assessments.

This is all rather silly, and misses a key point of difference between a US President and a NZ Prime Minister.

A US President is elected for a fixed term, and can’t be removed from office except via impeachment or the 25th Amendment – both almost impossible to do.

A NZ Prime Minister only retains office so long as they have the confidence of the House, or more pragmatically the confidence of their own caucus. If a PM is not up to the job, their caucus can remove them.

An other key differences is access. A US President can be shielded in a way a NZ PM can’t be. Every week they have to chair cabinet, chair caucus, attend two to three hours of question time in the House, do a press conference and several media standups.

The four case studies highlighted leaders with diminished capacity leading to reckless decision-making.

The four prime ministers were Sir Joseph Ward, who died at 74 just six weeks after leaving office in May 1930, Michael Joseph Savage, who died in office on 27 March 1940 at age 68, Norman Kirk who was 51 when he died in office in August 1974 and Sir Robert Muldoon, who was on various medications and whose drinking contributed to the demise of his leadership in 1984.

You can be dying, but that doesn’t mean you have diminished capacity for decision making. Let’s look at these in turn.

Ward definitely should not have continued on as PM. He had multiple heart attacks, refused to resign, and Forbes was the effective PM. But this was the 1930s, without the media and public scrutiny we have today.

Savage had cancer and died in office. However I haven’t seen any information to suggest we was unable to make decisions. In fact he engineered the expulsion of John A Lee just before he died. I don’t see the case for Savage being forced out earlier.

Kirk is a bit more nuanced. He was physically very unwell, but was he mentally unable to govern? Well he did have fairly significant paranoia about his colleagues trying to undermine him, or roll him – but I’m not sure this was related to his physical health. And he may have been right!

Muldoon shouldn’t even be in the list at all. He was definitely a heavy drinker, but he was clearly in command of his faculties and the government. He was renowned for attention to detail.

So the only clear case for early removal was Ward, and that was a century ago. There is no problem that needs solving.

Shayne Currie reports:

The founder of The Spinoff, Duncan Greive, says he has been put on notice of a potential defamation claim from news publisher Stuff after a stand-off – stemming from an exclusive report last December – escalated into a pointed email last weekend.

Greive revealed in December that Stuff had officially and legally split into two companies – Stuff Digital and Stuff Masthead Publishing – and analysed the potential outcomes and opportunities of what Stuff’s chief financial officer Dale Bridle himself described internally as a “conscious uncoupling”.

At the time, Stuff downplayed the significance of the move, and took issue with Greive’s analysis and reportage, claiming the article was wrong in places and wanting it removed from The Spinoff website until the so-called errors were fixed.

Basically Grieve said that this split may indicate that part of Stuff could be up for sale. Stuff said this was wrong.

As Media Insider revealed this week, Stuff is also understood to have been in talks with Trade Me about a full or part acquisition of Stuff Digital. It is unclear when those discussions started.

So Grieve was threatened with defamation – for being right!

Sky News reports:

The University of Sussex has been fined a record £585,000 by the higher education regulator for failing to uphold freedom of speech.

Hopefully that will change the incentives somewhat.

Prof Roseneil, the vice chancellor at the university, said the OfS findings mean “it makes it almost impossible for universities to have any policies that will control how people speak or relate to each other on campuses”.

What is hilarious, is she sees this as an awful thing.

And the only thing that universities will effectively be able to do is regulate unlawful speech.”

Oh no, only unlawful speech will be banned! What a disaster.

Stuff reports:

The finance minister has slammed Labour regulation spokesperson Duncan Webb for opposing the fast-tracking of consenting for a new supermarket in his Christchurch electorate.

Webb, who served as minister of commerce and consumer affairs from February to November 2023, posted videos to social media and hosted a drop in session at a local bar for constituents to come and share their concerns about the proposed supermarket.

Labour say they want more supermarket competition, and then their former commerce Minister fights against a new one in his electorate.

NewstalkZB reports:

Tauranga City Council has copped some backlash after accepting a five-year contract for coffee machines and coffee at a total cost of $470,000.

So easy to spend other people’s money!

Richard Harman at Politik has this summary of data from the ASA

So the advertising spend has increased a healthy 30% in five years. But the proportion spent on digital advertising has gone from 6% to 60%. With this change, radio has held up very well as an advertising medium, but TV, newspapers and magazines have plummeted.

The solution here is not a government law change. It is a shift in business models.

Auckland Council Commissioners turned down consent for an 11 storey building on K-road – a decision labelled by Chris Bishop as “insane”.

Hayden Donnell covers it well:

The Da Vincis of denial weren’t done. They said the new building would compromise the heritage of the local area. When confronted with the reality of the site currently being an empty lot whose immediate neighbours are a carpark and a Mobil station, the council’s urban design expert Chris Butler argued the “real world” context of the development extends down Karangahape Road and through the southern end of Ponsonby Road. Why only that far? Surely the real world setting of this building is all of New Zealand itself, which broke off from the supercontinent Pangaea, which in turn was formed out of the dust flung across the galaxy by the Big Bang, and if you think about it that way, nothing should ever be built anywhere ever. 

Great stuff, and further:

Faced with the prospect of people building apartments near a train station and other amenities in Sylvia Park, its planning team searched the recesses of their collective brains and came up to the ingenious conclusion that tall buildings would ruin motorway drivers’ spiritual connection to the vision of a small hill. Nice try developers, but it’ll take more than an overwhelming weight of evidence to force this team to consent to housing.

The RMA replacement needs to be very permissive, so even the most dedicated nae sayer has to say yes.