Some readers might be interested in this podcast chat/interview between Jordan Williams and myself about the battle to stop the Rotorua bill that would have ended equality of suffrage in Rotorua.
Jenee Tibshraeny writes:
The Government is being accused of making a mockery of democracy in the way it’s working on creating an income insurance scheme.
The Government last week passed legislation under urgency, allowing the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to work towards operationalising such a scheme, should it be established under subsequent legislation.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson allocated $4 million via the Budget towards ACC doing this work, and set aside a further $56.5m in “contingency” funding for 2023-2026.
Yep they did this under urgency.
The Government did so ahead of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) analysing and publishing submissions made as a part of a consultation process that took place between early February and late April.
The consultation raised the question of whether the scheme was even required, and whether it should be administered by ACC.
MBIE said a formal decision on whether the Government will proceed with it will be made in June or early July.
So they are consulting on if such a scheme is needed, while also passing laws and funding under urgency to implement such a scheme!
The director of Victoria University of Wellington’s Institute of Governance and Policy Studies, Simon Chapple, said the poor process was “mind-boggling”.
He fears the Government is jumping the gun, working on the assumption the public wants and needs an income insurance scheme, without having properly campaigned or consulted on it.
The proposed scheme would see a claimant paid up to 80 per cent of their income for up to seven months, in the event of a job loss due to redundancy or sickness.
If they were unemployed after this time, they’d go into the regular welfare system.
The scheme is estimated to cost $3.5 billion a year and would be compulsory. It would be funded by employees contributing 1.39 per cent of their wages/salaries to the scheme (up to a certain level). This contribution would be matched by their employer.
The cost is now projected to be $4.5 billion a year and polling has in fact shown a majority do not want to pay an extra tax so people can get $400 a day for being unemployed.
Chapple noted Labour didn’t campaign on introducing income insurance ahead of the 2020 election. It wasn’t even included in its full election manifesto. Rather, Labour (in a tax policy document linked to its manifesto) committed to “investigating” such a policy.
And now using urgency for it. The way to stop it will be in the ballot box in 2023.
Thefacts.nz have done this useful graph of net debt. It shows that the huge explosion isn’t just around Covid-19 but is set to continue next year.
Donald Trump endorsed primary challengers to the Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney-General of Georgia. These endorsements were not over policy. They were because the three office holders refused to break the law and steal the election for Trump. Trump wanted to show that anyone who defies him will lose their job, so that in 2024 Republican state office holders will try and steal the election for him.
But he failed big time. He definitely still has huge influence with his endorsements in open races, but his revenge in Georgia fall flat massively. Fox News has the results:
This is good news. No one should lose their job as punishment for not overthrowing an election result their party doesn’t like.
George Campbell reports:
The budget for Wellington’s Town Hall earthquake strengthening project has blown out by $37.1 million.
The opening of the building has been delayed until 2025. It has been labelled the most complex construction project in New Zealand at this time.
The significant cost escalation, from $145.3m to $182.4m, is one in a string of many.
Since the Town Hall was declared earthquake-prone and closed in 2013, the cost of the work has grown from $43m, to $60m, to $90m, and then to $112m in 2019.
This is insane. The cost to renovate the town hall is now over $2,500 per household. The Council were warned costs would keep escalating but they just carry on burning up ratepayers money. Wellington already has a superb music venue at the Michael Fowler Centre. A second venue is a nice to have, not a must to have. Pipes that don’t leak is a must to have.
They are spending $182 million on a building that a small fraction of the population will ever use or go into.
It probably won’t stop at $182 million. Based on history it will probably exceed $200 million.
Karl du Fresne responds to a Shelley who calls him a racist with an insightful piece:
Now, that word “racist”. I believe a racist is someone who thinks certain races are inherently superior to others and therefore entitled to rights not available to supposedly “inferior” races. That’s a meaning we can all agree on. But the moment you stretch the definition beyond that, the word can mean anything the user wants it to mean. In the contemporary New Zealand context, that means it can be applied to anyone who disagrees with you – for example, on issues such as 50-50 co-governance with iwi. But the people who throw the term “racist” around don’t realise that they have stripped the word of its potency. “Racist” should be the most offensive epithet imaginable, placing the accused person on a par with Adolf Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan. But the word is so overused as to have become meaningless, so Shelley’s wasting her breath there.
It has indeed become meaningless.
On a more personal level, there’s a lot about Maori culture that I respect and admire – for example, its emphasis on a communal rather than an individual ethos, from which I think we can all learn. I marvel (as the British army probably did in the 19th century) at the courage and resourcefulness of a warrior society defending its land against interlopers and I share the widely felt reverence for the generations of Maori soldiers who served with such distinction in our own armed forces. I am stirred by kapa haka and revere our many great Maori musicians. New Zealand’s bicultural heritage is a unique part of our national makeup that we should all be proud of (and I think most of us are. When the Springboks narrowly defeated a Maori side at Napier in 1921, a South African reporter was appalled that the predominantly Pakeha crowd cheered for “coloured men” playing against their fellow whites).
I would add to that and say I also appreciate the concepts from Te Ao Māori which are commonly used in early childhood education. I enjoy Ben talking about doing manaakitanga (kindness to others) and kaitaikitanga (stewardship).
On the down side, we should all be concerned at high rates of Maori imprisonment, illness, sub-standard housing and low educational attainment. These not only hurt Maori but diminish the country as a whole. Some activists talk as if such outcomes are the results of deliberate, structural racism that suits the interests of the dominant group, but I have yet to hear anyone explain how anyone, including the supposedly privileged class, benefits when such a significant segment of the population is struggling. It’s in everyone’s interests for Maori to do better; the question is how that might be achieved. Ostentatious virtue signalling, such as the use of te reo by broadcasters and journalists, won’t do it. Nor is it likely to be achieved by transferring power from democratic institutions to an unelected tribal elite that hasn’t historically shown much concern for urban Maori with no iwi affiliations.
Someone on the left made the point to me the other day that the belief that enriching tribal elites will benefit poor Maori families in South Auckland is the ultimate in neoliberal trickle down economics and that they are aghast so many on the left have signed up to it.
I think all New Zealanders should know more about the country’s pre-European history. There was another New Zealand (Aotearoa, if you prefer) that existed before the arrival of the Europeans; one that was still technically in the stone age but was strikingly advanced and sophisticated for all that. We know far too little about it – or indeed about how the first voyagers got here, which is a remarkable story in itself.
It is sad that the new history curriculum almost totally ignores our pre-European history.
Speaking of “Aotearoa”, let’s have a referendum. That’s more honest than having the name insinuated into the language at the behest of a cultural elite too arrogant to put it to the test knowing there’s a very good chance it would be defeated. What can be more fundamental to a country’s identity than the name by which it’s known? Those who resist the idea of a referendum, preferring to impose the name without any mandate, are subverting democracy. (For the record, and not for the first time, I’m okay with Aotearoa just as long as the majority endorse it.)
A referendum is a good idea.
In teaching New Zealand history, we need to be honest about the circumstances in which Maori lost so much of their land, and we need to acknowledge that they were often the victims of rampant settler greed. (Two instances I’m personally familiar with, because I’ve written about them, are Lakes Wairarapa and Horowhenua, both shamefully and deceitfully taken from their rightful owners and subsequently subjected to shocking environmental degradation.) But we also need to acknowledge that Maori were sometimes betrayed by tribal leaders who sold their land from under them. We also need to acknowledge that pre-European Maori society was violent and cruel. Territory was taken by conquest and no mercy was shown to the losers, who were slaughtered, enslaved and cannibalised. Rekohu (the Moriori name for the Chathams) comes to mind.
Many wrongs were done, by many people.
We can agree that white supremacy was common – in fact the norm – in an earlier time when Europeans believed implicitly in the superiority of a culture that dominated the world. Do white supremacists exist still? Probably, although I don’t know any personally and I don’t believe they’re anything more than a tiny, pathetic minority whose attitudes appal most New Zealanders. Of far more consequence are the millions of New Zealanders who happily work, play sport and engage socially (which includes having sex) with people of Maori descent, and have done so for generations. The terrible danger is that this history of mutual goodwill will be undermined and may even eventually unravel as a result of the wedge being driven between the two main racial groups by activists who insist we are inherently different and that our rights and interests are in competition.
It is sad to see this mutual goodwill being trampled by woke activists.
Where we run into trouble is where the Maori activist agenda collides with democracy. Democracy isn’t a white supremacist invention imposed to keep minority groups firmly under the heel of their oppressor. On the contrary, it’s a system whereby every citizen’s vote – Maori, Pakeha, Pasifika, Chinese, Indian, whatever – carries the same weight. I believe absolutely in democracy because ultimately, everyone benefits from it and everyone has a say. It is the basis of every free and fair society in the world, and those who undermine it need to think very carefully about what form of government might replace it. I can’t think of any that would appeal to me – certainly not one that grants special rights, privileges and entitlements on the basis of ancestry. We have a name for that: feudalism. We were smart enough to abandon it several centuries ago.
I agree – we must reject feudalism.
As the tweet points out, suddenly finding your car won’t work isn’t a minor inconvenience for some people – it can be a matter of life and death. And targeting a family based on a stereotype about their type of car is nasty vigilantism.
Stuff reports:
The incident comes after seven shootings on Auckland’s streets on Tuesday night, which police believed were carried out by the Killer Beez and Tribesmen gangs.
Unbelievable. It wasn’t long ago that a single shooting in a night would be newsworthy, and Auckland had seven in one evening.
The gangs obviously think they are beyond the law. This needs to stop. Sadly though the Government’s solution is to repeal the three strikes law for repeat serious violent and sexual offenders.
Stuff reports:
Police are “actively” looking for a child who reportedly stole eight vehicles in Dunedin overnight and remains on the run.
One has to admire the work ethic and productivity for a 12 year old to manage to steal eight vehicles in one night. Would be good though if they focused that on say study!
Five Thirty Eight and IPSOS did a poll of 2,000 Americans about the most important issues. The top five overall were:
But they differ by party. For Republicans:
And Democrats:
Using the Stats NZ population date and the Ministry of Health vaccination stats (as of 23 May) I’ve calculated how vaccinated New Zealand is. The data is:
I think a 4th booster dose will be available soon. I’ll certainly get it, but I suspect I will be in a minority. The fact that three quarters of children aged 5 to 11 have not had two doses suggests that there is a limit to how often people will get boosters.
NZ’s worst landlord strikes once again. The Herald reports:
A state house tenant has been awarded $5000 after having to live next to a neighbour from hell who had rowdy parties, was abusive and urinated on the fence.
The Auckland tenant took Kāinga Ora to the Tenancy Tribunal after lodging more than 130 complaints against the neighbour in three years.
The renter claimed Kāinga Ora was not taking reasonable steps to stop the neighbour from interfering with their peace and comfort.
The tenant had lived in their Kāinga Ora home and had been a resident at the property since 1998. But, in 2019, a new neighbour moved in.
The neighbour, who was also a tenant of Kāinga Ora, would host loud parties, urinate on the tenant’s fence and let their dog defecate on the neighbouring property’s lawn.
They also had people living in their garage who would shout abusive language and intimidate the neighbours.
So they had 21 years of peacefully living there and then the policy changed to no evictions, and they got a new neighbour from hell. They filed 130 complaints, and what did Kainga Ora do?
A spokesperson for Kāinga Ora responded, saying they had visited the neighbour, serving them with breach notices in 2019 and 2022.
Wow, two breach notices three years apart.
Yi said Kāinga Ora should have served notices to the neighbour.
He recognised the extensive breach of quiet enjoyment and ordered Kāinga Ora to pay $5000 in compensation to the tenant.
Kāinga Ora offered to relocate the complainant, but they declined.
So Kainga Ora’s response wasn’t to evict the neighbour making all the trouble, but to move out the law abiding tenants who had lived there for 21 years!
A guest post by Cr Chris Milne:
A great mystery of 2022 is how it came to be that the Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt Mayors formed polar opposite views on Three Waters.
Three public opinion polls in the two cities have revealed strong resident opposition to the Labour Government’s centralisation of water management, including 50% iwi control through co-governance.
So how is it that, despite public opposition in both cities, Mayor Wayne Guppy of Upper Hutt is opposed but Mayor Campbell Barry is not?
The answer is pretty straight-forward. In 2019 Cr Campbell Barry campaigned for the Hutt City mayoralty under a Labour ticket. What the public were never told is that the Labour Party exacts a high price from candidates who use their trademark.
It will surprise most people to learn that the Labour Party requires that candidates using the Labour logo sign a pledge to support and implement Labour policy irrespective of the views of local residents. Further, all Labour candidates in a local body election pledge to block vote on issues of Labour policy.
The rewards for this abdication of local loyalty are political career opportunities and campaign assistance – databases, email systems, door knocking volunteers, billboard teams and social media support. One recent bauble was Mayor Barry’s appointment to the Labour Government’s Three Waters review taskforce, a body that reported back very recently with, you guessed it, no substantial changes to the policy opposed by the majority of Lower Hutt’s residents.
The Labour Party Constitution in force during the 2019 council elections contains Rule 95 (linked below):
R95: Any person accepting nomination as a Party candidate shall sign a pledge ….R95(e): I will faithfully observe the Constitution and Policy of the Party and the policy of the party for the [Lower Hutt] district.
R95(f): If elected, I will vote … in accordance with the decisions [of the Labour ticket members].
And the following rule dictates that Labour candidates will support each other no matter what:R95(c): I will wholeheartedly support the duly selected candidates of the Party in the [Lower Hutt] district.
And do note that the first Objective (R3) of the Labour Party is “to elect [candidates] for the purpose of giving effect to Party policy and principles”. Rule 152 says that “The Policy Platform is binding on … all Labour Party members elected to public office who describe their affiliation as “Labour” or “Labour Party” on the ballot.
Labour candidates are subject to a Disciplinary Process with multiple possible sanctions if they breach their pledge [R309]:
Rule 313: Disciplinary action shall be applied for and ruled upon on the grounds of:
(a): contravention of the Principles, Rules and Policies of the Party as contained in the current Constitution and policy documents of the Party, including under (c) – being automatically suspended for two years for publicly campaigning against another Labour candidate.
Notes:1) Link to the 2013 Labour Party Constitution: https://drive.google.com/…/18H2WIoLC9s2yNUnVfUW…/view…2)
Link to the 2020 Constitution (the relevant provisions are virtually unchanged – see Rule 12.4.1). This will apply to the 2022 Council elections. https://drive.google.com/…/1dWdUexV6fwd8rb3eMWo…/view…
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities(the first sentence of the book)
DPF: Another key aspect of this constitutional requirement for Labour Mayors and Councillors to follow the dictates of the Labour Party over their local communities is that it is future binding, not just backwards binding. Even if Labour doesn’t have a policy on something at the time of the local body elections, any future policy becomes retrospectively binding on Labour Mayors and Councillors from the moment it is adopted.
Professor Robert MacCulloch writes:
Look at the document below which I found in the government’s files – its says that inflation in NZ is to be held at 1 to 3 percent over the medium term and is signed off and “agreed by” the Finance Minister and Reserve Bank Governor:
That would be Grant Robertson and Adrian Orr.
Yet on Budget Day yesterday, Treasury released its inflation forecasts which are HIGHER than 3% for 2022, HIGHER than 3% for 2023 and HIGHER THAN 3% for 2024. It was also over 3% this past year, 2001. Yes this inflation is not temporary, it is not “transitory”. New Zealand will NOT be achieving its agreed inflation target, not even remotely, over the “medium term”. My question is: since when can a Finance Minister and a Reserve Bank Governor put their signatures to an “agreed” course of action, then willfully ignore it? In monetary economics, we call it a loss of credibility.
This is a key point, that media should focus on more. The Government is projecting inflation will be higher than the top of the allowable band for at least four years.
The inflation rates are:
Over four years that is a cumulative inflation rate of 20.1%.
Yet no one is resigning.
In 2019 the BOP Regional Council decided to spend ratepayer money on providing free buses 24/7 to school-age children. It was a stupid idea economically and it seems an even worse idea socially.
The Herald reports:
Free student bus fares have been cut back in a bid to tackle escalating violence and anti-social behaviour on Tauranga bus routes – but installing cages for drivers was rejected.
A bus company boss told a summit today that abuse of drivers in Tauranga is the worst he has seen and a top cop said parents were too disengaged or busy working to supervise young troublemakers. …
Bus drivers have reported being racially abused and threatened – prompting a partial boycott of three stops – alongside recent reports of street brawls, vandalism, public underage drinking and assaults on passerbys.
Youths have arrested for allegedly carrying weapons at the Willow St interchange. Another has been charged with wounding with intent to cause grevious bodily harm after allegedly attacking a worker near a major Farm St stop, seriously injuring his eye.
The regional council added extra security to the city’s bus stops on Monday, adding $200,000 to the annual cost of $660,000. Waka Kotahi contributes 51 per cent.
So both taxpayers and ratepayers have been funding this unfortunate experiment.
Tauranga’s fare-free buses were part of the problem. Groups of youths used the library computers to organise fights at other stops then rode the bus there, she said.
“The free fares have been good for other young ones going home but there are more making bad use of those free fares than those taking good advantage of them.”
So we’re funding fight clubs for students!
NZ Bus chief operating officer Jay Zmijewski told the council that in his 22 years of driving and working in the bus industry in New Zealand and Australia, he had not seen such regular levels of abuse and violence directed at drivers and buses.
Zmijewski said bus routes had often had to be cancelled because the driver was still traumatised from an incident days before. There was a risk some would quit.
“I still recall the effects of anti-social behaviour when I was a bus driver. It makes you sick to the stomach.”
Vandalism was happening daily with seats being cut and burned, window laminates melted and graffiti “inside and out”.
A sad unforeseen consequence of generosity with other people’s money
Politicians and others are refusing to answer the question of what is the definition of a woman. A reader asked the Minister for Women and her reply was:
The Minister for Women and the Ministry for Women represents the interests and supports the rights of all women, including transgender and transsexual women, and recognises the rights of all people to self-identify.
At least they replied. But I would have thought the better answer would be along the lines of.
The definition depends on whether you mean sex or gender. If you mean sex then the definition of a woman is an adult female with two X chromosomes. If you mean gender then it is an adult who identifies as female.
So much of the problem with the trans debate is people treat sex and gender as the same thing. One can recognise someone ‘s gender identity without denying biological sex differences.
The Herald reports:
Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick was “unlawful” when she decided a discussion on Rotorua’s controversial Māori wards bill would be held confidentially, two public law experts believe.
Chadwick not only tried to end one person one vote in Rotorua, but tries do do it behind closed doors.
Public law expert and lawyer Graeme Edgeler told Local Democracy Reporting, in his opinion, there were several issues with the proceedings in Thursday’s council meeting.
He said Chadwick should have put to a vote whether to add the urgent item to the agenda and to have the discussion in confidential.
He believed Chadwick was also incorrect when she told the meeting she did not need to put moving the discussion into confidential to a vote as she could rule it as chairwoman.
Mayors are not dictators. They have no power to unilaterally decide these things.
In the meeting Chadwick cited the reason for the discussion being held in secret as “to enable us all as council, together, to have a free and frank discussion in response to the Attorney-General’s request for information needed to develop policy work”.
Edgeler said, in his view, that was not a lawful reason to put a meeting into confidential as “free and frank discussion” was explicitly excluded under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.
“I don’t believe they [the council] lawfully excluded the public, I don’t believe they ever tried to lawfully exclude the public and the reason they gave to exclude the public isn’t a lawful one.”
Victoria University of Wellington public law expert Dr Dean Knight broadly agreed with Edgeler.
Luckily for Chadwick she is retiring so she can’t be voted out.
He said the standing order it pertained to was 9.13 – “discussion of a minor matter not on the agenda”.
I love how they regard ending equality of suffrage in their district as a minor matter!
Stuff reports:
At Leatherby’s sentencing on Wednesday, Judge Hikaka calculated a starting point of four years imprison – three years for the sexual connection charges, and one year for the four remaining charges.
Hikaka told the court how there was “alcohol involved in all of” the charges.
However, Leatherby had stopped drinking, was attending programmes for alcohol abuse, Hikaka said.
He had also been willing to attend a restorative justice conference, written a letter of remorse, and had a number of letters in support of him – including a “glowing reference” from his employer.
The Judge took those aspects into consideration, and also allowed a discount for early guilty pleas, which allowed Leatherby to be eligible for an electronically monitored sentence.
“It’s only available because of the positive steps you’ve taken,” Hikaka said.
The 20-year-old was convicted, sentenced to four months home detention with post-detention conditions
So he had sex with a 15 year old against her will and somehow his initial sentence of four years in prison gets knocked by by 92% to four months home detention.
The NY Post reports:
Guess it takes one to know one?
President Biden’s pick to lead his Department of Homeland Security’s Big Brother-like Disinformation Governance Board has her own history of posting disinformation online.
Nina Jankowicz, who was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, has repeatedly cast doubt on The Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
During a series of live tweets during the presidential debate between Biden and Donald Trump in October 2020, Jankowicz had referenced the laptop.
“Back on the ‘laptop from hell,’ apparently—Biden notes 50 former natsec officials and 5 former CIA heads that believe the laptop is a Russian influence op,” Jankowicz tweeted.
It wasn’t. It was a genuine story reported truthfully by the NY Post. Now there is no problem that some people were sceptical of it. The problem is social media companies censored the story and suspended people who posted about it and stopped people being able to link to the story.
Jankowicz, who has researched Russian disinformation tactics and online harassment, also previously praised Christopher Steele — the author of the since-discredited Trump-bashing dossier.
In August 2020, Jankowicz tweeted about the former British spy’s appearance on the Infotagion podcast, writing: “Listened to this last night – Chris Steele (yes THAT Chris Steele) provides some great historical context about the evolution of disinfo. Worth a listen.”
Steele’s fake dossier, which sparked the probe into whether former President Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with Russians during the 2016 election, was eventually debunked by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
So the person in charge of combatting disinformation has a partisan track record of spreading it!
UPDATE: She has resigned from the role. Another Biden bumble.