This chart uses data from the General Social Survey. As you can see trust in four vital government institutions increased slightly from 2016 to 2018. Since then it has plummeted for all four institutions. A movement of an entire point on a ten point scale is huge.

Parliament and Media have never ranked as highly. Trust in Parliament though rose from 2014 to 2021 but in the last two years dropped 0.8 points. Media trust was fairly constant from 2014 to 2018, but then the Government set up the Public Interest Journalism Fund and they have declined to a new low.

The fifth health target is that 95% of patients wait less than four months for elective treatment.

Again in 2015 and 2016, over 99% got treatment within four months. It has now dropped to 61.8%. A shocking decline.

David Seymour announced:

“Schools will have to play their part in setting a good example as well. This means not taking teacher-only days during term time. Under existing regulations, and terms in the union contracts, teacher-only days are only legally allowed to be held out of term time, unless authorised by the Minister of Education. 

Teacher only days are important to have. The question is when should they be held.

I have no problem with teacher only days during term times for early childhood services because many are open 50 out of 52 weeks a year, so there is no choice.

However primary schools have 12 to 13 weeks of school holidays. Four of those weeks are for teachers to take annual leave, but that leaves eight to nine weeks where schools are closed but teachers are expected to be working. It is not unreasonable that any all-staff meetings and training take place during those eight to nine weeks, so parents don’t have to take annual leave from their jobs to look after their kids.

I wasn’t aware that teacher-only days during term time was meant to be the exception, not the norm. Good to see that enforced.

A guest post by Michael Littlewood:

So, John Horner of the Financial Markets Authority thinks that KiwiSaver’s reaching $100 bn “…is something to celebrate; for a relatively small country like New Zealand, it represents a coming of age of KiwiSaver.” (FMA 24 September 2024 here).  Others in the financial services industry praise KiwiSaver while some call for higher minimum contributions or even for it to be made compulsory.  So, is $100 bn saved through KiwiSaver that big a deal?

I thought it might be interesting to look at the top-down data for all households to see whether KiwiSaver has actually changed things since it started 17 years ago.

Michael Cullen was KiwiSaver’s principal sponsor.  He thought that traditional workplace superannuation didn’t ‘work’ so, in 2004, he set up the Savings Product Working Group to develop a “generic work-based savings solution”.  Michael Cullen thought the SPWG’s recommendations didn’t go far enough and a much beefier KiwiSaver emerged, with some chaotically organised, last-minute changes, in 2007.

Initially, change to KiwiSaver was a constant but things have settled down in recent years.

Here’s the question: is KiwiSaver working?  Are households actually saving more?  Are they better prepared for retirement? What do the numbers look like?

The Reserve Bank used to produce quarterly data on all households – what, in aggregate, they owned and owed.  Statistics New Zealand now gathers those numbers and publishes them here as ‘National accounts (income, assets, and liabilities)…supplementary table 1.5B’.

These numbers summarise the top-down position for all households.  We can work out an average for each household but that isn’t very useful, given the uneven distribution of assets.  We can’t uncover a ‘median’ household’s position, nor distributions around the median.  That would make an interesting analysis over time and is what we need to test the real benefits of KiwiSaver to the country and to savers.

Regardless, the total numbers are interesting, particularly as we have them in a consistent sequence over the 25 years since December 1998.

Can we tell whether KiwiSaver is working?  As Michael Cullen originally intended, KiwiSaver has largely supplanted the traditional workplace superannuation schemes, helped by the removal of their tax preferences in the late 1980s.

Here are the numbers from Column G1.2 of Table 1.5B or ‘Net equity in superannuation funds’.  This now includes KiwiSaver.

• December 1998: Superannuation $30.8 bn.
• June 2007 (KiwiSaver started): Superannuation $31.7 bn.
• December 2023: Superannuation (including KiwiSaver) $138.7 bn.

These are all dollars of the day, so let’s compare them with total net household wealth at each of those dates to see whether KiwiSaver has shifted households’ perceptions about saving specifically for retirement:

• December 1998: superannuation was 7.1% of total net wealth.
• June 2007: superannuation had fallen to 3.3%.
• December 2023: 6.0% (4.5% for just KiwiSaver).

As might have been expected, the relative importance of superannuation savings fell between 1998 and 2007, due in part to the withdrawal of tax breaks.  Employers that were driven by those tax breaks wound up their schemes.  The general uncertainty surrounding the government’s initiatives would not have helped.

The numbers do show that, despite KiwiSaver, total superannuation savings are lower today, as a proportion of households’ net wealth, than they were 26 years ago, in 1998.  Despite the savings industry’s claims for KiwiSaver’s success, I would not rate that performance very highly.

Taxpayers have spent about $14 bn in direct subsidies to KiwiSaver contributions in the 16 years to 2023.  The administration costs incurred by Inland Revenue alone, never mind by the industry and employers (and the FMA), would also be relatively significant.

Has New Zealand received good value for those subsidies and costs?  That’s at least questionable.  Should taxpayers continue to spend about $1 billion a year in subsidies to members’ contributions ($1.06 bn in the year ending 30 June 2024)?  We should at least ask that question and start a debate.

So, what to do?

But we can’t start a proper debate about KiwiSaver without better data.  The ‘top-down’, aggregate data on households’ assets and liabilities are interesting, but not good enough.

A colleague and I wrote a comprehensive submission for the Retirement Commissioner’s 2019 Review.  We listed herenine key ‘reforms that really matter’, in our suggested order of priority.  Number 2 on our list was a proper longitudinal survey of households’ finances. Unless we know, over time, what households are doing in their financial lives and what their aspirations are for the long term, public policy debates must take place in a vacuum.  Endlessly analysing KiwiSaver numbers in the absence of wider household data is pointless.

We can’t know whether things need changing, nor the chances that any proposed change might actually work.  We can’t even see whether current policy is achieving its objectives.

Is KiwiSaver working?  At a high level, seemingly not but we just don’t know.  I think we should find out.

The fourth health target is for 95% of patients to wait less than four months for a first specialist assessment.

From June 2015 to June 2017 almost 100% of patients got a first assessment within four months – 99.8% and 99.2%. It fell for the next six years to 69.6% and then to 61.5%

The impact of this decline is huge. There are 175,000 on the waitlist so eight years ago only say 2,000 would be waiting more than four months. Now 70,000 are. Another huge repair job needed.

The PPTA have been having their annual conference. Now you would hope that they would be busy debating vital issues like how do we improve numeracy and literacy. How do we lift achievement rates for NCEA, how do we lower truancy rates etc etc.

But as their conference papers show, alas their focus is on the much more important topics of:

• Stopping Red Unions from gaining members
• Removing all references to gender from their constitution and replacing she/he with they
• Replace all references to The Treaty of Waitangi with Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• Lobbying for taxpayers to fund Queer Community Liaison roles in all schools whose jobs will be to campaign for Queer Rangatahi and their rights
• PPTA to become a peace organisation and lobby the Government on foreign policy
• Change the name of Canterbury Region of PPTA to Waitaha
• Change the name of Hutt Valley Region to Te Awa Kairangi
• Change the name West Coast region to Te Tai o Poutini
• Opposing refocusing the curriculum on academic achievement and not ideology

Fills you with confidence, doesn’t it.

Keeping my part brief:

The Ministry of Education applied a brutal vaccine mandate to teachers (including Correspondence School staff) in late 2021. However – they decided that 41% of their own staff would not be covered by the mandate as they promised not to leave their offices.

The Teachers Council followed up school staff mandated out with a letter warning them about not complying with directives.

NZTSOS says that over 1200 educators and support staff lost their jobs, with many who did not comply leaving education forever.  In our data bases there are not only teachers and principals, but special education staff, school counsellors and school support staff.  We also have to remember that we had many who were mandated who complied under pressure and some were vax injured.

Here is a response to an OIA request on the situation.

29/08/2024

[email protected]

Tēnā koe

OIA: 1334434 – Vaccination exemptions for Ministry of Education personnel

Thank you for your email of 17 August 2024 to the Ministry of Education (the Ministry) requesting

the following information:

I would like information regarding the number of COVID vaccine exemptions that were

requested for MOE personnel and other educational organisations (Such as NZSTA, NZEI,

PPTA, NZPF), how many were successful, and how many people each successful

exemption covered.

Your request has been considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act).

Approximately 59% of the approximately 4,352 Ministry employees were covered under the

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021 when it was in effect. Exemptions could be applied for under clause 9 of the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations)

Order 2021. Seven Education-related applications were received and processed by the Ministry,

with all decisions referred to the Minister for approval. All of these applications were declined.

The other organisations listed in your request are not subject to the Act. The Ministry does not hold records relating to staff at these organisations, and this part of your request is therefore refused under section 18(g) of the Act, as the information requested is not held by the Ministry, and we have no reason to believe it is held by another department or organisation subject to the Act.

Thank you again for your email. You have the right to ask an Ombudsman to review my decision

on your request, in accordance with section 28 of the Act. You can do this by writing to

[email protected] or to Office of the Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143.

Nāku noa, nā

Emma Drysdale

Manager Official and Parliamentary Information

The OIA request was from an outstanding former Principal who was mandated out. She followed up with this.

“I received some of the additional information I requested in the OIA request today.  41% “didn’t need” to apply for an exemption, because they claim they ‘didn’t leave their offices’.  Funny, how they were allowed to do that, yet I couldn’t use that excuse to ‘stay in my office’ AND worse got terminated for my non compliance!!! None of them got terminated!  Double standards evidenced again! “

Alwyn Poole
[email protected]
Innovative Education Consultants Ltd
Education 710+ Ltd
(both sites currently being re-done)
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

Parliament has established a special select committee to consider submissions on the constitutionally important Parliament Bill. It has eight MPs, being:

• National 2
• Labour 2
• Greens 1
• ACT 1
• NZ First 1
• TPM 1

So the committee is split 4/4 between the Government and Opposition and also 4/4 between the two large parties and the four smaller ones. It will be chaired by former Speaker Adrian Rurawhe.

The bill passed its first reading unanimously. It is nice to be in a country where important constitutional issues can be dealt with in a non partisan way.

The media have moved on from Labour’s Associate Foreign Affairs Spokesperson saying that the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of 1,000+ Israeli civilians was justified. They ran one story, and abandoned it despite the lack of apology or sanction.

Now let’s compare this to a story in 2020 involving Todd Muller. What did Todd Muller do? Did he endorse rape and murder? Did he praise torture and kidnapping as justified? No, he had some US political memorabilia in his office including a Trump MAGA cap (alongside a Hilary Clinton badge).

This resulted In an avalanche of stories, running for several days. The media went out to groups such as the Islamic Women’s Council who condemned it. Yes they asked the IWC for their views on someone having a MAGA hat in their office, yet don’t approach the Jewish Council over an MP endorsing the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of Jews.

They quoted political expert Dr Siouxsie Wiles on why what Muller did was reprehensible. They also quoted neutral academic Shane te Pou. They wrote columns on it. They did a couple of dozen stories, until finally Muller agreed to hide the hat from view. They followed up with articles on how the hat is a symbol of racism and white supremacy. They got comments from the Race Relations Commissioner.

So consider all that coverage over a hat, and compare that to the lack of coverage of an MP who claims murder, rape, torture and kidnapping was justified – and is an official spokesperson for the party on these issues.

The PSC announced:

Acting Public Service Commissioner Heather Baggott has today announced the appointment of Andrew Coster to the position of Secretary for Social Investment and Chief Executive, Social Investment Agency.

This is a very smart appointment. As a police officer Coster had to deal with the impact of offending, generally by people who were raised in families with significant risk factors.

The Social Investment role is the opportunity to stop offenders being created. Rather than have wasteful untargeted spending, this role is an opportunity to help direct spending to where it will do the most good.

The 3rd health target is for 95% of ED patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred within six hours. This is a critically important one that saves lives.

From 2015 to 2017 it was at around 92%. Over the next five years it fell to a terrible 70.9%, and in the transition year to 68.8%.

This may be one of the hardest ones to turn around, but one of the most important ones.

I blogged yesterday on how Labour’s Associate Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Damien O’Connor, retweeted a tweet that Hamas had every right to do what they did on October 7th which is the day they murdered, raped, tortured and kidnapped over 1,000 Israeli civilians.

The media treatment of this has been incredibly light. Don’t get me wrong – NZ Herald, Stuff and Radio NZ did run stories on it – but simply reporting that there has been criticism, and that the tweet has been deleted.

There has been no apology, and no statement from the leadership denouncing his views. So we must assume that the official position of the Labour Party is that they agree with O’Connor that the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of 1,000 Israeli civilians was justified – but that O’Connor shouldn’t have stated his belief publicly.

There was no coverage of this by TVNZ. There have been no editorials or op eds condemning what O’Connor retweeted. There has been no hunting him down on camera to demand him to clarify his views. There has been no asking other Labour MPs if they agree with him. There has been no questions (that I can see reported) to the leadership asking if they will sack him, whether his views are the views of Labour etc.

Now compare this to a recent incident where an attendee at a Matamata quiz night, where the theme was black and white, turned up in blackface. No one there objected, but someone got offended by a photo on their Facebook page. How it is inadvisable to wear blackface, so a story could be warranted but look carefully at the story:

A Waikato RSA is under fire after a community member turned up to a quiz night at its club rooms in blackface, then the club told people who objected, “it’s humour”.

Matamata RSA president Dennis Greaves told the Herald there was nothing offensive about the guest’s costume.

“It was a fun night and we had lots of people painted in white faces. Is there any disagreement with people turning up in white faces?”

Greaves said he saw no need to speak to the person who was wearing black paint on their face.

“To us, we’re a small community and to us, it was not offensive.

“It is only people with nothing better to do than to pick on stuff like this which is not really warranting worrying about it,” he said.

“The Matamata RSA do not see it as an issue because it was a fun night and that was all that was intended. There was no racial slur or anything like that.

“It was a black and white night and it was up to them how they come dressed.”

Now the story at this point was fine. It reported some people online were offended by the local RSA stood by the quiz night, But look at the next sentence:

The Herald has also sought comment from the national RSA body.

This is when they go from reporting news to creating it. This is what the media do if they agree with the complainants – they escalate it in the hope of finding a pressure point, and it worked. The next day:

The Matamata RSA has apologised “unreservedly” for any offence caused afterphotos emerged of a man at a quiz night in a minstrel costume, days after it said there was no harm in wearing the outfit to a fancy dress event.

So in this case the media kept on with the story, until they achieved the desired backdown. But with Damien O’Connor supporting murder, rape, torture and kidnapping they drop the story after one day.

Now compare the difference between the two situations.

1. In one case the person complained about is a local in Matamata who attended a quiz night from the local RSA. In the other it is an elected Member of Parliament who is the official Associate Foreign Affairs Spokesperson for Labour.
2. In one case they wore blackface to a black and white themed quiz night. In the other case they endorsed a tweet which said the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of over 1,000 civilians was justified.

And again the media wonder why trust keeps declining.

The second health target is to get the two year immunisation rate back up to 95%.

As you can see the rate was very close to 95% under National. It dipped slightly in the transition year to 91.9%. Then it plummeted from 2020 to 2024 to 77.9%. A huge job ahead to get it back to where it was.

The immunisation rate is now so low, that we arguably no longer have herd immunity to some of those childhood diseases.

ACT released:

ACT has obtained a copy of AUT’s policy for funding researcher travel, which allocates 30 percent more points to travel applications for researchers who identify as Māori, and 20 percent more for Pasifika.

“This policy will put some academics at a disadvantage relative to others, simply because they have the ‘wrong’ ancestry,” says ACT Tertiary Education and Skills spokesperson Dr Parmjeet Parmar.

It is important to note this policy applies entirely on the ancestry of the staff member, and not on the topic. They could be a lecturer in mathematics, and they would get a 30% loading due to their ethnicity.

Another way of looking at this is that researchers who are European and Asian get a 23% penalty for their ancestry.

The Spinoff has a lengthy story on how $500,000 of taxpayers money was given by MCH to Narrative Muse, a digital arts recommendation platform for books, movies and TV. So what has been the outcome of the $500,000:

• a book club offer that 12 participants signed up to
• 575 followers on X; 2,963 followers on Instagram; 120 on TikTok
• 6,500 registered (not active) users based in NZ
• No member of Booksellers Aotearoa NZ has reported that Narrative Muse has had any discernible, traceable or material impact on book sales at all

Tech startups often don’t succeed, but that is why investors should invest in them, not taxpayers.

Damien O’Connor is Labour’s Foreign Affairs Spokesperson and he retweeted an assertion that Hamas had every right to do what they did on October 7th. This of course is the day they murdered, raped, tortured and kidnapped over 1,000 Israeli civilians.

This view should disqualify him from being a spokesperson for Labour on Foreign Affairs.

Over this week I am going to blog the data on the five health targets the Government has set for the health system. Each of them tells a very interesting story when we look at the data for the last nine years.

All data comes from the fact sheets published by Health NZ.

The target is 90% of cancer patients start treatment within 31 days. As you can see it went from 83.8% to 88.5% by June 2017. In the transition year it was static at 88.6%. Then over the next five years it dropped to 84.9%. In the latest transition year it dipped down to 84.2%.

ACT MP Parmjeet Parmar writes:

From next year, the University of Auckland will require all first-year students to complete a ‘Waipapa Taumata Rau’ course covering the Treaty of Waitangi and traditional Māori knowledge systems. …

Finally, the course risks a dangerous uniformity of perspective on Treaty issues.

Whatever you may think about the current Treaty principles debate, it’s clear these issues are controversial and politically contested.

Having a small group of academics in consultation with local iwi prepare a course on Treaty issues will leave graduates with a narrow, one-sided view of the history of the Treaty and its implications for our rights and democracy.

I would go as far as calling the planned courses a form of indoctrination.

As a university student learning about the scientific method, I was taught that knowledge is contestable.

This is actually a huge threat to academic freedom and freedom of thought on campus.

In most disciplines, you will come across a variety of views on the issue. Takes economics – you’ll have some lecturers who are Keynesian, some who are monetarist, some who teach Milton Friedman etc etc. Over the course of your degree you will be exposed to different views on economics. The same will apply in law to a degree, philosophy etc etc.

But here the University as an institution is going to state an institutional view of the Treaty of Waitangi, that will be mandatory for every student to attend, and take on board if they want to get a degree. There will be no diversity of views taught to student s through the mandatory paper. And it is inconceivable that any individual academic or course would dare to have a view that was at odds with the mandatory paper. To do so would get them cancelled.

So this is a very big deal. Mandatory papers should be for fundamental stuff such as ethics, plagiarism etc – not a highly controversial and contested political issue.

The latest Ipsos UK poll finds net favourability, in order, is:

1. Princess of Wales +56%
2. Princess Royal +53%
3. Prince of Wales +52%
4. The King +38%
5. The Queen +14%
6. Duke of Sussex -18%
7. Duchess of Sussex -32%
8. Duke of York -55%

Such a huge variation between the most popular and least popular.