In what’s been described as a win for common sense, and after an exhaustive 18-month process, the building regulator has determined that water tanks are “unlikely” to be a fire risk.
MBIE concluded:
“[It is] very unlikely a fire could occur in the tank given that the plastic tank would contain water and air”
As parents, teachers and community leaders shivered together on that wintry morning, the project was already in trouble: costs had blown out from an estimated $63m to a staggering $405m.
$400 million to move two schools is just crazy. That is almost a cost of $200,000 per student!
By December, Hipkins had made up his mind: Bohally would be demolished and the two new campuses established there. The intermediate would move across town and be rebuilt on the old Marlborough Boys’ College site with space for up to 720 pupils.
Design work was set to start in the new year. But there was no mention of a revised budget in the official announcement. Officials, and Hipkins, already knew the cost had reached $170m, but that wasn’t made public.
So already blown out by over 150% and public not told.
Two years later and the costs kept going up, so officials brought in consultants Deloitte who reviewed the business case, and delivered more bad news: the bill was now $250m. Deloitte’s bill for that work was $356,763.
Still, the project rolled on. Officials needed a cash injection to pay for the design work and so in December 2020 advised Hipkins of the blow-out.
This time, the rest of the Cabinet was not officially advised, although Robertson was given “an A3”.
The cost has increased 300% and Hipkins didn’t tell Cabinet!
“We went through a process of a lot of consultation with the ministry and the other schools on the design … and the design concept was very good. There was just no talk about budgets at that time,” Tim Burfoot, chair of Marlborough Boys’ board of trustees said.
Of course not. It’s wasn’;’t their money, it was ours.
Rick Herd stepped down after 10 years as chief executive of Naylor Love in March.
“There seemed to be no accountability for managing the budget,” he said. “When prices went up, no-one said: ‘How can we bring this back down?’
“It snowballed. We were always asking ourselves when someone would come in and take control of the budget.”
The design was “ambitious and reflected aspirations of the community”, the ministry’s head of property infrastructure and digital Sam Fowler acknowledged.
As opposed to the aspirations of taxpayers!
“Given the scale of the cost escalation, it is appropriate to test the Minister and the Government appetite for the current approach at this price… we need direction,” officials wrote. It presented a range of options, ranging from proceeding with the $400m+ build, scaling the project back, or abandoning the relocation in favour of upgrading the existing buildings, at a cost of $200m.
Hipkins didn’t bring the options to Cabinet. He directed the ministry to proceed “under the current investment approach”, which meant getting smaller amounts approved each year through the Budget process.
So Hipkins told them to just for a bit more money each time, so Cabinet wouldn’t realise the costs had blown out 500%!
With the 2023 Budget fast approaching, Hipkins could have taken the opportunity to take the entire project and its over-run to Cabinet. He opted not to, and directed officials to continue with the approach of making Budget bids for incremental amounts.
I’d be annoyed if I was in that Cabinet!
“This was the perfect example of a project which could have been done through fantastic, repeatable designs, on a budget. And they chose not to do that. It was all architects and fancy designs and a bespoke building.”
A gold plated building charged to taxpayers than than a modest but effective one.
As the HRC “invests approximately $120 million per year on behalf of government”, what independent analysis, if any, has the HRC undertaken to ensure the almost three-quarters of a billion dollars invested since 2018 has benefitted New Zealanders and their health.
Seems a reasonable question. You spend $360 million every three years on health research, so can you pint to the benefits of it for NZers health.
HRC undertakes a rigorous assessment process where each application is assessed by science experts before any grant is recommended for funding and any investment is made. Any independent analysis to determine the benefit of investment in health research would need to be undertaken by an agency other than the HRC.
So the answer seems to be there is no independent analysis of health benefits from the research.
I’d like to see much more health research focused on areas such as communicable diseases (ie the next pandemic) and less on spending millions to discover that if your kids go to the supermarket with you, they see lots of advertisements!
A good approach for the Government would be to mandate much more of a focus on actual outcomes. For example does a sugar tax actually led to decreases in obesity as opposed to just decreases in that food or drinks that is taxed.
55% of 1st strikers were sentenced to less than 2 years imprisonment (or no imprisonment)
20% of 1st strikers were sentenced to 2 – 3 years imprisonment
25% of 1st strikers were sentenced to more than 3 years imprisonment
2nd strikers
31% of 2nd strikers were sentenced to less than 2 years imprisonment (or no imprisonment)
22% of 2nd strikers were sentenced to 2 – 3 years imprisonment
47% of 2nd strikers were sentenced to more than 3 years imprisonment
This data comes from someone who has OIAd this data.
The Government’s proposed new law will see 55% of violent or sexual offenders not get a first strike and 31% of what would have been second strikers not get a second strike.
Arguably it could even see 75% of first strikers and 53% of second strikers avoid strikes as Judges who give a sentence of just over two years would probably reduce it to avoid having to give a strike.
The proposed new law is not adequate. We need to demand a stronger law, not a symbolic law.
As is usual on Kiwiblog (and other NZ sites) there are habitual ‘Trolls.‘ Unfortunately any pro-Israel statements, and even my blog series on archaeology in Israel, attracted anti-semitic comment and statements (haters are everywhere).
However, on Blog #7 of that illustrated series, “Tranquil” published this very well-researched and definiative comment by Lawrence Auster, which is worth reposting here for those interested…
Obviously founder of Kiwiblog DPF has in more recent years researched and celebrated his own Jewish heritage. John Key’s mother was Jewish, which makes him Jewish by most definitions.
This article may help to shed some light on the Palestinian claim conundrum.
Quote – “There is a myth hanging over all discussion of the Palestinian problem: the myth that this land was “Arab” land taken from its native inhabitants by invading Jews. Whatever may be the correct solution to the problems of the Middle East, let’s get a few things straight:
§ As a strictly legal matter, the Jews didn’t take Palestine from the Arabs; they took it from the British, who exercised sovereign authority in Palestine under a League of Nations mandate for thirty years prior to Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948. And the British don’t want it back.
§ If you consider the British illegitimate usurpers, fine. In that case, this territory is not Arab land but Turkish land, a province of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years until the British wrested it from them during the Great War in 1917. And the Turks don’t want it back.
§ If you look back earlier in history than the Ottoman Turks, who took over Palestine over in 1517, you find it under the sovereignty of the yet another empire not indigenous to Palestine: the Mamluks, who were Turkish and Circassian slave-soldiers headquartered in Egypt. And the Mamluks don’t even exist any more, so they can’t want it back.
So, going back 800 years, there’s no particularly clear chain of title that makes Israel’s title to the land inferior to that of any of the previous owners. Who were, continuing backward:
§ The Mamluks, already mentioned, who in 1250 took Palestine over from:
§ The Ayyubi dynasty, the descendants of Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim leader who in 1187 took Jerusalem and most of Palestine from:
§ The European Christian Crusaders, who in 1099 conquered Palestine from:
§ The Seljuk Turks, who ruled Palestine in the name of:
§ The Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, which in 750 took over the sovereignty of the entire Near East from:
§ The Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, which in 661 inherited control of the Islamic lands from
§ The Arabs of Arabia, who in the first flush of Islamic expansion conquered Palestine in 638 from:
§ The Byzantines, who (nice people—perhaps it should go to them?) didn’t conquer the Levant, but, upon the division of the Roman Empire in 395, inherited Palestine from:
§ The Romans, who in 63 B.C. took it over from:
§ The last Jewish kingdom, which during the Maccabean rebellion from 168 to 140 B.C. won control of the land from:
§ The Hellenistic Greeks, who under Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. conquered the Near East from:
§ The Persian empire, which under Cyrus the Great in 639 B.C. freed Jerusalem and Judah from:
§ The Babylonian empire, which under Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. took Jerusalem and Judah from:
§ The Jews, meaning the people of the Kingdom of Judah, who, in their earlier incarnation as the Israelites, seized the land in the 12th and 13th centuries B.C. from:
§ The Canaanites, who had inhabited the land for thousands of years before they were dispossessed by the Israelites.
As the foregoing suggests, any Arab claim to sovereignty based on inherited historical control will not stand up. Arabs are not native to Palestine, but are native to Arabia, which is called Arab-ia for the breathtakingly simple reason that it is the historic home of the Arabs. The terroritories comprising all other “Arab” states outside the Arabian peninsula—including Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, as well as the entity now formally under the Palestinian Authority—were originally non-Arab nations that were conquered by the Muslim Arabs when they spread out from the Arabian peninsula in the first great wave of jihad in the 7th century, defeating, mass-murdering, enslaving, dispossessing, converting, or reducing to the lowly status of dhimmitude millions of Christians and Jews and destroying their ancient and flourishing civilizations. Prior to being Christian, of course, these lands had even more ancient histories. Pharaonic Egypt, for example, was not an Arab country through its 3,000 year history.
The recent assertion by the Palestinian Arabs that they are descended from the ancient Canaanites whom the ancient Hebrews displaced is absurd in light of the archeological evidence. There is no record of the Canaanites surviving their destruction in ancient times. History records literally hundreds of ancient peoples that no longer exist. The Arab claim to be descended from Canaanites is an invention that came after the 1964 founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the same crew who today deny that there was ever a Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Prior to 1964 there was no “Palestinian” people and no “Palestinian” claim to Palestine; the Arab nations who sought to overrun and destroy Israel in 1948 planned to divide up the territory amongst themselves. Let us also remember that prior to the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the name “Palestinian” referred to the Jews of Palestine.
In any case, today’s “Palestine,” meaning the West Bank and Gaza, is, like most of the world, inhabited by people who are not descendants of the first human society to inhabit that territory. This is true not only of recently settled countries like the United States and Argentina, where European settlers took the land from the indigenous inhabitants several hundred years ago, but also of ancient nations like Japan, whose current Mongoloid inhabitants displaced a primitive people, the Ainu, aeons ago. Major “native” tribes of South Africa, like the Zulu, are actually invaders from the north who arrived in the 17th century. India’s caste system reflects waves of fair-skinned Aryan invaders who arrived in that country in the second millennium B.C. One could go on and on.
The only nations that have perfect continuity between their earliest known human inhabitants and their populations of the present day are Iceland, parts of China, and a few Pacific islands. The Chinese case is complicated by the fact that the great antiquity of Chinese civilization has largely erased the traces of whatever societies preceded it, making it difficult to reconstruct to what extent the expanding proto-Chinese displaced (or absorbed) the prehistoric peoples of that region. History is very sketchy in regard to the genealogies of ancient peoples. The upshot is that “aboriginalism”—the proposition that the closest descendants of the original inhabitants of a territory are the rightful owners—is not tenable in the real world. It is not clear that it would be a desirable idea even if it were tenable. Would human civilization really be better off if there had been no China, no Japan, no Greece, no Rome, no France, no England, no Ireland, no United States? Back to the Arabs
I have no problem recognizing the legitimacy of the Arabs’ tenure in Palestine when they had it, from 638 to 1099, a period of 461 years out of a history lasting 5,000 years. They took Palestine by military conquest, and they lost it by conquest, to the Christian Crusaders in 1099. Of course, military occupation by itself does not determine which party rightly has sovereignty in a given territory. Can it not be said that the Arabs have sovereign rights, if not to all of Israel, then at least to the West Bank, by virtue of their majority residency in that region from the early Middle Ages to the present?
To answer that question, let’s look again at the historical record. Prior to 1947, as we’ve discussed, Palestine was administered by the British under the Palestine Mandate, the ultimate purpose of which, according to the Balfour Declaration, was the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. In 1924 the British divided the Palestine Mandate into an Arabs-only territory east of the Jordan, which became the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan, and a greatly reduced Palestine Mandate territory west of the Jordan, which was inhabited by both Arabs and Jews.
Given the fact that the Jews and Arabs were unable to coexist in one state, there had to be two states. At the same time, there were no natural borders separating the two peoples, in the way that, for example, the Brenner Pass has historically marked the division between Latin and Germanic Europe. Since the Jewish population was concentrated near the coast, the Jewish state had to start at the coast and go some distance inland. Exactly where it should have stopped, and where the Arab state should have begun, was a practical question that could have been settled in any number of peaceful ways, almost all of which the Jews would have accepted. The Jews’ willingness to compromise on territory was demonstrated not only by their acquiescence in the UN’s 1947 partition plan, which gave them a state with squiggly, indefensible borders, but even by their earlier acceptance of the 1937 Peel Commission partition plan, which gave them nothing more than a part of the Galilee and a tiny strip along the coast. Yet the Arab nations, refusing to accept any Jewish sovereignty in Palestine even if it was the size of a postage stamp, unanimously rejected the 1937 Peel plan, and nine years later they violently rejected the UN’s partition plan as well.
When the Arabs resorted to arms in order to wipe out the Jews and destroy the Jewish state, they accepted the verdict of arms. They lost that verdict in 1948, and they lost it again in 1967, when Jordan, which had annexed the West Bank in 1948 (without any objections from Palestinian Arabs that their sovereign nationhood was being violated), attacked Israel from the West Bank during the Six Day War despite Israel’s urgent pleas that it stay out of the conflict. Israel in self-defense then captured the West Bank. The Arabs thus have no grounds to complain either about Israel’s existence (achieved in ’48) or about its expanded sovereignty from the river to the sea (achieved in ’67).
The Arabs have roiled the world for decades with their furious protest that their land has been “stolen” from them. One might take seriously such a statement if it came from a pacifist people such as the Tibetans, who had quietly inhabited their land for ages before it was seized by the Communist Chinese in 1950. The claim is laughable coming from the Arabs, who in the early Middle Ages conquered and reduced to slavery and penury ancient peoples and civilizations stretching from the borders of Persia to the Atlantic; who in 1947 rejected an Arab state in Palestine alongside a Jewish state and sought to obliterate the nascent Jewish state; who never called for a distinct Palestinian Arab state until the creation of the terrorist PLO in 1964—sixteen years after the founding of the state of Israel; and who to this moment continue to seek Israel’s destruction, an object that would be enormously advanced by the creation of the Arab state they demand. The Arab claim to sovereign rights west of the Jordan is only humored today because of a fatal combination of world need for Arab oil, leftist Political Correctness that has cast the Israelis as “oppressors,” and, of course, good old Jew-hatred.”
Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter.
Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time she has intimidated someone.
Flying off the handle, Genter was breaking all the rules of reason and Parliament when she got out of her seat – standing over Minister Matt Doocey screaming at him.
“What’s wrong with you,” Genter said.
The MPs were stunned as the chair tried to bring back order in the House.
I can’t ever recall anything even close to this – having an MP cross the floor to yell and berate an MP opposite. Imagine if this was reversed and when Genter was a Minister, Chris Bishop had stormed over to her, and yelled at her. He’d probably be gone burger (not that he would).
When asked whether Genter was fit to be an MP, Swarbrick said: “Look again this is a one-off instance of unacceptable behaviour.”
But a Wellington florist says it’s not a one-off.
“This is how she conducts herself, she is a bully,” florist Laura Newcombe told Newshub.
Newcombe has had Four Seasons Florist for 30 years. Recently a cycleway’s been installed – removing car parks outside her shop.
“My income has been easily halved,” she said.
Last week, Genter stopped by and Newcombe said the pair got into a heated exchange about Genter’s advocacy for the cycleways.
“She was very intimidating. She pulled out her phone, she put the phone camera right in my face and I was like ‘Okay, you need to leave now’ and then she started yelling and screaming over me that I didn’t care about her kids cycling,” Newcombe said.
Newshub asked Green co-leader Marama Davidson about the florist’s encounter to which she replied: “I understand that Julie Anne did pull a phone out and video the florist – that is completely unacceptable.”
There’s also now stories coming out about staff who feel they have been bullied.
The Green co-leaders were unable or refusing to say today whether they had ever witnessed Genter losing her temper – read into that what you will.
This is a nightmare situation for the Greens. From what I understand the co-leaders are angry they’re now dealing with two matters of disciplinary action for MPs – the internal investigation into Darleen Tana over whether she had any involvement in migrant exploitation is still ongoing.
And now a member of their caucus was accused of intimidation on two separate occasions – one involving a member of the public.
It’s worse than that for the Greens.
They have had:
Elizabeth Kerekere resign over bullying allegations
Julie-Anne Genter: Bullying allegations and privilege complaint
Golriz Ghahraman: resigned over shoplifting
Darleen Tana: Allegations of illegal labour practices
A couple days ago I pointed to NZIER’s figures on the case for strengthening the Christchurch cathedral.
I think it’s better to view this whole exercise as making clear what we’d need to believe if we wanted to believe that the regulatory apparatus surrounding the cathedral since 2011 is other than massively value destroying.
Recall that the Bishop wanted to demolish the cathedral and build a facility more in tune with current needs. Reinstating would be too expensive, and the final building not suitable for modern purpose.
A bunch of people who figured they knew better than the then-Bishop what to do with the Anglican Church’s property decided that they would interfere. The Wizard. The Heritage People. All the stickybeaks who love to block anyone ever doing anything, but who won’t stump the cash to give effect to their preferred views on things.
If you are happy to believe this set of things, then The Wizard and his cohort were right all along. If you don’t believe these things, then the case for blocking the Bishop from running a bulldozer through the thing over a decade ago destroyed enormous value.
The NZIER research was excellent in spelling out the assumptions you needed to make, to justify taxpayer cash for the Cathedral.
Revenue from climbing the tower will be 5-15 times higher than before the earthquake
Revenue from the gift shop and cafe will be 1-3 times higher than before the earthquake
A half a million people per year each get $5 to $10 in enjoyment benefits from having a look inside
Visiting the museum gives each of 114k to 159k people per year $10 to $20 in enjoyment benefits and there is no practicable way of charging for entry to either of those
Regular churchgoers get $5-$10 in benefits from attending mass; special services provide $10-$20 in value
Each of the 398k – 467k people in Christchurch get $2 to $20 in benefits from knowing the cathedral has been rebuilt and that they have the option to go and see it sometime. And $1 to $5 for each of the 4.8-5.3 million non-Christchurch New Zealanders
Each international tourist will spend between 0.1 and 0.5 extra nights in Christchurch because the Cathedral has been restored; at least half of this will be a shift from other NZ destinations, 0-50% of the extra nights will be net increases in total time spent in New Zealand.
Winston Peters in Radio NZ referred to former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr (who is an opponent of AUKUS) as being very close to China (but more bluntly and significantly).
Bob Carr has threatened defamation and this has led to Hysterical Hipkins to demand Winston Peters be sacked.
he institutional origins of Carr’s China-whatever approach can be found in the history of ACRI. In 2014 a prominent Chinese businessman in Sydney made a significant donation to UTS to establish a new China institute. The same donor subsequently boasted in public that he personally selected Carrto run the operation. Carr emerged as Australia’s most prominent and vocal public advocate for Xi Jinping’s China.
Who is paying for the transmission of “China’s voice” in Australia? Is it UTS, the All-China Journalist Association, Xinhua or even the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party? Because ACRI hasn’t disclosed any of its finances, we don’t know who is paying for the trips it organises.
I would be very very surprised of Carr actually sues, and Hipkins looks very foolish for backing Carr against NZ’s Foreign Minister.
In the wake of shock and horror over an IPSOS survey that suggested nearly two thirds of New Zealanders think the economy is “rigged to advantage the rich and powerful” and want “a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”, it was refreshing to see Prof Jack Vowles write: “A certain degree of dissatisfaction with politics is endemic in a democracy, and in moderation it is a good thing. We should value a critical public that is demanding more from those who govern it.” (My italics.)
Scepticism and distrust are healthy for democracies – although there’s no trustometer with a “moderate” setting. One person’s “moderate” dissent might look irresponsible to another – as we saw in debates about the schools climate strike. But if, like 65% in that survey, you agree that New Zealand’s economy is “rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”, then you’re definitely on to something.
As for demanding more from those who govern, do people demand too much?
60% somewhat or strongly disagreed with the proposition that “the government should increase taxes to pay for any additional public spending”. Fair enough. Times are hard and we’ve been promised tax cuts.
And big majorities also said that the government should increase spending in healthcare (83%), public safety (74%), education (71%), and reducing poverty and inequality (65%). Fair enough. Police officers, nurses and teachers deserve better pay.
But can we have it both ways? To get more spent on public services, the money has to come from somewhere. It’s called tax.
You can have it both ways. It is called a growing economy. If you have strong economic growth then you can afford to increase spending in real terms in key areas, and give tax relief.
TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report.
TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman’s reporting of the poll results – all three parties that make up the coalition Government have lost support – was described by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon earlier today as “a little frothy and sensationalist”.
Among various adjectives, metaphors and analysis, Sherman variously described a “nightmare” poll for the coalition that would “absolutely rock the entire Parliament”. …
Former Labour MP Stuart Nash told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allantoday: “I thought the TV One reporting on it was absolutely shocking, if I’m honest with you.
“I thought the tone that they portrayed was the sort of tone you do three weeks out from an election, not two and a half years,” Nash said.
It was more the sort of hype you would expect from Newshub that has a reputation for always being rather over the top, and did seem out of place on TVNZ which has tended to be more sober.
But was this a one off, or is there a pattern with how they are reporting polls. Take this one on the Fast Track Bill:
#POLL: Just 40% of people support the Government's Fast-track Approvals Bill, while 60% don't, didn't know, or didn't want to say – according to a new 1News Verian poll 👇 https://t.co/WIQKWc9rOy
The actual result is 40% in favour and 41% against. To add together those against, those unsure and those who didn’t answer as 60% not in support is very misleading.
So in this case you actually have 52% who say the public sector cuts they support (agree or are too little) and only 35% say they are too much. That is actually a 17% difference but once again TVNZ adds in the 13% unsures to the anti Government option.
So in all three reports, TVNZ has added ensures and refused to say, to try and make it look like there is greater opposition to the Government than there is.
One poor framing could be bad luck. To do it three times, is a very very bad look.
“An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won’t see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.”
An IPSOS survey in 2023 asked: “How much do you agree or disagree with the following? With parental consent, transgender teenagers should be allowed to receive gender-affirming care (e.g., counseling and hormone replacement treatment).”
59% of New Zealanders strongly or somewhat agreed with that. 26% disagreed and 15% weren’t sure.
This survey was cited in a trans-friendly news item in The Post.
Around the same time, a Curia survey asked: “Some people have proposed banning puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and physical sex-change surgeries for children under the age of 18 who identify as transgender. Would you support or oppose this kind of ban?”
54% supported this proposed ban. 27% were opposed and 19% unsure.
This survey was cited – and commissioned – by the conservative Family First NZ.
Majorities supported two apparently contradictory statements.
Well, not exactly. The two propositions put to the public are differently worded and don’t directly contradict one another in all respects.
The IPSOS survey asks about “gender-affirming care” including counselling and one of a number of possible medical interventions. It makes the significant qualification of parental consent, but doesn’t mention medical judgement or scientific evidence.
The Curia item asks about a “ban” (for under-18s) on three kinds of medical intervention, and doesn’t mention any psychological interventions such as counselling. “Banned”, however, is clearly the opposite of “allowed”.
It looks as if one survey shows majority support for allowing hormone replacement treatment for under-18s with parental consent, while the other shows majority support for banning it outright regardless of parental consent or medical opinion. That implies, in theory, that some people (maybe around 13% or more) are able to express contradictory opinions on this topic, depending on who’s asking and how they ask. And up to 19% of people may be unsure either way.
The problem’s in the survey design. The IPSOS question uses “soft” terms such as care, affirming, counselling and consent. The Curia question uses “hard” medical terminology, such as blockers, hormones and surgery. The language used gives differing impressions.
Different language can and will get different results. This is why it is critical to always report the exact question asked. It is not that any set of questions is biased, just that they can reflect different things.
The Ipsos survey mentions parental consent. The Curia one does not. I don’t know if parental consent would be needed for such treatment, but it is far to say assuming that would impact the result.
Likewise as Grant Duncan points out, soft vs hard terms can affect the result. Generally I prefer specifics.
And then there’s “priming”: our response to one thing will be affected by how we responded to others, especially when closely connected in time.
The question that appeared to precede the one mentioned above in the IPSOS survey was: “How much do you agree or disagree with the following? Transgender people should be protected from discrimination in employment, housing, and access to businesses such as restaurants and stores”. 84% of New Zealanders agreed with that one.
The preceding question in the Curia survey was: “Do you believe that primary age children should be taught that they can choose their ‘gender’ and that it can be changed through hormone treatment and surgery if they want it to be?” And 76% said “no” to that.
The IPSOS survey led with a question about rights (to be free from discrimination) that all respondents hold, and this set a more positive frame for the next question.
The Curia survey, in contrast, had primed respondents with a question that evoked protection of “primary age children” from premature exposure to delicate and complex issues including sex-change surgery. It was more likely to put the respondent (especially if they’re a parent) in a frame of mind to disapprove of medical intervention in the next item.
There’s no perfect survey that’s devoid of priming effects. Indeed, this very subject-matter may be too complex and highly charged to be fit for simple survey questions on a five-point scale.
I would not use the term priming, as that suggests you ask a question purely to influence later questions. I won’t do that. In fact ethically you need to publish all questions that could significantly influence the response to a later question.
The issue for pollsters is clients often want to poll on half a dozen different questions on an issue. You can’t do them in six different polls, so you have to ask them in one poll. This is not to prime people, but to find out where support lies for various propositions.
Pollsters do look at question order when questions can influence each other. If there is one question that is obviously most important, then try to ask that first. But sometimes all questions are equally important.
Again it is important that reports include all relevant questions asked in order, so people can judge if there is any influence.
Dr Cass recommends, for example, “extreme caution” and “a clear clinical rationale” if considering “masculinising/feminising hormones” from 16 to 18. So it could be provided as part of a research programme under multi-disciplinary medical and psychological supervision. Her review concludes with neither “ban” nor “allow”. It’s not that simple.
My personal view is the same. I do support under 18s being able to access some clinical treatments, but that the younger one is, the more cautious you should be, and the more serious the intervention, the more cautious you should be. So sex change surgery on a 14 year old is a no, but hormone treatment on a 17 year old could be a yes.
Polling can’t get into these complexities generally. What they can do is give an indication of where opinion is on high level issues. If you want more detailed consideration, then focus groups can be useful.
And you mentioned that Governor Shapiro was able to relax and pause a bunch of rules. What he was able to do was declare a state of emergency. There had been a tanker with more than 8,000 gallons of fuel. It overturned. It set on fire. And then the bridge above it collapsed.
And in declaring that state of emergency, the normal procurement rules, the normal contracting rules, the normal going out for comment rules, the normal ways you might sue or have to do environmental review, all of that got swept away. So Mike Carroll told me that he got the call that this had happened. He makes his way to the bridge as fast as he can.
And not far from him are two contractors who are already doing work in that area. And basically, by the day’s end, he has chosen these two contractors to manage the demolition and the rebuild. And he could only do that because all of this got waived.
I said, how long would that have normally taken you? And he said to me that the normal way — and here, I’m quoting him — so in a traditional delivery of a project, it would be months. We’d hire a consultant to design it. We’d need final design approved by the Federal Highway Administration. Then there would be bidding from interested contractors. Then we’d process the bids. Then we’d issue a contract.
So that would be 12 to 24 months. And he said, that is probably an underestimate because you’d have to do a bunch of things before you got to that point in the process to even get the process off of the ground. It’s not like they threw everything out the door. They used union labor to rebuild this. They had union labor going 24 hours a day, which would not normally be allowed. But again, under the emergency rules, it was allowed.
So normally it would take two years just to issue a contract, and here the bridge got fixed in 12 days!
FENZ is as you say Management and commanders, regional commanders – and their deputies
Front line staff. 80% of front line firefighters are volunteers. They do not receive any form of renumeration
So there are paid front line and volunteer front line
Most paid front line are rostered to work 2 day shifts then 2 night shifts then 4 days off. There are 4 “watches” with a colour code. There is a 5th colour code who I think work daytime only
Most nights, most of those paid staff get a full nights sleep. Bedrooms are provided
In most “Regions” other than a rare major event, the hours of actual work is a very small part of the rostered work shifts. Central city stations (Auckland Wellington CHCH) have more demand on their time but the placed like Masterton, Lower Hutt, Kapiti, Hastings etc have little time actually engaged in fire related activities – and that includes non firefighting activities
So if I read this correctly, over eight days a paid firefighter will only work two day shifts???
The Remuneration Authority will soon decide what pay rise MPs get. This used to be an annual exercise. I lobbied for years that they should avoid the pressure of annual pay rises, and just have their pay set for each term of Parliament.
They have partly moved towards that. There is only one determination for the term, but it occurs after the election, not before – which I prefer. My preferred model would be the salaries are deterred three months prior to an election, so anyone elected knows in advance what the salary will be, and it won’t increase during the term.
The increase may be quite large as they salaries have been frozen since 2017 for various reasons. The problem is a large increase will look bad at a time when the Government is urging fiscal restraint elsewhere.
So I have another solution to the problem.
I have also long advocated that the minimum wage should be linked to the median wage. This would mean that the way to increase the minimum wage is to have a growing economy where the median wage is growing also.
Well the same could go for MPs. The higher the median wage of the economy, the higher an MPs salary is.
The median FT salary is currently just under $65,000.
MPs salaries are:
MPs $164,000
Select Cmte Chairs $180,000
Minister outside Cabinet $250,000
Cabinet Minister $296,000
Deputy PM $335,000
PM $470,000
This would give ratios of:
MPs 2.5 times median wage
Select Cmte Chairs 2.75x
Minister outside Cabinet 3.85x
Cabinet Minister 4.5x
Deputy PM 5.2x
PM 7.25x
No more of having the routine of people complaining if the increase is too high, if it is the exact same ratio as the median wage.
UPDATE: The Authority has made its determination, which is a modest 2.8% increase for most roles compared to 2020. They have also done determinations through to 2026, by which stage the increase is 11% over 2020. That is still pretty modest.
However the full remuneration packages are still considerable. This is what they now are:
That’s why I’m writing to tell you the story of a case we’ve just taken on, standing with a man called Paul Burns who I’m defending in court on behalf of the Free Speech Union.
You may ask why he is before the Court. Good question.
Well, (brace yourself, now) according to the police, Paul engaged in a debate in a public place. For that, the police arrested him and charged him with a crime of speaking with “an intent to offend”!
If he is convicted he will be fined $1,000 and acquire a criminal record.
Paul Burns has a strong view on abortion – one that, personally, I don’t share. But far be it for me to let that get in the way of us defending his speech rights.
Paul feels so strongly about abortion that he wants debate it in public, and he puts his own money on the line to do so.
Taping $100 worth of cash to a sign, he offers this money to anyone who ‘proves that slavery is more evil than abortion.’ He stands on the street in Wellington with his sign and debates his opinion with anyone who chooses to stop and engage with him. He is forceful but polite and respectful, and only locks horns with people who are interested.
Several weeks ago, he was speaking with a group of young people, when one of them claimed that abortion is not only not evil, it is a good thing, because there are too many people in the world.
Because of climate change, depopulation is needed, so fewer births are good. To this, Paul asked him, according to that logic, why don’t you kill yourself? That is it. That is what he said.
It’s a provocative question, for sure, but one that follows in the context of the discussion. If the world is overpopulated, how do you justify your existence?
Apparently the police have not heard of irony. It is a standard debating tactic to turn a person’s own logic against them to try and show what is wrong with it. It is not meant to be taken literally.
Paul was not telling people to kill themselves. He was arguing exactly the opposite: killing is wrong. A child of ten understands how arguments like this work.
But Paul was arrested for it. His trial is scheduled for the 17th of May.
This is appalling. Like Dr Mulgan, I have a very very different view on abortion to Paul Burns. But I am aghast that he has been arrested and charged for debating the issue in public.
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.
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.
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 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
