I recall seeing Lisa Carrington win her first gold medal in 2012. I was in a bar in Martinborough and everyone was watching and cheering. Her down to earth nature shone through as much as her athletic achievement.

She has now won her eighth Olympic gold medal, and even more remarkably has done it over four Olympics. Only seven people in Olympic history have won more gold medals than her. The closest any other NZer has done is four for Ian Ferguson.

She is our greatest Olympian of all time.

Barry Soper writes:

It’s not often in this business that you can sit back with some satisfaction and feel justified a year later that a story you broke resulted in an outcome fair to all.

The formal part ethnicity played in hospital waiting lists caused a political storm.

It was justified by the then Labour Government whose Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said she was happy with the policy that gave Māori and Pasifika patients priority over Pākehā and other ethnicities.

Less popular with patients!

The current Health Minister Shane Reti stated the bleedingly obvious – clinical decisions should be made on health need first.

The message seems to have hit home at the bloated Health NZ which now says a fundamental relook at the system is required.

One of their gloriously anonymous spokespeople there was quoted as saying that they will now look into the possibility of adopting a new prioritisation tool across the whole health system, but emphasised no decisions had been made.

The decision shouldn’t be too difficult to make; give health care to those who need it first, rather than expecting them to jockey for position on a waiting list based on their ancestry.

It shouldn’t be difficult indeed, but for the last Government it was.

The Herald reports:

The dire state of Warner Bros Discovery’s New Zealand finances has been laid bare – a massive $138 million loss in 2023, including a $79.5m impairment.

It was the collapse of Newshub that was the catalyst for the Government to decide to back Willie Jackson’s bill to force Internet companies to pay some sort of levy to failing media companies.

But as you can see the problems facing linear TV stations is so huge and fundamental that the levy will be like trying to stop a burst dam with a small rag. Linear TV is going the way of the home video store.

Garry Moller writes:

If I had it my way, I would scrap many of Wellington’s cycleways, and do it better. Allow me to elaborate. …

For Wellington to thrive, ample on-street parking is essential. Despite the influx of more public service employees and contractors in recent years, central Wellington is struggling. Many long-term Wellington residents, like myself, feel the inner city is in a state of decay and is losing its once vibrant soul. Putting in one cycleway after another is not helping the situation. To the contrary, they are making things worse.

The cycleways were made with good intentions, but they have taken away many parking spots for residents and businesses. They are now hurting small and medium-sized businesses and degrading property values.

Small businesses depend on customers being able to find convenient parking. Without it, they suffer — we all do — and the vibrancy of our city diminishes, as it is.

Cycleways are good but parks are also good. We shouldn’t do one at the expense of the other.

Dedicated cycleways that do not detract from traffic flow are great. For example, the cycleway to Ngauranga Gorge and the cycleway from Oriental Bay to Evans Bay are excellent, although their cost-benefits are still questionable. These routes offer safe paths for cyclists without significantly impacting traffic or residents. In contrast, the cycle way in Aro Valley, the one in Island Bay, and the one from Te Aro to Brooklyn, to name a few, are problematic.

We have some good ones and some awful ones.

What I am saying here is that cycleways should be separate from main arterial streets and not impede traffic flow or lead to the loss of parking spaces. Merely removing traffic lanes and carparks to make way for rarely-used cycleways is nonsensical.

Absolutely. Do cycleways away from main streets, like the one to Petone which looks to be amazing.

And for those not familiar with his name, Gary Moller can’t be described as someone who is anti-cyclist. To the contrary he is the current UCI Masters world champion cyclist for his age group!

I (and Curia) have just resigned as members of the Research Association of New Zealand. It is something I never thought I would do, and do with great sadness.

I have been an enthusiastic member of the industry body. 

I joined in 2004 when I formed Curia Market Research. It was an honour to be nominated by (Professor) Jack Vowles and Gabriel Dekel.

I served on the executive of its predecessor. I was the lead author on the NZ Political Polling Code. I was a guest speaker or panelist at AGMs, including last year’s one.

So what happened?

Up until around two years there had been no issues. But over the last two years the complaints process has been weaponised against me. I can’t even count up how many complaints there have been. I will cover in some detail the significant ones.

Now lots of people have to put up with complaints processes. I wish I could be like Mike Hosking who probably doesn’t even blink if someone complains about him to the BSA.

But these numerous complaints have caused me huge stress. I won’t go into the details of it here, but it has been very significant. 

Yesterday I saw an e-mail from RANZ that, not only had the PSG upheld the latest complaint against me, but that it was considering a recommendation that could involve suspension to expulsion.

I was absolutely stunned. I could not believe how what I saw as a subjective dispute over question design could possibly meet the threshold for such a move. I’ll get into the details later, but basically it was over whether a client should be allowed to ask:

The UK health service (the NHS) has stopped the use of puberty blockers, which begin the gender transition process, for children under 16 as it deemed they are too young to consent. Do you support or oppose a similar ban in New Zealand on the use of puberty blockers for young people 16 or younger?

My first response was considering getting people to complain against polls from other companies (I have a large file of potential complaints). But I calmed down and tried to remember my motto of don’t be an arsehole or deliberately harm others. That is why I have never ever encouraged a complaint against another company, despite many many opportunities. I have even tried to talk people out of them.

I decided I would trust the process and argue my case to an independent panel. I was very confident that there is no way the current dispute could be seen as resulting in a sanction that I don’t think has been used in recent history. I engaged a lawyer and I started collating information. I looked at processes for other professional bodies, and also obtained detailed advice on whether the actions of RANZ could breach the Bill of Rights by putting pollsters in a position where they have to refuse questions on controversial issues, because if they accept them they get suspended or worse.

So I had my plan. I was confident my chances of not having a decision of suspension or expulsion was pretty damn good (but of course you can’t know). I was all set to spend what would have been tens of thousands of dollars, confident in my belief that I should trust in the process.

But then I reflected what happens if I do win. It won’t stop. I’ll still have the usual people complaining about most of my polls and I would be having to run Curia with the massive anxiety that every single poll I prepared would have to be defended, arguing over what is an incredibly subjective area of question writing.

This is insane!  I do political polling and many people oppose some of what my clients stand for.  But this is weaponising an appeals process.  It forces people like myself into the impossible position of either not serving my clients, or trying to satisfy a professional body that should be objective and neutral, but I sadly don’t think is being either.

So, with the deepest regret I resigned from RANZ today. 

Since I made the decision I feel so much better, that I know it is the right thing to do. My stress levels have improved knowing I don’t have to spend the future fighting endless complaints against me

In the rest of this post I want to detail a bit of history of Curia, how important reputation is to me, the whole area of question design, and details of some of the complaints (including where I could have done better), and some suggestions for RANZ.

Finally I am going to cover a proposed accountability scheme for Curia going forward, so people can still raise issues in good faith and get them resolved.

20 years of Curia

Curia for many years was most well known as being National’s pollster. I first got involved in electorate polling for National as a Young National volunteer in 1993. I was one of many callers, but had a real interest in it so Al McLauchlan and Jack McFaull who ran the programme for National showed me what they did, and answered my many questions.

In 1996 I ended up working in Parliament and Al retired from his polling roll. With MMP  coming  the party engaged a professional polling form for most of their polling, but I was asked to take over from Al and do occasional electorate polls using a team of volunteers .

The results were good enough that for the 1999 election ,my internal team top volunteers was asked to supplement the polling from the external pollster and in 2002 I was doing most of the polling for National. I was very proud that they placed equal trust in what I could do with a team of volunteers, with companies that had been operating for decades.

In 2004 I had been in Parliament for 8 years and was exhausted (when I left they replaced me with three staffers) and I had so enjoyed doing the polls, I thought I would take a leap in the dark and set up my own polling company – Curia. National agreed to become a client (my decision wasn’t dependent on that though) and Curia was born.

Since then I have done work for over 300 different clients. I have never had to advertise – it has all been word of mouth. I literally could not count up how many actual polls I have designed and analysed, but it is probably over 3000 

I’m very proud to have provided polling services to five NZ  Prime Ministers and four Opposition Leaders.

And while I am known as a National supporter, I provide a professional service regardless of politics. I have actually provided polling services to 10 different political parties that range the entire political spectrum. 

I have done polling for Labour MPs and Ministers. I have polled for Green Party members and Alliance members standing in local body election. I have polled for lobby groups I agree with and lobby groups I totally disagree with. I have even polled for groups on opposing side of an issue such as euthanasia. I told both groups that I had been asked to poll for the other side also, and they both consented as they really wanted to use Curia and trusted me to be absolutely professional. 

Reputation

It is hard to understate how important reputation is to me. As I said, I have never had to advertise for clients. I am able to have discussions with senior Labour MPs where they trust me not to ever quote them. I have sat on numerous cross-party parliamentary groups on particular issues where MPs from ACT to the Greens take party and we have some very undiplomatic conversations.

I also take pride in my relationship with many in the media. I think I have declined just one interview request in the last eight years or so. I always give my honest opinion to them, however I do of course keep some things to myself.

I believe Curia has a good reputation for accuracy. In the 2023 election we were one of only two companies that had all parliamentary parties within the margin of error. In 2014, John Key kindly called me the best pollster in New Zealand in his victory speech. 

In 2023 an independent researcher (https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/12585241/ ) found that Curia had the least divergence from the all-firm trend between 2020 and 2023.

The public polls for the Taxpayers’ Union in 2023 correctly predicted the winner in Northland, Auckland Central, Napier and Ilam. The Tamaki poll had Brooke (who had been regarded as a long shot) just 2% behind, which arguably helped her momentum to win the seat.

The polls for the Māori electorate seats were less accurate but they are notoriously difficult to poll (and if I get to poll them again, I am going to try some new things to identify Māori roll voters) but they did point to the risk of Nanaia Mahuta losing, which wasn’t widely expected.

By contrast in 2017 one RANZ member produced a poll which was 22% out on the National-Labour gap and in 2011 another RANZ member had a poll which was 16% out on the National-Labour group. I wonder aloud what does more damage to the industry – polls that get a general election result completely and massively wrong, or arguments over the wording of questions?

No polling company should be judged by their last pre-election poll.as all companies have polls that turn out not to to be very accurate  Curia, like all companies, have polls that are not as accurate as one would like. In 2023 I had National below their actual result (but within the margin of error) and in 2020 I had them higher (as almost everyone else did as their support fell away in the last week). 

The vast majority of polling companies in NZ work very hard to get accurate results. I often recommend my competitors if people don’t want to use me. I have sent clients to UMR/Talbot Mills, Research NZ, Colmar Brunton etc.

Question Design

Two of the three upheld complaints I received related to the wording of questions on controversial or sensitive issues. Question design is a very subjective area. Every day in the world there are thousands of people critiquing a poll question, claiming it is leading or biased etc. Just as people critique political arguments and fact checkers critique claims (and some fact checkers have been shown to do a horrible job).

What is absolutely key is that any poll report must include the exact question asked. This allows people to judge the results in light of the wording.  I actually think people are quite good at working out if question wording has had an impact on results.

Clients commission polls for a number of reasons, and this impacts question design. Some just want to know what opinion is on an issue without any context given, for their own decision making. Some try to explain the pros and cons of an issue to then see what a more informed rather than instinctive reaction is. Some have a firm view on an issue and wish to test what language or facts are most likely to persuade people.

For example one client asked me in 2019 to poll four different phrases in a poll on euthanasia – assisted dying, euthanasia, assisted suicide and assisted killing. We tested support and opposition on each phrase so they would know which phrase was most helpful to them.

The client wants questions that are of value to them. This does not mean they get to ask any old question, and nor does it mean they get the result they want (many clients have received results which were unhelpful to them, and didn’t publish them) but it does mean as a pollster you need to understand the client. I have described polling as both an art and a science and question writing is an art. I have no idea how many polling questions I have written but if I’ve done 2,000 or so polls, it could well be many thousands. 

It is extremely rare for me to just accept the questions the clients propose. I almost always suggest changes, and/or warn that their proposed wording will make it easier for people to downplay the results.

In fact, the client, whose poll was the subject of the final complaint, has said they use me despite the fact I actively campaign and oppose them on probably around 80% of the issues they campaign on because they like the fact I will give pushback on the questions, to make them more defensible. 

I also fact check questions, so that any assertion in the question is robust. For the question on puberty blockers for under 16 year olds I actually spent almost two hours reading the Cass Report.

A poll by another company for the Better Public Media Trust claimed that 60% of NZers supported the TVNZ/RNZ merger, but the actual question was:

The government is planning to merge TVNZ and RNZ into a new state-owned public media service, with an extra $109 million per year, which equals to $22 per person per year. If this organisation provided new content for niche, minority and regional audiences while keeping the current TV, radio and online services as well, would you support it?

Now I think it is a pretty ridiculous question as it rests on a premise that is hypothetical. It’s like saying would you support merging the DHBs together if it meant every hospital kept providing their current services, plus you get 50,000 more operations. Who would say no to that?

I would strongly advise the client against the question, on the basis that, while some media might run it without scepticism, it will have zero impact on the actual decision makers. But if they insisted, I would be okay with running it, because clients do have the right to ask questions. 

But now we seem to be in a situation where a decision to run wording like the above can result in potential expulsion from the Research Association. This should be of concern to many in the industry.  

I would have thought the threshold for finding a question is biased is if it is factually incorrect or uses incredibly inflammatory language. I guess examples would be.

Will you vote for the former war hero John McCain or Bill Clinton who dodged the draft?  Or, would you rather spend $500 million on new cancer drugs to save lives or on new frigates to help the Defence Force kill enemies more efficiently?

But the two upheld against Curia have been ones where I think reasonable people could agree to disagree.

The complaints

The first of the significant complaints was in 2022 over a poll for the Auckland Mayoralty. It was because I had only listed the major candidates, not all 15 of them. Basically, a guy who had a miniscule chance of winning (he was not in the top eight finishers) was complaining that he had not been included in his own right.

Now with polls on voting, there are three ways broadly you ask the voting question.

1. Unprompted. You don’t even give them the options. You just ask who they will vote for. This works well for parliamentary polls about parties as most people know the parties and have a preference. It is not very effective for local government polls where many don’t even know who is standing.
2. Prompt major candidates and include another option. It is often clear who the major candidates are. Clients basically just want to find out the relative support amongst those in with a shot. This is absolutely normal in political polling.  Do you think many US pollsters ask people if they are voting for Chase Oliver or Randall Terry for President?
3. Provide a list of all candidates. This is feasible for online panels but for phone polls it just isn’t practical to read out 15 or 20 names. You just end up with many more undecideds.

Now this particular complaint was not upheld, but I had to spend considerable time justifying why we hadn’t included a candidate who had no chance of winning. I was surprised the complaint was even accepted as substantive. 

The second complaint was about a survey of academics done by the Free Speech Union, which I analyse for them. Now I am quite happy to say there were things I could have done better with that poll. Curia is far from perfect.

A lot of the issue was whether a response rate should have been included and whether it was a probalistic sample or not. My practice is to include response rates for polls of communities where the client has a relationship with them. So, when I poll members of an industry group, I give a response rate. For polls which are regarded as probabilistic you do a margin of error. As the poll of academics was not on behalf of the universities (they sadly had no interest in knowing the views of their staff on academic freedom) it was done by the FSU trawling e-mails off university websites and I saw it as an unsolicited poll, akin to a public poll. 

Now I should have, in hindsight, included the response rate. It was sort of there implicitly, but it should have been explicit because the low response rate does mean it is difficult to know how well those who responded reflect all academics. Because many academics hate the FSU, they were arguably less likely to take part.

Also due to a miscommunication, I did not see the final report from the FSU and their report placed more reliance on the actual percentages than was justified. However they did have a cover note I insisted on noting there was a low response rate.

After this complaint was upheld, I reviewed all our templates against the Code of Practice and developed a new client policy stating explicitly that any information they release must be run by Curia in advance, and this policy is now automatically attached to quotes for new clients.

I also included extra details of methodology on our standard report template, and even go so far as to provide a paragraph summarising the methodology that clients are requested to include in media releases, with an explicit request for media to include the statement.

So what I am getting at is I took the finding very seriously. I made significant changes.  

The next (third) complaint was about the wording of a poll on the Golden Mile. The wording was: “Do you think the Wellington City Council should commit to spending $139 million, (of which the outgoing Government pledged $71 million) on the Golden Mile project considering the blowout in the Town Hall renovation and growing Council debt?”

The Professional Standards Group found against it because it introduced two different concepts – the Town Hall blowout and the Golden Mile project. I understand their point, but I believe that is quite justifiable in this case– there is only one pot of money. All of politics is about trade-offs. If the Government is running a surplus you might support a spending project while you wouldn’t if they have huge deficits. 

So I thought the question was fine, and the PSG didn’t. Its fine to ask about an imaginary outcome for merging TVNZ and Radio NZ together, but not to mention Council spending blowouts with relation to another major Council project.

.  Here is a poll questions asked by another company:

After previously signing up to international commitments to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems, home to deep sea coral and sponges, the New Zealand government has this year lobbied for bottom trawling to continue in these sensitive areas.

Some warn that bottom trawling is known to destroy deep sea coral ecosystems, with New Zealand being the only country still using this method in the South Pacific.

You could argue that is leading as it doesn’t provide any context in support of bottom trawling. But no complaints about that.

The fourth complaint was from an individual who has complained literally scores of times on almost every single poll I have published in the last year. I have probably had over 200 e-mails from him. He is the obvious vexatious litigant, but I still had to go through the formal process of having one of his complaints assessed. 

The final complaint was about this question earlier this year:

The UK health service (the NHS) has stopped the use of puberty blockers, which begin the gender transition process, for children under 16 as it deemed they are too young to consent. Do you support or oppose a similar ban in New Zealand on the use of puberty blockers for young people 16 or younger?

I have not seen the decision of the PSG yet but I am told they decided the question was biased. This staggers me as the decision by the NHS was not a different concept but directly relevant to the question. I carefully considered the decision on the Golden Mile complaint and concluded this was not at all similar.

The complainant said we could have chosen a country that hadn’t banned them. Now the UK decision on the back of the Cass review was major world news. It probably will lead to other countries changing their policies. To suggest it is not relevant just seems crazy to me. 

One reason I was so surprised by the latest decision is that RANZ declined to uphold a complaint against a poll which said:

There is a proposal to sell off the Auckland Port operating business which is currently 100% owned by Auckland Council and Aucklanders, via a lease. How strongly do you support or oppose the sale of the port operations?”

Now this question is simply factually wrong. There is no sale. It is a lease. A sale transfers ownership. A lease does not. The question is obviously written to get more people to be opposed. Yet RANZ said it was absolutely fine. This is why I think there is a double standard. It might not be deliberate, but it is there.

Now I don’t think the company that did that poll should be sanctioned for it either. It isn’t totally egregious, and as I say I don’t think RANZ should be second guessing question design. But after having read that they said that was okay, I was pretty surprised to have them apparently rule the totally factually correct question on puberty blockers was unacceptable.

I could provide many more examples of what I see as inconsistent decisions, but my aim isn’t to get into tit for that. I wasn’t party to their discussions and I am sure that from their backgrounds they genuinely think there was a difference. Different people have different worldviews.

I have detailed these cases so I can’t be accused of hiding what the complaints have been, but also to stress than when a complaint has been upheld I take it very very seriously.

RANZ

I have no ill will towards RANZ. I have many friends in RANZ and there’s not a single person there I dislike (even if the same may not be true in reverse). The Officers have been very supportive iof me, and the PSG Complaints Officer has always been professional, despite the obvious divergence in views. 

I wish them well, but I do have some genuine advice for their complaints procedure going forward, because it has been weaponised and there are many other companies that could be targeted. They may not have owners with the same stress levels as me, but I’d rather they don’t have to go through it.

1. Make it easier to dispose of vexatious complaints
2. Consider a limit for the maximum number of complaints you will accept from one person
3. Change the process so that the PSG can meet with the member and discuss the issues, rather than merely deciding based on one written response. It was extremely frustrating to not be able to discuss the issues, the intentions, the interactions in detail with back and forth.
4. I really think it is very dangerous to have RANZ/PSG become the arbiter of what is a good question, unless the question is so horribly biased. This is a subjective area and it has a chilling effect. You have to write hundreds of questions every few months, with the worry that because three or four people don’t like it, you can then suffer severe consequences. The consequences of bad questions should primarily be public scrutiny, and less impact on decision makers.
5. If you are going to remain the arbiter of what is an acceptable question, then consider far more detailed guidance. You could do case studies at the AGM. You could even have an advisory service where a panel of fellows could provide feedback. 
6. The threshold for suspension or expulsion should be clearly defined and reserved for conduct that is along the lines of other professions, ie accountants who steal, lawyers who shoplift, doctors who kill, engineers whose buildings collapse. Disputes over question wording should not be at that level. 

I will remain a supporter (not a member) of RANZ and the work they do for the industry. I will also strive to uphold best practice of their codes and the global industry codes.

Future Accountability

One benefit of RANZ membership was the code of practice and complaints procedure, that helped as quality assurance.  So what will Curia do, without being a member of RANZ?

I plan to have a three stage process. They are:

1. Discussion. If you have a question or concern about a poll, then talk to me. I’m happy to meet in person. I often take questions about methodology at the many conferences I speak to. I am speaking on radio next week about the challenge of polling Pacific communities. I am always looking for how to improve also.
2. Complain to Curia. If you are unhappy with any discussion, then there will be the ability to send in a complaint about a Curia poll through our website. This models what the Press Council and BSA do, where you have to complain to the member first. If your complaint is not vexatious, I will respond on our website. I will allow you to respond and vice-versa up to a maximum three rounds. I may agree that some things could have been done better, or I may defend why I did it the way I did. People will be able to see the exchange on the same site as the results. I could even link the exchange to the results. This may also build up a useful FAQ over time, on issues such as why don’t you publish a response rate.
3. Finally I am looking at a peer review ability. If you are really unhappy with Curia’s response, then I will ask an expert in polling (which is a specialised subset of market research) to do a peer review where they can critique the poll, and I will publish all peer reviews favourable and unfavourable. Now this will have a cost as the peer reviewer will be paid. As I will be saving around $1,000 a year in RANZ membership I will use that to pay for half the cost of any peer reviews, and the complainant the other half. This also means the peer reviewer is not paid solely by me, making them more independent. It will also mean that people will only go to this level if they really feel strongly I have it wrong.

This isn’t the same as the RANZ procedure, but I do think it will demonstrate my commitment to best practice and transparency. In one way it will be more transparent as all complaints will be published, not just those upheld.

I do a bit of work in other countries, and may also look at whether I can join an overseas industry group, and be subject to their code of practice and complaints procedure. Also if RANZ changes their complaints procedure, then I would even look at rejoining, if they thought it was desirable (which they probably won’t as I imagine I cost them a huge amount of time and money dealing with all this).

I hope this post fully explains my decision.

The Herald reports:

Rotorua’s Mayor Tania Tapsell has been criticised for the way she “shut down” the country’s longest-serving councillor as he tried to ask a question.

The exchange between the pair followed two councillors’ notices of motion being declined at last week’s Rotorua Lakes Council meeting.

One was councillor Lani Kereopa’s request to vote on calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, like other councils had.

Intended notices of motion are assessed by staff and the final say on whether they are heard is down to the chair of the meeting – in this case the mayor.

Ratepayers should be grateful to the Mayor for not having Councillors waste their time on meaningless gesture s that fall outside the Council’s remit. The views of Rotorua Councillors on foreign policy is not needed or wanted. They should follow the Mayor and focus on rates and infrastructure.

The Herald reports:

The eatery made $819.07 sales through Uber Eats over three days between July 26 and July 28, but after deduction of $225.31 in fees, $407.07 in ad spend, GST of $33.83 and a charge of $68 for “savings on items”, the business was paid just $84.11.

You’re not forced to use Uber Eats, and even if you decide you want to, it is your decision whether to spend some of your revenue on advertising.

The NY Times reports:

Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated on Wednesday by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official.

The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.

Mr. Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. 

An impressive intelligence operation to be able to not just infiltrate a hostile country, but get inside a secure compound and leave a bomb there for two months.

The timing is interesting as it was around two months ago the Iranian President died in a helicopter crash. Now a great conspiracy theory would Mossad killed the Iranian President, so that the Hamas leader would come to Iran for the new President inauguration!

More likely is then when the President died, Mossad realised the election and inauguration of a new President would be an opportunity to target the terrorist leader, and immediately set to work to get the bomb in place.

Newsroom reports:

In February, Finance Minister Nicola Willis had to decide if a majority Chinese-owned company’s acquisition of 15 hectares of South Island farmland was contrary to the national interest.

The land at Glenavy, in South Canterbury, about 30km north-east of Ōamaru, is where South Island Resource Recovery Ltd wants to build New Zealand’s first large-scale waste-to-energy facility – a huge furnace which burns rubbish and construction waste as an alternative to landfills.

Opponents of the $350 million waste-to-energy facility are critical of the finance minister for over-riding advice that it be mandated “feedstock” for the facility come only from the South Island.

“Special condition 7 only not special condition 6,” Willis wrote on the decision document. (Condition 7 is if the facility ceases to operate, the land must be “repaired”.)

Should the Overseas Investment Act be used to dictate where people buy feedstock from?

Newsroom asked Willis’ office: Why did she veto the condition? Was it because of lobbying from the company? If not, what other advice led to that decision?

Willis responded: “Having read the assessment report, I formed my own view which was that the Environment Court was better placed to assess any impacts through the resource management consent process. I do not recall having been lobbied on this matter.”

Hard to disagree.

It’s proposed the Glenavy facility would process up to 365,000 tonnes of municipal and construction waste a year – the equivalent of a fifth of the South Island’s landfill waste – and generate up to 30 megawatts of electricity.

Great.

The waste-to-energy facility could reduce methane emissions from landfills, the OIO report said. But it would still produce ash, of about a quarter of the original waste volume, and increase New Zealand’s carbon emissions.

But as methane emissions are not in the ETS and carbon emissions are, this will see overall emissions drop.

Stuff reports:

The Police Association says light sentences being handed down to serious methamphetamine offenders is making a mockery of laws, harming communities, and has police officers fuming. …

Analysis of 15 people charged and convicted following the operation showed that just five received prison sentences, two of whom were also being sentenced for other serious offending. Another only got a jail sentence because she couldn’t find a suitable address to serve home detention.

That means just two defendants were sent to prison for offending uncovered in the operation.

So only 2/15 were even give a jail sentence for a crime which has a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for supply and 10 years for assisting.

Two significant offenders, for example, had their starting points of seven years in jail reduced to 12 months home detention. Another had a starting point of five years in jail reduced to 10 months home detention.

To go from seven years to home detention means discounts of over 70%.

Cahill said judges appeared to be finding ways to reduce the sentences so they fit into the home detention range

Yes, it is very obvious.

“What really frustrates them is when an offender who offended from their home gets a sentence of home detention,” he said.

They get to work full-time on manufacturing more!

Cahill said the Government’s plan to impose a 40% limit on the amount by which a judge can reduce a sentence, except in situations where doing so would result in a “manifestly unjust” sentencing outcome, would go some way to addressing the issue.

This is a much needed change.

The Herald reports:

Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern has been named as the new leader of a project designed to “challenge and change” the status quo of politics.

Ardern will lead the Field Fellowship, a new programme for emerging leaders, where she hopes to “rehumanise leadership” and “bring more hope and optimism into politics”.

The programme will connect and support those that embrace an alternative form of leadership.

“Leading Field is a humbling and exciting opportunity,” Ardern said.

“I want to help bring more hope and optimism into politics, but also rehumanise leadership. This is a chance to do that and bring together a network of really talented politicians.”

Actually it is a training programme for left-wing politicians. Apparently only politicians on the left can believe in hope and optimism (don’t tell Ronald Reagan).

The programme is run by the Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund, a nonpartisan policy and advocacy organisation based in Washington DC, according to its website.

It’s the left-wing equivalent of the Heritage Foundation. It is about as nonpartisan as they are. It is funds by major donors including the Open Society Foundation.

Now there is nothing wrong with Jacinda training up future left-wing politicians. I’m all for it, just as I’m also for future right-wing politicians being trained up through the IDU etc. I’m just don’t think it should be portrayed as some sort of noble enlightenment exercise.

An interesting poll from Ipsos where they asked people if they thought “People’s chances of success in your country depend mostly on their own merit and efforts” or “People’s chances of success in your country depend mostly on factors beyond their control.

Overall 47% of NZers said merit and 25% said factors beyond control. That was 8th highest for merit out of 28 countries.

However as the education system teaches a generation that it is all about identity politics and victimhood, there is a huge difference by age. The gap between those who say merit and those who say factors beyond control by age group are:

• Baby boomers +36%
• Gen X +31%
• Millennials +11%
• Gen Z -3%

Teaching people that hard work is not linked to success is a great way to discourage hard work!

Robert Reid is a NZ union leader who was appointed to numerous government boards by Labour.

Here he is cheering on the President of Venezuela ordering the arrest of opposition MPs, for pointing out he just massively lost the election.

Imagine if someone appointed by a National Government to multiple boards tweeted in support of say Putin arresting opponents – it would be the main news item. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have been appointed, just that the lack of scrutiny is so one sided.

Stuff reports:

Meridian Energy is not revealing the amount it has paid Ngāi Tahu as it seeks to renew resource consents for its Waitaki Hydro Power Scheme.

Last year Meridian signed agreements with Ngā Rūnanga o Waitaki (Arowhenua, Waihao and Moeraki), the Department of Conservation (DOC) and Central South Island Fish & Game which included financial settlements.

The power company has applied to Environment Canterbury (ECan) to renew 18 resource consents to operate its Waitaki Hydro Power Scheme of six stations and 60km of canals for the next 35 years. Submissions opened on July 24 and will close on August 21. The current consents are due to expire next April.

This is what some call Greenmail. Renewing consents for a critical energy supply should be easy and routine. But the RMA isn’t, and so you have to buy off potential objectors.

Under the financial agreements, Meridian had said it would pay DOC $2.01m per annum over 35 years, or $73.5m in total, to maintain and restore the braided river and wetland habitat.

Central South Island Fish and Game would receive $80,000 per annum, or $2.8m over 35 years to support the delivery of programmes relating to the research and enhancement of the sports fishery and game birds in the catchment.

Based on the $180m figure, this would leave Ngāi Tahu receiving about $104m over the 35 years.

Sadly, Meridian, DOC, Fish and Game and Ngai Tahu are acting entirely rational here.

Meredian need a resource consent to continue to operate the Waitaki Power scheme. The Waitaki Power scheme includes 6 dams that were built throughout the twentieth century, from 1928 through to the 1960s. In total, they supply 18% of the countries electricity and, importantly, over three quarters of our hydro storage capacity. While the dams are of course already built, resource consents need to be renewed around every 30 years to allow the continual operation.

Under the RMA, groups like DOC, Fish and Game and Iwi have the ability to hold up a resource consent application for years or decades. Meridian clearly view the cost of such legal challenges and delays can stretch into the hundreds of millions. In such a situation it makes logical sense to pay an organisation to support an application than pay a lawyer to fight them in court.

From the point of view of DOC, Fish and Game and Iwi, they have the power to do major financial damage to a company like Meredian. Clearly it is not realistic for dams producing 18% of New Zealand’s electricity to be torn down, but these organisations can use objections to the scheme to extract environmental and financial concessions. The incentive is not new and economists call it ‘rent seeking’.

If this is the cost of a reconsent, we can just imagine how much it would cost an electricity company looking to build a new power plant. And such a cost means less investment, and higher electricity prices for all Kiwis.

This isn’t a problem with individuals in these organisations but a problem with the RMA. The RMA empowers anyone to stop someone else doing something. It means investment is slow, uncertain and expensive. It means New Zealand is a less productive society. 

The Government needs to desperately prioritise wholesale RMA reform to move New Zealand ahead. The fast-track approach is at best a short-term fix. It helps big business like Meredian, who may now be wishing they had waited 6 months before signing this cheque, but what is unseen is all the little investments that never happen because of the RMA and will never access a fast track.

While Meridian is paying a cheque of over $100 million, this practice isn’t uncommon in the RMA. A farmer looking to increase the size of an effluent spreading area will often be advised to access a letter of support from a local iwi, and the iwi will advise the farmer that the processing cost if somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars.

It is a regulatory tax that is dragging New Zealand down.

Three policy options fr consideration could be:

• A law requiring any NGO, company or Iwi that receives money from a resource consent applicant to disclose annually how much they received
• Ban payments from resource consent applicants to potential objectors. Allow them to directly fund remedial work that will satisfy the objector, but don’t allow a cash payment just for not objecting.
• Remove the special status some organisations have under the RMA which means they get more weight if they object and hence applicants need to get them on board. Have all decisions based purely on the merits of the environmental issues, not on who is objecting

Here’s key aspects of Venezuela:

• currency controls
• price controls
• massive expansion of welfare programs.
• six millions hectares of private land confisicated
• Have nationalized electricity, water, oil, banks, supermarkets and construction

Yeah that really sounds like brutal capitalism to me.

The Herald reports:

The New Zealand Film Commission has raised eyebrows by throwing two parties apiece for its outgoing acting chief executive, and for its incoming chief executive, for a total cost of $16,431.

In a kind of mirror image approval, incoming chief executive Annie Murray signed off the $8,627 price of two farewell parties for outgoing acting chief executive Mladen Ivancic; and Ivancic signed off the $7,804 price of two pōwhiri (welcome events) for Murray. …

On July 18 2023, 59 well-wishers joined Ivancic at Generator in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter. The send-off capped more than 30 years’ employment at the commission, which included stints as acting chief executive, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

I don’t have a problem with a function to farewell a chief executive who has spent 30 years at an institution.

Not sure two functions were needed though – one in each city.

And I think the new trend of needing to welcome an incoming CE with a function is silly. They’ve just landed a high paying job – they don’t need a party also.

The Herald reports:

One of the country’s top corporate communications, public relations and lobbying firms is closing its New Zealand operation.

SenateSHJ will close tomorrow after 21 years of operation in New Zealand, saying trading conditions have become too tough to continue. It says a reduction in public sector consulting and contracting spend has been a factor.

The closure has caused shockwaves through the PR industry – one established player told the Herald it was an “earthquake”; another said it was huge news.

I was stunned when I heard of this. Senate is/was an institution and I have known many of their directors and staff over the years. Their annual function was always a who’s who’s of Wellington.

Thoughts are with the affected staff.

Before the Olympics there were multiple stories about how Russia will be behind attempts to disrupt the Olympics. Then the trains were struck disrupting a million people, and Russia was fingered.

But I was sceptical. Not that Russia ia a malign actor, but disrupting transport links tends to be the modus operandi of left and environmental groups. And are enough it is reported:

French police arrested an “ultra-Left activist” at a railway site on Sunday (local time) after “coordinated” sabotage attacks caused chaos and disruption ahead of Friday’s Olympics opening ceremony.

The man arrested in Oissel near Rouen, northern France, had in his vehicle “access keys to (state rail operator) SNCF technical premises”, “wire cutters”, a “set of universal keys” and other items, as well as literature with links to the ultra-Left, a police source told Le Parisien.

He was also found carrying “ultra-Left literature” with him and a book by Romain Huët called The Vertigo of the Riot: from the Zad to the Yellow Vests.

Zad, or “zones à défendre” (zones to defend) are sites occupied by eco-warriors to prevent what they consider environmentally harmful development projects from being carried out.

This is not a surprise.