MFAT announced:

On Friday 24 June, Aotearoa New Zealand’s application to become an Observer of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) was accepted by the Alliance’s membership.

The IHRA is an intergovernmental organisation that promotes “international political coordination to combat growing Holocaust denial and antisemitism”. The objectives of the IHRA strongly align with Aotearoa New Zealand’s commitment to combatting antisemitism.

Through becoming an Observer we will be joining 44 other member or Observer countries to strengthen, advance and promote Holocaust education, research and remembrance.

Pleased to see NZ finally join. It has taken years to persuade the Government to do so, but better late than never.

Still slightly strange we have gone for observer status only. The observers are Albania, Bosnia, Brazil, Cyprus, El Salvador, Moldova, Monaco, Turkey and Uruguay. The 35 members countries are most of Europe, US, UK, Australia, Canada

Ian Powell writes:

When he was elected leader of the Labour Party following the 2014 election defeat, the National Party in government detected something in Andrew Little’s personality, leading him to be nicknamed “Angry Andy”.

At the time I thought this was a bit off and, at best, of limited alliterative appeal.

But if “Angry Andy” was a bit off then, it is certainly applicable today as Little, now Health Minister, continues to deny the obvious: that there is a crisis in the health system.

When you have the former boss of a health union saying this, you know things are not good.

The Health Minister points to winter flu. But there are two knowns about winter flu. First, winter flu happens every winter. Second, each winter flu is usually more severe than the previous one.

The cumulative pressure and expressions of alarm for both patient and staff safety from those at the frontline and their representative bodies, on the impact of the workforce crisis, have taken their toll on the health minister. He is now lashing out, making a possum caught in the headlights look cool, calm and collected.

In a low blow, in May, Little derogatorily referred to the “nominal leaders” of primary care for allegedly failing to see what a different and better health system looks like. It was clear from the context of his attack that he was referring to representatives of general practices.

This was followed by an insulting criticism of rural general practices. These indispensable practices are vulnerable because their small size and isolation compounds the GP shortage.

Labour has never liked GPs much because they are private practitioners with partial public funding. I have no doubt that part of the health reforms motivation is to allow them to try and nationalise GPs and make them all staff, like those in hospitals.

Moving on, Minister Little then got personal with Waikato emergency medicine specialist Dr John Bonning (also President of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine and deputy chair of the Council of Medical Colleges) attacking him for embellishing the workforce crisis in hospitals. In fact, it is a characteristic of Dr Bonning to understate rather than overstate.

A long list of health professionals that Andy has got angry at.

Little’s poor performance has made him a ministerial liability. A big factor behind this is his failure to recognise the importance of relationships in public health systems.

Relationships are critical in almost all systems.

This has led him to undermine workforce trust and confidence in the Government’s leadership of the health system.

Further, he has achieved this in little over 18 months. I don’t recall any health minister reaching this milestone.

Powell is effectively saying Little is doing a worst job than any other Health Minister since he started in 1989. So he is saying that Little is doing worse than Simon Upton, Jenny Shipley, Bill English, Pete Hodgson, David Cunliffe, Jonathan Coleman and David Clark!

Stuff reports:

The Government has quietly des`ignated two United States far-right organisations, the Proud Boys and The Base, as terrorist organisations.

The legal designation of the two groups – which would have been signed off by the prime minister – was made on June 20, and made public in the New Zealand Gazette on June 27. The decision was not otherwise announced by the Government.

The designation means people who recruit for the groups or provide them with material support could be prosecuted under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

There was no immediately available information for why the designation was made. Comment has been sought from both the prime minister’s office and the police.

I’ve got no problems at all with designating those groups as terrorist organisations. But could the Government also finally do what most of our peers have done and also designate Hezbollah? After all they have killed over 659 people through terrorist attacks so far.

There are 11 MPs standing for the leadership of the UK Conservatives. The winner will become Leader and Prime Minister. I’ve done a summary of them.

To make the first ballot an MP needs at least 20 MPs to nominate them. So the number of MPs who have said they support a candidate is important. There are 358 MPs.

In the first ballot any candidate who gets fewer than 30 votes drops out.

Then in the second and further ballots the lowest polling drops out until there are two left.

Then those two go to a vote of all members. So the support of MPs is vital to making the final two, but after that it is the vote of the party membership that will decide.

There are four women standing, three of whom have a decent chance. If one of them wins the Conservatives will be ion their third female leader, while Labour will remain at zero.

Six of the 11 candidates are immigrants or children of immigrants. I think it says a lot about a country that people can move there, and they or their children can aspire to the highest office.

NewstalkZB reports:

The Government has spent more than $1 billion on emergency housing grants since it came into office five years ago.

A large proportion of that money has been spent on housing people in need of accommodation in motels across the country.

Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni confirmed through answers to written Parliamentary questions that since December 2017, the Government’s spent $1.2 billion through the grants.

Senior National MP Chris Bishop said this is a grim milestone for the Government.  

“It’s a staggering sum of money and I think New Zealanders will be shocked at the scale of the spending on emergency housing.”  

Currently, there are roughly 4000 households living in emergency housing across New Zealand – many in motels.

Bishop said this is no way for families to be housed.

“What the Government is doing is paying millions and millions of dollars to motel owners, which is great for them; it’s a get rich quick scheme.

“But it’s absolutely terrible for people who are forced to live in these conditions.”

They should put a time limit on emergency housing. Say a maximum six months there.

This transcript from a podcast is very perceptive. We see this in New Zealand where almost the entire left establishment thinks having a few Iwi reps on various boards is going to improve things for the poor Maori family in poverty in Gisborne.

Social Investment policies that target the most in need and high risk families is what will help – especially if you can assist in the first few years of life.

Newshub reports:

The Prime Minister is defending the Government’s residency rules for nurses suggesting if the barrier is too high “perhaps they don’t want to be a nurse in New Zealand”. 

The healthcare sector is overwhelmed as staff shortages, COVID-19 and a particularly bad flu season all hit at once. 

Nursing shortages are of particular concern after they were excluded from the same residency rules as GPs in the Government’s immigration reset. 

So the PM is suggesting nurses who want to move to New Zealand may leave nursing if they get residency. What a bizarre contention.

We need nurses desperately. And the Government is making it hard for them to come and live here.

But I have a solution.

All the nurses who want to come and live and work in New Zealand should simply declare they are really DJs, who just do nursing as a side gig.

Oliver Hartwich writes:

With a depressingly high road toll, the government has embarked on a “Road to Zero” campaign. Its ambitious goal: no more deaths or serious injuries by 2050. The promotional awareness campaign will cost $15 million over three years.

Yet, as RNZ found out, since 2018 NZTA has installed less than a fifth of the road-safety barriers due by 2024.

Think if they spent more money on road safety barriers and less on advertising!

As of June 2021, NZTA employed about 2,081 staff. That figure was 1,372 only four years earlier.

Staff growth at NZTA did not mainly take place on the frontline. HR workers went from 57 to 122 full-time equivalents; managers from 214 to 456; accountants from 44 to 66; admin staff from 307 to 485; and communications officers from 32 to 88. None of those mentioned above will ever install a bollard, put up a road sign, or fix a pothole.

In so many areas we have seen a huge increase in costs, but no increase in performance or outcomes.

Housing was one of the big issues in the 2017 election campaign. At the time, Labour promised to fix the housing market, reduce homelessness, and build 100,000 affordable KiwiBuild homes over the next decade.

The results after five years? New Zealand house prices have grown by almost 8.7 per annum on average. Emergency Housing Grants, which were below $10 million per quarter in 2017, now exceed $100 million. And KiwiBuild, so far, has delivered just over 1,300 homes – with only 98,700 to go.

The Government should hits its target around the year 2305. According to Star Trek that will be around 12 years after James Tiberius Kirk dies, so not even Captain Kirk will be around to see the celebration.

Reading and literacy have dropped dramatically in the OECD’s PISA rankings. The mathematics skills of New Zealand’s 15-year-olds are only as good as those of 13.5-year-olds 20 years ago. Despite an increase in education spending per student, more than 40 per cent of school leavers are functionally illiterate or innumerate.

Aside from such big policy failures, New Zealanders are bombarded with worrying news daily. There are GPs reportedly seeing more than 60 patients per day. Patients are treated in corridors at some hospitals’ A & E departments, where waiting times now often exceed ten hours.

As gang numbers have grown, gun crime has also become a regular feature in news headlines. Ram raids, where youths steal cars and crash them into small shops, have become common.

But look apart from housing, education, health and crime, everything is great.

Rather than dealing with these and many other issues, the government appears determined to add new challenges to doing business. It is about to introduce collective bargaining in the labour market and an extra tax on income to fund unemployment insurance.

Yep every employer and employee in NZ will have to pay up to $1,800 a year so people can get paid $600 a week not to work for six months.

100,000 affordable Kiwibuild homes by 2028

69% said the year 2305 which is the correct answer.

One billion trees funded by 2028

29% said the year 2198 which is incorrect. The correct answer is 2101, a mere 79 years away, which 28% got correct.

Government fleet emissions free by 2026

33% said the year 2095, which is the correct answer. A relatively swift 78 years to achieve a nine year goal

Net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050

68% said never which is pessimistic. They are on track to get there in the year 2198, which 21% got correct.

100% renewable electricity by 2035

49% correctly said never. The proportion renewable is lower today than it was in 2017.

So of their five targets, one they are on track to never achieve, one is on track for the end of the 21st century, two are on track for the 22nd century and Kiwibuild is on track for completion in the 24th century.

Stuff reports:

Leaderless, well behind schedule, and sinking into a $110 million black hole.

This could describe almost any part of Government, but in this case it is Chris Hipkins’ merger of all the polytechnics into one.

Dudgeon’s grim memo to Hipkins – which is dated May 16 but was published on the commission’s website late last week – sets out the details of Te Pūkenga’s troubles in stark detail.

The organisation’s financial situation was a “significant concern”, with the Te Pūkenga group forecasting an at-least $110m full-year deficit.

“This is $53.5m worse than budget ($56.5m deficit) and is predominantly due to lower provider-based enrolments,” she said.

A $110 million deficit. And the rationale for the mega merger was that the sector lost $53 million in 2017. So what Hipkins claimed was the solution has led to it doubling.

Some parts of the memo deemed commercially sensitive had been censored before release, including mention of a figure that the $110m deficit could further balloon, due to “rising cost pressures”.

Of course it will increase.

The 2021 annual report also showed one employee – evidently the chief executive – was earning an income of between $670,000 and $679,999.

By comparison, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is earning $471,049.

A further five Te Pūkenga employees are earning between $380,000 and $451,000.

I may be wrong but I’m sure no one was earning that at the old polytechs.

I just rewatched the great movie The Big Short that dramatized the sub-prime mortgages collapse that led to the GFC. Years of self-interest and complacency – along with short-term thinking – created all of the circumstances needed to collapse a house of financial cards.  The movie highlights that the very few who picked it were able to buy “swaps” – effectively betting against the US economy. They were treated like idiots prior to the collapse – but they were right.

The USA had sown the wind and the world reaped the whirlwind.

New Zealand is sowing its very own wind with how we are caring for young people and our education system. There are two differences to what I describe above. Firstly, there is no way to sell-short on this and profit from the disaster. Secondly, this won’t impact world-wide – it will just massively damage our own people and nation. Many countries are streaking ahead of us on education and care for young people. Our whirlwind has begun for our youth and there is clear evidence that the vast majority of NZ adults (especially politicians) are acting like the complacent Wall St of 2007/08.

A month or so back David Farrer posted results from the IPSOS NZ Issues Monitor.

Report Point:

• Adults have little comparative concern about the NZ education system. Only 6% had high concern about education.

By strange co-incidence 6 (out of 2,600) is exactly the number of schools who bothered to submit to the Education and Workforce Select Committee into school attendance.

We have little medium-term thinking, let alone long-term thinking. Politicians think within their cycle, kids don’t vote, many families know that their children are doing okay, many others are disengaged and/or worried about food on the table and petrol in the car today. Adults worry about themselves and there is no NZ Education Vision or visionaries for adults to support. Hipkins has been the very worst and most inactive Education Minister in living memory – but he has been allowed to be and is rarely challenged by the opposition.

Rather than bang on in prose I will do what Dr Michael Burry (brilliantly played by Christian Bale) did in The Big Short – just present evidence. The consequence of which is already disastrous – not limited to the 1 million NZers considering evacuation and 3% of our 20-29 workforce having already left (https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2022/07/cost-of-living-myob-poll-shows-more-than-1-million-kiwis-actively-considering-leaving-nz.html_)

Research Points

• Schools submit their attendance data on a voluntary basis.
• Comparable full attendance USA 84% to NZ 69%.
• Comparable regular attendance Australia 73% to NZ 68%.
• Comparable irregular attendance Canada 10% to NZ 28%.
• Comparable regular attendance primary Ireland 88% to NZ 67.3%.
• Comparable regular attendance secondary Ireland 86% to NZ 56.9%
• Comparable UK attendance markers UK 87% NZ 51.64%
• NZ attendance below the OECD average.
• 2021 full (9/10) attendance Decile 9 – 10 = 70%
• 2021 full (9/10) attendance Decile 1 – 2 = 42%
• 2011 to 2021 attendance at Intermediate Schools decreased 11.8%
• 2011 to 2021 Y9 – 15 schools’ attendance down from 63.1% to 52.2%
• Asian full attendance 72%, European 63%, Maori 44%, Pasifika 44%.
• The report recommends the continuation of the lunch in schools programme while admitting that they have no evidence that it is improving attendance or education outcomes.
• Some submitters communicated that the NZC was irrelevant, rigid or crammed. Some wanted more emphasis placed on cooking, digital safety, life-skills, sexuality, climate.
• In 2020 NZ had 64,877 students chronically absent and at least 10,000 more not enrolled anywhere.
• That some young people (mainly female) are engaged in sibling care is noted. The Auckland Council report supports that assertion and also notes the 86% of single parent homes are female led.
• In 2020 not one parent in NZ was prosecuted for non-attendance or non-enrolment of their child(ren).
• The Committee notes the support (data, etc) of the Ministry of Education but places no accountability on them for the dire situation they have created/overseen (nor the Minister) in fact they state: “We consider the Ministry of Education is well placed to address the causes of non-attendance”.
• 50% of Auckland adults oversees born.
• Of the 126,129 15 – 24 year olds in Auckland 47.7% born in Asia, 20% in the Pacific.
• Mental health worries demonstrably higher for single parents.
• 76% of Auckland’s Pasifika students are in decile 1-3 schools, 48.9% of Maori, 16.4% of Asian and 5% of European.
• From Auckland’s decile 9 – 10 schools 71.3% go on to tertiary education. The decile 9 – 10 pathway is heavily weighted to degree level study.
• From Auckland’s decile 1 – 2 schools 44.7% go on to tertiary education. The decile 1 – 2 is heavily weighted towards Level 4 – 7 study and have a much lower completion rate.
• In the “Southern Initiative” area 32.3% of Maori leavers have less than Level 1 NCEA – i.e. no qualifications at all.
• Only 14.4% of Auckland young people are attaining degrees.
• The current Auckland NEET rate is the highest since 2010. In the year to December 2021 more than 10,000 Auckland 15-24yos were Not in Employment, Education or Training.
• Ethnic proportions for NEETs in Auckland at December 2021 – 20% Pasifika, 23% Maori, European 11%, Asian 10%.
• Mental health has been decreasing. The report states that this “may be reflective of the increasing complexity of challenges young people are contending with.”
• 69% of youth have “good well-being” compared to 76% in 2021.
• 22.7% of young females have depression symptoms and increase from 17.4% in 2012.
• 13% of NZ young people state they are in psychological distress.
• NZ youth suicide in 2015 14.9/100,000.

Sources:

• IPSOS NZ 2022 Issues Monitor
• Education and Work Force Select Committee: Inquiry into School Attendance
• Press Release 9 June Jan Tinetti
• A Profile of Children and Young People in Auckland: 2022 Update

PS – I did read yesterday on a somewhat left-of-centre site that Jacinda had “won the Covid battle”. They must have meant that we are now well and truly heading into the top 50 for covid cases per-million: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The Independent reports:

A move to include offence trigger warnings on the official parliamentary record has been criticised at Westminster, amid fears it could have a chilling effect on what members say.

The snowflakes even need protecting from Hansard now!

The upper chamber heard the measure stemmed from a proposal by the House of Lords Inclusion and Diversity team.

Of course it did.

A guest post by Lindsay Mitchell:

In April this year the Prime Minister laid out the progress she has made towards child poverty reduction since taking office. She said her government has “lifted tens of thousands of children from poverty and improved the lives of many others.”1

She makes one specific comparison over the time frame since becoming Prime Minister – a “30% reduction in children aged 0-17 who live in low-income households after housing costs, over three years (from 2017/18).”

This was achieved primarily by lifting benefits and family tax credits – and in particular introducing a $60 weekly child payment called Best Start.

She failed to mention she has also overseen thousands more children becoming dependent on benefits.

Between March 2018 and March 2022 the number of children in benefit-dependent households grew by 22 percent or almost 37,000.2 To picture this increase, imagine about one hundred good-sized schools.

I spent a number of years as a volunteer working with dependent families and came to know the tragic circumstances of a typical child on a benefit. But my sample is small so let me construct a profile based on New Zealand statistics.

Let’s call the child Sam. She’s five and lives in Northland (which has the highest % of its working-age population on welfare).3 She is Maori and lives with her sole mother (more dependent sole parents are Maori than any other ethnicity). Sam’s mum has debt to MSD of $4,000 (the average mean debt to MSD at June 2021)4 and receives hardship assistance for food (as one of  364,000 food grants issued in the March quarter). Sam lives in a private rental which is subsidised with a $160 weekly accommodation supplement.5 Sam has one older sibling and her mum has been on the benefit since leaving school (those entering the benefit system under twenty stay the longest)6. Sam’s mum is 25 and will probably remain on a benefit well into her thirties (average future years expected on a benefit is 12.4 at 2021 – up from 10.6 in 2017).7 There is also a high chance Sam will herself become a beneficiary (looking at a group of 83,000 children born in benefit households between 1993 and 1995, 47% had entered the benefit system themselves by age 23.)8

This then is a typical profile of a child in a benefit dependent household.

Less typical but still not statistically uncommon would be for Sam to have moved homes more than once since her birth;  to be known to Oranga Tamariki; to have a mother with a substance use problem and/or suffering mental ill-health, and to have a father serving a community or prison sentence.

Benefit dependency is a known risk for children. The likelihood of children suffering abuse or neglect increases in proportion to time spent on a benefit.9 The correlation is probably due to the inherent dysfunction of non-working households. There is no need for a routine, no need to get to a job and no need for kids to get to school (Covid has only exacerbated the malaise.)

This mirrors what I saw as a volunteer called into help families in crisis (some on benefits cope admirably well but they are the exception).

• A sixteen year-old heavily pregnant Maori girl with a controlling and menacing Pakeha boyfriend twice her age and fresh out of prison. She is living in the house of her alcoholic and criminal  mother whom the Sallie Army has finally given up on.
• A young Samoan man struggling to raise daughters (one not even his biological child) by a Maori mother who had abandoned them for gang life.
• A self-absorbed  immature European girl whose child was always exhibiting the latest Dr Phil acting-out syndrome eg pulling at her hair was apparently ‘self-harming’.
• Another older New Zealand European single mother deeply depressed and traumatised by a dark past she would hint at but never divulge. Not a fun game to participate in.
• And yet another young, chaotic Pakeha female who’d lost custody of her child to her mother. She fantasized about being a human rights lawyer – also watching too much Oprah – but was only ever getting around to it. When I ferried her to the local polytech to be interviewed for a course in nail-care she insisted on wearing her pyjamas and dressing gown. Any excuse to stay on a benefit and watch daytime telly I expect.

None had any real incentive to change as long as the money came in.

These are the lifestyles of unemployed parents. They themselves have often not grown to adulthood but we pretend they can provide consistent and caring parenting … if only the government just pays them more.

That’s the major thrust behind the Prime Minister’s mission to reduce child poverty. Paying everybody more whether or not they earn it.

That’s the flaw in her plan. More money does not guarantee better child outcomes. In fact it does the very opposite when all it achieves is more children on benefits. She is never challenged on the flaw in her plan.

Who asks the hard questions about where all the extra money goes? Who asks why New Zealand has apparently record low unemployment but over 200,000 children relying on a parent on a benefit? Who asks about appalling and worsening school absenteeism? Who asks why New Zealand ranked last in child mental well-being in the most recent UNICEF report card?10 Who asks why only one in five Maori babies has married parents?

Who cares so long as the PM can pat herself on the back and claim to have achieved what she came to parliament for.

David Leonhardt at the NYT writes:

The evidence suggests that broad mask mandates have not done much to reduce Covid caseloads over the past two years. Today, mask rules may do even less than in the past, given the contagiousness of current versions of the virus. 

Aren’t we meant to follow the evidence?

In U.S. cities where mask use has been more common, Covid has spread at a similar rate as in mask-resistant cities. Mask mandates in schools also seem to have done little to reduce the spread. Hong Kong, despite almost universal mask-wearing, recently endured one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks.

This doesn’t mean though masks are not useful, even if mandates are not.

The idea that masks work better than mask mandates seems to defy logic. It inverts a notion connected to Aristotle’s writings: that the whole should be greater than the sum of the parts, not less.

The main explanation seems to be that the exceptions often end up mattering more than the rule. The Covid virus is so contagious that it can spread during brief times when people take off their masks, even when a mandate is in place.

Airplane passengers remove their masks to have a drink. Restaurant patrons go maskless as soon as they walk in the door. Schoolchildren let their masks slide down their faces. So do adults: Research by the University of Minnesota suggests that between 25 percent and 30 percent of Americans consistently wear their masks below their nose.

So the mandates give false confidence.

Masks hinder communication, fog glasses and can be uncomfortable. There is a reason that children and airline passengers have broken out in applause when told they can take off their masks.

In the current stage of the pandemic, there are less divisive measures that are more effective than mask mandates. Booster shots are widely available. A drug that can further protect the immunocompromised, known as Evusheld, is increasingly available. So are post-infection treatments, like Paxlovid, that make Covid less severe.

Time to end the mask mandates.

A fun video showing NZ PMs that have met the Queen.

Add this to your website today!

CNN reports:

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died after being shot on the street in the city of Nara on Friday — a shocking act of violence in a country with one of the world’s lowest rates of gun crime. 

He was Japan’s longest serving PM having held the post twice for a total of almost nine years.

The assassination is baffling. He was a former, not current, PM. Political violence is almost unheard of in Japan, let alone gun violence. In a country of 125 million they had only 10 gun deaths last year.

The killer has confirmed he killed him because he disapproved of him.

Japan still has the death penalty. It is very rarely used in a case of a single murder. It will be interesting if they seek it in this case.

NewstalkZB reports:

Hospitality New Zealand says it’s at a loss over comments from the new Immigration Minister.

Michael Wood has accepted some concerns the sector’s raised over foreign worker shortages.

But he says businesses should be considering how to make low-wage jobs with insecure working conditions more attractive places to work.

Hospitality New Zealand Chief Executive Julie White told Mike Hosking they’re certainly paying more than they were, with average hourly rates in the sector above $24.

She says they need government help in accessing more migrant workers to fill gaps.

Michael Wood always say that any shortage of workers is because employers do not pay enough. So by that logic, the massive shortage of doctors and nurses in hospitals is because his Government isn’t paying them enough?

I don’t know why Labour is so anti-immigration.