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.

Thomas Cranmer writes:

Deep within the Water Services Entities Bill is a mechanism that will have significant influence at the operating level of the structure – it is a mechanism that is only available to mana whenua.

It is very obscure but very powerful.

Appropriately, given their controversial nature, the Te Mana o te Wai mechanism lies deep in the Water Services Entities Bill —in Subpart 3 of Part 4 of the Bill to be precise. Section 140 of the Bill simply states that “mana whenua whose rohe or takiwā includes a freshwater body in the service area of a water services entity may provide the entity with a Te Mana o te Wai statement for water services”. They can be provided by one or more iwi and can be reviewed and replaced by those iwi at any time. Once received, the board of the relevant water services entity has an obligation to engage with mana whenua and prepare a plan that sets out how it intends to give effect to that Te Mana o te Wai statement. And that is where it ends. The Bill is silent on what can (and cannot) be included in the statements and provides no guidance as to the outcomes that the statements are intended to achieve. In short, there are no limits to the scope of Te Mana o te Wai statements. The relevant water entity board must simply give effect to those statements “to the extent that it applies to the entity’s duties, functions, and powers”.

Their importance in the governance structure of Three Waters cannot be overstated.

A number of people have observed that this is not co-governance but simple governance. The boards must give effect to the Te Mana o te Wai statements. So it doesn’t matter who is on the board, and who owns nominal shares. The legislation basically means the water entities must do as they are instructed via these statements.

This is a major change in policy in New Zealand.

An editorial from The Times (est 1785) on Jacinda’s UN speech:

Freedom of speech is the essence of a free society, the freedom from which all others flow. The right to
express dissent or advance views that may clash with those of the majority or of those in power is what
differentiates a democracy from an authoritarian state. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that comments by Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month have caused alarm.

They have caused alarm, but few people in NZ would know this as media have ignored the criticism of the speech in major media outlets in the UK, US and Australia.

An example that Ms Ardern gave of the sort of misinformation and disinformation she thinks need to be suppressed was climate change denialism. There is certainly a broad scientific consensus on climate change. But although those who deny it may be wrong, they should be heard. Science advances by testing hypotheses and weighing evidence in open debate. The same goes for those who doubt
the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Their views are wrong.

Reputable publishers are not obliged to give them a platform. But they should not be banned.

There is a huge difference between not giving someone a platform, and banning them from social media.

The promotion of terrorism, glorification of violence, celebration of acts that threaten the security of the state. These are things that no society allows. These are liberties denied in defence of liberty itself. But silencing critical voices as “disinformation” is the tactic of tyrants, as the Putin regime’s approach shows.

Very strong words from a normally staid newspaper.

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This post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and occasional contributor.   It is the second 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.

When we talk about incentives to work what matters is the impact on the next dollar – the impact at the margin.  People care about the impact of the change from their previous situation.  I wasn’t working and now I am.  How much extra money do I get than I had before?  I was working 20 hours a week, now I’m working 24 hours.  How much extra money do I get?

At a headline level the lowest marginal tax rate in NZ is 14%.  So if I work four extra hours at minimum wage, I should get $21.20 x 4 hours x 86% = $73 cash in the hand.  Easy, right?

But remember that I’m getting a benefit.  I may be getting an accommodation supplement.  I may be getting childcare support, and I get tax credits via working for families.  All those government programmes have some form of threshold and abatement rate.

If I work an extra hour I get $21.20 gross income.  

• I lose $3 to tax.  
• If I’m over the $160 weekly income threshold, my jobseeker benefit will also be reduced by 70 cents in the dollar. I lose another $14 in benefit reduction.
• I may also have accommodation supplement.  If I cross the earning threshold I’ll lose 25 cents in the dollar. 
• If I’m a parent I’m probably getting Family Tax Credit.  I’ll lose 27 cents in the dollar if my household income is more than $33,000 per annum. 
• If I’m not getting a main benefit I may get In Work Tax Credit, and I’ll lose 27 cents in the dollar on that
• If I’m a sole parent I’ll be getting a subsidy on my childcare. That has income thresholds at $840 a week, $1,250 a week, $1,400 and $1,500 a week, each of which reduce the amount paid.

Matthew speaks truth to power here,

The Kapiti Coast District Council has listed a $500,000 loan to Air Chathams as a loan to a community organisation.

This looks like trying to disguise corporate welfare as a charitable endeavour.

Air Chathams is of course a for profit company.

Stuff reports:

A teacher yelled racist abuse at an outnumbered group of police officers dealing with an aggressive crowd of Mongrel Mob members. …

Police were attempting to calm the situation when Morrison arrived, driving her Suzuki Swift through the group of police and others.

Morrison got out of her car and began to enflame the situation, yelling racist abuse at several of the officers, who were at that stage trying to leave the area due to being outnumbered.

When Morrison was later arrested she admitted her poor behaviour and apologised for her racist slurs, but not for attacking the officers.

It goes without saying that she should not be allowed anywhere near kids and a classroom.

Judge Sygrove noted Morrison had three pages of previous convictions.

How did she get registered in the first place?

Ipsos have released their latest regular polling of major issues in New Zealand. The top five issues (people can nominate up to three) are:

1. Cost of Living 58%
2. Housing 33%
3. Healthcare 32%
4. Crime 31%
5. Economy 23%

Below are how people assessed which party was best on each issue, and how that has changed from a year ago.

• Cost of Living – National 40% (+12%), Labour 26% (-11%)
• Housing – National 36% (+13%), Labour 33% (-21%)
• Healthcare – National 30% (+10%), Labour 34% (-11%)
• Crime – National 36% (+9%), Labour 26% (-9%)
• Economy – National 44% (+8%), Labour 28% (-10%)

So National leads on four of the top five issues. The one that Labour has dropped the most on is housing.

Henry Cooke writes in The Guardian:

Stories are trotted out about New Zealand being “the least corrupt country in the world”. But that isn’t what the index actually measures. It uses a survey of academics and business types to measure perceptions of corruption – which is a reasonable indicator of corruption, but not an actual direct measure, and one open to accusations of bias towards rich countries.

At the start of this year, New Zealand’s then justice minister Kris Faafoi was one of those quoting the nation’s high standings in the index, issuing a press release that again confused a corruption perception index with an actual corruption index. Now just 10 months later – and only three months since leaving the cabinet table – Faafoi has left parliament and started his own lobbying firm.

This is an appalling situation. A politician who was intimately involved in the conversations that shape our country now has a job trying to influence the way those conversations go, and is armed with the knowledge that only someone involved in those conversations would have – from the individual positions of other ministers to highly sensitive information from public servants.

It is unprecedented and appalling.

The rules should not allow him to be reading cabinet papers in June and then lobbying his former colleagues on the same matters in October. Other countries – ones that aren’t naive as us – have so-called “revolving door” policies to stop this very thing, forcing elected officials to cool down for some period of months or years before engaging in lobbying.

One simple way to implement this would be for the PM to issue a Cabinet Office directive that no Minister or official will meet with a lobbyist who has been a Minister within the last three years. It doesn’t need a law change, just a simple decision.

Those who leave politics do have a right to build a new career, and use the skills politics gave them in that new vocation. But the public has every right to be appalled when the turnaround is this quick, and the service on offer is not just the skills and knowledge of a seasoned political operative, but also the connections retained from someone’s time acting as a servant of the public.

It is all about timing. Clayton Cosgrove only became a lobbyist nine years after he was a Cabinet Minister. Roger Sowry also didn’t become a lobbyist until nine years after he was a Cabinet Minister. Nine years is okay. Nine weeks is not.

Bryce Edwards writes:

Faafoi’s two-way trip through the revolving door is utterly brazen. There are no other examples in recent New Zealand political history – and probably no other examples in the OECD countries – of such a short period of time between running government policy to then trying to influence them on behalf of private business.

Even Donald Trump placed a five year ban on members of his Cabinet from becoming lobbyists afterwards.

The media need to ask the Prime Minister how comfortable she is with a cabinet minister quitting his job to immediately become a lobbyist who will be trying to persuade his former colleagues on behalf of vested interests.

Maybe even at her press conference today.

Part of democracy is your side loses sometimes, even often. It is how the system works. It is always a good idea to be a gracious victor and also a gracious loser.

The victories for the CR in the local elections has seen some very bad losers, starting right at the top.

The turnout in 2022 is looking to be near identical to 2019 when the left did very well. Did you hear the PM in 2019 declaring that there has to be an inquiry into the low turnout?

The very clear dogwhistle from the PM is that the left only lost because of low turnout, implying the results are somewhat illegitimate.

I have been advocating for over a decade two simple reforms to lift local election turnout – allowing people to return their ballot paper via the Internet (as overseas Kiwis do in general elections) and having the Electoral Commission in charge of local elections. Despite select committee recommendations, the Government has done nothing in the last five years to advance these. Only when they get walloped, do they seem interested.

Then you have journalist Donna Chisholm declaring that Aucklanders are racist as f*8K because they elected Wayne Brown over Efeso Collins.

Did Donna proclaim Aucklanders were all racist bigots in 2019 when they chose Phil Goff over John Tamihere?

Of course not. You are only racist when you vote against a left wing candidate.