Young people being active and playing sport is, almost always, a good thing. Some develop enough ability that, for a relatively short period of time, as an adult they can earn an income as a professional athlete. A very small group in/from New Zealand earn enough from their playing days to look towards a comfortable long-term future free of needing to work. The vast majority need a “plan also” (not a “plan b”), that academics and trade training provides.

As a former 1st XV coach at a large boys school I am well aware the perspective can be lost with regards to school sport. This happens in a range of ways and one is where the “1A” schools in Auckland have become bent out of shape with trying to stop young people changing schools for well-being, academic and sporting reasons. Their means of doing this is to ban them from participating in high level sport for their new school through making rules that disregard human rights – and according to this decision – the law. Schools in now way, shape, or form own their students – regardless of what they consider they have done for them. If they don’t get their own way major schools set the example of threatening to literally take the ball, go home and not play against schools that include transferred young people in their teams.

It is interesting to note some of the World Cup All Blacks who went to more than one high school: John Afoa, Joe Rokocoko, Jerome Keino, Sitiveni Sivivatu, Daniel Braid, Sione Lauaki, Mils Muliaina (3 schools), Same Cane, Wyatt Crockett, Nepo Laulala, Sevu Reece, Daniel Carter, Stephen (my shirt is too small) Donald. I coached four of those at Premier Club level and would guarantee the school change was a major positive factor in their development and what they have provided for their families since. 

I grew up playing the sport but stopped at 21 through concussion precautions. Here is my take on one year of that truncated career from my novel/memoir.

The Nui in 1987

I don’t remember how, at eighteen years old, I found myself on the reserve bench for Wanganui High School Old Boys Senior rugby team in 1986. The manager told me that I did not deserve to be there as the “rep” halfback, “Flea”, played for this club.

“Wing-nut” was full-back on this day and was, somewhat erratically, smoking a cigarette and glaring at me. In his summer persuasion he was a nasty fasty in club cricket and in one of only two good innings in my truncated cricket career I smashed him all around the park as a helmet free sixteen-year-old who was silly enough to ignore all of the abuse and game enough to say; “Just bowl Wingnut.”

Flea was in the toilet but still keen to participate in any discussion. The team was average but there was a plan for the following year.

Next year it was all on. I turned up to training and all the boys were there – Grunter, Bo, Larry the Lamb, Wokka, Two Tummy, Smoke, Spud, Sharky, Motor, Hens, Half-Pie, Daz, Bobs, and Flea. I had no nick name until a man – approaching 150 years of age – came into the changing room to shake hands for the first game of the season. Apparently, he, Jock, participated in and may have caused the Boer War, WW1 and WW2. When he came to shake my hand he was lost for words and a name; “Well done Al … Al … Al …“, he stuttered …

“Alpine!” said our captain “Spud”. And it stuck like poos to a blanket. The most stupid nickname in the history of nicknames. No relevance to anything. When playing cricket I was once facing a national class fast bowler called “Biscuit”. At least that had meaning. His last name was Crafer. That rhymed with wafer. A wafer is a biscuit. He was very, very fast and, as I gloved a ball of my face, I called him; “Sir”. Whereas “Alpine” came from nowhere and later in the season, when playing for the city, when someone yelled out; “you are crap – Alpine” I was more concerned to argue about the name than my performance or abilities.

Our club team was very good. In fact, we were the unbeaten champions of the year. I will never forget, as a nineteen-year-old, the inspiring one-to-one speech from one of our props called “Bo”. We were about to run onto the field for the final and Bo wandered over to where I sat. I was waiting to stun the gathered crowd with my brilliance – as a real team man, and a youthful prodigy, would do. I think it was the first and only time Bo ever spoke to me. He drawled (no doubt the result of more concussions than I had had to endure my mother’s hot dinners). “Alpine” (who the heck? I thought). I have played for this club for 20 years and have never before got to the final – let alone won it. Don’t f%$# it up!”

Henceforth, I played the worst game of my life but, fortunately, the other 14 people made up for it. Grunter, Larry the Lamb, Bo, Wokka, Two Tummy, Smoke, Spud, Sharky, Motor, Hens, Half-Pie, Daz, Bobs, Flea and the others involved taught me a great deal about teamwork and ambition. They taught me that when one person is down the others will make up for it.

I had earned it though. On an earlier day, when we played the very next best team in the competition, I had a university exam and turned up only one minute before the start of the match. I played the game of my life against a team that included the most harmful unarmed human on the planet. His name was “Bruiser” and one of his brothers was called “Scum”. Scary stuff indeed. I was truly faultless that day with passing, kicking and running on a rain drenched field. My play led the team through an extremely close match as a very young man.

At the end of the match the coach said; “Brilliant Alpine (what … who the heck?) but, with that last minute turn up, if you had screwed this up you and I would have been having a very different conversation right now.” Even the opposition mid-fielder, Muzza, said; “Brilliant Alpine!” Bruiser had no compliments and I understand that he, Scum, and older brother Gordy headed off to ride horses and chop wood. Unfortunately (tribute here to the great Norm Macdonald) the amount of alcohol they had consumed meant that they actually chopped horses and rode wood.

We became champions and that is the best that you can do with the people that you have and with the competition that is presented to you.

I did play a little bit of representative rugby that year. Playing against the All Blacks disguised as Auckland is mentioned elsewhere. The funniest single moment was against a team called Manawatu.

I was terrified of them because, when I was a child, they were the best – and most brutal – team in the nation.

Rugby has a thing called a scrum where eight powerful men from both teams organise themselves into a formation and then a pigskin (rugby ball) is thrown into the middle of them and whoever pushes the hardest gets the ball to do other things with it.

That may appear a simplification and the sport’s officials try and complicate it as much as possible with no apparent benefit. It sounds weird but it is a thing.

Well, I ran onto the field and was shaking like a leaf as the mighty men from Manawatu were huge and they all looked angry. One of them was even called – “AMASSIVE COLLOSOS” (well Emosi Koloto but he was dangerous whatever he was called). Fortunately, Cowboy and Axel had recently retired but they still had Bully out there.

In the first moments there was a scrum and I got to “feed” the ball in between these sixteen psychos. Such was the bulk and power of the mighty men of the Manawatu that they pushed so hard and fast that they ran right over the ball and left it, in pristine condition, exactly where I had placed it. I passed it to one of my team-mates, a good bloke called Kerry O’Hara (no nickname as far as I could tell) and we were away.

Some idiot in the crowd yelled out; “Well done Alpine!”

[email protected]

https://alwynpoole.substack.com/

ps – Auckland were not a bad side that year.

Stuff reports:

A staffer seconded to work with Cabinet Minister Kiritapu Allanchose to leave early because of concerns about “working relationships” in the office.

Problems in the Beehive office saw Department of Conservation chief executive Penny Nelson take her concerns to the Department of Internal Affairs, which manages Ministerial Services.

Stuff understands that other senior public servants – including from Emergency Management, and the Ministry of Business, innovation and Employment – have also voiced concerns about how staff were treated.

So basically the allegations are that the Minister is a bully.

For a CEO to escalate it to DIA, means it must be very bad. Normally in the past the PMs Chief of Staff would deal with it informally and tell the Minister to change their behaviour, or escalate it to the PM.

For it to formally go to DIA means that either the PMs Office knew nothing about it, or that they did but didn’t resolve the situation.

It comes as Allan is on leave from Parliament, because she is “struggling with mental health and wellbeing”.

I wonder if the leave started before or after she became aware the media were asking questions about bullying in her office.

But she has long had a reputation as a demanding boss. A public service source with knowledge of the problems said “low trust and respect of public servants was [the] issue” and had been discussed among senior staff.

It was indeed widely known, which makes it seem unlikely the PMs Office were the only people in Wellington who hadn’t heard about this.

Bullying allegations have dogged the Labour Government. Meka Whaitiri was stripped of her ministerial responsibilities after an altercation with her press secretary in 2018. A report found it “probable” that she grabbed and left bruising on her press secretary.

Rebel MP Gaurav Sharma levelled explosive allegations of bullying last year, but failed to provide any evidence and was expelled. 

In the wake of that drama, two former staffers accused Tukituki MP Anna Lorck of bullying. She later received “leadership training”.

Almost a pattern!

After Jacinda resigned the alternate leadership team to Hipkins/Sepuloni was Wood and Allan. In hindsight Labour will be relieved that did not eventuate!

But it does still leave Labour with a problem – another week and another Minister in the news for the wrong reasons.

Stuff reports:

Mega-polytechnic Te Pūkenga New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology is expected to report an $86 million deficit, up $23m on the previous forecast.

During question time on Thursday evening, Education Minister Jan Tinetti​ said the draft deficit for Te Pūkenga for 2022 was now at $86m.

Last year, the Tertiary Education Union called on the Government to act after chief executive Peter Winder​ announced a forecast $63m deficit for 2022 – something he described as “clearly unsustainable”.

The Hipkins legacy in education is going to the worst of any education minister since Merv Wellington!

The Herald reports:

A Christchurch business owner and tradies who performed a citizen’s arrest, tackling a thief to the ground after he allegedly stole motorcycle parts, are disappointed at the police response.

When Mike Creedy stopped to visit the motorcycle store about 3pm Monday, four men were running after an alleged thief. Creedy tackled him to the ground and phoned police.

“The guy was running down the middle of the street with an armload of stuff. I took a couple more steps and stopped him,” Creedy told the Herald.

“He put up a big fight. I just had enough. I put him in a headlock, sort of tripped him backwards and put him on the ground on his back. That was enough for the four guys, one on each arm and one on each leg to actually hold him down,” Creedy said.

“He kept yelling, ‘if the police come I’m going to go back to prison’.”

But police told Creedy and his workmates to “let him go”.

“The police asked if he had any weapons and I said ‘not that I can see’. I’m disappointed in the police. We had the guy, he could have been prosecuted, but he got away scot-free.

“We just stepped back and let him go and he took off down the street,” Creedy said.

Is this how the Government is keeping the prison population down?

Why did the Police not say “Thank you, great work, we’ll have an officer there in ten minutes”

Christchurch Metro Area Commander Superintendent Lane Todd said police couldn’t attend every callout “due to the nature of police work”.

Todd said police had to prioritise cases where life or safety was at risk, and other calls at the time were more important.

How many Police were on traffic duty at the time?

The Australian reports:

The referendum to enshrine an Indigenous voice to parliament and executive government would fail if a vote were held next weekend, with more voters for the first time opposed to altering the ­Constitution to achieve it and a majority of states lined up to ­deliver a “No” vote.

The margin (yes over no) in each state is:

• Victoria +7%
• NSW +5%
• South Australia -1%
• Australia -4%
• Tasmania -5%
• Western Australia -13%
• Queensland -14%

It is within the margin of error, but the trend is bad for the yes vote.

The usual suspects portray anyone who opposes having ethnic weightings for surgical weight lists as a right wing racist. Bearing that in mind, they may find this article by Professor Peter Davis of interest:

I was an elected member of the Auckland District Health Board when, shortly after the board convened in early 2020, our Chair, Pat Snedden, challenged us about the issue of ethnic inequalities in health outcomes and access to health care. What could we, as a major DHB, do about this? We debated this long and hard and eventually, perhaps as an interim measure, this resulted in some patients being bumped up the waiting list. Far more useful and defensible in my view was the introduction of “navigators” to help Māori and Pacific patients through a complex system faced by many professional and personal barriers.

No one would object to resourcing support for people to access the health system. That is very different to having an ethnic weighting which would see David Seymour moved ahead of Chris Hipkins on a surgical waiting list because Seymour is Maori and Hipkins is not.

Davis explains his objections:

• The data did not seem to support the need. For example, I worked out from 17 service directorate waiting lists that, except for one or two directorates, Māori and Pacific patients had waiting times somewhere between 20% below and 20% above other patients. 
• You don’t want to mess with objective clinical criteria. This has been a hard-won system from the 1990s designed to remove subjectivity and arbitrariness from waitlist decisions.
• If you wanted to pick up on disadvantage, more inclusive than ethnicity would be socio-economic position – such place of residence – as a bit of a broader catchall.
• The danger that, if taken the wrong way, this initiative might be taken as a signal to other groups that the public system is not for them and they start to migrate wholesale to the private sector.

All very sound points.

Stuff reports:

The Government’s decision to fly a spare Defence Force plane to China in case the Boeing 757 carrying Prime Minister Chris Hipkins breaks down will be costing $150,000 in fuel alone, the ACT Party leader David Seymour says.

How Mickey Mouse is this. Rather than have one reliable plane, they fly two planes to China in case one breaks down.

Seymour said the extra plane is an “extravagance” which created the emissions equal to driving a Ford Ranger to the moon three times.

So it is bad fiscally and bad environmentally.

“Some people might bring a spare phone charger with them while travelling overseas in case they lose one, or it breaks. Chris Hipkins needs to bring a spare Boeing aircraft with him. This extravagance is typical of Labour’s wasteful attitude and reckless disregard for Kiwis’ money.

I’m all for PMs being able to travel in a dedicated aircraft. But never before can I recall a PM taking a second plane along as a backup.

The Common Room asked me to do a video on a topic of my choice, and I did it on media bias.

They have lots of other great videos. At their site you can subscribe for updates.

I know it is photoshopped but it is still too good to not do a caption contest for!

National has announced:

In just five years, violent crime has increased by 33 per cent, gangs are growing faster than police, and retail crime has doubled. One contributor to this spike in criminal activity is the weak consequences faced by offenders.

That is the rate of violent crime up 33%. The gross number of violent offences has increased 42% since 2017 to 2022. And 2023 is looking to be even worse, with violent offending to date up 9% on last year.

National will introduce stronger sentences for convicted criminals, by limiting the ability of judges to reduce sentences, making gang membership an aggravating factor, restoring Three Strikes and ending taxpayer funding for cultural reports.

The big change here is to pass a law limiting the ability of Judges to discount a sentence to a maximum of 40%.

A “use-it-and-lose-it” rule that prevents repeat offenders from receiving sentence discounts for youth or remorse more than once.

Also a good idea. You only get to play the remorse card once!

A 60 per cent sentence reduction was given to a 19-year-old male on appeal that reduced a prison sentence to three years and five months, from a starting point of eight years and six months imprisonment. The offender, carrying a knife, and accompanied by two other males (one wearing Mongrel Mob regalia), kicked down the front door of a pregnant woman alone at home and assaulted her. He then went on to attack another victim, holding a knife to their throat, and kidnapped them. He was guilty of aggravated burglary, indecent assault, demanding with intent to steal, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, injuring with intent to injure and possession of an offensive weapon.

Personally I think a 40% maximum is still very generous.

Some Judges have effectively declared war on Parliament using judicial activism to nullify the former Three Strikes law. If Judges abuse the discretion they have under the law, they should not be surprised when they end up with less discretion.

A fascinating paper from MOTU and VUW where they use global datasets to try and establish who places the most priority on free speech, and who benefits the most from it. Their conclusions:

Our results indicate that, within countries, individuals with lower income and lower education levels benefit most from free speech. These results support the hypothesis (H_A2) that free speech has an empowerment effect for those with fewer resources in society. However, when asked to prioritize free speech amongst a number of options, we see the reverse result: people with greater resources are more likely to prioritize free speech highly (consistent with hypothesis H_A1).

These two results are not necessarily incompatible. People with fewer resources may need to prioritize basic needs more than “luxuries” such as free speech; for instance, one of the options presented to respondents when undertaking their prioritization is “fighting rising prices” which is likely to be more important for those on low incomes. Thus, consistent with Maslow’s hierarchy, free speech acts as a luxury good when individuals are asked to rank it alongside other factors that may affect their wellbeing. Just because poorer people prioritize more immediate needs does not, however, mean that they benefit less from free speech. Free speech offers the poor and the marginalized a greater opportunity to voice their concerns publicly and to influence decisions. Thus, while it is not their top priority when making ends meet, they may still gain greater benefit than do more prosperous groups from having free speech.

Worth remembering that when some people go on about free speech being over-rated etc.

Toby Manhire at The Spinoff has done a lengthy and interesting feature on how David Seymour has taken Act from 0.5% to 12%.

This graph from Lindsay Mitchell shows the average income from the taxpayer for various types of families on welfare. Most data only focused on core benefits but this takes everything into account and shows on average taxpayer support of around $1,000 a week for a sole parent with 2+ children.

CNN reports:

The chief of the Wagner private military group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Friday accused Russian military leadership of striking a Wagner military camp and killing a “huge amount” of his mercenary forces. 

Prigozhin claimed that the Russian Ministry of Defense tricked Wagner and he vowed to “respond to these atrocities.”  …

“Many dozens, tens of thousands of lives, of Russian soldiers will be punished,” Prigozhin said. “I ask that nobody put up any resistance. Those who show such resistance, we will consider it a threat and destroy them immediately. This includes any roadblocks standing in our way, any aircraft seen over our heads.” …

There are unconfirmed reports that Prigozhin is advancing and Russian troops are not stopping him.

I won’t even pretend to know enough to speculate on how this all ends, but it is staggering to have even started.

Jacob Varghese writes:

So you can understand my shock when I read last week that learned members of the Independent Electoral Review Panel have decided to recommend that migrants be stripped of their right to vote. Journalists haven’t focused on this part of the recommendations. If Kiwis remain unaware of this implication, we will permit a covert raid on the rights of many in our community.

The panel recommended “extending the time that permanent residents must spend in Aotearoa New Zealand before gaining the right to vote to one electoral cycle”. In essence, this means that permanent residents will be required to wait three to four years before they are permitted to vote.

In my view the panel doesn’t go far enough. New Zealand is almost unique in the developed world in giving the same electoral voting rights to residents as citizens.

I believe we should follow Australia, and restrict the right to vote to citizens. Not to have fewer people voting, but to encourage people who have permanent residency, to become citizens. Shared citizenship is important for a country. It is when a country becomes your home, not just the place you live.

Any change should of course not be retrospective. Once someone is qualified to vote, they should keep it if their circumstances don’t change. So all existing migrants should be grandfathered onto the electoral roll. But we should tell future migrants (and I want more migrants, not less) that we’re glad you’re here, but we want you to become a citizen.

An excellent data driven report by Sense Partners for Business NZ on what is contributing to the massive increases in prices we have experienced in NZ.

Firstly they find the average profit margin was 14.7% in 2019 and 12.7% in 2022, so has actually decreased.

The only industries that have had their profit margin increase was mining and transport.

Most usefully they calculated that of the 14% increase in prices from 2019 to 2022, the major factor was an increase in input costs, being 71% of the increase. An increase in labour costs was 15% of the increase and an increase in gross profits just 14%.

News.com.au reports:

he Covid-19 “patient zero” was a Wuhan scientist carrying out experiments on souped-up coronaviruses, a new report has sensationally claimed.

According to the report, the scientist, Ben Hu, was conducting risky tests at the Wuhan Institute of Virology with two colleagues, Ping Yu and Yan Zhu.

It’s understood all three fell ill with Covid-like symptoms and needed hospital care weeks before Chinadisclosed the virus outbreak to the world.

They had never been named until now, The Sun reports.

It wasn’t that long ago that suggesting the virus was a lab leak could get you suspended from social media for spreading misinformation. This is why we should be very wary of those who use such labels to suppress debate.

Shane Jones writes:

Too many Māori MPs has created a parallel universe of tangata whenua tokenism and anti-growth, woke-ish programmes.

They should be leading a new covenant for their community. One denouncing gangs and stressing duty rather than rehashing indigenous rights and devaluing the ethic of service.

Sadly the legacy of the Te Pāti Māori, Greens and Labour is co-governance and the diffusion of te reo names such Te Whatu Ora, the health agency. The name of a thing does not matter as much as the quality of a thing. Tossing about Māori nomenclature does not lead to superior health outcomes. …

Prison life does not guarantee rehabilitation, it does however spare the community from further intimidation and violence.

The brazen display of Mongrel Mob colours and coercion in Ōpōtiki shows how far our standards have sunk. It is offensive that these yelping pups think they have a right to destroy our national qualities of industry; blood, sweat and tears. Their code is death and destruction and it was odious to see misguided locals trying to rationalise their standover tactics due to a tangi.

I’d say a lot of people agree with Shane.