1 News reports:

Lauren Dickason has been sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for murdering her three young daughters in their Timaru home nearly three years ago.

She is eligible for parole in just six years.

Justice Mander said “there is a direct causal connection between your mental illness and your offending which significantly reduces your moral culpability”. 

“This tragic event would not have occurred if not for the major depressive disorder that you suffered.”

This is true, but suffice to say many many parents have major depressive episodes and don’t murder their children.

Graham Dickason said he made the decision early on to forgive Lauren for what happened. 

“Her punishment is already severe and her life will never be the same. 

“I hold no unforgiveness or anger towards Lauren.”

He is a better man than me.

Thepublica reports:

A 20-year-old woman in Hamburg, Germany, has been sent to prison after making “hateful” remarks towards a migrant who was involved in the gang rape of a child. The woman is just one of 140 people being investigated for making “harmful comments” towards the rapists.

However, despite DNA and WhatsApp evidence, eight of the nine men convicted walked free with probation and spent no time in prison at all. The ninth was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison without parole. 

The case caused outrage in Germany, both for the brutality of the rape itself and the lenient sentences given to the rapists. As a result, one of the men had his identity and phone number circulated on Snapchat by furious sleuths.

Angered by the news of the case, a 20-year-old woman from Hamburg messaged the number through WhatsApp. The unnamed woman called him a “dishonorable rapist pig” and a “disgusting miscarriage.” She added: “Aren’t you ashamed when you look in the mirror?”

The targeted rapist then reported the woman to police, and she was charged with sending him insulting messages.

The woman has now been convicted and sentenced to a weekend in prison for her remarks — meaning that she will have spent more time in jail than 8 of the 9 rapists.

I’m not for doxxing, but it is no surprise it happens when child rapists are not sent to prison.

As previously reported the TPM MP had her marae’s van converted to a campaign billboard during the campaign, which raises issues of breach of charity status.

The other issue is whether the use of the van was disclosed as a donation in kind by the marae to her, in her expense return? It does not appear to be, so the Electoral Commission should investigate.

The Herald reports:

Taranaki’s Waitara High School implemented a mobile phone ban at the start of 2023, more than a year ahead of the Government’s official move.

But it was only for pupils in Years 9 through 12.

Year 13s got to keep their mobiles.

“They can wear mufti and sign-out without parent consent. It’s a transition to adulthood,” principal Daryl Warburton told the Herald. It made sense for them to keep their phones, he thought. “I was reluctant to ban a device that’s so central to modern life. It was better to teach them how to use it responsibly.”

Now, he’s a convert to the Government’s total ban, which includes Year 13s, and break times.

Not having phones had got rid of a significant distraction in class and last year the academic results in Years 9 to 12 were up 15-20%, the principal said.

Wow that is significant.

“We had the best results in the history of the school, except Year 13 – so we saw the correlation.”

This year, with the total ban, senior academic performance has also increased.

So Year 13 acted as a control.

And on a social level, “kids used to message each other in the hallway, from one metre away”, Warburton said.

“Now break times and lunch times are absolutely raucous.” Tag and bullrush are back. There’s been a notable rise in minor injuries.

I guess an increase in injuries is a good thing 🙂

A reader writes:

Important video, I believe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKcErPWhtMA with 3 key elements and possible angles for Kiwiblog. I couldn’t think of anyone else better to cover this stuff.

1. Nigel Farage/Reform is a political phenom
   As you know, the latest polls suggest they have overtaken Conservatives on 19-20% into 2^ndplace. It’s not inconceivable that Reform could get to 25%, or more, by election day. I believe this could be the prototype for how to take political duopolies down everywhere.
   
2. FPP vs MMP
   Despite that support, the talk is that Farage/Reform might only get 1-5 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons! The UK is one of the few remaining First Past the Post systems in the west due to this representation flaw. That said, MMP is far from perfect either, e.g. Winston putting Jacinda in ahead of National. Race-based seats make our system even worse. Our 5% threshold is arbitrary and highly contested, too. Then, we have the French snap election always just a week or so away with representation done via a two-round system. This would also make a great and timely story.
3. Representative media coverage
   At 1.30 in that video is a key point. UK broadcasting, especially state-owned, allocates coverage mostly on the previous election results, not current polling. I believe it is deeply flawed. As Nigel says, they’re polling 19% but getting 8% of the media coverage. They’re polling 3x higher than the Greens, but getting the same media coverage. I believe media coverage should be based primarily on current polling popularity. Win the people = win more coverage. Lose the people = get less coverage.

The Herald reports:

A Hamilton city councillor has written an offensive, expletive-laden rant to a neighbouring council.

But councillor Andrew Bydder is unapologetic and says he stands by his comments, made in a submission to Waipā District Council over the placement of a third bridge in Cambridge, which asked: “What the f**k are you r******d s*****c c**ts doing?”

The F, R and C were easy to work out but I was stumped by the S, but Twitter sleuths worked out it was probably spastic.

It is of course unacceptable language for anyone to use in an e-mail, let alone a Councillor. Voters should judge accordingly.

Stuff reports:

Labour Party transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere said the only timely, efficient option was to restart iRex.

Amazing.

The project costs blow out by 300% and Labour says this is what they are still committed to!

They want every household in NZ to pay over $1,000 for this project.

The Herald reports:

A new sentencing category – Young Serious Offender – will be introduced, allowing judges to send offenders to military-style academies.

It would apply to teenagers aged 14 to 17 years at the time of the offending, have had two offences punishable by imprisonment of 10 years or more proven in court are assessed as being likely to reoffend with previous interventions having proven unsuccessful.

Two offences with a maximum sentence of 10 years or more, will mean these are indeed very serious youth offenders. This will not be your ram raider or burglar. The types of offences that would qualify are:

• Murder
• Manslaughter
• Sexual Violation
• Wounding or Injuring with intent to cause GBH
• Aggravated Wounding

Labour’s children’s spokeswoman Willow-Jean Prime said sending these kinds of children, many of whom would have experienced abuse of suffered deep trauma, to the camps could cause further harm.

“Forcing these kinds of children into boot camps is cruel and takes our youth rehabilitative system backwards.

I don’t know about you, but if they have raped two people before they turn 18, then the rehabilitation system isn’t working that well already!

HDPA writes:

The optics of a National minister neutering the power of the country’s first Green mayor and most left-wing council ever could be used against him. At worst, he could be accused of taking revenge against mayor Tory Whānau for the stream of stupid things she said about him before the last election.

But more than anything, a Green-led council fighting in public is hardly a spectacle a centre-right central government should rush to hide. WCC became the darling of left-wing voters when it was the only council that moved left in an election where most councils shifted to the right.

But the disaster they’ve turned into has even members of the Green Party distancing themselves from the Green mayor.

As they say, never interrupt your opponent while he is in the middle of making a mistake.

Wellingtonians voted for a Labour/Green Council and they got one. It is not the job of the Minister to save us from our own votes!

Yascha Mounk writes:

Remarkably, these developments are fueled, not slowed, by young voters. In Poland, a plurality of voters under the age of 30 supported the far-right Konfederacja. In France, the National Rally did a little better among voters under the age of 35 than it did in the population as a whole. In Germany, the young are now significantly more likely to vote for the far right than the old, with the AfD out-polling the Greens among those who are younger than 25.2

There are many reasons for the growing strength of the far right. But it is clear that one reason outweighs the others: Voters simply don’t trust mainstream parties to control immigration. And that concern is now especially pronounced among the continent’s young people, who are more accustomed than their elders to living in a genuinely diverse environment, but also more directly exposed to the problems that flow from a lack of integration. A few years ago, David Frum admonished Democrats that, “If liberals won’t enforce borders, fascists will.” Moderate parties in Europe would do well to heed the same lesson.

In the 2019 EU elections young Germans voted 35% Greens and 5% AFD. In 2024 they voted 17% AFD and 11% Greens. That change isn’t because young Germans have suddenly become fascist. It is because they want secure borders.

Things are beyond dire for the Conservatives. From Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll:

• 75% of voters say there is no way they will vote Conservative
• 45% of those who voted for Conservatives in 2019say there is no way they will vote for them this time
• Only 7% of those who voted Conservative in 2019 are satisfied with the current Government
• Support for key Conservative policies drops by 15% once people know the policy is a Conservative one

Latest forecast is Conservatives lose 300 seats – from 376 to 76!

Radio NZ reports:

Christchurch City Council has announced it is resigning from Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ).

Councillors at a meeting today decided to no longer be part of LGNZ, after its annual membership costs rose by more than $20,000.

The decision came after a report was presented at the meeting about renewing the annual membership subscription for the association, which represents the interests of councils around the country. The annual cost for Christchurch is $163,254.75 plus GST for the 2024/2025 year.

This means LGNZ has lost its two largest members (Auckland and Christchurch) and no longer represents around 40% of New Zealand’s population.

It is a pity in some ways. Ideally every Council in NZ would belong to a united industry group to represent them. But the damage done by their stance on supporting Three Waters against the wishes of so many Councils has left scars that will take a long time to heal. They ended up lobbying the Councils on behalf of the Government, instead of vice-versa.

I suspect in time, Auckland and Christchurch will rejoin. But only after a fairly long period of time.

Interesting data from the 2023 stocktake.

• 54.0% female
• 0.1% non-binary
• 46.9% male
• 66.9% European
• 27.5% Maori
• 7.0% Pacific
• 6.1% Pacific

The scary thing is the total number of Ministerial appointees – a total of 2,790!

I watched the 1st (and last) US Presidential debate and it was awful. Biden looked like a corpse. For lengths of 30 seconds or more he would be unmoving and unblinking.

Biden did get some hits away in the second half, but the impressions from the first half will be what people remember. Trump by contrast looked strong and vigorous (of course he lied non stop) and ironically the debate format with no interjections actually made him look more reasonable.

The debate will now be about whether they replace Biden as candidate. I’ve watched a lot of US presidential debates and never have I seen such a bad performance.

1 News reports:

A branded van, used by Te Pāti Māori candidate Takutai Kemp last year, has raised fresh questions amid concerns over allegations relating to Manurewa Marae.

The late-model, 12-seater van was used by Kemp in her bid for the Tāmaki Makaurau seat last year. The vehicle was wrapped in the candidate’s branding and featured prominently in Kemp’s marketing campaign as a mobile billboard.

Subsequent registration checks of the vehicle show that it is owned by the Manurewa Marae Trust Board. Kemp was the chief executive of the marae before the election.

That may be a problem for the marae as it is a registered charity. Charities are restricted in what political activities they can engage in. 

Charities Services, which is part of Internal Affairs, told Q+A “registered charities must not support or oppose particular parties or candidates.”

Yet they do, and they keep getting away with it, with barely a wet bus ticket slap.

You can spend $500,000 on a political campaign, and then all you have to do to escape action is pay your CEO a higher salary, so he can then repay the “loan”. Where’s the incentive not to do it in the first place?

Simon Wilson writes:

Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden occupy positions 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 on the UN’s inequality-adjusted Human Development Index. New Zealand is a mere 17th. Those same countries also hold five of the top seven places on the World Happiness Index. They’re doing pretty well.

Are there things we could learn from them?

I am sure there are. Here’s some of them:

• Sweden has lifted its ban on uranium mining and reversing the decision to phase out nuclear power with 10 new nuclear reactors
• A planned 10 billion kronor tax cut in Sweden
• A national ban on begging in Sweden
• Increasing defence spending to 2% of GDP
• Norway cut fuel tax
• Norway is 5th largest oil exporter in the world
• Denmark announced a US-Danish defense cooperation agreement, that allows for U.S. soldiers and military equipment to be based in Denmark
• Denmark is tripling military spending
• Denmark has forced 37-hours-per-week labour for immigrants in exchange for benefits
• Finland has cut €6 billion in the state budget
• Finland has tightened up benefit eligibility
• Iceland has a corporate tax rate of 20%

All good policies!

Shane Reti and David Seymour announced:

The coalition Government is delivering up to 26 cancer treatments as part of an overall package of up to 54 more new medicines, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti and Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today.

“Pharmac estimates that around 175,000 people will benefit from the additional treatments in just the first year,” Dr Reti says.

Excellent news. What matters more – that the announcement was delayed four weeks, or that 175,000 people will benefit from the new drugs!

The Herald reports:

Her once-promising political career now in tatters, former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman endured another blow this afternoon as she stood in an Auckland courtroom to be sentenced for shoplifting nearly $9000 worth of retail items from high-end stores.

Judge June Jelas denied the 43-year-old former barrister’s request for a discharge without conviction, decreasing her odds of being allowed to revive her legal career after a seven-year hiatus prompted by her ascension to Parliament.

Ghahraman, who was allowed to sit in the courtroom gallery rather than the dock, lowered her eyes and looked towards a supporter as the decision was announced.

The judge imposed fines totalling $1600 and court costs of $260. Supervision was not imposed.

This seems appropriate – a minor fine and a conviction. Now that the justice process has reached a conclusion, Ghahraman should be allowed to get on with her life in private and like any other criminal be wished well in her rehabilitation.

Macron’s decision to call a snap election looks to be backfiring badly. The latest polls are:

• National Rally (right) 36%
• New Popular Front (left) 29%
• Together (centre) 21%
• Republicans (centre-right) 7%

So his faction looks to get barely 20% and the hard right and hard left will get over 60% between them meaning the new Government will need one of them in it.

The next Prime Minister could be Jordan Bardella, who is only 28 years old.