The Post reports:

Two Upper Hutt ratepayer advocates say they were left shocked and anxious after a uniformed police officer arrived unexpectedly at their home following a complaint from mayor Peri Zee about their communications.

Police later closed the matter after finding no criminal harassment offence had occurred. …

The Post has seen about 15 emails exchanged between the couple and the mayor, along with social media posts published by the pair.

While the communications were persistent and at times critical, The Post found no examples of what we would consider to be threats, intimidation or abusive language. Zee was asked to provide examples of the material she considered harassing but did not do so.

So the Mayor called in the Police on two of her constituents because they were repeatedly critical of her. Not a great look.

  

Paul Gunson has done a statistical analysis of what are called house effects for different NZ polling companies. A house effect is basically the difference between the average results for that pollsters and all the other pollsters.

He concluded:

PollLab estimates TPU–Curia to have the smallest overall deviation from the estimated underlying trend of any active polling organisation analysed:

An X user called The Overhang also has done in the past a similar analysis, which is here.

By Lucy Rogers

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/former-commissioner-andrew-coster-told-independent-police-conduct-authority-to-back-off-from-jevon-mcskimming-case

Andrew Coster criticised the IPCA for allegedly not advising Jevon McSkimming of the nature of the investigation into Ms Z’s complaint against him, saying that was “contrary to the principles of natural justice”. But when I only found out in a press release about me that a police investigation separate from the IPCA investigation into my complaint had even happened, and asked them to reopen the investigation to hear my side of the story, the Police refused.

Natural justice for paedophiles, but not for plebs.

We do not know if Covid-19 was the result of a natural mutation, or whether it was an accidental lab leak. From what I have seen there is at least a 20% chance it was a lab leak.

The results were devastating:

• 7 million direct deaths
• 20 million excess deaths
• A 3.3% contraction in global GDP
• Around US$13 trillion economic damage

As far as I can see, there has never been any serious suggestion that the Chinese Government has some culpability for this, and should be held accountable. And to be clear, I am not suggesting they should be.

But consider what the reaction would have been if Covid-19 had started in the US, and there was a significant chance it was a lab leak. I imagine we would have:

• The majority of UN member countries demanding reparations from the US
• A global commission that would assign blame to the US
• Multiple articles about how the US inflicted the worst disaster on the world than anything outside WWII
• A global campaign to close down all US laboratories that do research such as may have led to the lab leak
• The US labeled as a creator of genocide

The Herald reports:

Christopher Luxon says he supports having another referendum on the MMP voting system if he’s re-elected as he encourages greater support for National so the party can avoid working with “some yahoo and numpty” in Cabinet. 

Act leader David Seymour says he’s not opposed to another referendum but suggests Luxon “may not have thought through what he’s saying” regarding ministers from other parties, noting the number of National ministers who had been dismissed this term. 

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says the referendum proposal is “inexplicable” and a “power grab” as he claims Labour and National are “losing their grip on power”.

The Herald understands Luxon’s announcement came as a surprise to National MPs. The Herald has approached the National Party for comment.

It is unclear if this is merely a desire by the Prime Minister, or official National Party policy. Either way, I think it is premature.

We voted in 1993 to adopt MMP by 54% to 46%. In 2011, 18 years later, there was another referendum where NZers voted 58% to 42% to keep MMP. It was right to have a second referendum to confirm if NZers were happy with how MMP had worked out.

We should not however be voting every 15 years on what electoral system, we have. There is no hard and fast rule, but I would suggest you would only have such a referendum every 30 years or so. This is why I also oppose a second Scottish independence 12 years after the last one.

The Post reports:

The cost of a bungled immigration IT project has blown out, and MBIE can’t guarantee the taxpayer-funded bill won’t climb even higher. …

Stanford said her office had identified financial information provided by MBIE that “could not be correct” earlier this week.

So it was the Minister’s office that identified the error, not MBIE itself. Very slack.

She called Blakeley in for a ‘please explain’ on Tuesday afternoon, who advised her a further $6m in associated project costs had been identified.

“He cannot be confident this further $6 million represents the full extent of expenditure on the BCU and he has made the decision to commission an independent financial audit.

“In close consultation with Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, we have referred this matter to both the Michael Heron inquiry into the BCU project and the Public Service Commissioner, as we consider it raises significant questions regarding MBIE’s financial controls more generally.”

We must surely be getting close to the stage where someone has to resign??

  

The Post reports:

A select committee has been warned today that a satire and parody exception to copyright laws, if approved, could more easily allow AI companies to exploit NZ creatives’ work.

New Zealand’s creative industries have strong reservations about a new bill that will allow people the free use of copyright-protected material for social commentary – in part because the bill completely ignores AI, the main way copyright infringements happen these days.

This is a red herring. The bill doesn’t allow AI copyright infringement. It merely gives an exception for the very limited categories of parody and satire.

But the day’s main submitter against the bill, Paula Browning, executive director of WeCreate, said New Zealand should learn more from overseas examples before passing its own version. WeCreate is an alliance of 40 of the country’s major creative industries associations, representing 30,000 creatives across the screen, book publishing, music, performing arts and digital production industries.

They oppose anything which is not copyright maximalist. Just ignore them.

The Wellington Community Fund received $44 million in 1996 from the sale of Trust Bank. In the past it has funded many great initiatives such as Zealandia. But sadly today Zealandia would not get any support, as the trustees (mainly appointed by the last Government) have decided that 95% of their grants must go to Maori groups, climate action orgs or to Pacific peoples, Middle Eastern, Latin American or African groups.

There is a pattern with all these trusts that got funded by the sale of Trust Bank. They have all gone from broadly funding all worthwhile community activities, to only funding those that fit their self imposed criteria of disadvantage and exclusion. And it’s not that they are say putting 25% or even 45% of their funds towards those groups – they are doing close to 100%.

Maybe it is time to wind up the trusts, and just give the funds to every household in the region.

The Law Commission has now done a final report into hate crime law, and their recommendations are not to try and criminalise more New Zealanders. Their recommendations include:

• better processes for recording if an offence includes a hostility of hate motivation (this is already a factor in sentencing)
• Sex is included as a a group characteristic along the existing ones of race, colour, nationality, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability. Was bizarre that gender but not sex was listed, so a good fix.
• New Zealand Police should publish data on reported hate crimes annually.
• Ministry of Justice should publish court data on hate crime cases annually.

So rather than include a new category of crime, which could be quite subjective, they have just focused on improving the current law which already allows hatred of a group to be an aggravating factor at sentencing. A good outcome.

  

Scott Simpson announced:

New Zealanders will have access to monthly inflation data from July 2027 as part of a major upgrade to the country’s economic statistics, Statistics Minister Scott Simpson says.

“Moving to monthly Consumers Price Index (CPI) reporting is one of the biggest improvements to New Zealand’s economic statistics in decades.

“Instead of waiting three months to understand how prices are changing, New Zealanders, businesses and decision-makers will have access to monthly updates. That means better-informed household, business and government decisions,” Mr Simpson says.

This is a small but significant change. Three months is too long to wait for inflation data. Most countries have monthly inflation updates, so good we will also.

Three bills drawn from the Ballot are:

• Crimes (Offence of Failing to Report Child Harm) Amendment Bill. This bill by National MP Andrew Bayly makes it a criminal offence to know child abuse is occurring and not report it to the Police.Maximum sentence three years. Sadly needed.
• Building (Energy Efficient Office Buildings) Amendment Bill. This bill by Labour MP Rachel Brooking mandates energy performance rating requirements for office buildings. Worth supporting to select committee as it does not regulate a minimum standard (which could cost a lot) but just requires transparency over how energy efficient a building is.
• Accident Compensation (Extended Cover for FENZ Personnel) Amendment Bill. This bill by Labour MP Kieran McAnulty basically extends ACC cover to volunteer firefighters. May have fishhooks but also worth supporting to select committee.

The Taxpayers’ Union has released a report showing who pays tax in NZ. The findings include:

• The top 20 percent pay nearly two-thirds of all personal income tax
• The top 10 percent pay 45%, which is more than the bottom 80 percent combined
• The top 1 percent pay 14%, which is more than the entire bottom half of taxpayers
• 46,939 taxpayers pay more income tax than 2.35 million people combined
• The top quintile of income earners pay 35% of GST and the bottom quintile 10%
• The top decile of income earners pay more GST than the bottom 30% of income earners
• The bottom decile pay an average 10.4% tax rate and the top decile an average 29.6% tax rate
• The top decile pays 3,814 times more tax than the bottom decile
• The top 1% of earners pay an average of $177k in tax while the bottom 50% pay an average of $2,298.

We already have a highly progressive tax system. Those who claim it isn’t are ignoring the facts.

  

The Post reports:

Prominent blogger Martyn Bradbury says he will be appearing in court on Tuesday over posts on his website The Daily Blog, adding that he is “prepared to to go prison for free speech”.

Bradbury – who is widely known as “Bomber” for his bombastic speaking style – wrote on his website that four of his blog posts had been “censored” and he was facing a possible fine or even a prison sentence of six months.

“We can’t tell you who is doing this, we can’t tell why it’s being done, we can’t tell you how it’s being done, and we can’t tell you what has been censored,” he wrote.

“I want everyone involved in this to be made public, because Free Speech issues like this are definitely in the public interest.”

The first I knew of this was when I saw a tweet about this on Sunday. Up until then I had no idea Bradbury had HDCA proceedings against him, who took them, or what they are about.

As details are suppressed, there is a limit to what one can say, but I would make the following general points.

1. The HDCA is well-intentioned but flawed legislation. There have been quite a few cases where it has been used to suppress or prevent legitimate criticism. I have had first hand experience with the HDCA as a content host where a dispute between a reader and a commenter tied me up in months of HDCA proceedings. So I think the HDCA needs to be significantly reformed.
2. People have the right to take an HDCA case, even if they are a critic of the HDCA. Just as I will take my NZ Superannuation at age 65, even though I think it should be means tested. Whether someone is justified in taking a HDCA case is dependent on the facts of the case – basically what was said, were requests made for it to be removed, what was the response etc. As details are supressed it is impossible to know how justified the HDCA case was or is.
3. As a general rule I am against name suppression of parties involved in an HDCA case. Sure there may be a good reasons to suppress the complained about material (as the point of HDCA is to have it removed, not amplified), but the public should know who is using the HDCA against whom. I have sympathy for Bradbury that he seemingly can’t reveal anything at all about the case. There may be a case for suppression of some details, but suppression of everything is rarely justified. Likewise ex parte applications should rarely (if ever) be granted by the Court without hearing from the person complained about. This is again why the HDCA needs reform.
4. If the Court makes a ruling that content is harmful, it is very very unwise to refuse to obey the Court, as that is contempt of court. If the Court makes a bad HDCA ruling, you should appeal it, not ignore it. When I was dragged into an HDCA fight between two people, I always complied promptly with the court orders, even when I strongly disagreed with them. I argued vigorously why I thought an order was too wide and harmful to me. Sometimes I won, sometimes I didn’t. You don’t get to pick and choose once an order is made.

The latest IPSOS poll is anything but good reading for National with Labour favoured to better manage 9 of the top 11 issues – including Education. The respondents are wrong on Education as there is incremental progress at present. Much more should be being done in a range of ways but it is not the same level of disaster created by Hipkins and Tinetti.

Each year I do a data process that includes every high school in NZ across a range of measures based on their leavers data. I am about to get the raw data to do that work. Some full system data is now available and I am really happy to say that there have been improvements.

Some important information is contained in the introduction to the data on Education Counts.

“The attainment of an upper secondary school qualification is linked to labour force status and income levels. Modelling done by the Ministry in 2024 of earnings at age 30 showed income premiums for those attaining a Level 2 qualification, a Level 3 qualification or for meeting the requirements for University Entrance (UE). These were around $10,000 higher for learners with a Level 2 or Level 3 qualification and $23,000 higher for learners with UE compared to those with no qualifications. The findings from the modelling were also consistent with other Ministry research showing adults with no qualifications earned almost 20% less in weekly income and around 12% less in hourly earnings than those with school qualifications.

Every year around 60,000 young people leave school and face choices about what to do next. Not being in employment, further education, or training (NEET) affects around 30% of school leavers overall in the first year after they finish school. School leavers who leave school without at least NCEA Level 2 are more likely to be in this group – almost 50% for leavers with only NCEA Level 1 and almost 70% for leavers with no qualification, compared to around one-third for leavers with NCEA Level 2.”

Overall School Leavers Results

	Peak %	2024 %	2025 %
L1 NCEA	90.2 (2017)	84.8	85.2
L2 NCEA	82.2 (2020)	76.9	77.8
L3 NCEA or Above	60.6 (2020)	56.3	59
University Entrance	43.6 (2020)	40.8	42.8

By Ethnicity (2025)

	Asian %	European %	Pasifika %	Maori %
L1 NCEA	93	86.5	82	74.3
L2 NCEA	88.4	79.5	73.5	63.3
L3 NCEA or Above	75.8	59.7	53.2	41.4
University Entrance	63.7	45.1	27.3	21.7

By Gender (2025)

	Female %	Male %
L1 NCEA	86.1	84.3
L2 NCEA	79.3	76.3
L3 NCEA or Above	63.4	54.8

By Socio-Economic Risk Factors 2025

(NB: With no obvious logic the Ministry of Education breaks the Equity Index range for schools into 7 parts with approximately the same number of students in each. To twist things a little more – the lowest EQI schools are labelled “Fewest” meaning low numbers of “at risk” students, “below average” means not too many at risk students, “above average” means quite a lot of them.)

	L3 NCEA or Above %
Fewest	85.8
Few	74.7
Below Average	65.3
Average	55.3
Above Average	53.2
Many	49.6
Most	39.2

A LONG way to go – especially re ethnicity gaps and the huge range over socio-economics – but clearly the change in trend direction is a positive.

ps: The people on Education Counts (as a part of the Ministry of Education) are outstanding and always good to deal with.

[email protected]

The Post reports:

Colin McCahon, Goldie, Don Binney: Impoverished councils around New Zealand are sitting on a $1.1 billion art goldmine, much of it unseen by public eyes.

I’m not against there being local art galleries and the like. Art is an important part of our culture. But I was staggered that the total value of art owned by councils is over $1 billion. I assumed it would be say $100 million at most.

Also the vast majority of the art is not available to the public. In Auckland the art gallery can only display 2.4% of its collection at a time.

It is worth remembering this when Councils claim they need massive rates increases to fund critical infrastructure.

The Spinoff asks:

Why is the Free Speech Union suddenly so involved in the Medical Council?

I’m pretty sure the FSU would rather have never heard of the Medical Council. But when regulatory bodies start imposing political litmus tests, where only people with approved left wing views are allowed to be doctors, lawyers, nurses etc – well then of course the FSU will get interested and involved.

  

Stuff reports:

An effigy of Foreign Minister Winston Peters was put through a mock guillotine in central Auckland on Saturday as protesters demanded Prime Minister Christopher Luxon sack him over his “go back to your own country” remarks in Parliament.

The Migrant Workers Association of Aotearoa staged what it described as “political satire and theatre” on Saturday, following Peters’ controversial remarks to Chinese-born Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan.

Peters has condemned the protest, describing it as “not political satire” but “a call for violence”.

I recall during the Covid-19 protests, there were sometimes placards that called for Nuremberg hearings against the then PM, which were implicitly a call for executions. They led to scores and scores of stories where all political leaders were asked to condemn them etc, and numerous other stories where it was held up as a sign of extremism.

Now doing an actual mock execution is a step up from that. Also this wasn’t a couple of rogue actors. This was advertised as happening by the organisers of the protest. It was sanctioned by their leadership.

So I would expect media to be doing the following:

• Finding out if any election candidates or MPs were in the audience, and vigorously questioning them over whether their attendance was an implicit endorsement of the mock execution
• Asking party leaders if they condemn the mock execution etc
• Checking who is behind the Migrants Workers Association, their funders, their leaders and asking them all if they stand by what happened
• Asking all political parties if they will refuse to meet or attend MWA representatives due to their actions with the mock execution

This is after all the approach the media took to the Covid-19 protesters.

A guest post by Gary Benner:

I received a report on the Strategy 2022-2026 Review for the InternetNZ Board, and noted one paragraph that has me somewhat bemused, befuddled, and a little concerned.

The Board reviewed the success of the prior Strategy 2022-2026, which was named Niho Taniwha, noting significant cultural and organisational transformation has been achieved. The Board acknowledged the courageous values involved in conducting the systemic racism review and the successful transition to our new Strategy 2026-2031, the adoption of Te Korowai o Ipurangi Aotearoa, and our guiding values, Ngā Uara.

There are two Board positions coming up for election shortly, and the report further noted:

“The Board reviewed progress for the 2026 Elections and Annual General Meeting (AGM) noting that nominations for the two board member positions have opened, approved the Returning Officer, discussed the safety of board member candidates and the provisions for voting at the AGM.

I am also intrigued as to the focus on “safety of board member candidates”, something that I wonder why that would be of any concern here in New Zealand. So I did what any red-blooded IT Professional would do, and researched what our fellow nations consider strategic goals for the Internet in their country: “Internet governance at the national level involves a mix of technical coordination (e.g., infrastructure, standards), policy/regulatory frameworks (cybersecurity, data protection, content moderation), economic strategies (digital economy, innovation), and geopolitical aims (sovereignty, influence).” Common elements across a wide range of different governing styles include:

• Emerging Focus: AI governance, data flows, critical infrastructure resilience, and digital public infrastructure (especially India/Brazil).
• Cybersecurity: Universal priority, addressed via regulation (EU), partnerships/offense (US), or isolation/control (Russia/China).
• Regulation Style: EU — comprehensive ex-ante rules. US — lighter-touch with market incentives. China — top-down state directives. Others hybrid.
• Sovereignty vs. Openness: China and Russia prioritize strong state control and potential decoupling. The US and EU emphasize openness with safeguards. India and Brazil seek balanced sovereignty with rights and inclusion.

Meanwhile back in New Zealand (where “back” is the operative term) our Board seem to be caught up using the funding and status of the organisation to undertake a left-wing ideological campaign. For the uninitiated: Te Korowai o Ipurangi Aotearoa is the guiding strategy and vision for InternetNZ that embeds the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi into how they operate. It ensures their mahi (work) actively supports digital equity and partnership with Māori across the New Zealand internet ecosystem. Niho Taniwha (teeth of the taniwha) is a traditional Māori pattern—often seen in tukutuku panels—that serves as the visual framework for their strategic plan and reporting. It symbolizes strength, connection, lineage, and intergenerational learning, grounding InternetNZ’s goals in Māori culture and community impact. Are we seeing a pattern here? We need to see elected on to this Board two more people with a technology focus, without the trappings of the cultural mind virus.

The Free Press has a great read about how devastating the trial that prince Harry initiated against the media was for him.

• An 11 week trial costing 67 million pounds
• All of his 97 allegations were rejected as unfounded, relying on suspicion over proof
• He insisted his social circles never sold him out, despite text messages showing him berating his friends because “one of your mates. . . has gossiped.”
• He claimed his staff never briefed reporters, yet the court was shown palace emails with them doing exactly that.
• Harry stood up and claimed during the trial that he would not “share private information with strangers around a campfire,” referring to a story reported about his feelings for his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy, only for the defense to point out he had described himself doing exactly that, in vivid detail, in his memoir, Spare.
• Under oath, Harry swore to the court that he had met Charlotte Griffiths exactly once at a weekend party, before cutting contact the moment he realized she was a journalist. He dismissively branded her a “liar” and a “fantasist” for arguing otherwise, but she had proof. But Facebook messages between Harry and Griffiths were released to the public, meaning we now know in cringe-inducing detail about the “movie snuggles” that the Prince shared with the journalist. We also know he messaged her for weeks after enjoying what she describes as a “fun weekend of naughtiness.”
• The trial laid bare how, over a decade later, Harry and Meghan’s communications adviser would contact Griffiths to feed her positive stories about the exiled pair. After Griffiths splashed the positive stories on the front page of the Mail, “sources close to the Sussexes” would then brief The Daily Telegraph to say that they were “very frustrated” that the stories had ended up in the Mail.
• But whatever Harry’s motive, it’s proof that he was orchestrating at least some of the leaks he complained about

He’s lucky he wasn’t done for perjury I’d say.