The new Hipkins Ministry has made what are generally sensible changes, especially moving Mahuta from Local Government and Little from Health. But the key question is whether policies will change, or merely Ministers?

Will Jan Tinetti as Minister of Education implement policies to improve the abysmal attendance rates of student, and reverse the decline in literacy and numeracy standards?

Will Michael Wood slow down Auckland or speed it up?

Will Ayesha Verrall put in place health targets that will see ED and cancer waiting times decline?

Will Stuart Nash deliver the 1,800 extra police he promised by 2020?

Will Kieran McAnuty change Three Waters so it has accountability to the public?

I have long said that the best defence NZhad against Covid-19 was being an island. It meant it was much easier to keep Covid-19 out until it turned into less severe variants and vaccinations were available.

We all know that NZ had one of the lowest death tolls in the world, but how did we do against other island nations who are developed countries. Well here is the latest data from Worldometers.

1. Singapore 290 (deaths/mil pop)
2. Greenland 369
3. Japan 539
4. South Korea 651
5. Iceland 663
6. Taiwan 680
7. Australia 714
8. NZ 772

Maybe we shouldn’t be quite as smug as we used to be.

I am one of those people who, when in the car, often have the experience of driving, through, past or over something (no humans yet) and then go; “Flip … what was that?”

A very high achieving Year 13 student (as Blackadder would – let’s call him “Bob”) from an Auckland private school contacted me to discuss the NZ education system and the data I process. Halfway through the conversation Bob said something I almost drove straight past: “Myself, and a good number of my friends no longer see the point in attending school. We know how important our qualifications are but we can learn a lot better and use time better on our own or in small groups.” Me – braking – … “wait … what?”

Keeping in mind that his school is within the top 25 achieving schools in the country I asked the reasoning of Bob and friends.
– “under lockdown we achieved at least as highly.”
– “so much time is wasted during the school day.”
– “a good number of our teachers are ineffective, humourless and not engaging at all. I can make much better use of an hour and/or my friends and I can study around a table at a café.”
– “the text books are generally good and we can supplement that with a huge range of resources now available on the internet.”

So, this isn’t a student from a struggling demographic – although I would imagine some of those are staying away from school (when they aren’t locked out like they are again this week in Auckland) for many of the same reasons. They don’t see the point, the school/system and teachers are not engaging and/or low quality. The tragedy in many cases in the poorer demographics is that they may be yet to understand the importance of the qualifications.

Parents across demographics have been equally concerned with school/teacher quality, what is being taught, and the fraught nature of many of the social interactions. Elsewhere I have written that the covid lockdowns was like the tide going out on the education system and showing all of the rubbish and deadwood.

To give myself a little credit, even if I did not understand the full implications at the time – at the beginning of last year I helped the Villa Education Trust to establish a private, nationwide, virtual/home school called Mt Hobson Academy Connected. I am no longer employed/salaried – so I can proudly just say that the staff – under wonderful, former Willowbank School, Principal Saira Boyle – with an incredible staff – are providing a “school” of very high quality. The programme can be teacher led, in superb virtual classrooms, or they have a parent led programme (with more time flexibility) where Mt Hobson provides all teaching resources and copious quantities of guidance and contact.

It is private so there is a cost (although significant less that a bricks and mortar private school). What many of the parents have told the school is that they have understood far more deeply over the last three years the “investment” side of education for their children.

They also make the learning worthwhile, aspirational and interesting. Alongside subjects these are the five weekly Projects students work through. It is well worth any family looking for better – checking out. And … rain, hail or snow … they are open.

The first pebbles have started of the avalanche. Parents in NZ (and around the world) are rediscovering that they have the power to make significant choices about the education of their children.

We know how the Ministry of Education will respond:

Damien Grant writes:

Co-governance in areas like water infrastructure, land management and the health sector has been imposed without the usual process of consultation and consent.

We are moving from a regime where historical wrongs are being addressed, to a state where one ethnic class has an inherent and enduring political status that is based on their ancestry. This cannot end well.

A very good summary. It is a model that Fiji used to have.

The last minute decision by the Government to close over 2,000 schools and ECE centres in Auckland for a week is an over-reaction to the flooding.

You could make a case for a day, but not a week. This will cause chaos for parents and families, plus be educationally disadvantageous to kids who have already had three years of disruptions.

There are some schools that can’t and should not open. But Auckland is a huge place. The situation in the south is very different to the north.

Rather than have the Government close all 2,000 schools and ECEs, the decision on closing should rest with each school and ECE – they will know their local situation.

The excuse that they needed to reduce traffic on the roads is again lacking. If that is the rationale, then why only close schools? Why not close every business? But it also overlooks that many students walk to school.

Why are we banning students from attending a school which is safe to be open, and that they can safely get to?

Again there could be a case for having them stay shut just on Tuesday, but to keep kids out of school until next Tuesday is hamfisted. It is bad for families and bad for kids.

Party Vote

• Labour 38% (+5.7% from Nov)
• National 36.6% (-4.1%)
• Greens 8.1% (-1.4%)
• ACT 10.7% (+0.7%)
• NZ First 2.2% (-1.1%)
• Maori 1.8% (-0.1%)
• TOP 1.5% (+0.3%)

Seats

• Labour 48 (-17 from election)
• National 46 (+13)
• Greens 10 (nc)
• ACT 14 (+4)
• Maori 2 (nc)

Governments

• Labour/Green 58/120
• National/ACT 60/120
• National/ACT/Maori 62/120

Preferred PM

• Chris Hipkins 19.6%
• Jacinda Ardern 12.4% (-17.5%)
• Christopher Luxon 18.8% (-2.7%)
• David Seymour 8.0% (+0.7%)
• Winston Peters 2.9% (-1.3%
• Leighton Baker 3.9%

Party Vote

• National 37% (-1% from last poll)
• Labour 38% (+5%)
• ACT 10% (-1%)
• Greens 7% (-2%)
• Maori Party 1.4% (-0.6%)
• NZ First 2.2% (-1.4%)
• TOP 1.1% (-0.6%)
• New Conservatives 0.6%
• DemocracyNZ 0.7%

Seats

• Labour 49 (-16 from election)
• National 47 (+14)
• ACT 13 (+3)
• Greens 9 (-1)
• Maori 2 (nc)

Government

• National/ACT 60/120
• Labour/Greens 58/120
• National/ACT/Maori 62/120

Preferred PM (unprompted)

• Chris Hipkins 23% (+23%)
• Jacinda Ardern 5% (-24%)
• Christopher Luxon 22% (-1%)
• David Seymour 6% (nc)
• Chloe Swarbrick 2% (nc)
• Winston Peters 2% (nc)

The Fiji Times reports:

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says there is no need for Chinese state security personnel to continue working in the Fiji Police Force.

He was referring to a memorandum of understanding between the Fiji Police Force and China’s Ministry of Public Security inked in 2011 which resulted in Fijian police officers undergoing training in China and Chinese officers being deployed to Fiji on attachment programs for three to six months.

In September, 2021 police co-operation efforts between the two countries reached new heights following the appointment of a Chinese Police Liaison officer to be based in Fiji.

“There’s no need for us to continue, our systems are different,” Mr Rabuka said to The Fiji Times yesterday.

“Our system of democracy and justice systems are different so we will go back to those that have similar systems with us.”

He said officers from other countries like Australia and New Zealand could stay because their systems were similar to Fiji.

Good decisions from the new PM.

It is very typical for new leaders to get a bump in the polls. The One News time series goes back to 1974, so what has been the bump (if any) in the (party) vote for each new leader.

1. Palmer 8 Aug 89 +16%
2. Ardern 1 Aug 17 +13%
3. Lange 3 Feb 83 +9%
4. Muller 22 May 20 +9%
5. Clark 1 Dec 93 +7%
6. McLay 26 Nov 84 +7%
7. Little 18 Nov 14 +6%
8. Moore 4 Sep 90 +5%
9. Luxon 30 Nov 21 +4%
10. Bolger 26 Mar 86 +4%
11. Shipley 8 Dec 97 +4%
12. Brash 28 Oct 03 +4%
13. English 12 Nov 16 +2%
14. Shearer 13 Dec 11 +1%
15. Cunliffe 15 Sep 13 +1%
16. English 8 Oct 01 +1%
17. Bridges 27 Feb 18 +1%
18. Key 27 Nov 06 -3%
19. Collins 14 Jul 20 -6%
20. Goff 11 Nov 08 -7%

So of the 20 leadership changes of a major party since 1974, 17 of them saw a rise in the party vote in the next One News poll. The median increase was 4%. The top third saw increases of 6% to 16%.

Worth noting that an initial poll bounce does not guarantee victory. Key at first polled 3% less than Brash. Palmer and Muller both never got to fight an election. Brash only had a 4% increase initially but then went up a further 17%.

The other factor is that the time between a leadership change and the first One News poll is variable. If it is done before they have had to make any decisions, then they are more likely to get a bounce than if it is a few months down the road.

Also worth noting that only 3 of the 20 leadership changes saw the new leader win the next election. Bolger and Clark only won on their second attempts.

Radio NZ report:

Te Tai Hauāuru MP and Speaker of the House Adrian Rurawhe will not stand for the Māori electorate in October’s general election and will instead move to the Labour Party list.

Rurawhe contested and won Te Tai Hauāuru three times. He was elected as Speaker mid-term in August last year, replacing Trevor Mallard.

Because they must remain politically neutral, Speakers are typically in Parliament as list MPs rather than as representatives of electorates.

“Since taking up the role of Speaker I’ve had to consider what I will do in the future,” Rurawhe said.

“Since MMP, no sitting Speaker has contested a seat. I’ve thought long and hard about whether I should do that or not, and had lots of conversations with friends, family, iwi.”

Rurawhe is liked and respected as Speaker. The decision is a logical one, but it does carry some risk. On current polls Labour could lose up to 25 MPs. Unless they lose a dozen or more electorate seats (which is possible) then only the very highest ranked candidates will get in.

Te Pāti Māori announced at the Rātana celebrations this week that its co-leader, list MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, would contest the Te Tai Hauāuru seat again.

Party president John Tamihere said Ngarewa-Packer would take back the electorate for Te Pāti Māori and strengthen the movement for equality and rangatiratanga.

Ngarewa-Packer, who was based in South Taranaki, hotly contested Te Tai Hauāuru in 2020, losing to Rurawhe by 1053 votes.

Unless Labour select an amazing candidate, my default assumption is Ngarewa-Packer will win the seat. This could create an overhang if the Maori Party get less than 1.2% party vote.

As you could expect there has been an outcry, especially as New College has been very left leaning. But Rufo and one of the other new trustees decided to have an open meeting with any interested staff member and student. Scores and scores turned up.

But the Provost and President tried to stop the meeting, on the basis of a vague threat made by e-mail. You’ll see in the video below how Rufo just refuses to be cowed by them, and points out that the threat was against them, and they’re happy to continue, and the importance of not rewarding those who make threats.

Rufo won, and the meeting was held. The lesson is to stand up to bullies.

Jacinda is only 42 years old, so obviously will have a career post-politics. She probably won’t want much at first, as family time will be a priority. But with her international recognition, there are a number of roles she could do. The Christchurch Call is obviously important to her, so just around that, the possibilities are:

1. Become the Executive Chair of the Christchurch Call, and continue to meet with heads of governments and tech companies to reinvigorate it. Her working FT on this would make a huge difference.
2. Take up a second level role in one of the giant tech companies, such as Nick Clegg did with Facebook. Not only would she earn squilliions, she could make change from within.
3. Be appointed by the NZ Government as its global ambassador for cyber-security and cyber-responsibility.
4. Take up a UN role such as head of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, which deals with cyber issues and violent extremism.
5. Ambassador to the US. They love her there. She would gain huge profile for NZ and have massive access to top US officials

Stuff reports:

Andrew Little says he is happy to stick it out as the health minister, arguably one of the toughest gigs in politics, as Prime Minister Chris Hipkins meets with Labour MPs to allocate portfolios and set up his Cabinet ahead of a reshuffle next week.

If Hipkins does keep Little on in Health, then the only people happy about it will be Andrew Little and the National Party caucus!

The Herald reports:

NZ Police Association president Chris Cahill has backed the officers involved in an incident which led to a 10-year-old boy being tasered in Rotorua last week after allegedly attempting to stab an officer, claiming alternative “touchy-feely stuff puts people at risk”.

“When officers are encountered with this situation they have to go through a full risk assessment… If you’ve got someone with a knife and they’re running around and they’re clearly panicking, you’re gonna have to take some action,” he told Newstalk ZB this afternoon. …

“He’s waving it around at the police. They’re asking him to put it down, and talking to him, they’re not touching him, they’re just talking to him. But he’s swinging the knife around them, trying to stab them and kick them and all that.

“They were instructing him to put the knife down, put the knife down, he wasn’t listening he was still trying to go for them.”

I’m not concerned that the Police tasered someone who was trying to stab them.

I’m concerned that a 10 year old boy was trying to stab police officers. Unless there is a serious intervention with him, he is going to end up in a ver bad place.

A guest post by Owen Jennings:

“Climate change is creating a generation of climate distress and hopelessness,” says Dr Epel, chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioural sciences and a faculty lead of the Climate Change and Mental Health Task Force at the University of California. “That climate distress”, she continues, “is a complex conglomeration of aspects of emotional distress, including depression, anxiety, and hopelessness.”

It is a sobering reality that among the many pressures young people encounter today the constant barrage or doomsday predictions is taking a devastating toll.  Being told the world will end removes the will to live especially if accompanied by a plethora of other negative impacts.

Many of the predictions are simply rubbish, a product of scientists desperate to hang on to funding or a tenure combined with a media using sensationalism to try and stay profitable.

The psychological pressure is becoming worse.  Not content with playing havoc with young vulnerable minds by piling fear upon fear using unusual weather events as weapons the climate change monsters are now setting impossible targets that they already know full well will be missed creating greater panic and feelings of hopelessness.

This manipulation of impressionable minds is unforgivable. 

‘Net zero’ by 2050 is blatantly unreachable.

Take one sector – cars.   NZ born, Cambridge Professor Michael Kelly figures replacing all the United Kingdom’s 32 million light duty vehicles with next-generation EVs would require more than half the world’s annual production of copper; twice its annual cobalt; three quarters of its yearly lithium carbonate output; and nearly its entire annual production of neodymium.  That’s way before you factor in the USA’s 300 million vehicles or the EU’s 240 million. That is without trucks, trains and other vehicles.  It looks like a lot of people will be on bikes or staying home watching Netflix.

Having aided and abetted the Extinction Rebellion nonsense the catastrophic propounding scientists and their media lapdogs are now teasing the fearful with unobtainable goal setting.  It is evil mind games.

Can we generate today’s electricity usage from current renewables or alternatives if we stop all fossil fuel use?

It has been calculated and, not yet disputed, that to do so would take:

•          One average size nuclear power plant built and commissioned each and every day until 2050 or

•          4,000 typical sized wind turbines built each and every day plus the above nuclear back up for still days or 

•          250 square kilometres of solar panels built and working each and every day plus the above nuclear back up for the cloudy days and night time.

It is generally reckoned that to allow for peak demand plus maintenance, breakages, load balancing etc we require 1.6 to 1.7 times average capacity so the above projects will need resizing up by 70%.

Even with some hitherto unknown technological breakthrough there isn’t a dog show of that happening.  Goals set without a plan or a clue how to achieve them.  Idiocy.  More anxiety.

In NZ the youth suicide stats reveal 23% of our young people had significant depressive symptoms, up from 13% in 2012 – a damning indictment.  In the USA suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people.  A disturbing factor is that self harm numbers and suicide attempts among teenagers are growing and are 3 to 4 times higher than other age groups.

This is a case of “blood on their hands”, surely?  

The most sensible way to assess the level of the minimum wage, is to compare it to the median wage. In fact I advocate we should stop the annual lolly scramble in setting the minimum wage, and simply have a law stating it is x% (say 65%) of the median wage. This would mean that lifting the median wage would lift the minimum wage, so politicians would focus policies that are good for improving the productivity of the economy (which is how you lift wages) rather than passing a feel good law.

The current minimum wage in New Zealand is exceptionally high already. The OECD calculates the levels in 2021 to be:

1. New Zealand 68%
2. France 61%
3. UK 57%
4. Australia 52%
5. Germany 51%
6. Canada 50%
7. Ireland 46%
8. Japan 45%
9. US 29%

Minimum wage workers in NZ are better paid, relative to the median wage, than almost any other developed country.

As I predicted in my 2023 predictions, Grant Robertson is standing down from Wellington Central to go List only. I heard this was likely in mid December.

This is obviously to allow him to bail after the election, without causing a by-election. It is an implicit sign that he thinks it is likely they will lose.

It is fair to note that Bill English also went List only in 2014, but this was done at a time when National was way ahead in the polls, and his electorate was very distant from Wellington. By contrast Grant is MP for Wellington Central – he can walk out the door and be at any electorate function within five to ten minutes.

A guest post by Jeremy Callander:

Imagine a city with a population of 1,000,000 people.  I have chosen this number because I think it is large enough to be useful, but small enough to be imaginable.  Let’s call this city Utopia.

Imagine that the people of this city are somehow perfectly representative of the wider population of NZ in general – that is, in terms of demographic proportionality re age, gender, ethnicity, mental and physical ability, addiction, etc.

Now imagine that each household – however it might be constituted – owns its own home (debt-free), its own vehicle (running well and debt-free) and has a million bucks in cash assets.  In other words, equality of outcome – at least economically.

Furthermore, imagine that every member of every household has the same unimpeded access to the same educational and employment opportunities, and the same services (health, etc).

Now press “Play”.

The people of Utopia will begin living – as people do. 

Some will attend to their responsibilities with conscientiousness and humility.  Of these, some will reap success, while others will be murdered in their beds.

Some will prove themselves to be unemployable.  Of these, some will scurry around in perpetual poverty, while others will live in comfort as a result of unearned inheritance, the generosity of strangers or just blind luck.

Some will create incredible works of art, while others will drink themselves to death.

Some will drive cautiously and be killed in car accidents.

Some will drive too fast, sleep too little and eat too much……and live happily to a ripe old age.

Some will be born into privilege, only to die in the gutter.

Some will go through their lives without receiving a single word of encouragement.  Of these, some will choose to take their own lives, while others will choose to fight every day to be a loving parent and a faithful partner.

Some will experience catastrophe – perhaps of more than one kind and on more than one occasion.

Some will be fortunate and some will not.

All will be human.  None will be equal.  For to be human is to be unequal.

How long will it take for those houses, vehicles and cash assets to be redistributed?  For that equality of outcome to become inequality?

How long?  Not long.  And why?  Because there is no equality of outcome.

There is just human nature and the arbitrariness of the Universe.

There is no equality, no fairness and no real justice. 

There is simply Life and the living of it.  And Life is what it is.

The harder we fight and scheme and legislate and cheat and lie and meme in the hope of molding it into something else – into something that we think it should be – the worse it will get. 

The worse it always gets.

I’m not suggesting that we each give up trying to make our little corners of the world slightly better places to be.  But being honest with ourselves and with each other about the Reality within which we all exist?  That would go a long way.

Anything else is just dreaming.