Once again Graham Adams actually looks at the historical record to see if the accepted narrative holds up. He writes:

Last Friday, an article by Rawiri Waititi appeared in the New Zealand Herald to mark Māori Language Week. It included:

“Part of colonisation and imperialism is to assert the dominance of the colonial culture and language. Colonisation meant that the whole system of Māori self-belief had to be attacked and derided. The Tohunga Suppression Act of 1907 is merely one example of our spiritual leadership being outlawed.”

Referring to that particular law in a column decrying the effects of colonisation is frankly bizarre. The legislation was introduced to Parliament by one of Maoridom’s most illustrious politicians, James Carroll, who was Minister of Native Affairs (and later Acting Prime Minister on two occasions).

In fact, all the four Māori MPs in Parliament in 1907 voted in favour — including rising star Apirana Ngata.

Furthermore, it was strongly backed by Māui Pōmare, who became New Zealand’s first Māori doctor in 1899 — and was made Minister of Health in 1923.

So this Act of Parliament was introduced by a Maori MP, supported by all four Maori MPs and NZ’s first Maori doctor. But hey easier to blame colonisation etc.

Appointed Māori Health Officer in 1901, Pōmare was a fierce critic of the practices of some tohunga (variously defined as “priests” or “experts in traditional Māori healing”). These included treating feverish patients by putting them in cold water and plying them with alcohol, as well as exorcising devils.

So banning exorcisisms was bad?

“After 17 children died in one pā alone after the ministrations of tohunga, Māori Health Officer Dr Māui Pōmare pushed, in his 1904 annual report, for legislation against the practices of tohunga. This report was one of the main drivers for the eventual passage of the legislation.”

So the Act was pushed by NZ’s first Maori doctor, after 17 children died from tohunga practices.

Whatever the web of reasons that motivated the Māori MPs to support the bill, it was undeniably promoted by influential Māori figures. With that information in hand, Waititi’s attempt to link it to an oppressive colonialism looks like a spectacular own goal — unless he wants to claim that some of the Māori world’s most famous luminaries were acting against the interests of their own people with the intention to “attack and deride” their “self-belief”.

And what did the Act actually do?

A little research would also have shown her that the Act was aimed specifically at anyone who “gathers Maoris around him by practising on their superstition or credulity, or who misleads or attempts to mislead any Maori by professing or pretending to profess supernatural powers in the treatment of cure of any disease, or in the foretelling of future events”.

The law made no attempt to prohibit many of the traditional treatments used by tohunga, such as medicinal plants and herbs, even if they turned out to be worthless.

Sounds like banning conversion therapy – a claim you can change or heal someone based on supernatural powers.

Not only was the legislation used sparingly, but prosecutions included a “White Tohunga”, Pakeha nurse Mary Anne Hill, of Grey Lynn, Auckland. Several of her patients — presumably Māori — died after she had treated them.

Some MPs argued that measures against tohungaism should apply in equal measure to Māori and Pakeha alike. As a result, the delightfully named Quackery Prevention Act was passed in 1908. It banned publication of untruthful claims about medicines as well as taking aim directly at Pākehā faith healers and fraudsters.

Parliament, you might conclude, was less racist and more even-handed on this issue than we are encouraged to believe.

If only articles like this could still be published in the legacy media. Actual facts and history.

Some interesting data at Stats NZ about sea level rise in New Zealand. It is current up to 2020. The increase in mm between 2000 and 2020 in each site is:

• Auckland 25 mm or 1.3 mm/year
• Moturiki 8 mm or 0.4 mm/year
• New Plymouth 10 mm or 0.5 mm/year
• Wellington 30 mm or 1.5 mm/year
• Lyttleton 53 mm or 2.7 mm/year
• Dunedin 12 mm or 0.6 mm/year

Not quite Noah’s Ark is it!

There is sea level rise, but it is not an existential threat in any sense. Yes it is projected to increase but for over 30 years now the rise has in fact been quite modest.

Strictly Obiter writes:

The first is the three strikes regime (and I use that word advisedly) itself. They say hard cases make bad law but bad law also makes for hard cases. When Parliament takes away judicial discretion for sentencing the judiciary will first maximise whatever small levers they’ve been left with. That saw courts finding manifest injustice on every third strike sentencing except one, and excluding one or two others where a sentence of preventive detention was imposed instead. Then the courts will create levers of their own. That saw courts finding ways to reduce sentence length precisely in response to the effects of three strikes (which is extraordinary): see Barnes v R [2018] NZCA 42, [2018] 3 NZLR 49). Then the courts will go further. In Fitzgerald v R [2021] NZSC 131, [2021] 1 NZLR 551 the Supreme Court found a way to say that in some cases a court could simply not apply an act of parliament. That is more than extraordinary. And Parliament and the Crown are now stuck with that ruling on the books. Maybe it won’t be used again – maybe it’s just a reaction to three strikes. But what a colossal strategic error by Parliament to push things so far that they get in writing a judgment that says maybe we don’t have to listen to you. Lord Cooke talked about deep lying common law rights. In the 2020s, the message from the courts is fuck around and find out. 

This is indeed a massive change. Up until last year we were a parliamentary democracy with parliamentary supremacy. But the Supreme Court gave itself the power to ignore statute law in a sentencing case, and has now set this as precedent.

This happens in countries where they have a written constitution which laws can be judged against to see if they are consistent. But we do not have that in New Zealand. In countries with a written constitution, the constitution can be changed to over-rule a judicial decision. But in NZ we now have judicial decisions that are potentially untouchable.

I don’t think Parliament should surrender supremacy to the unelected judiciary. I believe as a matter or priority the next National/ACT Government must reinstate the Three Strikes law (but remove indecent assault from the regime to stop the Fitzgerald case reoccurring). The law should explicitly state that Judges must follow the Sentencing Act regardless of any other Act of Parliament or international agreement. The principled thing for a Judge to do that finds the only legal sentence available to be abhorrent (to them, but probably not to 90% of New Zealanders) is to resign.

Finally to remove doubt, the Attorney-General in the third reading speech should clearly state that any Judge that refuses to follow statute law in sentencing issues would be seen as misbehaviour under S23 of the Constitution Act 1986 and that the Attorney-General would move in the House that it address the Governor-General to remove the judge or judges who do so.

This is not about whether or not you like the Three Strikes law. This is about whether people in a democracy get to make the final decision on what laws applies to them.

This post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and occasional contributor.   It is the seventh post in a series on the financial incentives to work and the impacts of our tax and transfer system on household formation.  The index to all posts in the series can be found here.

This post summarises the analysis to date over the series that have sought to highlight the current reality facing people in receipt of income support in NZ. This draws to a close the first story arc, reviewing what concerns I see with the current arrangements, and the next story arc will consider what changes we might usefully make.

NZ’s high effective marginal tax rates for those at the lower end of the income scale have substantial impacts.

They reduce the incentive for people in receipt of a benefit to move into work, in some cases because each extra hour of work actually reduces household income, in most cases because the government is capturing 75-80% of any additional income. This includes sapping increases to the minimum wage, with government capturing the majority of the increased pay.

These impacts fall heavily on solo parents and on secondary income earners with children, reducing the incentive to work at all, and when they are working, reducing the incentives to seek higher pay rates. This is a consequence of the targeting of many supplementary benefits to those with children.

Solo parents and secondary income earners are disproportionately female, therefore these policies will have the effect of lowering female workforce participation, and of reducing women’s average hourly earnings as compared to men.

Casey Costello writes:

The impact of Kelvin Davis’s actions is far greater than the offence from the insults in the House because he set himself above other Maori as the gatekeeper for te ao Maori, the Maori World View.

And as you may have seen in the House, he was egged on and encouraged by his Labour caucus who took pleasure in their ability to decide who will be allowed into their exclusive club of Maoridom.

So we now expose the truth of the Labour Maori caucus agenda: we are not being divided just by whether we are Maori or non-Maori, that is too simple. For being Maori, although undefined, now requires you to meet the standard set by Labour. The qualification to join this exclusive club is no longer whakapapa, it is whether you agree with the elected and self-appointed elite.

Exactly – unless you agree with us, you’re an Uncle Tom.

In 14 years police service, mostly in South Auckland, I saw suffering and cruelty that I have carried with me throughout my life. One night after finishing duty, I remember being so distraught by a certain event that I went home to my mother for a quiet cry in despair about what I had experienced. I was saddened and in some way ashamed because it was a Maori family that had been the perpetrators of what had happened. I told her of my disgust and contempt for those involved and she gently reminded me “that is not Maori, don’t let bad people take away from you what you know to be true, you know what Maori is, Maori is Mama (my grandmother) and Dangy (my grandfather), always remember that.”

And until Kelvin’s outburst I did.

Because Kelvin wants to be the authority on what it means to be Maori, he will decide who has the right to speak. He will determine whether you have qualified to be Maori. According to Kelvin, those whom I experienced and assessed as being pure evil but who were living in the “Maori world” would be more qualified to speak for us. But those of us who he believes live in the “pakeha world” are precluded from being qualified to comment.

I wonder if Kelvin regards Winston as also not being Maori enough to comment?

Knowing Kelvin’s supporters will come after me and yet again criticise me for not being Maori enough to comment, I might soften the blows a bit when I mention that my great grandfather and Kelvin’s great grandfather were brothers.

Interesting. That makes them third cousins.

It seems in New Zealand we are not championing the aspirational words of Martin Luther King in that we are not seeking to have our children valued on the content of their character but rather judged on the subjective measure assigned by Kelvin Davis.

But, to Karen Chhour, you are the representative New Zealanders need if we are serious about achieving better outcomes. You have my whole-hearted support.

After receiving the apology, Karen replied with dignity that she hoped that there is a “pathway to move forward and have constructive debates in the future”. These words make Karen more qualified than Kelvin to be a representative of the people of New Zealand.

Don’t let them divide us.

A guest post by Gary Lindsay:

On Monday 10 October Janine Small, the Pfizer President of International Developed Markets, told the EU Parliament that they had not tested whether their Covid vaccine prevented the spread of Covid 19 at the time of its release.  It was in response to a question from Dutch MEP Rob Roos.  This was reported first in alternate media, and has been quietly picked up by a few mainstream media outlets such as <a href=”https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/human-body/pfizer-did-not-know-whether-covid-vaccine-stopped-transmission-before-rollout-executive-admits/news-story/f307f28f794e173ac017a62784fec414”> Newscorp</a>.  Follow the link to see the video of what happened in the EU Parliamentary committee.

The revelation itself is not all that damning – this was known at the time (in early 2021), but barely publicised in the mainstream media.  Anyone who did their own research already knew.  What IS damning is the message from politicians and bureaucrats all around the world, i.e. that the public needed to take the vaccine to stop the spread of Covid and to stop risking the health of others, was a lie.  That it was a lie is now on the parliamentary record in the EU.  It is also worthy to note that the <a href=”https://www.eppo.europa.eu/en/news/ongoing-eppo-investigation-acquisition-covid-19-vaccines-eu”>European Public Prosecutors Office is investigating the procurement of Pfizer by the EU government</a>.

The lie was used as justification first to guilt trip the population into taking the vaccine, for the good of the vulnerable in our society.  It was meant to stop the spread of Corona, so the public was told that not taking it was selfish, and nobody wants to be the person who killed their mum because they were selfish.  When that had done its dash the lie was used again as the sole justification for coercing the population into taking the vaccine, by first removing the right of certain people to earn a living, then the right to go about normal daily activities such as buying coffee, going to the pub, getting a haircut, entering the country, and in other places crossing state borders, etc.  The human rights abuses perpetuated on the basis of this lie were supported by both sides of politics until it was politically inconvenient, during the Auckland lockdown.  It went on for months, and as we know it culminated in the protest at Parliament, the farcical reaction by the Speaker, and the atrocious police brutality on 2 March – the police brutality being justified by the same lie, of course.  The extreme restrictions were even tested in court against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, and found to be “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” under section 5 of that act.  Whether or not you agree with the initial ruling, it seems highly doubtful that this judgement would stand if the transcript from the EU Parliament was able to be admitted as evidence.

But who started the lie, and who perpetuated it willingly?  There is no doubt that Pfizer knew, and there is no record of them having made a direct public statement otherwise (although they have made big public hints that their product might slow the spread).  As convenient as it would be, this cannot be pinned on Pfizer.  Any government agency charged with approving this new medicine should have known too – they either asked for all the data from Pfizer, in which case they knew and approved it anyway, or they didn’t ask and are guilty of incompetence.  Same goes for the Chief Health Officers and Ministers who approved it for emergency use, and almost certainly the Prime Ministers/Premiers, etc., because the emergency approval was a political decision in most countries.   I concede it is possible that the politicians were unaware and were relying on official advice, but I find it unrealistic – it is much more plausible that this decision came from the top.

This all raises some serious questions.  First, who decided to lie?  It is not just a New Zealand phenomenon; politicians in Britain and all Australian and Canadian states told it too.  How did they manage to get so many politicians to lie in step?  What other issues are they lying about?  What is their end goal?  Should we ever trust our government again?  I think the answer for any rational person should be NO. How do we stop this happening again?

I’ll finish with a comment about the United States.  Their government’s reaction to Covid was nowhere near as extreme as those of New Zealand’s, Australia’s, Britain’s and Canada’s.  I propose that the major reason is their constitutional bill of rights – they know they cannot do those things to the population because a judge will find it unconstitutional.  There is no such protection here.  Furthermore, the existence of the Second Amendment makes it significantly more difficult for a government to commit human rights abuses than it is in the other English-speaking countries – they know they will have a fight on their hands if they tried, so they don’t try.  This is by design.  The other countries all have gun control, and the countries with the worst human rights abuses during Covid (Australia and Britain) also having the strictest gun control.  I think New Zealand should consider repealing section 5 of the NZBORA (the rights would become absolute), add a Second Amendment equivalent, and entrenching it to make it impossible to change without a supermajority and a referendum.  I believe entrenching human rights and in particular the right to bear arms would prevent this from ever happening again.

An excellent article by former judge David Harvey on freedom of expression. Take the time to read the whole thing, but some key extracts:

Speech should not be the subject of State interference solely because the message is unpleasant, discomforting, disfavoured or feared to be dangerous by the State. This is known as “content or viewpoint neutrality”. This approach prevents the State from regulating speech simply because the speech’s message, idea or viewpoint is unpleasant, discomforting, offensive, disfavoured or feared to be dangerous by government officials or community members. That approach – what could be called “viewpoint discriminatory” regulation – would attack individual liberty but also democratic principles. Officials could use it to suppress unpopular idea or information or manipulate public debate.

Censoring speech because it is disfavoured, no matter how deeply, violates the viewpoint neutrality principle. That principle is also violated when the State suppresses speech about public issues. This can include “hate speech” simply because its views might have a disturbing impact upon the emotions or psyches of some audience members. The State may not punish “hate speech” or speech with other messages simply because of its offensive, discomforting, disfavoured, disturbing or feared message.

Counterspeech is available to address such messages. Only when the speech crosses the threshold into the emergency test – that is when it directly, demonstrably and imminently causes certain specific, objectively ascertainable serious harms that cannot be averted by other than censorship – may the State intervene.

The threshold for state intervention should be very high.

A recent demonstration of the overreaction of the public to forms of expression, the rise of the harmful tendency approach and the belief that the State should intervene is chilling and concerning. Rather than addressing the problem with counterspeech or some such similar demonstration, citizens required the Police to investigate incidents involving the flying of flags.

In Wanaka the investigation involved a red flag with a white circle. Inside the circle was a three pointed icon. What could this have been? Some far-right white supremacist coven, perhaps. It was reported as a racist flag. But no. The flag in fact was a Klingon battle flag from the TV series Star Trek. The Police investigated nevertheless.

Yes the Police investigated a Klingon flag. That reminds me of one of my favourite Frasier episodes where Frasier asks a colleague to translate the speech at his son’s Bar Mitzvah into Yiddish, but instead he turns it into Klingon. Ironically the kids love it as the best bar mitzvah speech ever.

The second flag that was investigated was a little more confrontational. A flag was flying from a dwelling bearing the insignia of the gang Black Power along with the iconic clenched fist salute. It was what was written below the salute that caused concern. It was the “N” word but instead of ending “er” it just ended with “a”.

So concerned were the Police that they referred the flag to the Censor in an effort to have it declare objectionable. Quite properly the application was refused.

More focus on ram raids and less on flags please.

Are we becoming too precious about taking offence? Are we leaning towards a “harmful tendency” position? Is the answer to something with which we disagree to complain to the authorities or try to shut it down? That is not what freedom of expression in a democratic society is all about.

That these sentiments seem to be surfacing should be no surprise. The Government holds itself out as the sole source of truth and any disagreement is cast as misinformation or disinformation. Some elements of the media demonise contrary opinions and there seems to be a developing trend to silence or cancel opposing points of view simply because they are perceived to be disagreeable or offensive, rather than engaging with the issue.

The reason that is advanced for failing to engage with the issue is that to do so merely gives oxygen to a contrary point of view, but only by discussion and challenge can the holders of contrary views understand and perhaps even accept they are wrong.

We need to be more robust in the way that we deal with views with which we disagree. We must remember that those expressing such views have as much right to express their sentiments as we have to express ours. And we must remember that the only time speech should be censored is if there is a clear, immediate and present danger that it may cause harm. If the ideas that are the subject of speech are controversial, offensive or disfavoured the remedy lies in debate or persuasion and not the intervention of the State.

I absolutely agree.

This post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and occasional contributor.   It is the sixth post in a series on the financial incentives to work and the impacts of our tax and transfer system on household formation.  The index to all posts in the series can be found here.

This post considers the impact of the tax and transfer system on household formation.  There is a lot of research on this in the USA (example), and it is widely accepted that the US has a “marriage penalty” – that is to say that getting married results in you paying more taxes than if you hadn’t gotten married.  

Why do we care about household formation?  Research shows that households with two parents improve life outcomes for children.  Households with two parents are more likely to have non-benefit income, which is also beneficial for the parents and the children.  People in a stable relationship report higher happiness than those who are single.  In short, stable relationships are a good thing.

How does our tax and transfer system impact formation of stable relationships?  

The ABC reports:

One of the Northern Territory’s most senior judicial officers has told a legal networking event there is a “significant cultural component” to domestic violence against Aboriginal women and “difficulty” in talking about it, for fear of “inaccurately” being “labelled as a racist”.

Justice Kelly’s full speech has also been published on the Northern Territory Supreme Court’s website.

Read the full speech. It is coherent and well referenced.

Talking about domestic violence in Aboriginal communities was “difficult” according to the judge, due to “an ideology of supposed ‘anti-racism'”.

“[Anti-racism] is beginning to assume the dimensions of a religion or a cult under the influence of which people and institutions are casually and inaccurately labelled as “racist” without any evidentiary basis for the charge,” Justice Kelly said. …

A useful extract from the full speech:

Between 2000 and 2022, two Aboriginal men were shot by police both times followed by massive press coverage, calls for enquiries etc. In that same period, 65 Aboriginal women were killed by their partners (I am quoting from Libby Armitage’s report in a recent coronial inquiry) and in each case you would have been flat out seeing a small report on page 5 or 7 of a local newspaper – nothing nationally.

Indigenous women are approximately 10 times more likely to be the victim of an assault than non–indigenous women, and 32 times more likely to end up in hospital than a non–indigenous woman victim.

I don’t think anyone suggests that the media shouldn’t focus on stories when someone is shot by the police. But it would be good to not treats the deaths of so many women from domestic violence as minor stories.

Brendan O’Neill at Spiked writes:

Tyranny has had a makeover. It’s no longer a boot stamping on a human face forever. It isn’t a gruff cop dragging you into a cell for thinking or expressing a ‘dangerous’ idea. It isn’t a priest strapping you to a breaking wheel. No, authoritarianism is well-dressed now. It’s polite. It has a broad smile and speaks in a soft voice. It is delivered not via a soldier’s boot to the cranium but with a caring liberal head-tilt. And its name is Jacinda Ardern.

New Zealand’s PM, every online liberal’s favourite world leader, has gone viral over the past 24 hours following the circulation of the shocking speech she gave at the UN last Friday. Before the assembled leaders of both the free world and the unfree world, Ms Ardern raised the alarm about a new ‘weapon of war’. It’s a ‘dangerous’ one, she said. It poses a grave ‘threat’ to humankind. It threatens to drag us headlong into ‘chaos’. We must act now, she pleaded with the powerful, so that we might disarm this weapon and ‘bring [the world] back to order’.

What is this terrible weapon, this menacing munition, that Ms Ardern so passionately wants to decommission? It’s freedom of speech.

You can just imagine the cheering from all the repressive countries at the UN as she made her speech.

Call me a ‘weapon of war’, but I believe freedom of speech must include the freedom to be negative – even wildly so – about eco-activists. Activists, by the way, whose hype about the end of the world could genuinely be labelled misinformation. But they are never branded with that shaming m-word. That’s because misinformation doesn’t really mean misinformation anymore. It means dissent. Deviate from the woke consensus on anything from climate change to Covid and you run the risk of being labelled an evil disinformant.

Exactly. If you want to ban speech of those who claim the world isn’t warming (it has risen 0.9 degrees in the last 50 years), then we should also ban those who scaremonger with claims we may have 10 metres of sea level rise by 2100.

Indeed, one of the most striking things about Ardern’s speech was her claim that if the elites ignore ‘misinformation’, then ‘the norms we all value’ will be in danger. This is the most common cry of the 21st-century authoritarian – that speech can have a destabilising and even life-threatening impact, especially if it concerns big crises like climate change or Covid-19. So ‘climate deniers’ are a threat to the future of the human race and thus may be legitimately silenced. ‘Lockdown deniers’ threaten to encourage the spread of viral infection and thus may be legitimately gagged. The spectre of crisis is cynically used to clamp down on anyone who dissents from the new global consensus. Images of Armageddon are marshalled to justify censorship of troublemakers. ‘Chaos’, as Ardern calls it – that’s what will unfold if your reckless, dangerous ideas are given free rein.

Again I find it amazing how little coverage the speech had in New Zealand.

To see how authoritarian the desire to clamp down on ‘misinformation’ can be, just consider some of the other world leaders who likewise used the platform of the UN to call for tougher controls on speech. Muhammadu Buhari, the brutal ruler of Nigeria, focused on his nation’s ‘many unsavoury experiences with hate speech and divisive disinformation’ and joined the calls for a clampdown on the ‘scourge of disinformation and misinformation’. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, bemoaned the ‘disinformation’ against his nation. 

Great company we keep.

Freedom of speech is in peril. And it isn’t only threatened by obvious strongmen – like the corrupt rulers of Nigeria or the theocratic tyrants of Iran – but also by a smiling PC woman who is feverishly fawned over by virtue-signallers the world over. Ms Ardern’s UN speech exposed the iron fist of authoritarianism that lurks within the velvet glove of wokeness. From her brutal lockdown, which forbade even New Zealand’s own citizens from returning to their home country, to her longstanding war on ‘extremist’ speech, this is a woman who poses as liberal but can’t even spell the word. If you want a picture of the future, don’t imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever – imagine Jacinda Ardern putting her arm around your shoulder and telling you with a toothy smile that you’re going to have to sacrifice your liberty to save the world from chaos.

You have to give up your liberty to preserve your liberty!

This post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and occasional contributor.   It is the fifth post in a series on the financial incentives to work and the impacts of our tax and transfer system on household formation.  The index to all posts in the series can be found here.

This post follows the format from the previous examples, if you haven’t read them then you can find them here and here.  I won’t repeat information from those posts.  

The aim of this post is to show similar information, but for households with different demographics.

Radio NZ reported:

She rejected any implication that Faafoi’s knowledge of the workings of the government and positions of individual MPs could expose them to more targeted lobbying.

“Every New Zealander knows our policies by our manifesto,” Ardern said.

Is there a word beyond farcical? Is the Prime Minister really suggesting that a member of her Cabinet knows no more about what the Government will do than a member of the public? It’s ludicrous and insulting to our intelligence.

The only way this could not be misinformation is if the Cabinet doesn’t actually discuss policies or legislation when they meet. Considering how appalling their delivery is, you can’t entirely rule that out as an option 🙂

But seriously it is also factually wrong. Take for example Three Waters. It was not even in Labour’s manifesto. Neither was consolidating the polytechs etc.

Cabinet debates and decides on every major piece of government legislation. They decide on what options to proceed with, and when to backtrack (as with KiwiSaver Funds GST). They debate pros and cons in great detail. At Cabinet Committees they receive detailed advice from officials.

And within their own portfolios Minister receive the most valuable info of all – oral briefings. This is the stuff so sensitive that it is never put in writing so it can’t be discovered under the OIA.

There is also great commercial impact from decisions. They can decide on share sales, on regulatory regimes, on proposed taxes. The criteria for being a default KiwiSaver fund can be worth a billion dollars to a KiwiSaver fund manager.

I can’t think of anything more valuable to a lobbyist (and I know most of the ones in NZ) than having sat around the Cabinet tables just a few weeks ago.

“What’s important is transparency. Ministers, when they meet … we report through our pro-active diary release every single person that we meet with, we report on what subjects we meet with [them about].

“It is not voluntary – it must be reported as part of our official information Act proactive releases, which we’ve been doing since we’ve been in government.

This is also factually incorrect as Thomas Cranmer points out.

When you look at the dairy entries themselves there are numerous errors and inconsistencies. For instance, Minister Mahuta’s diary records a meeting on 19 May 2020 at 8:30pm with Minister Davis. The corresponding entry doesn’t appear in Davis’s diary. Likewise on 14 April 2022, Minister Woods’s diary records a meeting with, amongst others, Minister Mahuta. The corresponding entry doesn’t appear in Mahuta’s diary. …

Of more concern are some of the omissions in Minister Mahuta’s diary. On 21 April 2022 Mahuta listed a meeting in her diary with “Taumata Arowai Board Chair”. When asked by National’s Simeon Brown if anyone else was present at the meeting, Mahuta replied that it included government officials and her sister, Tipa Mahuta, the Chair of the Maori Advisory Group (Te Puna) within Taumata Arowai. That is clearly a significant omission because the appointment of Tipa Mahuta and her on-going professional interactions with her sister, the Minister, has attracted criticism due to its inherent conflict with personal and professional relationships.

When the Minister was asked why her diary omitted to state that she had met with her sister, Tipa Mahuta, in her capacity as Chair of Te Puna, the Minister replied:

The pro-active diary release is not intended to be an exhaustive list of meeting attendees.

If only media were as good as Cranmer about fact checking!

“There are literally thousands of public servants who equally are privy to the decision-making and the positions of ministers – we don’t require a cooling off period for them.

This is a nonsense comparison. Public servants only have insight into their portfolio area, or a section of a portfolio area. And none of them attend Cabinet except the Cabinet Secretary. The value of say a Deputy Chief Executive of a government agency to a lobbying firm is minor compared to a just retired Cabinet Minister.

We also don’t require someone … who comes out of government to stand down from being in a private sector company, who equally could benefit from knowing the positioning of government.”

This is also a fairly nonsensical comparison. Private sector companies are about selling their particular goods and services. Certainly a former Minister can add some value to their boards but it will be about their understanding of the general political environment.

But you have to understand what a lobbyist is about. The job of a lobbyist is to influence government policy on behalf of a client. It may be to stop or amend a proposed law or policy, or to get a law introduced. But it is about impacting the political process. Again the benefit of having someone who sat around the Cabinet table a few weeks ago is massive.

“New Zealand is not like the United States, I would even argue it’s not comparable to Australia. 

No we are not comparable. They have stand down periods for Ministers to become lobbyists. We do not.

James Shaw released:

“The proposal would see New Zealand farmers lead the world in reducing emissions, delivering a competitive advantage and enhancing our export brand.

“No other country in the world has yet developed a system for pricing and reducing agricultural emissions, so our farmers are set to benefit from being first movers.

Being the only country in the world to tax agricultural emissions is not a competitive advantage – it is the opposite. Its like claiming being the first mover in high inflation gives you a benefit.

“Cutting emissions will help New Zealand farmers to not only be the best in the world but the best for the world; gaining a price premium for climate friendly agricultural products while also helping to boost export earnings.

New Zealand farmers already are the best in the world – they have the lowest carbon footprint for dairy per tonne.

The Government is not proposing any sort of market mechanism for methane emissions – they are proposing that politicians will set the price – so basically a tax.

The better option, in my view, would be to move methane into the ETS, so the market sets the price, not politicians.

However as methane only stays in the atmosphere for 12 years (carbon dioxide stays for thousands of years) the focus should be on not increasing methane emissions, rather than decreasing them. So have methane in the ETS, but make available free credits equal to the level of methane emissions in 1990.

This post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and occasional contributor.   It is the fourth post in a series on the financial incentives to work and the impacts of our tax and transfer system on household formation.  The index to all posts in the series can be found here.

This post extends the previous example, if you haven’t read that then you can find it here.  I won’t repeat information from that post.  In this scenario, that same household has the sole parent working 20 hours per week.  The question is whether that person should pursue a pay rise from their boss – what difference would it make to their income?

Getting a pay rise usually means that you would have additional duties or work harder.  You might also need to undertake some training (perhaps in your own time), or work harder or smarter to improve your productivity. 

The FSU writes:

I am writing to tell you the story of Evelyn, and ask for your help to defend her right to speak. Kiwis across the country are having their speech undermined, and our Free Speech Case Fund is there to support them and their right to speak.

But we can’t take these bullies alone.Would you stand with us as we stand for free speech?

Last month, after posting a comment on Facebook, a Bluebird Sales Manager, Evelyn, was fired from her role. Bluebird publically accused her of racism and announced she had been “removed” from her job.  The comment was made by Evelyn in her own time, in a purely personal capacity, with no reference to her job or her employer.

What was this grievous post? In response to Whittaker’s Chocolate releasing their Miraka Kirimi (Milk Chocolate) block celebrating Māori Language Week, she posted this (I’m sure you understand why she wants her last name hidden, given the pressure she’s already under): 

While we wouldn’t know it from the way the word is thrown around so trivially, to accuse some of racism is actually very serious.

Evelyn is not racist against Māori (or against any other race). Where she grew up in Northland, she comfortably did daily life with Māori. Her views about te reo may or may not be shared by other Kiwis, but that is not the same as racism.

This is a common tactic by those who want to silence others they disagree with. Rather than addressing their arguments, or disputing their claims, they attack the person. Name-calling and accusations lobbed at their opponents suit these would-be-censors better than any reasoned debate. This is “cancel culture” at its worst.

In an expletive-laden post on Tiktok, a self-proclaimed social media influencer, responded to Evelyn’s comments, who he calls ‘this hussy’ claiming ‘I am not a violent person, but some of these people need to be pissed on…’  This was the same Tiktok user who Bluebird responded to within a day of Evelyn posting, confirming they had removed her from her duties and were ‘investigating’ the situation. 

The ‘investigation’ only last two days.  I say ‘investigation’ because, up until the last 2 hours, they did this without consulting Evelyn, hearing her perspective, discussing with her why she made the post or what she meant, or referencing a code of conduct she had supposedly broken. At this meeting, before Evelyn had a chance to give her side, she was told she was going to be “held to account”.  She was fired a few hours after the meeting.

Later in the week, the self-proclaimed social media influencer that Bluebird engaged with began to post about Evelyn’s teenage daughter, trying to drag Evelyn’s family into the controversy. We can’t let this kind of bullying stand. We’re pushing back. Would you push back with us? Just $50 would make a big difference to our ability to help her.

Allow me to make this clear. The issue is not whether Whittaker’s is allowed to advertise in te reo; of course they can. This isn’t about whether te reo is being pushed on people, or whether public outlets should use it; it’s an official language. 

This is about one thing: whether an employer should be able to dismiss an employee for a personal opinion expressed outside of work. This isn’t about Evelyn’s particular speech, it’s about the fact that she has the right to express her opinion on this issue, or any other, without having to bear in mind the orthodoxies of censorious critics. 

The lawyer we approached to help represent Evelyn keeps this front and center: ‘New Zealanders are entitled to exercise the right to free speech. This is true even if that involves expressing an opinion that is controversial, and if even the person who expressed the opinion later changes their view.’

That is why we are supporting Evelyn in taking a personal grievance against Bluebird, challenging these censorious actions. Unfortunately, it costs thousands of dollars to challenge decisions like this.

<<Donate now to remind Bluebird (and all employers) they can’t police employees’ speech. 

Traditional trade unions succeeded in fighting for employees’ rights to an 8-hour work day, showing that an employer doesn’t have the right to demand an employee’s entire day. But today, when employees are being dismissed for personal opinions, these unions are nowhere to be seen. 

The Free Speech Union only exists because our tens of thousands of supporters like you believe with us that free speech is worth fighting for, worth investing in. 

We’ve stood for the censored before and won. With your help, we’ll help Evelyn win too. 

DPF: I personally like the use of te reo on chocolate bars. I think it is silly getting worked up about it. But it is horrendously wrong that someone should lose their job just because as a private individual they expressed a different view. The only way cowardly corporations will stop sacking staff to appease woke lunch mobs is by fighting back.

Chris Lynch writes:

I recall another meeting was set up with my then “boss”, Lianne, and her press secretary because Lianne felt my questions were too hard.

My then boss, with no journalism background, reveled in the chance to head an “important meeting” while we all sat there emotionally pandering to someone who said she didn’t want to be mayor.

In the end, it was decided that not just topics, but question lines would be provided to the mayor’s office the night before any interview.

Astonishing.

My then boss decided it was better for the station to be seen to have the mayor on the show, putting aside my journalism integrity to appease council relations.

In a roundabout way, it was explained council was a commercial client.

Now consider the hundreds of millions of advertising the Government has spent through media, plus the $55 million of direct funding.

Thomas Coughlan writes:

Labour strategists will begin work making sure that whatever went wrong with the Collins campaign will not be repeated at the general election next year. If it does, Labour could be toast – simple as that.

You can’t win a general election just by winning Wellington.

Central government can ultimately have everything its way, but Labour now has to ponder whether it wants to go to war with a nation of right-wing mayors over Three Waters and RMA reform, or whether to drop or modify the policies (modification being far more likely) in recognition of the fact the electorate in many, perhaps most, parts of the country appears to have rejected them (we should note that Brown’s left-of-centre predecessor Phil Goff was also a Three Waters sceptic, seeing very little benefit for Auckland).

Ardern’s statement said she wanted to “make voting more accessible. Greater participation in elections is good for democracy!”.

The comment correlated with a remark made by Collins which suggested one of the reasons he performed poorly is the hodgepodge way local body elections are conducted, which has resulted in terrible turnout.

Goff was not a fan of Three Waters but he wasn’t really an opponent of it. He just politely and quietly said it wasn’t what he wanted. Wayne Brown will not be quiet or polite about it.

Turnout is not why the left lost. It was unpopularity. The Auckland turnout in 2022 is barely changed from 2019. The PM should be careful not to imply elections in which her sides loses are somehow illegitimate because of low turnout.

This post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and occasional contributor.   It is the third post in a series on the financial incentives to work and the impacts of our tax and transfer system on household formation.  The index to all posts in the series can be found here.

This post looks at an example household to understand their effective marginal tax rates and their incentives to go to work.  This example is a solo parent that has two children – one between three and five years old, one over five years.  They live in Auckland and have accommodation costs of $300 per week, so they receive an accommodation supplement.

This post is very detailed, as it explains how to interpret the information.  Subsequent posts will provide other examples, but with less detailed walkthrough.

If this household is entirely benefit supported, their weekly before tax income will include:

• $511 per week in Job Seeker benefit (arguably this person might qualify for the sole parent benefit instead), which is taxable
• $129 in accommodation supplement, which is tax free
• $231 in family tax credits – these exceed the tax payable, but are refundable so you can receive more tax refund than you paid in income tax
• They may be eligible for other, more targeted, benefits, those aren’t considered here
• The total weekly income, after tax, will be $792.41
• This is equivalent to a before tax annual income of $49,000 per annum

Just imagine this. You are in your 70s and driving through Napier when you see a distressed woman waving her hands and asking for help.

As you are not a sociopath you stop. She explains a man is after her and she jumps in your car and you take off.

Then another car screams past you, blocking you way. The man opens your door and starts bashing you in the face because you dared to help this woman. You escape luckily but the damage is so great you need facial surgery and your face is unrecognisable.

I hope the judicial system treats this case with the seriousness it deserves.