The Blue Review writes at Patreon:

The media bites onto its preferred narratives with the determination of a Staffordshire bull terrier. Such seems to be the case with Simon Wilson’s story about Christopher Luxon’s public meeting at the Birkenhead Bowling Club.

The story being sold? That supporters of the National Party are solely preoccupied with issues of race.

“Last week at Chris Luxon’s mtg in Birkenhead, MOST questions were on one theme: ‘What’s he going to do about Maori’?“ (emphasis Wilson’s)

“[Luxon] fielded about an hour of questions. Nearly all of them were about race.“ (emphasis ours)

“I have notes of 11 questions, 6 of them complaints that Māori get special treatment they don’t deserve.” (emphasis ours)

So Wilson reported that somewhere between most and nearly all of the questions were about race.

However the Blue Review obtained an audio recording of the meeting, and the actual situation is:

Did the treaty and related issues come up? Yes, they did. It would be a lie to say otherwise. There was a question about Te Reo taking precedence over English and another person touched on bilingual road signs in the course of an unrelated question. The work of the Waitangi Tribunal was the subject of two questions.

But to suggest that these few questions characterise the overarching sentiment of the audience is an exaggeration. To the point of being a profound misrepresentation. Wilson’s “6 of 11” looks more 3 or 4 of 15 at worst, less than halfway to “most” and a million miles from “nearly all”.

So 20% to 25% of the questions were on Maori issues and this got reported as nearly all.

And again we wonder why trust in media is so low.

Newshub reports:

Parliament’s powerful Privileges Committee will consider whether the time it took for Education Minister Jan Tinetti to correct an inaccurate statement in the House amounts to contempt.

On February 22, Tinetti was asked during Question Time to categorically state she played no part in the delay of the release of school attendance information. She said she already had and it was a decision for the Ministry of Education for when to release the data.

But Newshub revealed this month that Tinetti’s office instructed officials to delay the release of the information so it could be timed with a truancy announcement by the Government. The minister told Newshub she wasn’t aware at the time that her office was holding up the data.

The Minister is either totally incompetent or a liar. Only an entirely incompetent Minister could have her office staff instructing the Ministry to delay by two months a regular release of data, without her knowledge.

If her staff really had done this without her knowledge, I would expect she would have sacked them. Has she?

Speaker Adrian Rurawhe on Tuesday said Tinetti received a letter from him on May 1 telling her the answer needed to be correct, and she did so the next day.

However, that correction came long after Tinetti learnt her office was involved. She found that out after Question Time on February 22.

She claims she didn’t know her answer needed to be correct until the Speaker’s letter, but Rurawhe said it should have been done as soon as possible. 

So even if you give her the benefit of the doubt, that she is incompetent and clueless about her own office, she still knew the truth for two and a half months, and never corrected her untruthful answer to Parliament.

“While mistakes are sometimes made, which can result in the House receiving an answer containing a misleading statement, it is vitally important that as soon as this is discovered, the minister returns to the House to correct the answer at the earliest opportunity.”

He said it was for the Privileges Committee to determine whether the “delay in correcting an inaccurate statement in this instance amounts to contempt”. 

“I rule that a question of privilege does arrive from the time taken to correct a misleading statement to the House. The question therefore stands referred to the Privileges Committee.”

It is rare for a Minister to be referred for an incorrect answer, but this was an egregious breach, so the Speaker has made a good call.

The Privileges Committee has eight members – Labour 4, National 2, ACT 1 and Greens 1. It will be very interesting to see what they conclude.

The Herald reports:

Transport Minister Michael Wood said the first public draft of the Government’s next three-year transport budget would likely be published “approximately in the next month”.

Treasury warned at the Budget that rising costs in the transport sector, and a large loan granted to Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, may force the Government to hike fuel taxes as early July 1 next year. Such a hike would need to be signalled in the forthcoming budget.

When asked whether such a hike was on the table, Wood said he did not want to get ahead of Cabinet consideration of the budget, known formally as the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport, or GPS.

It is almost inevitable they will hike petrol tax because they no longer use it to primarily fund roads, but has become a cash cow for scores of transport projects that don’t benefit motorists.

In September 2017 the Government collected 93 cents in tax off every litre or petrol. After 1 July this year it will be approximately 137 cents in tax per litre – so the 44c extra per litre adds around $22 more per 50 litre fill.

1 News reports:

A new police chase policy has been introduced, acknowledging that more offenders have been fleeing and a smaller proportion of those fleeing offenders have been arrested in recent years.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said the changes are a “re-balancing”.

He said the changes “add the potential” for officers to pursue when an offender flees and there’s a “high risk of ongoing serious harm”.

“It does acknowledge that in the preceding period we’ve had an increase in the number of fleeing driver events and a decrease in the proportion of those being apprehended,” Coster added. “[The new framework] is likely to see police pursuing more.

“We recognise there has been a public demand for a stronger focus on apprehensions.

It’s good the Police are listening and have changed their policy. Hopefully we may see less ram raids if those responsible realise they might actually be pursued now.

HDPA notes:

So why don’t we like him? 

I suspect it’s because voters aren’t quite as dumb as politicians assume, when they think a quick switcharoo at the top changes a party’s fortunes.

I suspect it’s because voters haven’t forgotten the stuff that frustrated them about Labour.

They gave Chippy a chance, but they haven’t seen him prove that his Labour is all that different. 

Tell you what, Labour should be worried about that.

This spells trouble for them because Chippy is the only asset they’ve got.

They’ve got rubbish policies, they’ve got a rubbish track record in the last 5.5 years, they’ve got rubbish ministers, and they’ve got rubbish coalition partners.

So the only thing they had going for them is a leader that was more popular than the leader of the National Party. 

Well, that’s not true anymore.

The gap between them about ten weeks ago was 16%, the gap now is 7%. 

Unless he can lift his popularity, Labour might’ve just lost its last best hope. 

Rubbish policies, rubbish track record, rubbish ministers and rubbish coalition partners – sums it uo nicely.

Thomas Cranmer does an excellent article about the Waipareira Trust, and how this taxpayer funded charity has to try and claim back $385,000 it spent on John Tamihere’s campaigns. Read the entire thing, but it was this section that struck me:

And under the current Labour government, the Waipareira Trust has had a golden run. In its accounts for the year ended 30 June 2016, the trust had revenue from services of $21,891,765, and had cash or term deposits of $6,950,998.

In its most recent accounts for the year ended 30 June 2022, the trust had revenue from services of $69,544,616, and had cash or term deposits of $50,379,806.

Over that six year period, administrative costs have ballooned from $2,138,592 to $5,919,525. And although senior management headcount has only increased from 14 to 15.25, remuneration and benefits for senior management have increased from $2,013,194 to $4,390,413.

So this taxpayer funded “charity” has has had the average salary for senior management explode from $144,000 to $288,000. How many charities do you know that have 15 staff members earning almost $300,000 each?

1 News reports:

The poll, which ran from May 20 to 24, asked eligible voters: “is now the right time to introduce tax cuts in New Zealand?”

Of the 1002 respondents, 52% said “yes”, 35% said “no”, while the rest refused to say.

A Labour/Green/Maori Party coalition will massively increase taxes – the only question is how much.

A National/ACT coalition will deliver tax cuts – the only question is how much.

Damien Grant writes:

In his maiden speech, the 30-year-old Chris Hipkinsreached across the Pacific for inspiration, quoting former US vice-president Hubert Humphrey: “…the moral test of a government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick and the needy.” 

Consider those words and recall that it was the same gentlemen whoplayed politics with Charlotte Bellis as she languished in Afghanistan, pregnant and abandoned by her government. 

Consider those words and recall Hipkins was Minister of Covid 19 Response when hundreds of citizens were denied the chance to see their dying relatives in an ultimately futile attempt to prevent the virus entering our shores.

Consider those words and recall that under his tenure as Minister of Education, the short experiment of charter schools was scrapped, because Hipkins placed placating teacher unions ahead of the needs of the mostly poor and disadvantaged students who were thriving under this regime. 

Consider these words and recall that, in 2021, Hipkins inaccurately accused two women of using “false information” to obtain travel documents to visit Northland, and stuck to his position long after it was no longer tenable. 

Hipkins fails on his own moral test. 

Grant continues:

Some 5.8% of students were turning up less than 70% of the timewhen he took over, but 12.4% when he left the portfolio. The data for Māori is worse; 10% were hitting the 70% or less figure in 2017, more than 20% by 2022. 

A report in March 2022 by the Education Hub revealed that literacy rates had declined to the point that a third of 15-year-olds struggle to read and write. And this under the guidance of a politician who, in his maiden speech, declared, “if we are to realise our full potential as a nation in the coming decades, education will be critical”.

Having one in five Maori kids basically not at school in a meaningful way is a problem that will have dire consequences in years to come.

Hipkins had achieved almost nothing by the time he entered Parliament, and in the 15 years since has left nought but a trail of mistakes and missed opportunities.

That is very harsh. He was a student union president, and then a senior advisor to Trevor Mallard and Helen Clark.

Even if you believe in the policies of this government, it is impossible to credibly believe that they have the competence to implement anything other than a campaign to encourage the poor to have shorter showers because the electricity infrastructure has deteriorated to the point that rolling blackouts are a real prospect. 

Luxon isn’t my first choice for prime minister, but he has the managerial competence and intellectual curiosity to actually govern. 

There has been too much focus on whether Luxon can win the election when we should be asking if he has the skills to competently perform the duties of the office, because it appears evident that the incumbent cannot.

This is the question that should be asked – competence.

Chris Bishop announced National’s plan top grow the housing supply. The three main elements are:

1. Unlocking land for housing – Councils will be required to zone land for 30 years’ worth of housing demand immediately. Councils will be able to opt-out of the Medium Density Residential Zone law but central government can over-ride councils to ensure they set aside enough land to meet demand targets.
2. Infrastructure financing tools – Reduce red tape for developers to fund infrastructure. Allow targeted rates to fund Greenfield developments so councils don’t need to fund greenfield infrastructure from their balance sheets.
3. Housing performance incentives for councils – A $1 billion fund for Build-for-Growth incentive payments for councils that deliver more new housing – funded by stopping existing programmes like KiwiBuild. Councils will get $25,000 per house delivered on top of their five year average.

Stuff reports:

The children of a woman killed by a drink-driver who had dozens of previous motoring convictions have branded a judge’s decision to cut his sentence “sickening”.

Damian and Emma Hands said the justice system was “unfair” and designed to “protect even clear-cut guilty criminals” after Justice Jonathan Eaton slashed five months from a jail term handed to Brian Ralph Lewis.

Lewis, who had already been convicted 10 times for drink-driving, was more than three times the legal limit when his car weaved across a West Coast road on April 30 last year and ploughed into one driven by Kathy Sexton.

Sexton was killed, and her two young passengers both almost died.

Lewis was jailed in Greymouth District Court for three years and two months in March, a sentence which Emma Hands called “pathetic”.

But now she and her family are further heartbroken after Justice Eaton reduced it to two years and nine months following an appeal by Lewis

Both sentences are insultingly light for loss of life. His actions at a minimum should be manslaughter.

This is not a case of someone who made a one off bad decision to drive having had a couple of drinks too many. He is a hardened recidivist who doesn’t; give an off about the law.

He has 43 driving related convictions, including 26 for driving while disqualified, seven for dangerous/reckless driving and 10 for drunk driving. Leaving him at large meant him killing someone was almost inevitable. And having killed someone, he’ll be out again in barely a few months.

As most of us will know, it is rare to be pulled over at a checkpoint. At best it might happens once every hundred times you drive in the evening, So this guy hasn’t driven drunk ten times, has has beyond doubt driven drunk thousands of times.

We should have a graduated regime for recidivist drink drivers, along the lines of:

1. Fine
2. Community work
3. Home detention
4. One months’s jail
5. Three months
6. Six months
7. One year
8. Two years
9. Four years
10. Eight years

The status quo is broken when it comes to drink driving.

Stuff reports:

Labour is promising, again, to keep the retirement age at 65. …

ACT also came out against Labour’s use of rough calculations to claim what Kiwis could lose under its opponent’s policies: Almost $100,000 in Government superannuation contributions by retirement, for a 30-year-old earning $78,527 a year, and accounting for compound interest.

You know Labour is desperate when they try stuff like this. They claim someone will be $80,000 worse off due to the retirement age increasing to 67, but the economic illilerates assume that money will come out of the ether. If the retirement age stays at 65 for ever, then every working person will have to pay higher taxes to fund it. Money doesn’t grow on trees.

Also if you want to play the scare game of whether someone will be better off in 35 years time, well consider income tax bracket indexation will see at least $2,000 less tax paid per year which with compound interest means you will be $180,000 worse off in 35 years.

NZ life expectancy has increased six years since 1992, when the age last lifted. It should in fact be linked to life expectancy automatically, with a means tested pension available from age 65 for those who have manual labour jobs.

Many developed countries have legislated to increase the age of eligibility over time, including:

• Australia 67
• Denmark 67
• Finland 68
• France 67
• Germany 67
• Greece 67
• Iceland 67
• Israel 67
• Italy 67
• Netherland 68
• Norway 67
• Sweden 67
• UK 68
• US 67

And Labour is scaremongering over a policy to increase the age to 67, from 2044!!

Jonathan Ayling of the Free Speech Union writes:

 The second annual survey on academic freedom by the Free Speech Union is an eye-opening read for those of us who value ideas and solutions being openly debated in Kiwi universities. …

Concerningly, this report shows that a majority of academics who responded at five of our eight universities disagreed that they were free to state controversial or unpopular opinions, even though this is one of the specific features of academic freedom as defined in the Education and Training Act 2020. …

Problematically, it is clear that the flow of political persuasion mapped almost directly onto whether academics felt free. About two-thirds (64%) of academics who identified as “very left” and 70% of those who identified as “left” felt free to state controversial or unpopular opinions.

It decreased from less than half (46%) of those who are “slightly left” to one-third (34%) of those who are “centrist” down to one-quarter (26%) of those who are “slightly right” to 18% for those who are “right”. No academic who responded as “very right wing” agreed with the statement (admittedly, there was a small sample size for this group).

This, in the context of an academy that we already know has a left-leaning bent (the respondents to our survey reflect this disposition), is frightening for intellectual diversity.

Academics were asked about six specific subjects which might be controversial; a majority of academics felt comfortable discussing only three: religion, politics, and sexual orientation.

Some 59% of academics did not feel comfortable discussing the Treaty of Waitangi and colonialism, with at least one-third (30%) of academics at every single university feeling “not at all comfortable” (45% of academics from Otago were “not at all comfortable”).

Academic freedom is in theory guaranteed in law, but is obviously not working in practice. This makes it an issue for the Government. Here’s some things a Government could do:

• Have the Tertiary Education Commission conduct its own annual survey of academics on academic freedom, publishing the results
• Have a government or select inquiry into academic freedom
• Develop minimum levels of acceptable academic freedom for universities and tie funding to meeting or exceeding those standards

What is clear is that the status quo is not acceptable.

Stuff reports on David Falamoe who has been sentenced for:

• indecently touched a six year old girl
• punched a teenager in the stomach when she told him she was pregnant
• found in bed of a nine year old girl
• convicted of indecent assault
• convicted of rape x 2
• convicted of unlawful sexual connection x1
• convicted of of attempted sexual violation x2
• convicted of compelling an indecent act with a dog
• convicted of committing two indecent acts
• convicted of assault with intent to injure
• convicted of assaulting a female

He got sentenced to 13 years with parole eligibility in five years and six months. But get his history:

He has 65 previous convictions, including 29 for violence mainly against intimate partners. This guy is a walking case for preventive detention. How many convictions does he need to rack up?

He had not responded to previous sentences, had no insight and no remorse.

So in either six years or 13 years he is going to create some more victims.

Newshub reports:

The Government’s campaign suggesting Kiwis shorten their showers and limit their heating temperatures to save money is costing $2.8 million.

Yet we are always told that you can’t reduce government spending without affecting core services.

The Herald reports:

“What I’m concerned about is that the Labour Government has been drawn into seeing everything through the security lens, not through the peace lens.

“You don’t hear the word very often emanating from the Government about the importance of promotion of peace.”

I’d have no fears about China’s economic rise, if China had stayed on the course it started in the late 1990s of becoming less aggressive, of respecting the freedoms it promised Hong Kong, and gradually allowing more civil liberties.

But over the last few years China has acted very aggressively, with the last straw for many being their implicit support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

So I want peace absolutely. But let’s recognise that there is a close to zero chance that peace will end due to the US or its allies attacking China. It will end if China tries to kill off democracy in Taiwan by way of military force.

Defence Minister Andrew Little agrees that New Zealand has already picked a side – decades ago – and it sat behind New Zealand’s support for Ukraine after its invasion by Russia.

“We are a small country,” he told the Herald this week. “We depend on the rest of the world signing up to and adhering to the international rule of law. When we see it breached in such a flagrant way, we’ve got to be in there supporting, [as] in Ukraine’s case, the victim of that breach.

“Those are values we have signed up to. That is the side we have picked and we have been on that side for decades and decades, and we’ll continue to be on that side. And we will always pick that side.”

It was those values that would determine any future choices as well.

This is exactly right. Our values as a democratic liberal country are what count.

For those interested, here is how the PM and Opposition Leaders have fared in Preferred PM ratings in the Kantar poll in May of election year.

Opposition Leaders

1. 2008 John Key 36%
2. 1999 Helen Clark 22%
3. 1993 Mike Moore 21%
4. 2023 Chris Luxon 18%
5. 2005 Don Brash 15%
6. 1984 David Lange 13%
7. 1990 Jim Bolger 12%
8. 2002 Bill English 12%
9. 2014 David Cunliffe 10%
10. 1987 Jim Bolger 8%
11. 2017 Andrew Little 8%
12. 2011 Phil Goff 8%
13. 2020 Simon Bridges 5%
14. 1996 Helen Clark 4%

So Chris Luxon’s rating is not far off what Helen Clark had in 1999 and is higher than both Jim Bolger and David Lange had in their May of election year.

And how about PMs:

1. 2020 Jacinda Ardern 63%
2. 2011 John Key 53%
3. 2002 Helen Clark 50%
4. 2014 John Key 43%
5. 2005 Helen Clark 41%
6. 1987 David Lange 37%
7. 1984 Robert Muldoon 34%
8. 2017 Bill English 29%
9. 2008 Helen Clark 28%
10. 1999 Jenny Shipley 27%
11. 2023 Chris Hipkins 25%
12. 1996 Jim Bolger 22%
13. 1990 Geoffrey Palmer 19%
14. 1993 Jim Bolger 8%

So in May of election year Christopher Luxon is the 4th highest polling opposition leader and Chris Hipkins is the 4th lowest polling prime minister.

Yet the media generally report the poll as terrible for Luxon. I can only assume they don’t know history.

Party Vote

• National 37% (+3% from last poll in March 2023)
• Labour 35% (-1%)
• ACT 11% (nc)
• Greens 7% (-4%)
• Maori Party 2.4% (-0.2%)
• NZ First 3.0% (-0.1%)
• TOP 1.4% (+0.4%)
• New Conservatives 0.6% (+0.1%)
• DemocracyNZ 0.7% (+0.1%)

Seats

• Labour 46 (-19 from election)
• National 47 (+14)
• ACT 15 (+5)
• Greens 9 (-1)
• Maori 3 (+1)

Government

• National/ACT 62/120
• Labour/Greens/Maori 58/120

Preferred PM (unprompted)

• Chris Hipkins 25% (-2%)
• Christopher Luxon 18% (+1%)
• David Seymour 7% (+1%)
• Chloe Swarbrick 2% (+1.1%)
• Winston Peters 2% (-1%)
• Jacinda Ardern 1% (-1%)
• Nicola Willis 1% (+0.1%)

As expected Ron DeSantis has announced his candidacy for President. After he won re-election in Florida by a massive 20%, he was seen as formidable in terms of electability. But he has fallen back in primary polls from 30% to 20% while Trump has gone from 45% to 55%.

Trump is attacking him relentlessly as the only candidate who could possibly beat him. It will be interesting to see if DeSantis attacks back with equal vigour. It will also be interesting to see his response is Trump is charged over his refusal to hand back classified materials, and obstruction of the FBI.

The primary election will start on 22 January with the Iowa caucus.

The Herald reports:

Early Childhood Education leaders are seeking an urgent meeting with the Minister and Associate Minister of Education as they fear the Government’s 20-hours-free expansion could compromise childcare standards and force centres to close.

Budget 2023 included extending 20 hours of free early childcare per week to apply to 2-year-olds in addition to children 3 and above, which was a welcome relief for some new parents struggling with the high cost of living and by sector leaders.

However, those same leaders are now sounding the alarm about conditions within the expansion that childcare centres must meet in order to offer the 20 hours for free.

New Shoots Children’s Centre director Kelly Seaburg told the Herald the Government’s additional funding of the 20-hours-free package – $1.2 billion over four years – was developed using a 1:10 teacher-to-child ratio.

Seaburg said it was generally accepted that 1:10 was not an appropriate ratio to deliver quality childcare, particularly to 2-year-olds, who had higher needs than older children.

We’ve been fortunate that our two kids have gone to two great ECE centres. They generally operate around 1:4 to 1:5 and I would never send them to a centre with a 1:10 ratio.

Having spent a lot of time at our ECEs, I’ve observed that much of the time one or more teachers will be dealing with an individual kid – changing their nappy, comforting them etc. So even with a 1:5 ratio you often have one teacher keeping an eye on 9 or 10 kids while the other teacher is dealing with one kid.

So if the Government is only funding at a 1:10 ratio, then at times you may have a teacher having to look after 20 kids at once. And that might be okay with say four year olds for short periods, but not for two year olds.

So extending 20 free fours to 2 year olds, but only funding at a 1:10 ratio will mean higher quality ECEs with smaller ratios get hammered. Lower quality ECEs with high ratios will prosper.