The Herald reports:

A recidivist offender who shot a small-time Auckland drug dealer while robbing him of his stash and recent gaming machine jackpot had been on electronically monitored post-prison release conditions at the time of the murder – but had cut off his tracking device.

That factor of Benjamin “Dekoy” Mcintosh’s murder in June 2022 was highlighted for the first time last week as prosecutors sought a lengthy non-parole period for Ethan Dane Dodds, who returned to the High Court at Auckland for sentencing.

Justice Graham Lang agreed that Section 104 of the Sentencing Act – calling for a non-parole period of at least 17 years in some of the most egregious murder cases, including ones that took place in the course of a robbery – had been met. But he also ultimately agreed with Dodds’ lawyer that imposing such a sentence would be “manifestly unjust” because the killing, while reckless, had not been planned or intended.

The 25-year-old was instead ordered to serve a life sentence with a minimum period of 12 years before he can begin to apply for parole.

So possibly out after 12 years. What is his background:

He noted a long list of prior convictions resulting in him having spent the majority of his life so far either in state care or prison. He has rarely spent more than three months at a time outside criminal justice facilities since the age of 11.

Now he is 25 so for 14 years he has constantly offended. But he just gets a series of short sentences so he gets out again and again and again, with the near inevitable killing that follows.

If there was a good three strikes regime, then the cycle of continual release and offending would be broken. He might still offend when out, but there would be far fewer victims.

Piers Seed writes about the current definition of taonga:

According to the Waitangi Tribunal the definition of taonga is:

“Treasures’: ‘taonga’. As submissions to the Waitangi Tribunal concerning the Māori language have made clear, ‘taonga’ refers to all dimensions of a tribal group’s estate, material and non-material – heirlooms and wahi tapu (sacred places), ancestral lore and whakapapa (genealogies), etc”.

(https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/translation-of-te-reo-maori-text/)

Stripped of the Tribunal’s carefully curated mystical framing this definition can be loosely translated in layman’s terms as:

“anything and everything in the world, physical, theoretical, spiritual, metaphorical, known or yet to be discovered”.

If you can see it, it is taonga. If you can think of it, it is also taonga. If you can’t think of it, it is still taonga. Taonga, then, is clearly one hyper-powerful word, seemingly the one word to rule them all.

This might be a slight exaggeration but as it has been argued it includes the telecommunications spectrum, maybe not by much.

And was this what was intended:

“The current definition [of taonga] differs from the historical definition, noted by Hongi Hika as “property procured by the spear” [one could understand this as war booty or defended property] and is now interpreted to mean a wide range of tangible and intangible possessions, especially items of historical cultural significance.”

So this is part of the entire challenge of “honouring” the Treaty. Interpretations today can be radically different to what they were when it was signed.

So the question is who should decide what is the correct interpretation? The Waitangi Tribunal? The Courts? Parliament?

I think it has to be Parliament.

The Press reports:

Christchurch rapists Danny and Roberto Jaz will not be deported when their jail terms end.

The Australian brothers were last year found guilty of rape, drugging, drink spiking, stupefying and filming women in their teens and early 20s.

More than 20 women were sexually assaulted at the men’s family businesses – Mama Hooch and Venuiti.

Roberto Jaz was sentenced to 17 years in prison, while his older brother was given six months less – with a minimum non-parole period of eight years – and victims had been hoping they would be deported to Australia.

But Immigration New Zealand (INZ) said it cannot remove them because of how long they have lived in this country.

“Neither Danny nor Roberto Jaz are liable for deportation as residence class visa holders due to the length of time they have lived in New Zealand,” said its immigration resolutions manager Margaret Cantlon.

We are suckers with our current policy or law.

We should deport all the serious criminals we can. The only ones we should not be able to deport are those who:

• Have birthright citizenship; or
• Do not have citizenship of any other country

The Herald reports:

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologised for leaving D-Day commemorations in France early to return to the election campaign trail – a decision slammed as disgraceful by his political rivals.

Sunak, who is fighting to keep his job in Britain’s July 4 election, said “on reflection” the decision was a mistake.

Sunak was not alongside leaders including US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the major memorial event at Omaha Beach in Normandy on Thursday. Former prime minister David Cameron, who is now foreign minister, represented Britain.

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, the current favourite to win the election, attended and was pictured meeting Zelenskyy and other leaders.

This is one of the issues with cut through. It looks like politics before country. I’m not sure if the Conservatives can drop even lower in the polls, but we will soon find out.

… A Privilege to be in the New Zealand Herald on Friday 7th June

The article is here and as it is behind their paywall … some parts below.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/charter-schools-return-state-education-is-a-vast-failed-experiment-its-time-for-the-system-to-change-alwyn-poole/HHA2PAFEOJC5PBAP3FTVVFSUPM/

OPINION

In 2024 the state education sector in New Zealand is a vast and failed experiment.

With the re-introduction of the charter school model in NZ the habitual opponents – the teacher unions and the Labour Party – have taken only a two-point strategy in their opposition.

The first is that charter schools are a failed experiment with little evidence of success. The second is; if the $38.25 million a year for charter schools was spent on state schools then all of their ills would be solved.

These people take the NZ public, the media and large parts of the education sector for fools.

…

In term 4 of 2023 only 50 per cent of students attended school regularly and for Māori and Pasifika this number was 39 per cent and 36 per cent respectively.

NZ Institute of Economic Research research finds that a significant portion of new primary school teachers have failed NCEA Level 1 English, maths and science. The results across the levels and all demographic situations for NCEA are in consistent decline.

NZ’s international results not only show an actual decline, and one relative to other countries …

If we take our highest broad school qualification – University Entrance (UE) – the top 30 high schools in NZ have an average of 87 per cent of their students achieving UE.

For the bottom 30 schools the average is 2.7 per cent. The high profile “Super 8″ single-sex boys’ schools have a range of 50 per cent down to 14 per cent – but they are good at rugby.

In terms of ethnicity, the most recent UE for leavers statistics in NZ had Asian students at 62 per cent, European at 42 per cent, Pasifika at 21 per cent and Māori at 18 per cent. If that is not shocking to you it shows how accustomed we have become to that level of failure.

…

Our current state education system can genuinely be labelled a “failed experiment” on a massive scale – and especially for Māori, Pasifika, students from lower-income families and those locked into choiceless geographical locations.

There is significant evidence of international success for schools that are allowed to operate as charter schools …

The state-of-the-art Stanford University Credo study in the USA (2023) concluded that … charters have drastically improved, producing better reading and math scores than traditional public schools.

… There is considerable success with charter schooling. It is in no way a failed experiment – as opposed to current state schooling in NZ – and from a system, school, student/family basis many are thankful for the model.

In NZ we have 2177 state schools and 333 state-integrated schools. The teacher unions are asserting that the money to be spent on charters could provide 700 teacher aides and cure all problems.

…

Firstly – the $38.25m per year is 0.3 of a teacher aide per school and, secondly, each teacher aide would only be paid $54,000 per annum according to the generous teacher unions.

…

Charter schools may not be the “silver bullet” but they could well carry the Lone Rangers that have them in their arsenal.

Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

Dr Barnett Bond writes:

You wrote to me an undated letter which I received today, and you asked me to donate funds to the university for scholarships and other things. But a short time ago you announced that you were spending 1.3 million dollars changing the name of the university to have a new (changed) Mãori name. Really? 1.3 million? Can you give me a cost break down on that? Which individuals and which organisations do re-branding work that costs 1.3 million?
How many additional doctors would $1.3 million train? Teachers?

Donors don’t donate for rebrands!

I work in a medical practice where more than 60% of my patients are Mãori. Many of them cannot afford to buy groceries and many others are homeless and sleep in the streets of Auckland. I am additionally responsible for chairing a group of doctors and nurses at Starship Hospital that is focussed on just one disease, Acute Rheumatic Fever, which affects only Pacifica and Mãori. I work very hard to make a difference for these patients but not because of their race. If I was given an additional 1.3 million dollars, I would not spend a cent of it on a branding exercise.

Who would?

You spout a particular oppressor-victim version of “history” without seeming to understand that you will create an attitude of victimhood in some of your students, and a sense of guilt and responsibility among another group of students. Neither group chose their ancestors. Imagine for a moment the effects of your university’s teachings about colonisation on the relationships within my mixed-race family. Imagine for an additional moment what the relationship between my father and the Mãori battalion would have been if your victim-
oppressor attitudes had been successfully inculcated in New Zealand society before WWII.
I am at a time in my life and stage in my career and businesses when I am well off financially. Any thought I might have had about donating to the University of Otago has been scuppered by your pronouncements and decisions over the last several years. It fills me with sadness to see the neo-Marxist race-focussed direction my alma mater is being led in. I loved the University of Otago that I graduated from, and it pains me greatly to see what you are doing to it. There are plenty of places you could spend $1.3million that would make a lot of difference to the lives of the most disadvantaged Mäori in New Zealand, but re-branding the university is not one of
them. Please delete my name permanently from all your mailing lists; I do not wish to be reminded
again of your profligate waste of precious educational money on race-based virtue-signalling.

I understand other donors have shared similiar sentiments.

A total of 35 rapists in the last three years got home detention. This is what happens when your policy isn’t to reduce crime, but to reduce the number of people in prison.

This means it has been 85 days since she stood down on full pay. It is inconceivable it has taken that long.

Also of interest is that over two weeks ago a key witness changed their mind about giving evidence, but was refused on the basis it would delay the report. Yet two weeks later it still isn’t completed, which undermines the rationale for not allowing the late evidence.

Interest.co.nz reported:

The Tiwai Point aluminium smelter in Southland will continue to operate until at least 2044 after striking a deal with Kiwi energy companies to supply renewable electricity until then. 

New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS), which is owned by multinational mining group Rio Tinto, has often talked of closing due to low commodity prices and high electricity costs.

In 2019, Rio Tinto announced a strategic review of the smelter after a year of losses and eventually decided it would halt operations in 2021.

NZAS says it employs 1000 workers, indirectly supports another 2200 and makes up about 6.5% of Southland’s gross domestic product. 

The potential closure became an election issue in 2020, with various parties pitching plans to rescue the important regional employer, but ultimately aluminium prices came to the rescue. 

Rio Tinto were masters at bluffing the Government and threatening to abandon the smelter unless they got a sweetheart deal. Great to see the probable end of that, with a commercial 20 year deal struck for electricity.

Stuff reports:

A charitable law organisation that assisted survivors of abuse in faith-based institutions is standing by its decision to hire a former Anglican dean as its head despite an array of concerns from staff, saying “perception has clouded reality”.

Community Law Canterbury (CLC) hired Lawrence Kimberley in October. Kimberley was previously the Anglican dean since 2015, telling The Press he stood down as he was looking for a new job before retirement to buy a house.

Following the appointment, a letter was sent to CLC’s board outlining concerns including how survivors of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse in faith-based institutions, which the organisation assisted, would feel about the appointment. …

It stated 29 staff members had expressed concerns about Kimberley’s appointment that they wanted communicated to outgoing chief executive Paul O’Neill and the board, including the process used to select him.

So 29 snowflakes signed a letter protesting the new CE, because he used to be a Bishop in the Anglican Church.

Most staff held “no personal ill will” towards Kimberley, and were “conscious” they had not met him. However, they believed the board had not considered that there were 11 members on staff who openly identified as being part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“The fraught and complex relationship between religious organisations generally and LGBTQIA+ communities is well documented,” the letter said.

If a senior Muslim cleric has been appointed, I wonder if the 29 staff would have written a letter opposing the appointment on the basis of how many rainbow staff they had?

Kimberley told Stuff that since he was appointed, 10 employees had left for various reasons. CLC had also appointed seven people and one contractor to various roles. Two interns were about to move into solicitor roles.

“Some of the staff who left did so before I started so I didn’t even get the chance to meet them.” …

I believe it’s so important to treat every human being with reverence and respect.” …

He believed anyone at CLC should feel safe, adding it was his job to ensure that.

“My role in working for the Anglican Church’s response to the Royal Commission into the Abuse in Care was to help revise the approach to policies and procedures on the various boards on which I served. I worked really hard in a policy sense to make sure that it was survivor focused.”

There is no suggestion in any way that Kimberly has ever acted inappropriately. It is purely because he was in the Anglican Church. It is religious bigotry.

Stuff reports:

When Chlöe Swarbrick first won a seat in Parliament at 23 years old, she was the youngest MP to do so since 1975.

Yet, the Green Party co-leader admitted on Stuff’s new podcast, Kiwi Yarns, that she never intended to be a politician.

“I never intended to go into politics or parliament to fight for drug law reform,” she told Kiwi Yarns host Brodie Kane, an award-winning journalist and broadcaster.

Once again media repeat this claim with credulity. Its the sort of thing that makes sense for someone who has say pursued an alternative career for a decade or two, but is inane nonsense when referring to someone who at the age of 22 first stood for elective office.

Liam Hehir skewered this claim here.

Hamiona Gray spent almost a year working as a Communications Manager for John Tamihere, so his insights should be treated as reasonably insightful.

He writes:

What became increasingly clear during my first week’s working there was that Te Pou Matakana, the Waipareira Trust, Hapai Te Hauora, and all the other ‘brands’ under this umbrella existed only on paper. In practice, they were (and remain) all the same organisation. If you worked for one, you worked for all of them. 

This is important because it is the fiction of them all being legally seperate bodies that allow them to get massive chunks of money from the Government to hand out as part of Whanau Ora, and also get massive chunks for welfare and health services.

There were other chief executives, there were several elected boards, but behind all of them was John – He was the ultimate authority. 

Now this is messy enough when they are just NGOs, but here is where it really gets conflicted.

This model gave him and them a level of plausible deniability around his involvement – Stats NZ want to get more Maori to respond to the census, but know they can’t employ an organisation led by the infamous president of a political party to do so? Contract Te Pou Matakana/WOCA to do it. 

So the same person presides over a political party and also gets large government contracts to work on behalf of the Electoral Commission, Stats NZ etc.

You may have had a contract with WOCA, but the people doing the work could be from any one of a half dozen organisations and there was no line between where and who did what. 

I must point out that this was before Tamihere merged Te Pati Maori into this mix, but it is my understanding based on conversations I’ve had that they too are just as involved in everything that happens inside the rest of the fiefdom.  

So the Maori Party is staffed and funded by the Tamihere Empire. We know this because they made illegal loans to the Maori Party. After many years of asking they were paid back, but of course it is quite possible (and legal) that they merely increased Tamihere’s salary by $500,000 a year and he used that to pay back the money.

Here’s how the ANC has done in every post-Apartheid election.

• 1994: 63%
• 1999: 66%
• 2004: 70%
• 2009: 66%
• 2014: 62%
• 2019: 58%
• 2024: 40%

This is a good thing for South Africa. With the possible exceptions of Japan and Singapore, parties that constantly stay in power become corrupt. If you can’t lose, your incentives are different. And the ANC has been very corrupt.

The ANC will remain in Government but for the first time ever will need coalition partners. Who might they be:

• Democratic Alliance 22%
• uMkhonto we Sizwe 15%
• Economic Freedom Fighters 9%
• Inkatha Freedom Party 4%
• Patriotic Alliance 2%
• Freedom Front Plus 1%
• ActionSA 1%

The DA is a centrist liberal party, mainly supported by non-blacks. It emerged from apartheid era anti-apartheid parties. Their policies include 60,000 more police officers, and they are broadly pro-Western.

uMkhonto we Sizwe is led by former President Jacob Zuma, who makes other corrupt politicians look like amateurs. It is socialist, populist and socially conservative. It supports land confiscation without compensation.

The EFF is led by former ANC Youth President Julius Malema. It is a communist party that supports land confiscation, nationalising mines and banks, doubling welfare benefits and the minimum wage.

The IFP is a Conservative Party mainly supported by Zulus. It is anti-immigration.

The PA is a right wing party, mainly supported by Coloureds. Also anti-immigration.

FF Plus is a right wing party mainly supported by Afrikaans.

Action SA is a classical liberal party.

The DA would be the best choice for moderate policies. But far from clear who the ANC prefers. An interesting time.

Very illuminating.

Stuff reports:

The E tū union’s bill for fighting a wrongful dismissal case against one of its own staff is likely to top $200,000 – in a case one union heavyweight has described as a “woeful litany of mis-steps”.

The country’s largest private sector union last week lost an Employment Court appeal over the sacking of union organiser Sher Singh – and must now pay him a compensation package which includes a year’s salary, $25,000 for hurt and humiliation and, most likely, two sets of legal fees.

It is ironic that often some of the worst cases that go before the Employment Court involve unions as employers!

Scoop reports:

Today’s council announcement says there’ll be a rates increase of 17 per cent – in March the increase was to have been 16.4 per cent. The announcement fails to mention the extra sludge levy that has already been announced and which will mean ratepayers are paying over 18 per cent more.

So we are having an 18% rates increase in the only city in NZ which has a shrinking population. I wonder why? The 18% increase is because of choices the Council has made – renovating the Town Hall, a new large central Library instead of the perfectly good three inner city ones we have, a loss making convention centre, massively expensive cycleways etc etc.

A rare occasion where the Mayor and Deputy voted on the side of ratepayers. There is no sensible case for owning a minority share of the airport. You have no control of it, you get poor returns on the shares, and it creates a conflict with your regulatory role.

What I find somewhat ironic is that the vote would have been tied if it were not for the two Iwi representatives voting in favour of selling.

Thomas Cranmer reports:

In 2019 Green co-leader James Shaw defended his high international travel expenses, explaining it’s offset by planting trees and informing the public that the Green Party offsets all travel through tree-planting, something he said he’d “recommend people do”.

So earlier this week I asked the Green Party how much each Green MP had offset their air travel by way of tree-planting or other means for each of the years 2021, 2022 and 2023. The party’s response was to direct me to a parliamentary press release from 2020 which stated that Parliament would be installing solar PV on the roof of the historic Parliament House and that the savings made through this initiative would be used to offset MP’s travel.

However, the project was delayed and the panels were only finally installed in stages on the roof of Parliament House over the last six months of 2022!

So the reality is that the Greens were not offsetting their carbon emissions, despite insisting everyone else must move to be carbon neutral.

Auckland University has a draft free speech policy. There are some good parts to it, but also parts that will allow significant censorship.

We take our role of critic and conscience seriously and welcome and encourage dialogue and debate including on topics which may be contentious and controversial. It is inevitable that different perspectives will sometimes be in tension with each other. It is important to remember the foundation of our academic community: respect for diverse viewpoints and a commitment to civil discourse.

That’s good.

Every staff member and every student has the same right to freedom of expression on University premises or otherwise in connection with the University as any other person in Aotearoa New Zealand subject only to the constraints imposed by the reasonable and proportionate regulation of conduct to enable the University to fulfil its Duty regarding the wellbeing of staff and students

This is a huge weakness. This means that any snowflake staff member or student can claim that someone else’s speech is a threat to their wellbeing, and hey presto that speech is against the code of conduct.

However, the University may express an institutional position or view.

Harvard have just learnt this is a bad idea. Individual staff and students should take positions. The institution should not.

Academic staff members are not precluded from including content in a course solely on the grounds that it may offend or shock a student or class of students.

That’s good.

The University may refuse to permit a visitor or visitors to speak on University premises where the content of the speech is or is likely to prejudice the fulfilment by the University of its Duty regarding the wellbeing of staff and students

This is a licence for censorship. We know from experience that wellbeing is used as a weapon to censor views people disagree with. They did it at Massey to stop Don Brash from speaking.

involve the advancement of theories or propositions which fall below scholarly standards to such an extent as to be detrimental to the University’s character and its performance of the functions characteristic of a university.

This is also a licence to censor. Who decides what meets scholarly standards? On this ground the Deputy PM of NZ could be banned from speaking if he has a view on something which a university administrator disagrees with.

There is no right for outsider speakers to speak on campus without an invitation. But if an academic staff member or an affiliated society decides they wish to hear from someone one, that shouldn’t be a decision for the institution.

General Practice NZ released:

General Practice New Zealand (GPNZ) welcomes Dr Lester Levy as the new chair of Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.

“General practice and primary care are central to a functioning, robust health system and GPNZ looks forward to working with Dr Levy to address the critical issues we face,” says Porirua-based Specialist General Practitioner and Chair of GPNZ, Dr Bryan Betty.

Labour’s DHB merger into Health NZ has been a near disaster. However going back to DHBs is not the answer (a smaller number of DHBs was probably best as Heather Simpson recommended) and the sector can’t handle further reform. That means one has to try and get Health NZ to function well.

If anyone can do it, it probably is Lester Levy. He has a rare mix of medical and business skills. He has been a CE of a public hospital, a private hospital and the blood service. He’s been the Chair of three different DHBs, and of course is a doctor also. I hope he succeeds.