Ranapera Taumata murdered his girlfriend. The minimum sentence is life with a non-parole period of 10 years.
Taumata has previous convictions for family violence (x5), as well as robbery, aggravated robbery, and assault with a weapon.
He pleaded not guilty, and his victim had more than 50 cuts, bruises, abrasions and fractures on her 55kg body.
Yet he still only got a 10 year six month non parole period.
Gareth Kiernan of Infometrics writes:
Has the Reserve Bank done enough in its battle to bring inflation back under control? Data over the last month has been inconclusive about whether demand is softening sufficiently to limit the ability to raise prices at pace. …
We have long been an advocate of targeting non-tradable, or domestically based, inflation, given it is the subset of prices that the Reserve Bank can actually influence.
Unlike headline inflation, non-tradable inflation has barely retreated from its peak, and at 6.6%pa, it remained uncomfortably strong in the June quarter.
So what if inflation persists?
The real risk lies in the possibility of a November 2023 interest rate rise being followed up with another two or three increases in the first half of 2024.
That would push floating mortgage rates to over 9%, maybe even approaching 10%.
The Herald reports:
The Government’s pick for an alternative Waitematā Harbour crossing will include two three-lane tunnels for vehicles and a 21km light rail tunnel between Albany and the CBD – a plan that will take decades to finish and cost tens of billions of dollars.
Well Kiwibuild won’t be finished until the year 2308, so mere decades to finish would be comparatively speedy.
Look the actual details announced are laudable and sane (a rarity with their transport announcements). They have shown no ability to actually deliver, but we should welcome the plan as something everyone bar the Greens should support. In essence it is:
If only they could show the same sanity in Wellington.
Many readers will have noticed Kiwiblog was quite slow over the weekend.
There were some changes to the database parameters that caused some complications. Because Kiwiblog has 20 years of archives, any change can slow things down while it sorts itself out.
Hopefully everything is working well for people now.
HDPA writes:
There’s a thing you learn in the sleep-deprived craze after having a baby: do not for the love of God ever give parents unsolicited advice on how to parent. …
There are a lot of new parents in Labour. Tāmati Coffey had his second six months ago. So it’s surprising none of them passed on the golden rule and stopped Labour making a prat of itself over paid parental leave.
It has gone down very badly with even Labour luvvies that the party voted against Nicola Willis’ parental leave bill.
On Wednesday, every party bar Labour supported her bill to allow parents to take paid parental leave at the same time. That’s not possible at the moment. The primary parent gets 26 weeks. They can share some of that with the other parent if they want. But they can only share it once. And they can’t both take it at the same time. It has to be one parent, then the other parent.
For most parents that works fine. But not for all parents. Some babies come very early. Some are twins or triplets. Some mums get bad postnatal depression. In all of those cases, it could be very helpful to the mum if the other parent is at home helping her for the first three months.
But Labour decided it knows best and voted it down.
Stuff reports:
The Government is refusing to make public a suite of taxpayer-funded privileges for the country’s judges.
The judiciary has one of the most generous pensions in the public service, with their salaries padded by nearly 40%.
But they’re also entitled to things like chauffeurs, housing allowances, and even subsidised school uniforms.
The benefits are all laid out in what’s colloquially known as ‘the red book’ of judicial entitlements. The Sunday Star-Times asked for a copy – but the request was denied, with no explanation.
Sources have told the Star-Times that the secret perks include generous sabbaticals, and allowances for school uniforms if judges are required to move.
Many Judges take a massive pay cut when they go from being a KC to being a judge. I have no problems with perks, and as judges do get posted around the country, an allowance for new school uniforms for kids could well be justified.
But the public fund the perks, so the public should be able to know what they are. Secrecy is a bad idea.
Shane Reti released:
An independent report into the Māori Health Authority clearly shows the failures of more bureaucracy, National’s Health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti says. …
“Since the creation of the Māori Health Authority over a year ago, the report found no overarching plan for activities, timeframes, resources, accountability or performance.
So no plan for activities, timeframes, resources, accountabilities or performance. Doesn’t leave much does it!
The full report is here. It is damning.
The Herald reports:
Voters won’t be getting any updated information about health system waiting lists before the election – leaving Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall “disappointed”.
We used to get data reliably and regularly. Labour’s health reforms have resulted in a centralisation of data, which means it now spends months in a black hole in Wellington rather than be released on time.
Tova O’Brien writes:
Labour telling parents breast is best – and what’s best in general for their newborns – is a risky move to cover up what is essentially a political play.
It breathes new life into the old ‘nanny state’ epithet Labour’s fought hard to shake and this time it’s more literal – and sensitive – than light bulbs and shower heads ever were.
Despite parliament-wide support, Labour voted against National’s proposed changes to paid parental leave this week. It would have given parents and carers the flexibility to split the paid 26 weeks, allowing them to take leave at the same time or overlap. As it stands, they can’t take the leave together.
Yep, Labour voted to not let parents work out how to manage their own paid parental leave. Their view is parents can’t be trusted to work out what is best for them.
Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern came back to work six weeks after having her daughter Neve. It would have been unconscionable for her cabinet colleagues – Hipkins and Sepuloni – to tell her she needed to stay at home longer to breastfeed.
Yet that is the message they are sending every other parent in NZ.
Stuff has an article on all the new taxes various parties want. They include:
A summary could be that anything that doesn’t move, they want to tax!
Stuff reports:
The Government plans to rebuild the country’s struggling Defence Force into a combat-capable military, better equipped to project itself into the Pacific and “act earlier to prevent threats”.
Defence Minister Andrew Little released the first in a series of defence policy documents on Friday morning, alongside the first national security strategy, outlining at a high-level how the Government will respond to deteriorating security within New Zealand, in the Pacific, and further abroad.
The defence policy documents made the case for the Defence Force – which has suffered extraordinary attrition and struggled to maintain ageing assets in recent years – needing to prioritise its combat readiness and ability to deter threats, though its response to humanitarian crises and disasters would continue to be “key”.
“Where possible, defence will seek to act to constrain hostile actions, will be prepared to employ military force, and engage in combat if required,” the strategy document read.
This is a welcome and good direction. The focus on combat as well as disaster relief and peace keeping is necessary.
He told the audience of MPs, officials diplomats and academics that “we do not live in a benign strategic environment”, and New Zealand was not protected by its remoteness.
He would have chosen that quote carefully. It is a direct repudiation of the view expressed by Helen Clark when she abolished the air force combat wing that we live in a benign strategic environment.
To be fair to Clark, the world has changed significantly since then.
I have many disagreements with the Government on policy, but in both foreign affairs and defence they have been doing a repositioning I heartily support.
I blogged on this a while back, but now we have an outcome that is staggering.
The background is in Australia a former Liberal staffer accused another staffer of raping her. It became very political, with allegations Ministers covered up or were not sympathetic and then then Labor Opposition attacked over it.
It eventually went to trial and was a hung jury. The ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, was so outraged by what he saw as Police reluctance to charge and political interference by (then) Ministers he demanded a public inquiry. He got one, headed up by the former President of the Queensland Court of Appeal.
The inquiry has concluded and The Australian reports:
ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold knowingly lied to the Supreme Court, engaged in serious malpractice and grossly unethical conduct, “preyed on a junior lawyer’s inexperience”, betrayed that junior lawyer who trusted him, and treated criminal litigation as “a poker game in which a prosecutor can hide the cards,” the Sofronoff Inquiry has found.
In findings that are certain to end Mr Drumgold’s career as ACT Director of Public Prosecutions and may lead to criminal prosecution against him for perverting the course of justice, inquiry head Walter Sofronoff KC ruled that every one of the allegations made by Mr Drumgold that sparked the inquiry was baseless.
This is a damning damning finding, and again it comes from an inquiry Drumgold himself insisted on.
“The result has been a public inquiry, which was not justified by any of his allegations, that has caused lasting pain to many people and which has demonstrated his allegations to be not just incorrect, but wholly false and without any rational basis,” Mr Sofronoff concluded.
It gets worse:
In one of many particularly pointed findings, he said he preferred the evidence of TV presenter Lisa Wilkinson and prosecutor Skye Jerome over Mr Drumgold.
“I do not believe any part of Mr Drumgold’s purported recollection unless it is consistent with the recollection of those witnesses,” he said.
The judicial equivalent of liar, liar pants on fire.
Drumgold will be sacked soon. He may even be disbarred or prosecuted. All due to his own hubris that he wanted to get a conviction in an iconic prosecution and failed.
Stuff reports:
After iteratively nudging the door shut to any potential coalition deal involving New Zealand First, ACT Leader David Seymour has finally slammed the door shut, turned the key, fastened the deadbolt and latched the door chain.
There’s no room for Winston Peters in any Cabinet shared with David Seymour.
When asked by Stuff if he categorically rules out working with Peters after the election, Seymour replied, “Yeah, look, it’s impossible to see us sitting around the Cabinet table.”
And Seymour left no room for doubt – no twerky wriggle room.
This is not surprising from ACT. It is worth looking at what this means in terms of potential Governments.
Let’s look at first what happens if NZ First don’t make 5%.
If they don’t make 5%, then whichever bloc of National/ACT or Labour/Green/Maori has 61 or more seats gets to form Government. There are basically just two options.
Four of the five most recent polls have shown that National/ACT would get a clear majority in an election. One showed a hung Parliament.
So if you want a National/ACT Government, it is more likely to occur if NZ First does not make 5%. If they make 5%, then basically each “bloc” would lose three seats to them making a majority harder.
But what if NZ First does make 5%. Here are the scenarios:
The 1st scenario would be my preferred one if NZ First do make 5%. If National/ACT still manage a majority they can have a cohesive reforming Government.
Scenario 2 is unlikely. While Seymour only ruled out NZ First in Cabinet, I’m not sure whether he would be happy with them in the Ministry at all. Also more likely is Peters would not back a Cabinet with ACT in it, if he is not.
Scenario 3 is also unlikely. Will Peters want Seymour as Deputy PM? Also worth understanding that a confidence and supply agreement only applies to around two votes a year. Every other Government policy would be subject to the approval of NZ First, or getting an opposition party on side.
Scenario 4 is perhaps the least worst scenario of scenarios 2 to 5. Both parties having Ministers would give some incentive to try and make the Government cohesive. But again every law would need the support of both parties.
Scenario 5 is the most likely outcome. ACT and NZ First mutually veto each other and National governs alone. However this is a fairly weak Government that again needs both parties to agree to everything.
There is a sixth scenario where Winston gets pissed off with what he sees as a lack of respect from National and ACT, and does a deal with Labour. Now this is very unlikely. Winston has been far more explicit than normal in ruling Labour out, and his supporters would be outraged if he them put them back in. But you can’t be 100% certain unless you get it in writing as a sworn affidavit!
As readers will know I’m not a fan of many NZ First policies. They are economically to the left of me. I would much rather have a clean National/ACT Government.
But if they are in Government, there is one area they could do some good in, and that is the area of co-governance and the insistence that the Treaty is about equal partnership and equity (as opposed to equality and property rights).
The “blob” tends to throw the racist label at anyone who opposes what has been a revolution in the last five years in our constitutional arrangements. In theory Winston Peters, Shane Jones and Casey Costello could be the most effective politicians to fight back against this interpretation of the Treaty. Yell “racist” at them all you like, and it won’t get far.
But I did say “in theory”. I like a lot of the speeches that Peters and Jones have made in the last year in this area. But I also recall he made similar speeches in 2017 when he promised a referendum on the Maori seats. And according to numerous sources, this promise wasn’t even raised in the coalition negotiations.
It’s one thing to make speeches, but another to have the willpower to actually drive change. I do rate Casey Costello. She will want to actually change things, but even if elected she will be just one MP.
I think the best way forward is ACT’s referendum policy. I’m somewhat hesitant as a referendum can be a blunt tool, and the debate could be challenging. But it is a debate that has to happen. We need certainty on whether or not NZ continues with equality of suffrage or not.
The Herald reports:
A resident at an Auckland Kainga Ora apartment block says she fears for her safety and that of other residents after she was allegedly threatened with an axe by one of her neighbours.
Police said they are investigating a complaint relating to an ongoing dispute at the residential complex.
Ada Shi, 48, has been living in her apartment since 2016 and said she called police after another resident allegedly raised an axe to threaten her and visitors to her home last weekend.
She claimed the neighbour also poured urine across her mat and front entrance of her apartment and put human faeces on the top of her rubbish bin.
Shi said she had reached out to Kainga Ora multiple times over the last six years asking to be relocated or for her neighbour to support.
“But every one of my pleas for help to Kainga Ora has fallen on deaf ears,” she said.
Again, I would abolish Kainga Ora and hand over the entire state housing stock to charities like the Sallies to run. They could only do a more humane job.
Newshub reports:
The National Party is accusing Labour of picking “politics over parents” after it voted against a Members’ Bill that would’ve allowed choice when taking paid parental leave.
On Wednesday, National deputy leader Nicola Willis’ Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill had its first reading in the House. Every political party voted in favour of the Bill except Labour, meaning any further progress on it was halted.
Willis said her Bill would have “modernised” the current settings of paid parental leave, allowing Kiwi parents to take their leave at the same time, one after the other or in overlapping instalments.
“Whether you’re a Dad wanting to support Mum in the first few weeks after birth, or you want to divide your paid leave entitlement between two primary caregivers in overlapping instalments, the choice should be yours. But Labour wants to stop you.”
I’m staggered Labour voted against such a common sense law change. Every other party in Parliament supported it.
Allowing both parents to take say six weeks leave each, could be huge. Those first six weeks are so challenging, and even harder to do solo when your partner has had to return to work.
But Deputy Prime Minister and Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni said the advice the Government received is that the Bill is “unworkable in the form that it is in”. She said there are some potential “unintended consequences” the Bill would cause, including the health of the birthing parent.
“It is something that would need to be thought through more before we could agree to such a measure,” she said.
“Part of the reason it was set to 26 weeks [of paid parental leave] was actually to provide the six months of breastfeeding that the World Health Organization recommends.”
This is basically bullshit. The law already allows the father to take the paid parental leave. It just doesn’t allow it at the same time as the mother.
Newshub reports:
New Zealand has experienced one of its worst-ever days of ‘ramping’, where ambulances are forced to sit idle and treat patients on hospital ramps because emergency departments are overloaded.
Waikato had its worst day ever on Monday with almost every ambulance in the region parked for up to four hours waiting to get into the ED. Five of those ambulances had seriously ill, status two patients on board.
“At its peak we had twelve ambulances at the emergency department.
I remind people again that Labour abolished the successful target National implemented of 95% of ED patients seen within six hours.
Audrey Young has written about what a National/ACT Ministry may look like. Her predictions are:
National Ministers
ACT Ministers
I look forward to the next article, which is what a Labour/Green/Māori Party Ministry may look like. I know which one I prefer!
A post by PaulL.
I see in the NZ Herald that teachers have gotten a pay rise of 14.5% by December 2024. Sounds pretty good. But is it?
The same article says that teachers have had no pay rise since July 1, 2021, and that this agreement will carry them through till June 2, 2025. It also says that the CPI for the year to June 22 was 7.3%, and for the year to June 23 was 6.0%. So we know about 13.3%, and they’re 1.2% ahead. How likely is it that inflation in the year to June 24, plus the inflation in the year to June 25, will be less than 1.2% in total? Seems like between 3% per year and 6% per year would be a better forecast – 6-12% in total. Teachers will be going backwards by between 5-10%.
The government actually offered 11.1%, which was less than inflation, and arbitration forced them to settle. I guess their announcement is trying to make a good news story out of something they were forced to do.
The Herald has unquestioningly published the government press material that under National teacher pay had only increased 10%. But of course, under National inflation was generally around 2% a year. It seems that National’s pay rises didn’t keep pace with inflation, but on these numbers, nor do Labour’s.
Interesting that the media aren’t really doing any analysis on the claims.
Party Vote
Governments
Preferred PM