I blogged in July:

I’ve been following the Dickason trial where she is charged with murdering her three daughters. I don’t want to comment on the specifics of this case, as it is before a jury but I wanted to share my reaction to when the news of their deaths was first reported.

When I heard they had been killed by their mother, my instinctive reaction was to almost feel sorry for her, and just conclude she must be mad, not bad. I was thinking “Oh the poor woman, she’ll have to live with this for the rest of her life”. 

But I know that if I read about a father killing his three children, my instinctive reaction would be a deep deep despising of the man, and I would be concluding he is evil. I would want him strapped to Ixion’s flaming wheel as punishment.

So I went into the trial with an instinctive sympathy for Lauren Dickason. But that soon changed as the facts emerged. I won’t go into all of them here, but the fact she had researched methods, had resented the kids as they got on better with the father did not paint to me a picture of a temporary moment of insanity.

The expert evidence of the prosecution seemed persuasive that while she was deeply stressed and depressed, she was not insane. Some of the things she complained about the kids doing, are things almost all parents have had to cope with. And it is very sad she couldn’t cope and didn’t get enough support, but that can not excuse what she did. I do still feel sorry for her, but only a fraction of the sorrow for the father and the rest of the family. And I actually shudder as I think about the poor kids.

So a very very sad case. The murder convictions are correct and a life sentence inevitable for a triple murder.

Ian Harrison of Tailrisk Economics has published a paper analysing the evidence behind the claims that disparity in health outcomes between Maori and non-Maori is due to colonialism and racism. His summary is:

Our main conclusion is that there is very little robust empirical evidence that racism contributes materially to the gap in life expectancy. The main drivers are different smoking and obesity rates. Other behavioural differences such as higher risk taking may also contribute. The response by the institutions and individuals pushing the racism narrative would be that this is a superficial understanding and that the differences are driven by more fundamental causes such as differential access to resources, which are in turn are the result of colonialism. But this claim is never substantiated, and on the limited data on the issue it appears that resources are not really the issue. The gaps primarily come back to behaviour.

His full paper is below.

One thing I was very pleased with when involved with establishing and supporting South Auckland Middle School and Middle School West Auckland was that they really did work hard to put the outcomes for children and their families first. One part of this was NEVER taking Teacher Only Days.

I have not been on the Villa Education Trust or in an advisory role for two years now. Last year I was contracted to track and report on outcomes for leavers of these Middle (Year 7 – 10) schools. As these were diving the new Boards of Trustees took the action that is prevalent through much of the education sector – stop tracking the data and remove all transparency.

To some extent the schools avoided the strikes but I regard teacher only days as worse than strikes as there is not even a smidgen of over-riding or collective purpose.

Teachers get at least twelve weeks of holiday a year. They often claim that they work right through them. That is pulling the wool and I know these two schools very well. They have good teachers – and they also enjoy their holidays to close to the fullest extent. There are not too many on site after 4pm.

Education as a whole is well known to be in crises – enrollment, attendance, literacy, numeracy, qualifications achievement (e.g. in South Auckland 33% of Maori leave school without L1 NCEA). It is also well documented that low decile (high Equity Index) schools are struggling the most as a rule, as are Maori and Pasifika students. Both of these schools are decile 1 and have well over 80% Maori and Pasifika by ethnicity. Both were also thriving on all measurables through their first 7 years but latest available data says otherwise. If they were still Partnership Schools their approach to data and outcomes would be unacceptable.

When you have 12 weeks holiday a year. When you have a student teacher ratio of 15:1. When you have all resourcing administration done externally – as well as a significant amount of academic preparation. How do you justify a teacher only day? You can’t.

What is the effect on decile 1 families?

Disruption and potential expense. I know a lot about many of the families in South and West Auckland who want their children at these schools. They are often hard working and parents often have two jobs – with minimal benefits such as annual leave. They are often large families and sometimes even using their garages for sleep-outs. Many of these conscientious parents have to either take a day’s leave or pay someone to care for their 10 – 15 year old children. The alternative is to fend for themselves.

The effect on the students is that they miss yet another day of learning. Keep in mind that in our high school system Year 13s are the only ones who have had a normal year without multiple disruptions. Teachers try and say “everyday matters”. Clearly they do not believe that to be true.

Am I an a%$^hole for pointing this out for schools I used to be associated with? Probably. However it was either that or being a hypocrite given that I have criticized others for striking and taking teacher only days. Given the holiday conditions that teachers work under and the available of call-back days under the collective contract – no school should be taking Teacher Only Days. They are an anathema to quality education. They are a scourge to families, deny students a day of learning and potentially put them at risk being out and about with no supervision – and strangely, they are pretty much are always a Friday or Monday and so allowing a nice long weekend for teachers.

Te Pukenga has published its 2022 annual report. This allows us to see how well the personal brainchild of Chris Hipkins is doing. A summary:

• Deficit of $80.4 million
• A 10.6% drop in EFTS (effective full time students)
• Targets for course completion and credit achievement for Maori and Pacific learners were generally not met
• Overall targets for all learners generally not met
• Lower achievement levels on the industry training side

Luke Malpass writes:

When Chris Hipkins finally announced the badly kept secretthat Labour would do away with GST on fruit and vegetables – if Labour is re-elected – he confirmed what will be a contender for being the stupidest and most principle-free decision of a major party of this election campaign.

…

This proposed change – beloved by certain sections of the old-school political left – is really the idiot cousin of Labour’s craven desperation. 

It’s framed as a response to the cost of living crisis, but it won’t come in for eight months, and some of the rest of their policy doesn’t impact until a further year after that.

It is a rare combination of desperation and idiocy.

The Government has released the latest benefit data. Here are the changes from June 2017 to June 2023.

All working age benefits

• Total working age 276,331 to 351,759, an increase of 27%
• Maori 97,916 to 131,413, an increase of 34%
• Under 25s 42,615 to 52,689, an increase of 24%
• More than one year 72,558 to 92,814, an increase of 28%

So in six years we have around 75,000 more working age NZers on welfare. Of concern is the increase of Under 25s and those on welfare for more than year because we know from social investment data that being on welfare early and for a long time has highly negative correlation with doing well later in life.

The situation is even worse for those who are on jobseeker.

• Jobseeker 118,776 to 173,130, an increase of 46%
• Maori jobseeker 43,430 to 67,029, an increase of 54%
• More than one year JS 51,299 to 70,365, an increase of 37%

A huge 46% increase of people on what used to be called the dole. even higher for Maori New Zealanders, and despite low unemployment a 37% increase in those who have spent over a year on jobseeker.

There are some interesting discrepancies in the evolving story of how City Councillor Tamatha Paul replaced James Shaw as the candidate for Wellington Central.

On the 2nd of February Tamatha said:

Shaw’s approach was entirely unexpected, said Paul. 

So in February the story was James Shaw approached Tamatha to stand, and that this was totally unexpected.

In an RNZ story she said:

Paul said Shaw rang her while she was in Bunnings, and his nomination was completely unexpected.

So Shaw phoned her while she was at Bunnings.

On the 3rd of February, it is explicit:

Paul, 25, said Shaw asked her to consider standing.

So here again she says it was Shaw who asked her to stand.

But fast forward to 30 July, and here is what she told Salient:

Tamatha: Yea I was at Bunnings, …

And then my phone started blowing up, and everyone was telling me that Grant Robertson has resigned, and I was like, what does that have to do with me, like ok, cool, alright, sweet, ok. And then Thomas Nash who is a regional councillor was just blow – he rung me he’s like ‘I think that you should do this’ …

And then Chloe was ringing me like ‘just do it bro, just do it’ like she’s being saying that for the last 5 years like ‘come on, join us’ and I’ve always been like ‘Nah, I’m good, serving my community.’ Um but yea, just everyone was blowing my phone up and then I just thought look I’m not gonna um, I was like ‘what does James think?’, and they’re like, ‘well we don’t know, cause we can’t find him,’ cause he was like out on a trek in like the South Island somewhere.

So quite a different story here. A Green Regional Councillor was the one who phoned her at Bunnings and Chloe Swarbrick phoned her also urging her to stand, and all this before anyone had talked to James Shaw who was out trekking.

And then we get more details on Facebook on 31 July:

Tamatha: So, what brought me here. Well, I was standing in bunnings as you do, probably trying to fix something on behalf of my landlord. And then my phone started blowing up and it was none other than Mr Thomas Nash. And he told me that Grant Robertson, Our MP for 15 years was standing down. And I was like ‘ok, ok cool’. And then I got a phone call from none other than MP for Auckland Central, Chloe Swarbrick. And she was like ‘Tam’ join me.  …

So I had 2 whole days to make my mind up. I needed to get out of the house and go have a breather, so I went to Te Rā o te Raukura in the Hutt with Te Rehia. And who should show up? Mr Thomas Nash with his son strapped to his belly. And he was following me around the whole time. And I was just trying to have a breather. And conveniently, James Shaw was somewhere in the wilderness, uncontactable. And I thought it’s just not meant to be. But miraculously, with the power of 5G, James text me and he said ‘I’ll back you, but only if you’re 100% all in.’

So it is quite clear that there was no call from James Shaw asking her to run. What actually happened is Chloe urged her to run, and then James Shaw was approached and agreed to back her.

Pretty amazing to have a Green Party MP urging someone to run for the seat their co-leader had stood in, without even talking to the co-leader first.

Another interesting aspect to Tamatha’s changing story is I had no idea how high rents are in Aro Valley. In an interview with Salient, Tamatha said:

Tamatha: So I have to say, my, the biggest thing that I want to be judged on as, in my first term as MP is how many houses I can get built. And I, and I want more public housing and affordable housing because I think that if you look at the city and what is holding us back its the lack of affordable housing and good quality housing. You know, you look at the cost-of-living crisis, for me, most of my, most of my money that is coming in every week is going on my rent and that seems to be the universal experience we’re all paying exorbitant amounts on rent, that’s where all of our money is going but we’re paying to live in shitholes. You know we are living in the darkest, dingiest, mouldiest flats. 

Later (17:35)

Host: Can you tell us a little bit about your housing situation, so like what’s your setup?

Tamatha: Yea so, I live in Aro Valley, and I’ve lived there for four years now. But obviously I’ve just been flatting flat, never owned a house, probably won’t for a very long time. Um so, I live with four people, four flatmates, and my dog, and um.

So Tamatha said that most of her income goes in rent, despite living with four flatmates. Let’s look at this.

Her salary as a committee chair is $123,265. Her tax would be 31,597 giving her net income of around $92,000. At least half of that going on rent would be $46,000 or $885 a week. With four flatmates, then their rent would be $4,400 a week if they share equally.

Trade Me has the highest rent for a house in Aro Valley as $1,100 a week.

So who thinks it is credible that Tamatha is personally spending $885 or more a week on a “shithole” in Aro Valley that she shares with five others?

Stuff reports:

Labour denies it left a $235 million “hole” in the costings for its GST-free fruit and veges plan, but admits to sending out incorrect information before Sunday’s announcement.

National Party finance spokesperson Nicola Willis accused Labour of miscalculating the cost of its plan to take GST off fruit and vegetables next year.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said, if re-elected, the Government would remove GST from fruit and vegetables from April.

Before Hipkins officially promised this policy during a speech on Sunday, Labour circulated a policy document with reporters that undercounted the cost of his promise. It under-estimated the cost to start it.

So what they sent out to the media under embargo had a $235 million hole in its costings.

The error was quickly rectified when the policy went public, and neither Hipkins nor Finance Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mistakes in their speeches or under questioning.

Note they didn’t tell the media that what they had sent out under embargo was wrong. They just tried to keep it a secret and hoped no one would notice.

The spokesperson insisted the party knew what its GST policy would cost, and that the error was only included in a fact sheet sent to media.

“References to ‘holes’ or ‘uncosted’ by the Opposition are false,” they said.

LOL. We gave the media a detailed fact sheet with a $235 million error in it, but it is false to claim it was a hole!

Labour’s desperation has shown with their policy announcement they will destroy the integrity of the tax system by exempting fruit and vegetables from GST, which will at best (if supermarkets even pass it on) save a low income household $5 a week.

I had a column in The Post last week which detailed all the various ways this was such a bad idea.

The Free Speech Union has organised a series of debates on topical issues. Far better to debate different ideas than try to censor them. The debates are:

Debate 1: “be it resolved; Governments should lead the fight to reach Net Zero.”
Location/Venue: Dunedin, Otago University – St David’s Lecture Theatre
Date: Wednesday, 16 August – 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Speakers: James Cockle & Rosemary Penwarden vs Simon Court MP & Damien Grant
Moderator: Jonathan Ayling

Debate 2: “be it resolved; our tax system is unfair and the wealthy must pay more”.
Location/Venue: Wellington, Victoria University, RHLT1
Date: Monday 4th September – 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Speakers: Jordan Williams & Hon. Ruth Richardson vs Dr Bryce Edwards & Max Rashbrooke
Moderator: Sean Plunkett

Debate 3: “be it resolved; ‘one person, one vote’ silences indigenous voices and must go”.
Location/Venue: Hamilton, Wintec, The Atrium
Date: Wednesday, 13 September – 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Speakers: Cassey Costello & Shane Jones vs Buddy Mikaere and TBC
Moderator: Ward Kamo

Debate 4: “be it resolved; #nodebate: some discussions will only cause harm”.
Location/Venue: Auckland, Pullman Hotel
Date: Tuesday 26th September – 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Speakers: Simon Wilson & Damian Sycamore vs Simon O’Connor MP & Prof. Holly Lawford-Smith
Moderator: Josie Pagani

Mark them in your diary now. FSU will release details on how to register.

The Taxpayers Union and a Technical Advisory Group have been working on drafting instructions for a bill to replace the Three Waters legislation. A great example of being proactive, not just oppositional.

They have a Q+A on the work.

The Local Water Infrastructure Bill will instead restore the local authority ownership of water service infrastructure. But it does not leave the status quo. Costs and responsibility are to be clarified by transferring water service assets and operations into Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) with their own boards of directors and separate accounting.

CCOs are a tried and true mechanism. The council owned water utilities will draw on the familiar board procedures and directors duties of the Companies Act to insulate management from ordinary political pressure, and to oblige them to focus on efficient management of their water service businesses. Councils will retain the power to sack and replace boards over the long term, but with certain protections against routine interference in the water businesses.

Local authorities will continue to have oversight of water asset management, but their water utilities will keep water operations at arms-length from other council activities, making it easier to see whether money is being spent effectively and making infrastructure investment decision-making easier to regulate for reliability and long term adequacy.

So a CCO model for water, but one that retains democratic accountability.

The Bill enables (but does not require) water utilities to merge. It is for local communities to decide whether bigger is better, not central government ministries. However, it is expected that many local water services will find it more economical to combine with neighbouring services, to attain the required new standards and to access scale efficiencies.

The Bill provides a default scheme whereby shareholding councils can negotiate and seek community input on any decision to merge water utilities. No one-size-fits-all approach is mandated.

To overcome ‘patch protection’ and other loyalty impediments to sensible rationalisation, particularly within single watersheds or catchment areas, the Bill establishes an arbitration scheme to give binding rulings on the complex asset valuation issues that can arise when merging large entities. The arbitrators will be experts in engineering, water infrastructure and asset management who will be able to provide quick and authoritative rulings.

I suspect many Councils will merge their water CCOs to get better economies of scale – but they will get to make that decision.

Leighton Woodhouse writes:

As Oakland Slides Into Chaos, Its District Attorney Fights For Criminals

In May, Oakland police officers arrested nine minors, aged 12 to 17, for a string of 35 robberies throughout the East Bay. In one of those robberies, at 1:30 in the afternoon in an upscale shopping district, the teenagers repeatedly hit a 63-year-old woman in the head while dragging her by the hair.

A little more than a week later, they were back on the street with no charges filed. Alameda County’s District Attorney, Pamela Price, announced that there was not enough evidence to bring charges against any of them. She claimed that the police agreed with that assessment.

To Oakland residents, the case quickly became emblematic of the new DA’s approach to the surging crime wave inundating Oakland. Murders are down in the city by 13% since last year, but violent crime overall is up by 15%. There has been a 22% increase in robberies, a 41% increase in burglaries, and a 50% increase in carjackings.

This could almost apply to Auckland. Huge increases in crime, but we get told by the Government there is no problem.

The Australian reports:

The farming lobby was apoplectic with rage about Aboriginal heritage laws that even traditional owner groups did not like much.

And on Tuesday, the new rules requiring land owners to check for Aboriginal heritage at their own expense were put out of their misery just five weeks after they became law.

The laws were meant to modernise 50-year-old legislation that allowed Rio Tinto to gag traditional owners in the Pilbara from saying anything about the destruction of 46,000-year-old caves at Juukan Gorge. The gag clause was part of a perfectly legal agreement between the mining giant and the Puutu Kunti Kurrama people. The caves were blasted for iron ore with ministerial approval under the old laws.

The WA Liberals and Nationals will not volunteer it, but they actually voted for the new laws. The burning shame of the Juukan Gorge tragedy was front of mind for MPs on all sides as they ushered the legislation through.

But the laws went much further than a tightening up of regulations in the mining sector, which is organised, well-resourced and aware of its obligations. This was, fatally, also an attempt to bring some order to the mess outside mining.

So there was a problem that this new law was meant to solve. What went wrong?

The basic problem was that farmers had to pay to ascertain if any areas of their land they want to do work on, has Aboriginal heritage or value. This resulted in some farmers being told they would have to pay up to $100,000 for a cultural impact assessment, just so they can put a fence up. They revolted.

The Government has now said they will pay for any assessments, which is sensible.

Peter Menzies writes:

Here’s a word of caution for policy-makers looking to help publishers retrieve some of their advertising revenue lost to web giants such as Google and Meta: Whatever you do, don’t look to Canada for inspiration.

Canada’s efforts to “defend democracy,” as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put it, have turned out to be a counterproductive fiasco. The government hoped the Online News Act would salvage a struggling legacy news industry and become a model to be copied globally. But it is the most spectacular legislative failure in Canada’s living political memory.

Inspired by an Australian publishers-collective that managed to squeeze deals reportedly amounting to as much as U.S. $150 million annually from Meta and Google, Canada’s Online News Act forces those same tech companies, provided they facilitate the sharing of links to access news stories, to pay for the privilege of doing so, even if the service is provided for free. As was the case in Australia, Canada’s legacy newspaper companies — the largest of which is owned by a New Jersey hedge fund — insist the American platforms have been “stealing” their content and profiting from it.

NZ sadly is going down this path also, as the Government looks to legislate to force tech companies to fund media companies.

The tech companies did roll over in Australia, but Canada is too large a market for them to do so.

As a result, Meta has concluded its only option is to “comply” with the legislation by beginning to move out of the business of carrying news links on Facebook and Instagram; Meta says it will complete the process before the Act comes into force toward the end of the year. Google also announced it would no longer be including Canadian news organizations in online searches performed in Canada.

Panicked efforts by the government to see if some sort of accommodation can be introduced under the law have been rebuffed completely by Meta, which might retreat from the news-carrier business globally. Google is still speaking with the Canadian government, but the latter’s description of these conversations as “negotiations” is most likely an overstatement. Google’s decision last month to exclude Canada from its Bard AI chatbox launch indicates the mood isn’t great.

Unless Trudeau’s team can cap Google’s liability at an agreed-upon level and future-proof that cap — sources indicate an extra $100 million annually is Google’s firm offer — it appears Canada is on the verge of destroying far more journalism jobs than it ever could have hoped to save.

The loss of access to Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms would be, Canada’s already-struggling publishers said in Senate hearings, disastrous and amount to millions of dollars in losses. For emerging and innovative providers — 217 have launched in Canada since 2008 to offset the disappearance of an estimated 450 newspapers — the impact is considered even more devastating. Most (if not all) of them have built their business models on maximizing the value they receive through Google and, primarily, Facebook.

The media need the tech companies far far more than the tech companies need the media. Good on them for standing up to legalised theft via government.

If you expand the list you will find us at the very bottom with Turkey at 0.01%.

Shameful.

Lloyd Burr writes:

It’s understandable that a gift is required for a departing boss. Maybe two or a third at a push. But certainly not 21 gifts costing the taxpayer $7555.49: 

I assumed the $7,500 cost was one or two very expensive gifts. I think it is actually worse that it was 21 seperate gifts. How could senior management have not said “Hey, maybe 21 gifts is a bit too much”.

The August Curia-Taxpayers’ Union poll has shown Labour down into the 20s for the first time.

What I have found interesting is that Labour’s support is going everywhere.

Only 1 in 2 Labour voters (in 2020) are voting Labour again. This is a massive fall, unprecedented in the MMP era. Usually losing more than 10% of your support is seen as a large swing, and here they are losing almost half.

So where are the 2020 Labour voters going?

• 1 in 7 have gone to National
• 1 in 7 have gone to the Greens
• 1 in 25 have gone to ACT
• 1 in 25 have gone to NZ First
• 1 in 50 have gone to the Maori Party
• 1 in 12 are undecided