Heather DPA writes:

This morning I was listening to the radio, and I was quite shocked when I heard Labour’s Justice Spokesperson, Duncan Webb, talking about the Three Strikes Law.  

He said judges and lawyers hate it so much, they will find ways around it so they don’t have to implement it.  

He said because the law will now only apply to crimes with sentences over two years – 24 months, “we will see a lot of sentences at 23 months because judges and lawyers… hate this.” 

Now… that’s a shocker.  

Because what that tells you is that it’s just accepted that if judges and lawyers don’t like a law, they’ll find a way around it. 

It’s so widely known that Duncan just says it on the radio and nobody blinds an eyelid. 

It’s the reason, apparently, that when we had Three Strikes last time, no one ever made it to their third strike fully. 

Duncan Webb and Heather are correct. The old Three Strikes law was effective but Judges used manifestly unjust clause to stop almost every third strike penalty,. But at least second and third strikers did serve more time behind bars.

This new law could well see violent and sexual offenders get even shorter sentences than they normally would. If a judge has a potential say 30 month sentence they’ll definitely find some factors top reduce it to 23 months so they avoid having to do a strike which takes away some of their discretion.

The new Three Strikes law must remove the two year threshold for sentences for first and second strikes. It will not only gut the law, but it could well lead to revisit criminals getting even higher sentences than without the law.

Simeon Brown announced:

State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. …

“The Long Tunnel option has the potential to deliver up to 15-minute travel time savings between the region and Wellington airport, compared to around 2-3 minutes for the current parallel or diagonal tunnel proposals at Mt Victoria and the Basin.

“The option would also see better urban amenity through greater reallocation of surface level road space to active modes and public transport in the CBD and greater opportunities for housing intensification. Enhanced regional connectivity to the airport and hospital would also be achieved with reduced city and state highway congestion.

The vision that Steven Joyce had was four lanes from the Airport to Levin. This would make that possible. The four lane tunnel would go from Wellington Road in Hataitai to north of the current Terrace Tunnel. That would basically provide six lanes into and out of Wellington in the North and East.

The two critical factors would be cost and time. It is a better solution than just duplicating the Mt Vic tunnel, but perfect can be the enemy of good. If it can’t be funded and start construction in the next six years, then better to do the project that can be. However if it can be made practical, the time savings would be massive for Wellingtonians. You’re talking up to two and a half hours a week less time stuck in traffic.

Stuff reports:

US federal transportation officials are investigating an unauthorised inflight cockpit visit by a baseball coach for the Colorado Rockies during a United Airlinescharter flight last week from Denver to Toronto.

Video surfaced last week that appears to show Rockies hitting coach Hensley Meulens sitting in a pilot’s seat while the April 10 flight was at cruising altitude. It is against federal regulations for unauthorised people to be on the flight deck.

So what?

This used to happen thousands of times before 9/11. Kids and others would often be allowed in. The number of adverse events from this was basically zero.

Sure since 9/11 we need tighter security such as locked cockpit doors, and not allowing randoms in. But if someone is a well known person who can be assessed as posing no threat, let the pilots make a judgment call.

The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act.

They had a great panel of five speakers, being:

• Law Professor Nicola Moreham from Victoria University (expert on media law)
• Emeritus Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland (activist and academic)
• Dr John Byron from the Queensland University of Technology (former president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations)
• Jonathan Ayling from the Free Speech Union
• Michael Johnston from the New Zealand Initiative (former VUW Associate Dean)

There were 600 people keen to attend. The VUW staff also reached out to others with an interest in the area and had us do a two minute video segment with our views. It’s the sort of event that is so badly needed.

But it got cancelled, or at least postponed. Why? The Post reports:

Five academics and public figures were set to debate free speech on university campuses on Monday, but backlash within Victoria University has seen the event postponed.

More than 600 people had registered their interest in attending the event, a panel discussion about the role of universities in free speech.

But earlier this week the university postponed the event with a notice saying “the mere framing of this event has surfaced a depth of feeling and a polarisation of views on how we should proceed, that has made it challenging to even schedule a conversation about how to have challenging conversations”.

So what does that mean? We find out:

Student association president Marcail Parkinson said that context had not been clear and people “freaked out” when they saw the panel line up, which looked like a platform for “right wing voices”, with the involvement of Free Speech Union president Jonathan Ayling and the New Zealand Initiative’s Dr Michael Johnston.

She was glad to see the event was postponed and being reformatted. “That’s 100% the right thing to do in this scenario, when you make a mistake, to say actually we realise we made a mistake and we’re going to try and fix it.”

Student protests had been planned for Monday’s event, Parkinson said, and it remained to be seen whether they would go ahead for the reformatted event.

So the panel got cancelled because it had two speakers on there who might have right wing views (the same views the majority of the country voted for at the last election). Some (I bet very few) students were unhappy that two people whose views they disagree with would be allowed to be heard by 600 people who wanted to hear from them.

If ever one wanted proof of how free speech on campus is now a crisis, this is it. You can’t even have a panel discussion on the topic, unless it is exclusively made up of people with left wing views.

The forum is well intentioned, and I hope it still happens. But the cancellation or postponement has starkly shown more than ever that the status quo is unacceptable, and the Government does need to intervene to ensure universities live up to their statutory obligations around academic freedom and free speech.

The Post reports:

The full costs of a post-Let’s Get Wellington Moving capital are becoming clear with leaked details showing new bus stops costing more apiece than a house and a further $57 million for two new bus lanes.

This week Wellington City councillors were emailed a breakdown of transport projects going to the Government, via Waka Kotahi, to get funding under the National Land Transport Programme.

It comes after the new National-led Government pulled the pin on the $7.4 billion Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) transport overhaul for the capital. It was to be funded by Waka Kotahi, the Wellington City Council, and Greater Wellington Regional Council.

It shows the regional council is currently budgeting $12m for new bus shelters and information boards along the Golden Mile, from Courtenay Place to the railway station. The regional council has confirmed that money was for 10 new stops, eight of which had shelters, making for an average of $1.2m per stop.

Incredible. Ratepayers are being charged more to build a bus stop than most people pay for their homes. Are they making them from vibranium?

Andrew Neil is Chairman of The Spectator, former Editor of The Sunday Times and a former BBC presenter.

Dan Kois at Slate has written an excellent feature on the disappearance of Marokopa local Tom Phillips.

His take is very much the same as mine. As first a certain amount of admiration for someone who can keep three kids happy and well in the bush for three weeks, but dismay as he turned to crime and may get them killed.

I’ve followed the case from the beginning and there have been some good NZ stories on it, but it was interesting that it was a story on a US site that did such a great summary of the whole episode.

This is hilarious. It could almost be a Southpark episode.

Yes that is a lecturer promoting criminal attacks on the PMs office. Will there be any consequences for this? Of course not. It’s not as if he is defending science.

Emmy’s official academic profile states:

I am a critical Marxist scholar working in the activist-academic tradition. The goal of my work is to demonstrate how social problems originate in the structure of society itself, and to argue for organised class struggle as a means of changing that structure.

Sounds a very open minded person!

The Herald reports:

Wellington City Council has ended negotiations with Reading International over a controversial deal to reopen the closed cinema complex on Courtenay Place.

The council had planned to buy the land underneath the cinema for $32 million, money which the cinema would use to redevelop the building.

However, senior council staff now say they have not been able to reach the best possible outcomes for Wellingtonians and the decision was made this week not to pursue the proposal further.

What this means is that the details of the proposed deal were so bad and terrible for ratepayers, that the Council realised that the deal was unsellable.

It should have never got so far, no doubt wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in failed negotiations. But better late than never.

Newshub reports:

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has stood by increasing the public service workforce during his time in government, saying it’s been proportionate to the growth in population. 

The Coalition Government has directed the public services to cut costs by between 6.5 and 7.5 percent to help reduce annual public service spending by $1.5 billion. It’s resulted in thousands of jobs proposed to be axed across the sector. 

The National Party has said it is trying to restore “financial discipline” with its cuts to the public service because the number of staff has ballooned under the previous Labour Government.  

Since Labour came to power in 2017, the number of public servants has increased by roughly one-third, up just under 18,500 to a total of 65,699 full-time equivalent staff at the end of 2023. 

However, Hipkins said the increase in public sector jobs was in response to New Zealand’s rising population. According to Stats NZ, New Zealand’s population has increased from just over 4.76 million at the end of 2016 to 5.3 million at the end of 2023. 

That is a 33% increase in public service numbers compared to an 11% increase in population. So when Hipkins says the growth has been proportionate he is wrong, or you can use a term that rhymes with flying.

Hipkins said the increase in government spending over the last six years under Labour has been proportionate to the increase in population and increase in pressure the public services have been under. 

Government spending was $78 billion in 2017 and $140 billion in 2023. That is a massive 79% increase.

“The size of the public sector workforce relative to the overall size of the workforce is actually slightly less than it was when we first became the government,” he said. 

Again not true. The HLFS show the proportion of the workforce in public administration and safety went from 5.6% to 6.9% from 2017 to 2023. If he is talking about the entire public sector then he is not talking just public servants but also doctors, nurses, teachers etc. That is a red herring. Few if any say we don’t have enough of those.

“The country is not broke. We have actually got some of the lowest government debt levels in the OECD,” he told AM co-host Lloyd Burr.

Actually 15 OECD countries have lower gross debt. And for net debt, Michael Riddell shows us:

So we are not near the bottom at all.

He said New Zealand was in a “difficult part in the economic cycle” and now is not the time for tax cuts. 

A chocolate fish for a reader who can find anytime Chris Hipkins has said the time is right for tax cuts.

The Herald reports:

The End of Life Choice Act needs changes when it comes up for review later this year, say both the architect of New Zealand’s assisted dying laws and hospice leaders.

An area Seymour would like to see changed is the eligibility for assisted dying only being available to terminally ill adults with fewer than six months to live.

That compromise was made during the parliamentary process to appease the Green Party to ensure Seymour got the votes he needed to pass the bill.

Seymour believes the six-month timeframe should be scrapped because “it’s a shame that some of the people who suffer the worst are still unable to access the law”.

I agree. The Greens were worried about the disability community, but it means the law can’t be used by someone who had Huntington’s disease or Alzheimers. You can end up unable to move or speak. But because you can never be assessed as likely to die within six months, you can’t avoid a terrible fate. Extending the law would give those who suffer from Huntington’s disease the option of an assisted death. Many kill themselves anyway as their disease progresses.

Totara Hospice chief executive Tina McCafferty agreed and would “at best like to see that timeframe removed, or extended to 12 months”.

“That’s because prognosis is both an art and science, and you can’t always get that right,” she told RNZ.

The criteria I would support are either a terminal prognosis if within 12 months on an incurable degenerative disease.

Another area where there was consensus for review were the rules that stopped doctors from being able to discuss assisted dying with their patients – with patients needing to raise the medical intervention with their doctor.

Totara Hospice in Auckland is currently the only one in the country that offered the act of assisted dying on its premises.

McCafferty said the “gag clause” on doctors was “at odds with the actual responsibilities of healthcare professionals, where there’s an obligation to inform patients of all choices they can have in their care”.

She wanted that clause removed because “there’s a bias in that it leaves it up to articulate patients to raise their needs in that way”.

“Not everyone is articulate when it comes to health literacy, and I want to see that potential bias or inequity mitigated.”

Hospice NZ chief executive Wayne Naylor said the so-called gag clause was challenging “because you don’t want to put that idea into someone’s head if they haven’t thought of it, but we’re also thinking about a person’s right to have all the options laid out in front of them before they make a decision”.

The gag clause was put in as a caution against doctors trying to push patients towards an assisted death. But we trust doctors in all other areas to lay out the pros and cons of various options without bias, and they generally do that.

I recall an obstetrician telling me after a caesarian elective that she was so so pleased that decision was made, as it was so obviously the right one for the mother. But she never said this before the birth – she just gave options and pros and cons.

Naylor said hospices’ approach to assisted dying had evolved a lot, but warned against changes being made to the laws based on a small number of complaints.

“In the beginning it was very challenging and unclear to some extent how some hospices should respond. Certainly over the last three years there’s been a change.”

He said the majority of hospices now allowed assessment for eligibility of assisted dying to take place on site and support services were extended to families who had a loved one use assisted dying.

This is great news. The hospice swore vehemently against the law, and it is good to see that they have a more nuanced position now.

Napier’s Glenn Marshall wants to see assisted dying made available to those who make their wishes clear in an advanced directive before their illness means they lose the option altogether.

Absolutely. I would do an advanced directive.

Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017:

In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’.

In the five years prior to three strikes, 5517 people were convicted of an offence where that conviction would have been a ‘first strike’ had three strikes been in force at the time, and 103 were convicted of an offence that would have been a ‘second strike’.

In addition, no-one was convicted of a third strikes in three strikes’ first five years, while four people were convicted of what would have been third strikes in the preceding five years, and two of them also racked up what would have been fourth strikes.

So the number of second strikes fell from 103 to 68 and third strikes from six (or four) to zero.

You can argue about whether or not this was due to the three strikes law. Maybe it was chance. But it is solid evidence that there was less reoffending in the first five years of Three Strikes.

Now you might say, well what about since 2017. That is a good point. I’d love to see data comparing the number of recividist strike offences for the ten years after Three Strikes and the ten years before. The longer the time frame, the better the comparison.

But the Ministry of Justice has refused to release any further numbers. They have said it is too complex, even though they have done it before. My suspicion is they don’t want the data released, as it goes against their ideological beliefs.

A useful thing for the new Ministers would be to demand updated data to 2022, using the exact same criteria as Edgeler used. Then the debate over Three Strikes would be more informed, and people wouldn’t be able to say there is no evidence Three Strikes work. Because during the first five years of Three Strikes, second strikes were 34% lower than the previous five years.

Newshub reports:

He [Hipkins] said the government had only been in office for six months, and “the wheels are falling off already”.

This is beyond stupid. Hipkins claims taking two portfolios away from Ministers who were seen to be struggling is the wheels are falling off.

In the first few months of last year, we saw his Government have:

• The PM resign
• The Minister of Justice sacked/resigned after being charged with drink driving and not co-operating with Police after she crashed her car
• Stuart Nash sacked for leaking Cabinet discussions and multiple prior warnings
• Michael Wood sacked after being told 12 times to sell shares he had a ministerial conflict over
• A Minister defect to Te Pati Maori.
• Phil Twyford demoted
• Three Ministers dropped as they were retiring at the election

For Hipkins to talk about a wheels dropping off, is hilarious.

Opposition Leaders often fall into the trap of thinking they have to try and turn everything into a scandal, and make overly dramatise everything as the end of the world etc. This mainly works by turning the public off the Opposition Leader.

On Anzac Day I normally focus on the many New Zealanders who have died serving our country. I will be thinking of them today, but with significant conflicts overseas, I will also be thinking of:

• The 10,000+ civilians killed in Ukraine due to Putin’s invasion
• The 100,000+ Ukrainian soldiers killed due to Putin’s invasion
• The 180,000+ Russian soldiers killed due to Putin’s invasion
• The 764 civilians killed by Hamas on October 7
• The 373 Israeli soldiers killed by Hamas on October 7
• The 20,000+ Palestinian civilians killed by Israel in the war started by Hamas

These just seem like large impersonal numbers, but I reflect every death is a family that is mourning and has lost a loved one.

The Herald reports:

The High Court has ruled Children’s Minister Karen Chhour cannot be compelled to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal.

In a just-released decision, Justice Andru Isac granted the Crown’s application for judicial review, setting aside the summons issued by the tribunal.

This is a very good decision. The Waitangi Tribunal was basically making a power play that has failed.

An issue for the future is what to do with institutions that behave more like political activists than neutral bodies. The Human Rights Commission has many people wanting them to be scrapped as they often look like a hard left activist group.

I got to speak to a group of esteemed old boys from a NZ school today.

My starting point was a comment made by a Head of English at a boys school I was teaching at when she stated that the comparatively poor English results, compared to Science and Math were because; ” … they were boys”.

This was a part of my counter evidence:

Top 30 Books of BBC Readers

1. The LOTR, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, J Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Louisa de Bernieres
20.  War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28.  A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30.  Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

As job losses have occurred in the media sector, the media have done story after story about how devastating this change is for journalists and their families, and the need for empathy.

And then after Melissa Lee loses the broadcasting portfolio, the NZ Herald runs the following:

Calling it insensitive is putting it lightly. And people wonder why not everyone is upset with media job losses.

Max Salmon writes:

Last week the Commerce Commission announced its concern with a proposed merger between Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island. Their concern is a decrease in competition in the market.

It sounds crazy when you first hear it, but it’s even weirder when you see what the Commerce Commission is actually worried about.

At first glance it’s ludicrous. It isn’t like there are vast numbers of inter-island shoppers, ferrying and flying between north and south to secure precious grocery bargains from the New World on the other side of the Strait. Price differences between Tauranga’s PAK’n’SAVE and Dunedin’s New World won’t lead to many shopping trips.

It does indeed seem ludicrous. I won’t travel to another suburb for cheaper prices, let alone another island!

But that isn’t what the Commerce Commission is worried about. They worry instead that the combined entity will be too efficient. It will be able to purchase in bulk for both islands, passing some savings along to consumers, and making life harder for their suppliers.

So the Commerce Commission is worried about a merger than might result in lower prices for consumers!