The Herald reports:

Banks want government support for a national anti-scam centre – and say other industries and search engines should help out too.

The banking sector has been under fire for deficiencies in its payment system which overseas criminals have exploited to steal an estimated $200 million from Kiwi victims last year.

But today, the New Zealand Banking Association (NZBA) has asked the Government to consider leading scam prevention in New Zealand.

How about the banks fund a national anti-scam centre, rather than taxpayers?

Banks made a profit of $7.1 billion last year. I have no problems with that, but if they then ask taxpayers to fund something which clearly is in their interest, I respectfully suggest they stick aside 0.05% of their profits to fund it.

The Herald reports:

Killer Beez gang member Zane KJ Hepi was on electronically monitored bail and living at the Grace Foundation drug treatment facility in November 2022 when he covered his ankle monitor in foil and absconded, using the next hour of freedom to commit an aggravated robbery.

It wasn’t until months later that he briefly became the focus of nationwide attentionwhen he was the subject of a large-scale manhunt after escaping from a prison van on an Auckland motorway.

Hepi, 25, appeared in Auckland District Court for sentencing this week on the aggravated robbery charge. It was the latest chapter in a long history of offending and subsequent sentences, Judge Brooke Gibson pointed out.

The judge ordered a sentence of four years and eight months’ imprisonment, to begin only after Hepi finishes serving his current prison term, imposed in August for two burglaries and other charges, including the dramatic escape. …

He asked for an end sentence that wouldn’t be crushing for his client, leaving him without hope.

“Well, it’s pretty hard [to impose anything considered crushing] in the New Zealand sentencing regime,” the judge retorted.

This is correct. Recidivist prisoners just go in and out of jail for short periods of time generally.

The Taxpayers Union states:

The Taxpayers’ Union is New Zealand’s largest political pressure group on the centre-right. We advocate for Lower Taxes, Less Waste and More Accountability across central and local government.

Through our grassroots campaigns, hard-hitting research, and 24-hour communications operation, we persuade decision makers to deliver better public policy.

We are looking for two part-time student interns based in our Wellington office to support our campaigns team. The roles are extremely varied and can be tailored to suit the individuals. In any given day, you could be:

• Filing OIAs and LGOIMAs with government departments or councils to expose examples of wasteful spending;
• Drafting media releases for our public spokespersons on breaking news stories;
• Writing briefing papers or short reports on public policy issues;
• Helping create videos and other content for our social media platforms;
• Contribute pieces to New Zealand’s largest political newsletter;
• Participate in our voxpops or stunts with Porky the Waste Hater or the Debt Monster; or
• Staffing our stand at external events such as Fieldays and agricultural shows around the country.

We are also looking for one intern to lead on compiling our annual Ratepayers’ Report (www.ratepayersreport.nz) that allows ratepayers to compare their councils’ performance with others around the country.

We cover topics across all areas of the public service, so whatever your university subject, there will be something of interest.

No prior work experience is required. This is a place to learn and grow your understanding of politics. Our team will train you with everything you need to get started.

We understand that students have a hard time juggling their studies with work, so hours and days are highly flexible to fit with your timetable.

Previous Taxpayers’ Union interns have gone on to work in government departments – including Treasury, DPMC, and DOC – as well as in the Reserve Bank, the leader of the opposition’s office, private financial companies, consultancy organisations, law firms, and advising current ministers.

If you have a keen interest in politics and want to gain some valuable experience in the field, we would love to hear from you!

To apply, please send a copy of your CV along with a cover letter outlining what you could bring to the role and why you would like to work at the Taxpayers’ Union to Callum Purves, COO and Head of Campaigns at Callum@taxpayers.org.nz

The Herald reports:

The Government will boost Pharmac’s budget by more than $1.7 billion over the next four years, increasing the national drug purchasing entity’s overall budget to almost $6.3b.

This is a good example of what you can manage to fund, if you are saving money in other areas.

The full results are here.

Party Vote

• National 36% (-2% from last poll in Feb 2024)
• Labour 30% (+2%)
• ACT 7% (-1%)
• Greens 14% (+2%)
• Maori Party 3.7% (nc%)
• NZ First 4.2% (-1.8%)
• TOP 1.2% (-0.7%)

Seats

• Labour 40 (+6 from election)
• National 48 (nc)
• ACT 9 (-2)
• Greens 18 (+3)
• Maori 6 (nc)
• NZ First 0 (-8)

Government

• National/ACT 57/121
• Labour/Greens/maori 64/121

Preferred PM (unprompted)

• Chris Hipkins 16% (+1%)
• Christopher Luxon 23% (-2%)
• David Seymour 5% (+1%)
• Chloe Swarbrick 6% (+2%)
• winston peters 4% (-2%)

David Seymour announced:

The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says.

The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, and stopping the introduction of new person responsible requirements that were taking effect in August of this year.

“Providers and parents are best placed to decide where early learning services should be established. Where there’s demand from parents providers will follow,” says Mr Seymour. 

“Current network approval provisions introduced by Labour give government the right to decide where services should be. They also make setting up new services complex and inhibit competition.

Labour seem to detest the early childhood sector because unlike the school sector, parents get lots of choice as to both the location and type of school they send their kids to.

When we were looking for an ECE for Ben, we researched 10 local centres. There is no zoning, so as parents you weigh up for yourself the attributes important to you. We visited four centres and then settled on a preferred one, which we waitlisted for before Ben was even born.

Labour wanted the Ministry of Education to decide if new centres would be allowed to be established and where. Basically they were seeking to turn a sector with choice and competition into a replica of the school sector.

Another reason to be happy for the change of Government.

The Judge’s ruling in the Lehrmann case in Australia seems to have got things just right. To a degree few come out of it with credit. Major findings were:

• To remark that Mr Lehrmann was a poor witness is an exercise in understatement. As I will explain, his attachment to the truth was a tenuous one. I would not accept anything he said except where it amounted to an admission, accorded with the inherent probabilities, or was corroborated by a contemporaneous document or a witness whose evidence I accept.
• Ms Brittany Higgins, Mr Lehrmann’s accuser, was also an unsatisfactory witness who made some allegations thatmade her a heroine to one group of partisans, but when examined forensically, have undermined her general credibility to a disinterested fact-finder.
• But what does not reflect caution was standing up to her Minister and the Chief of Staff of another Minister when Ms Brown thought they were intent on protecting their own interests at the expense of allowing a young woman to make her own decision as to whether she would involve the police – even at some risk to her professional career. This showed integrity in resisting pressure she subjectively considered inappropriate and evinced a concern for the autonomy and welfare of Ms Higgins. In these circumstances, to be later vilified as an unfeeling apparatchik willing to throw up roadblocks in covering up criminal conduct at the behest of one’spolitical overlords must be worse than galling.

Basically Lehrmann lied about not having sex with Higgins. Higgins lied about Government Ministers covering it up. She was the victim of sex she was too drunk to consent too. However she tried to make it about a Government coverup, when the reality was that in fact Ministers wanted to refer it to the Police, but were stopped by doing so because of concern it would take the decision away from Higgins.

Wilkinson and Channel 10 were not found liable for defaming Lehrmann, but their conduct was seriously criticised by the Judge also.

Lehrmann comes out of this very badly. His claim that when they went back to Parliament at 3 am, it was just to work was risible. The judge commented:

Put bluntly, he was a 23-year-old male cheating on his girlfriend, having just “hooked up” with a woman he found sexually attractive. Human experience suggests what he then wanted to happen is not exactly shrouded in mystery. … commonsense suggests that it is obvious there was one dominant thought running through the mind of Mr Lehrmann as he was approaching Parliament House, and it was nothing to do with French submarine contracts.

If he had not denied that they had sex, then the issue of consent would have come more into play. But by lying so blatantly about the sex, he could hardly then argue that if it did happen, it was consensual.

The Judge commented:

“Having escaped the lions’ den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of going back for his hat.”

Lehrmann escaped a criminal conviction due to juror misconduct. To initiate defamation proceedings when he knew he was laying about the sex was indeed a very bad mistake.

Radio NZ reports:

“What I found most interesting as a minister [2017-2020] is sometimes I would sign off answers that would be information that I was really interested in, and it was easier to get that information from an opposition member submitting a written question than for me directly asking staff the question.

That’s Julie Anne Genter saying that opposition MPs were better able to get information from her department, than she was able to as their Minister!

Astounding!

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.