In a speech yesterday, Nicola WIllis committed National to the social investment approach pioneered by Bill English.

At its core social investment is about data and science. It is about identifying the risk factors for vulnerable families, and spending money on interventions that will work. It is about spending more money now, to help turn lives about.

It is basically the opposite of what Labour does. Labour just throws money at an issue with no idea about whether it will actually work, and in many cases it doesn’t. Just look at housing waitlists, ED waiting times etc etc.

Nicola said:

The growing gap between spend and impact has eroded trust in Government programmes, and made many cynical about funding another set of political good intentions.  

There’s an unwillingness to throw good money after bad, or to lock in yet more state dependency when self-determination, mana motuhake, is what we want for each other.

New Zealanders are thirsty for a better way. 

National’s Social Investment Approach is the better way New Zealand needs to deliver for people with the greatest needs.

Intuitively, there is great appeal in the basic idea underpinning social investment – that if only we intervene earlier and more effectively for our most at risk citizens then their lives could be so much better. 

And an example:

Let me share a story of what can be achieved when we get it right.

At a recent press conference the Prime Minister highlighted research showing positive social impact from the Healthy Homes programme.  The programme was started in 2013 by the former National Government to help deliver on its goal to reduce rates of rheumatic fever in children.

Families in the programme were referred by health authorities and assisted by community-based co-ordinators to insulate, warm and dry their homes, or where that wasn’t possible to find more suitable housing.  Healthy Homes was so successful in reducing disease and hospitalisations that the Government expanded it in 2016 to a larger group of families.

A full data-led evaluation of the programme showed children of families in the programme had far fewer visits to hospital emergency rooms, their attendance at school increased, and overall their parents were receiving fewer Government benefits. The return on investment was clear and measurable: For every dollar the Government invested in the programme it reaped more than $3 in savings, with more savings expected to accrue over time.

What a success story. 

Basically social investment is about accountability for improving outcomes, not just good intentions.

National will set a small number of Better Public Service Targets to focus Government activity and effort towards measurable goals. They will be transparently and publicly reported against with Ministers held accountable for progress towards them.  

Excellent. It was abhorrent that Labour abolished them, They seem to hate accountability.

It’s worth considering their seven demands to understand what they really want.

1. Venues must be non-alcoholic. Why? Is alcohol bad and pot good? Backbenches is a show set in a pub. The audience turn up on the basis they can have a drink and a bite before and during the show. No one will turn up to watch youth wings debate in a church hall.
2. I don’t know what trained equity officers are I suspect safety provisions don’t mean earthquakes but instead someone saying something they disagree with should be deemed unsafe and removed
3. Now they want to control what the other youth reps can say? They no doubt consider opposing Maori seats in Parliament as discriminatory, so really they are saying they want to veto what others can advocate
4. This definitely means that no views which are different to their views on the Treaty can be tolerated
5. What do they mean by a code of conduct? Do they mean you can’t heckle or interrupt?
6. The speaking panel is not decided by Backbenches but by the youth wings. The four or five youth wings decide individually who will represent them. If all four presidents are women, then why should you be forced to have a male on the panel?
7. Who do they suggest should be in charge of fact checking? Them? Does this mean that if say the Green youth president claimed GMOs are unsafe, they should be halted as this is factually untrue?

It worries me that more and more young people in politics don’t seem to believe in debate, and want to place huge barriers in the way of open debate.

Creative NZ, not content with making NZ a global laughing stock, has hit back:

The Government has recognised that the MoE is better placed to provide this funding.

This highlights the positive impact that additional government investment can have on the arts.

While it’s great that a solution has been found for this one organisation, questions remain about other arts organisations and individual artists who find it difficult to mobilise or who don’t have the international pulling power to draw attention to their funding needs.

Whine, whine we want more money and it is unfair that we got mocked around the world.

The facts are their funding has gone up massively from $57 million in 2017 to $101 million last year. They should be grateful to taxpayers for the 77% increase in funding.

This is a great outcome for SGCNZ, but we’ve found some of the rhetoric over the last few weeks alarming, misleading and racist. 

Of course criticising them is racist!

Sixty-two organisations submitted proposals to our Kahikatea programme for funding from 2023 to 2025. Fifty-eight proposals were successful. We have a limited amount of money to invest, and we had to make some tough decisions. Unfortunately for Shakespeare Globe Company New Zealand (SGCNZ), their proposal wasn’t as strong as others and didn’t align with the Kahikatea programme requirements, and so they missed out this time around.

So 94% of applications were approved for funding. Yet there was no money to continue supporting getting the works of the world’s best playwright to secondary school students. What Creative NZ is saying is that they rate Shakespeare in the bottom 5%!

The Toi Uru Kahikatea investment programme that SGCNZ applied to is contestable funding – in other words, applicants compete for funding because there’s only so much money to go around.

The annual budget of Creative NZ is now over $101 million. Their suggestion that they could not afford a measly $30,000 to Shakespeare in Schools is laughable. It represents 0.03% of their annual budget.

Many people have taken exception with some of the comments made about SGCNZ’s proposal. These comments have been taken out of context; they were a small component of a thorough decision-making process.   

The comments are not out of context. They explain perfectly why Creative NZ decided not to continue funding them despite it being such a meagre amount and approving 94% of other applications.

However, we’re appalled that some of the criticism has become about race. 

The criticism has become about race because that is what Creative NZ did with the comments from their assessors. If you decline to fund Shakespeare because it doesn’t fit a decolonised New Zealand, of course it takes on a racial aspect.

We challenge the narrative that our decision was driven by reverse racism and that we are the “cultural Taliban”. Creative New Zealand’s mandate is to fund New Zealand made work within the limited resources we have.

Actions speak louder than words and to whine about limited resources when you have had a 77% increase in funding is insulting to taxpayers.

NewstalkZB reports:

Middlemore hospital has been undergoing a wait time crisis, with people being unable to receive medical care for hours after arrival.

This has become more apparent after a five page report was released that confirmed Middlemore hospital was dysfunctional, overcrowded, and unsafe. 

The problem is not just Middlemore. Only 77.2% of ED patients there get seen within six hours and nationally it is only 78.5%.

Labour came into office and effectively abolished the public health target of 95% of patients seen and treated within six hours, and long before Covid-19 they dropped away.

It is almost as bad now as when Labour were last in office. In 2008 only 70% of ED patients were seen within six hours. National got it to 95% by 2012. So in National’s first four years they took it from 70% to 95% and Labour have taken it from 95% to 78% (and still dropping).

Dr Gaurav Sharma writes:

I have resigned.

A Labour Party panel last week recommended to the party’s governing body (the New Zealand Council) that I be expelled from the Party as a member. I have also been advised that the Prime Minister and the Party plan to invoke the Waka Jumping rule 6 months before the next General Election to remove me from Parliament which will ensure there is no need for a by-election. I have sincere concerns that this underhanded move will mean people of Hamilton West will have no voice in Parliament for 6 months preceding the next General Election.

As such I have decided to resign from Parliament pre-empting Labour’s next step. This will trigger a by-election, giving the people of Hamilton an opportunity to not lose their democratic rights of having a voice in Parliament by underhanded tactics of the government and the Labour Party.

He regrets the cost of a by-election but points out:

Over the years many Labour MPs have triggered by-elections for one reason or another – in fact Labour MP David Shearer resigning and triggering a by-election is how Jacinda Ardern won the Mt Albert electorate seat in 2017.

3. Since stepping down as the Speaker Trevor Mallard has been sitting in the House with no Select Committee duties, no Bills to speak on, no constituent work. In the last 2 months he has been paid well over $25,000 to just enjoy his retirement. Soon he will be on the gravy train to be the Ambassador of NZ to Ireland. And don’t forget he is on the old Parliament contract which means he gets free business class flights for life.

4. Also a quick remind of government’s failed recent spending

– $51m spent on axed Auckland harbour cycling bridge project

$500k in office rent paid after Auckland cycle crossing canned

– $66 million on Dominion Rd Light Rail report – $44million out of this is on external consultants

– $350 million on TVNZ/RNZ merger

– $200 million on Te Pukenga botched polytech reform

Once he formally resigns, the by-election can be held as early as four weeks time – Saturday 19 November. The PM decides the timing within a certain range.

Hamilton West was won by Labour with a 6,267majority. It is the 33rd largest majority in Parliament.

On the party vote Labour got 52.6%, it was their 26th best seat. The electorate vote was 53.0%, their 25th highest.

If you look at combined party vote in 2020, the CR parties got 34.3% and the CL parties 58.3%. So normally you would expect Labour to easily hold the seat. But of course they are polling well below what they got in 2020.

A big wildcard is how much support, if any, will Sharma get and where will that come from?

This post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and occasional contributor.   It is the eighth post in a series on the financial incentives to work and the impacts of our tax and transfer system on household formation.  This post starts a new story arc – what could we do?  The index to all posts in the series can be found here.

To decide what we could do, and to compare between the various models we could use, we need a way to classify them.  I’m sure there are existing classification models, and I’ve done some (but not enough) research.  I’m going to classify in a way that matches how I think about incentives to work and income support.

Firstly, we can have financial solutions and non-financial solutions.  Financial solutions are things like benefits and abatement rates, non-financial solutions are things like work tests, case managers, or time limiting income support.

Starting with financial solutions, I think the salient attributes of the level of support are:

• The base amount of support – i.e. the dollar amount
• The abatement threshold and rate, if any
• The eligibility rules, if any

I think the combination of these three aspects covers pretty much all the supports I’ve seen. 

Stats NZ reports:

The consumers price index increased 7.2 percent annually in the September 2022 quarter, Stats NZ said today.

The 7.2 percent increase follows an annual increase of 7.3 percent in the June 2022 quarter, and an annual increase of 6.9 percent in the March 2022 quarter.

Prices are now 12.5% higher than at the last election. We have now had inflation over the 1% to 3% band since June 2021.

And this is not imported inflation. Non-tradeable inflation is at 6.6%.

Minister Hipkins has always argued against differentiation and parental choice in education as “every school should be a good school”.
The Minister has recently overseen the implementation of an Equity Index Number (EQI) system to replace the decile system. Here I have shown what an overall disaster our high school system currently is and put EQIs against the schools’ University Entrance percentage for leavers in 2021. You can look up your old school, your children’s high school or any school you like. While at it ask why the increased funding comes with no accountability at all (a huge PPTA complaint about charter Schools).

The Ministry say this about the EQI system; “The EQI is updated annually through Stats NZ Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), considers 37 variables that we know relate to achievement and is based on the circumstances of individual tamariki and rangatahi, rather than of the areas they live in.”
This could have been good as when you challenge schools on their achievement they will often say – but you don’t know our kids, their family situation, etc, …

If accurate that would mean that schools would the same EQI should be very close in terms of student outcomes. We can test that with, for example, 12 schools (with near equal EQI pairs). The higher the EQI the more students with a range of “risk factors” (Flaxmere College wins that race at EQI 564). Six pairings are as follows:

Three things to conclude.

1. I do not know what the 37 factors were supposed to explain but they SaS do not explain these achievement differences like they said they would. We MUST find out what the higher performing schools are doing and replicate it.
2. Are you supposed to know this stuff? I think – as an educators, parent and grand-parent, business person, politician, taxpayer if should be completely transparent. We have hidden this all away for far too long. When choosing a school the Ministry certainly do not advise looking at achievement data. If you are a school parent (or for any other reason) and want detailed data on your local schools email me on [email protected] Go to Board meetings, ask the hard questions, advocate for a support improvements, challenge apathy and excuse making.
3. This matters! Politicians quip – kids don’t vote, the Ministry tries to keep stark realities out of the press, media to do see education as one of their big topics. Education in NZ belongs to families – fight for the best – it is very possible.

If you are one of those people with social media – please share this one.

The Herald reports:

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has called for Watercare and council chief executive Jim Stabback to stop all work on the Government’s Three Water reforms, which he says are “doomed”.

In a letter to Watercare chairwoman Margaret Devlin he said the previous council and incoming mayor and governing body oppose the reforms.

“In more than 300 campaign events, I detected no support for it at all among Aucklanders. I promised in the election campaign to stop it,” he said in the letter.

In a statement issued just after 5pm, Brown said Auckland households are heading into an economic and fiscal storm and Watercare and Auckland Council must keep water charges and rates as low as possible.

Finally a Mayor who is voicing concern for ratepayers.

“The proposal has not been passed by Parliament and after last weekend’s local government elections throughout the country has no chance of proceeding this side of next year’s general election.

“It is not in the best interests of Watercare, its shareholder or its customers for it to spend any more money on the doomed proposal – and that is also true of Auckland Council,” said Brown.

I think Brown is right. The Government would be suicidal if it continued. But the unknown factor is whether the Labour Maori Caucus will allow the Government to backtrack.

Brown has told Devlin and Stabback whatever money they might have spent on the Government-imposed water reforms should be returned to Auckland households in the form of lower water charges and rates than would otherwise be charged.”

Excellent idea.

One News reported:

For the first time in 10 years, Creative NZ declined a funding proposal for $31,000 to go towards the Shakespeare Globe Centre NZ for 2023 – 2025.

It’s the organisation behind the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival, an annual competition where high schools around the country perform scenes from the author’s plays.

Since 1991, 120,000 students have performed in the festival and more than half the secondary schools in the country currently participate.

In the funding proposal assessment document, the assessors said, “the proposal did not demonstrate the relevance to the contemporary art context of Aotearoa in this time and place and landscape.”

The assessors also added that “this genre was located within a canon of imperialism and missed the opportunity to create a living curriculum and show relevance to the contemporary art context of Aotearoa.”

We have become a laughing stock around the world as this decision has made global headlines. And even back home prominent left leaning actors have decried it:

New Zealand’s top actors Sir Sam Neill, Robyn Malcolm and Michael Hurst have slammed Creative NZ’s defunding of the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival.

Malcolm called the agency “complete knobs”, Sam Neill says it made New Zealand “look bloody stupid” and Hurst said it was “beyond short-sighted, reactionary and just plain dumb”.

This follows a highly-critical letter by top University of Auckland English Emeritus Professor Michael Neill’s open letter to the agency’s chief executive saying the cut in funding of the annual school Shakespeare festival was “highly questionable” and “ill-considered”.

“With respect , if you decide to cancel the greatest writer in English, or any language come to that, you sound like a f***ing idiot. And you make NZ-Aotearoa look bloody stupid,” actor Sam Neill said.

The decision is not surprising. Wellington is infected with a woke virus, with almost every government agency obsessed with trying to prove they are decolonised. This of course includes the Government that pushes this at the governance level.

Yes Shakespeare is an English playwright. But at a time there was no British Empire, so the comments from Creative NZ are idiotic. English is an official language of New Zealand and he is regarded as the greatest English language writer and also the world’s greatest dramatist. His plays have been performed in every language in the world almost, and in fact are often redefined into a modern context.

The $30,000 of annual funding they scrapped from the School Shakespeare Festival is around 0.5% of the funding the Government has given to The Spinoff. So how about reduce their funding by 0.5% instead!

Not often I agree with Robyn Malcolm but she says:

“What complete knobs,” actress Robyn Malcolm said.

“I’ve judged the Sheila Winns at the local and National level. I’ve followed a number of kids over the years as they’ve travelled to the Globe in London as part of winning the national final and subsequently gone on to professional careers as actors and directors.

“I’ve taught Shakespeare performance in school to kids right across the social and cultural demographics.

“This is about kids, their own creative force and theatre. No matter what the school or the kids they all respond the same. They love it and they take ownership of it for themselves.”

Malcolm said the decision to defund was “beyond short sighted, reactionary and just plain dumb.”

Well said.

On my Patreon (paywalled) I reveal the results of our poll this month asking New Zealanders if they want a Royal Commission into the Covid-19 response.

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.