The July 2022 Roy Morgan is out.

Party Vote

• Labour 34.0% (+0.5% from June)
• National 35.0% (-4.0%)
• Greens 10.5% (+0.5%)
• ACT 11.0% (+1.5%)
• Maori 4.0% (+2.5%)
• NZ First 1.5% (nc)
• TOP 2.5% (+0.5%)
• New Conservatives 1.0% (+0.5%)

Seats

• Labour 43 (-22 from election)
• National 45 (+12)
• Greens 13 (+3)
• ACT 14 (+4)
• Maori 5 (+3)

Governments

• Labour/Green 56/120
• Labour/Green/Maori 61/120
• National/ACT 59/120

Direction

• Right 40.5% (+1.5%)
• Wrong 51.0% (-0.5%)

To quote a Stuff story:

A shortage of electric vehicle (EV) chargers in Wellington has drivers frustrated, particularly with big businesses parking their fleet vehicles at public charge points for hours at a time.

He ruarua nō ngā pūkiho waka hiko (EV) ki Pōneke kua raruraru ngā kaihautū waka, ina koa ngā pakihi e whakatū nei i ō rātou tini waka ki ngā pūhiko ā-marea pō te ao, ao te pō.

Lower Hutt residents have complained to The Warehouse Group about its fleet vehicles being left in parks designed for ChargeNet customers, after they have finished charging, blocking others from taking a turn.

Kua amuamu ngā kainoho o Te Awakairangi ki The Warehouse Group mō ōna waka kua waiho kau noa ki ngā tūnga i tōna tikanga mā te kiritaki ChargeNet kē, i muri i te whakahiko, me te aha e kore nei e wātea ki ngā kiritaki anō.

If Stuff is trying hard to lose readers, this is a great way to go about it,.

Don’t get me wrong – I have no problems with them having a te reo version of their stories. But for God’s sake have the te reo version either at the end (or the beginning) of the story (or on another page, so people can click through to it if they want it). But having the story switch from English to Maori every paragraph just makes it unreadable.

I can’t imagine any newspaper in Canada prints stories where they have alternating paragraphs in English and French.

I have been a huge fan of Youth Parliament for the last 20+ years. I have cheerleaded for it, I have reported on it, I have encouraged Youth MPs and journalists. I love the idea of giving young New Zealanders an opportunity to experience being an MP.

But I was dismayed to see TVNZ report:

More than half of this year’s Youth MPs walked out of the debating chamber in response to a fellow participant’s speech on gun rights at Youth Parliament on Wednesday.

The walkout was planned before the speech by 10 to 15 Youth MPs.

I’m sorry, but if half the Youth MPs think that Youth Parliament is about walking out because you disagree with what someone says, then it is time to scrap Youth Parliament. Let them get together and form a school debating club.

What a terrible terrible signal for Youth MPs to send, that they stage a media stunt of a walk out, rather than listen to what someone says, and respond to it.

I also understand that someone (I do not know who) decreed that Youth MPs were not allowed to caucus by party. They were allowed to caucus by their race, their sexual orientation, their gender etc but not by political party. I’m sorry but a Parliament without political parties is absurd. Who made the decision to ban party caucusing?

Anyway as I said I have been a huge huge fan of Youth Parliament. But if it just becomes a forum for media stunts and walkouts, then it has outlived its purpose and should be abolished.

The US system of elections is very different in New Zealand. In New Zealand politicians have basically no role in determining who wins an election. The PM sets the election date, but after that the administration of the election is done by the Electoral Commission who independently declares who has been elected.

In the US, politicians are involved at multiple levels. County Clerks (often a politician) runs the election in their county, and the State Secretary of State runs it in each state. The Governor signs off on who has been elected, and then Congress certifies the results.

This has worked well for most of the last 200 years, but we saw in 2020 how the system could be used to try and overthrow the result with such ridiculous notions such as the Vice-President can unilaterally decide who has won.

The Guardian reports:

A bipartisan group of senators reached a deal on Wednesday to reform a federal law and prevent a future presidential candidate from overturning the will of the people and the result of a valid presidential election.

The lawmakers have agreed to two bills that would reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which governs how electoral votes are counted after a presidential election. Citing ambiguities in the law, Donald Trump and his attorneys pushed his vice-president, Mike Pence, to disrupt the counting of electoral votes that showed he lost the 2020 election, escalating calls for the 135-year-old law to be reformed.

I hope this law passes. The voters should decide who gets elected, not politicians. The major changes include:

• Raising the threshold for objection to a state’s electors from one Representative and one Senator to 88 Representatives and 20 Senators – so an objection will only be considered if there is a huge number of legislators who believe there is a legitimate issue
• Setting up a quick judicial oversight process where any disputes goes firstly to a three panel court, with a right of appeal to the US Supreme Court.
• Clarifying that only a Governor can submit a slate of electors
• Clarifying that a “failed election” allowing a new slate of electors can only be triggered if there were “extraordinary and catastrophic events”
• Clarifying beyond doubt the Vice-President does not determine which electors are legitimate

Anyone who thinks the US should be a democracy should support these changes.

Stuff reports:

The Prince of Wales accepted a £1 million payment (about NZ$1.9m) from the family of Osama bin Laden, The Sunday Times can reveal.

Prince Charles secured the money from Bakr bin Laden, the patriarch of the wealthy Saudi family, and his brother Shafiq. Both men are half-brothers of Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda who masterminded the September 11 attacks.

Charles, 73, had a private meeting with Bakr, 76, at Clarence House in London on October 30, 2013, two years after Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan.

The future king agreed to the donation despite the initial objections of advisers at Clarence House and the Prince of Wales Charitable Fund (PWCF), where the money was ultimately deposited.

This is our future King and Head of State!

Here’s what should happen when the Queen dies.

1. NZ automatically becomes a republic with the current Governor-General becoming the NZ Head of State, exercising the same powers as they currently do under delegation.
2. Future Heads of State are appointed by a super-majority of 75% of Parliament for a single five year term. The super-majority will mean no politician is appointed as only someone acceptable to both major parties could be appointed.
3. In the absence of a Head of State, the Chief Justice acts as Head of State

Stuff reports:

Russia has blacklisted 32 more Kiwis – including defence force leaders, mayors, councillors, academics and journalists – in response to what the embassy has described as a “Russophobic agenda”.

The Russian Foreign Ministry-issued statement said those included on the list had been banned from entering Russia on an “indefinite basis” in response to New Zealand government sanctions applied to “an increasing number of Russian citizens”. …

Those banned include Matthew Hooton and Josie Pagani. I’m pretty pissed off that Matthew and Josie make the list, and I missed out.

On the other hand it is hilarious that the Russian Government thinks banning Matthew Hooton from travelling to Russia will persuade the Government to go easier on Russia. If anything, it will have the opposite effect!

The Guardian reports:

New Zealand has been ranked second-worst place in the world to move by immigrants, according to a survey.

The expatriate networking organisation InterNations surveyed nearly 12,000 respondents of 177 different nationalities, living in 181 countries. Respondents were asked how their new homes performed on factors including quality of life, cost of living, safety, financial outlook, bureuacracy, and ease of fitting in.

In a resulting ranking of 52 countries – those for whom there was a large enough sample size – Aotearoa New Zealand ranked in the doldrums, at 51. It was beaten to the bottom by Kuwait.

Australia was ranked ninth best overall – people arriving were far more likely to rate the economy positively, feel that they were fairly compensated for work, or think they had fair working hours.

Hey at least we beat Kuwait!

New Zealand was the worst-performing country in the survey’s personal finance measure: 49% of respondents said their disposable household income was not enough to lead a comfortable life, compared with 28% globally. For general cost of living, 75% rated the country negatively, compared with 35% globally.

I remind people that Labour is planning to impose an extra tax of up to $1,800 a year on working people, so unemployed people can get up to $600 a week for six months in return for not getting a job.

A guest post by Jason Collie:

Grounded Kiwis did a magnificent job winning its court case that the Government breached New Zealanders’ rights by effectively preventing them from freely travelling into their own country with its MIQ set up but a troubling point remains: Are you confident Jacinda et al have learnt their lesson and someone will ultimately stand up for your rights when push comes to shove?

One of the most disturbing patterns with this Government is that it doesn’t apologise nor change its behaviour when it is routinely caught breaching rights/acting unlawfully or illegally/telling untruths (delete as applicable), so surely there must be someone who can just tell Jacinda ‘Stop’?

The courts have been ruling on these breaches but clearly the Government cares little as it carries on its merry way to the next imposition on citizens. So who does that leave?

Ultimately it has to be the Queen or her representative here in Godzone, the Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro. By custom and practice the monarch and her Governors-General do not get involved in politics but if the Government is acting unlawfully against her subjects then legitimately Dame Cindy can put down the cucumber sandwiches and at least ask for a ‘Please Explain’ from her namesake.

As a Kiwi journalist living overseas with a penchant for trying to hold those in power to account I thought I’d test whether Dame Cindy had even the slightest moral fortitude to protect the people who so generously fund her gold-plated position.

Now before the comments section kicks off at the naiveté of this, I went in fully expecting evasion and complete disinterest. But at least causing a bit of official discomfort and watching them dance on the head of a pin would be entertaining enough.

And that’s what I got. Not only did I put the argument to her office that it was appropriate for the GG to at least start asking questions, I also pointed out that the request in New Zealand passports to allow the holder to travel unmolested was from the, errr, Governor-General.

The initial response was predictable – a claim Dame Cindy was not empowered to even show an interest. The second response was where it really got entertaining as her office, in a rather condescending tone, pointed to the Cabinet Manual as proof she could not get involved.

Unfortunately for Dame Cindy the manual then points to the Letters Patent for the GG issued by the Queen and, rather contrary to the claim she was barred from discussing this with our internationally-feted Prime Minister, was the problematic point XVI. It states: “[Ministers] shall furnish Our Governor-General with such information as [s]he may request with respect to any particular matter relating to the Government of Our said Realm.”

Surely the Governor-General diplomatically asking for an explanation might even give Jacinda pause for thought, or at least lay down a paper trail that interest was registered that the Government had acted against its own citizens.

After several weeks of awkward silence came back the excuse that it would be unprecedented for Dame Cindy to act – rather ignoring the inconvenient fact that New Zealanders being barred from returning to their own was also unprecedented.

So the problem for Lame Dame Cindy is: If you won’t act for this Governor-General, when will you act?

While this exercise may have achieved nothing tangible, it at least exposed that the Governor-General (recommended for the post by one J Ardern) will not act to protect you rather than the untrue claim that she cannot.

So that literally just leaves you and me – the people – to peacefully but assertively stand up for our rights and say No every time the Government tries to take its next liberty. Many people, understandably, find ‘making a fuss’ uncomfortable but the past couple of years and Dame Cindy’s wilful disinterest have shown the treasured Kiwi attitude of ‘She’ll be right’ won’t serve you well in the long run.

Jason Collie is a New Zealand journalist working in London.

Bryce WIlkinson writes:

We in the Beehive are aware of some unfounded dissatisfaction amongst the great unwashed.

There are stories of a health system in crisis. This is not so. If it were, we would have told you.

The real emergency is, as everyone knows, climate change. Think not of hospital shortages today. Think instead of all those who are going to drown in 2100 because they did not notice sea-level rise. Subsidies for electric cars are more important than yet more money for hospitals.

There are also stories that the amalgamation of Polytechnics has destroyed their creativity and independence.

This is absurd. Our new structure has at least 21 people with “chief executive” in their titles. The 21 oversee the chief executives of the 16 polytechnics. What chief executive would not welcome such support?

Some are complaining that the top boss is earning $13,000 a week while on ‘special’ leave. That is what we call a fair go for the ordinary bloke. Others can learn from it.

School truancy. Another problem inherited from the other lot. What everyone is missing is how much worse it would be if parents were paying directly for their truant children. Private schools are the pits.

Some are concerned that around 40% of school leavers are barely literate. Will they be able to pay enough in taxes to support our retirement? Perhaps not, but again think of how much worse it would be if parents had greater school choice.

We had to shut down partnership schools because too many parents did not understand that state schools were best. Imagine if we told parents which schools were poor performers. There would be chaotic disruption. People need government to protect them from themselves.

There are stories that people are feeling unsafe in the streets. There are shootings. It is said that police are powerless to prevent reoffending by ten-year olds because of the laws protecting minors. Nor can they do much about hardened criminals given our lenient courts. Our judges even struck out Parliament’s three strikes legislation, before we did. If they do not understand our constitution, who does?

All such complaints are unkind. You are paying for approaching 450,000 public sector employees who wake up each morning thinking only of how they can best help you each day.

Our excellent governance arrangements ensure nothing stands in their way.

Tax is love. Enjoy its fruits.

Martyn Bradbury writes:

Wait – what the fuck?

The Spinoff, Local Elections 2022, up to $160,187 – a dedicated team of writers and contributors to cover the elections throughout the motu.

Very, very quietly, The Spinoff has been awarded $160,187 to cover the Local Elections?

Is this a very sick, very expensive joke?

Look, I love Efeso, we went to Uni together, he’d make an amazing Mayor, but sweet Jesus on a unicycle, how the hell is The Spinoff – who has post after fawning post loving Efeso while having angry post after angry post denouncing Leo getting Taxpayer money to cover the fucking elections?

It’s like giving Cameron Slater $160000 to cover the general election, I mean sure, you could give Cam $160 000, but wouldn’t that just be a donation to the National Party?

The Spinoff have shat repeatedly on Leo – which is fine and dandy, let’s be clear, but you can’t then give them $160 000 to cover the elections, they’ve just shat all over one of the candidates while supporting another.

How the hell is NZ on Air just endlessly shitting gold bullion straight into the mouth of The Spinoff?

Again, no issues with The Spinoff attacking Leo and supporting Fes, that’s not the issue, but you can’t hand over $160 000 to a partisan media outlet and pretend that money is covering local fucking elections!

Despite this wonderfully aiding my mate Fes, this is just so outrageous!

Martyn sums it up well as a sick sick joke. Anyone who thinks fiscally conservative candidates will get fairly treated by The Spinoff is deluded. And that would be fine if they were not getting taxpayer funds, but they are. so it isn’t.

Candice Riley writes:

Shane Te Pou (23 June) reveals himself as another man advocating to undermine fair competition and safety for female athletes under the guise of “inclusion”. Worse he claims ignorance as to the science of physiology and biology of the sexes while also comparing the professionals and experts involved with the FINA decision to the quasi race based science of eugenics.

The NZ Herald’s decision to publish this cannot go unchallenged. As a former elite female athlete who represented New Zealand I am more qualified to comment on the subject of male athletic advantage than Mr Te Pou will ever be.

Candice Riley has represented NZ globally in rowing.

Male athletic advantage begins in the womb and is supercharged by a testosterone based puberty, endowing advantage that cannot be reversed by testosterone suppression later in life. This includes, in general, larger hearts and lungs, greater muscle mass, higher blood oxygenation, skeletal differences, and greater grip strength than comparable female athletes. Women are not small men, we are not men with lower testosterone, we are our own sex.

The last sentence is well made.

Sports categories are by their very nature exclusionary for reasons of fair and meaningful competition and safety with separation usually done by age, sex, and/or weight. Mr Te Pou is not decrying that 30 year old men are excluded from playing 12 year old boys, nor that heavy weight boxers are excluded from the feather weight category. No, it’s just female athletes that he demands should roll over and make space for the opposite sex.

You can have inclusivity or you can have fairness – you can’t have both.

Mr Te Pou claims that FINAs decision not to allow swimmers who have experienced male puberty to compete in elite women’s categories further victimises the most marginalised and oppressed. Let us be clear, a white male Ivy League swimmer born to privilege who could not crack the top 200 when competing in men’s competition but wins a national championship against an silver olympic medalist when“included” in a women’s team is neither marginalised nor oppressed. Nor is a white male weightlifter, child of a multi-millionaire, who displaced a woman of colour from an Olympic spot. All athletes know the benefits that sport provides to peoples’ mental and physical well-being. We all want transgender people to be able to access sport, but it should not be by demanding that women include males in their categories.

FINAs intention to progress the creation of an “open” category is a decision to be applauded, not maligned by the uninformed.

An open category seems sensible.

 It is also one that should be followed by Sport NZ in community sport.

Here I disagree. I think at elite levels you need to ensure fairness, but I think at community (and definitely school) levels the priority should be inclusion.

Thorsteinn Siglaugsson writes:

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Denmark and Sweden took very different approaches. While Denmark imposed mask mandates, closed schools and repeatedly closed so-called “non-essential” businesses, Sweden imposed hardly any all-encompassing restrictions. Lockdown proponents have accused the Swedish authorities of recklessness and claimed their approach has led to an unnecessary death-toll.

But now the numbers are out, and according to two Danish professors, Christian Kanstrup Holm, virologist and professor at the University of Aarhus and Morten Petersen, professor of biology at the University of Copenhagen, in an article in the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende on July 8th, excess mortality in 2020 and 2021 was in fact the same in both countries.

Fascinating.

According to the models used to justify harsher restrictions in Denmark, about 30,000 people were expected to have died, had Sweden’s strategy been followed. But according to the data, the excess mortality in Sweden over the two years was around 6,000 and in Denmark 3,000, which amounts to the same percentage as the Danish population is about half the Swedish. Thus, the models were off by around 90%.

Do you recall being told 80,000 people will die in NZ without restrictions? Same models.

Professor Robert Beaglehole writes:

The Government’s strong support for reducing the harm of cigarettes by promoting vaping has contributed to the unprecedented reduction in smoking rates over the last year. Vaping is the most effective and cheapest available cessation tool; the Ministry of Health provides very helpful vaping information. The increased funding by this Government for mass marketing, supporting community-led initiatives, and controlling the illicit trade is also important.

Vaping is worse than not smoking at all, but it is far far far better than smoking tobacco.

Reducing the sales outlets for cigarettes, and making cigarettes less available than vaping, could be helpful. However, this will only work if the demand for cigarettes responds to the reduced supply. Given the high dependence of smokers on nicotine, we can’t count on a rational response, as shown by attempts to control illicit drugs, alcohol consumption and problem gambling. Policymakers must ensure that a rapid reduction in supply does not worsen inequalities and punish dependent smokers.

I’d say reducing legal outlets for cigarette sales will see a massive increase in illegal outlets.

Reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes to levels where they are no longer addictive or satisfy cravings is, in effect, prohibition and could negatively impact the mental well-being of dependent smokers. There are no real-world experiences with this policy, and its community-wide impact on quitting is unknown.

Prohibition has failed with alcohol, cannabis etc so why anyone thinks it will work with tobacco is beyond me.

An inevitable consequence of all three “game-changing” policy proposals is an increase in the illicit trade in cigarettes, which is already substantial.

Yep.

Michael Shellenberger writes:

Sri Lanka has fallen. On Saturday, thousands of protesters stormed the presidential palace. While the angry and the aggrieved swam in the president’s pool, had a cookout on his lawn, lounged on his bed, and set fire to his residence, the president was spirited away to a naval ship off the Sri Lankan coast. …

The underlying reason for the fall of Sri Lanka is that its leaders—starting with former President Maithripala Sirisena and continuing with his successor, the recently deposed Gotabaya Rajapaksa—fell under the spell of Western green elites peddling organic agriculture and “ESG,” which refers to investments made following supposedly higher Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria. Sri Lanka has a near-perfect ESG score of 98—higher than Sweden (96) and the United States (51).

What does having such a high ESG score mean? In short, it meant that Sri Lanka’s two million farmers were forced to stop using fertilizers and pesticides, laying waste to its critical agricultural sector. (Never mind that Tesla has been booted from the ESG S&P Index, while Exxon Mobil is in the top ten. None of it makes much sense.)

How many stories have you seen in the legacy media about the Green Party policy being implemented in Sri Lanka?

One-third of Sri Lanka’s farm lands were dormant in 2021 due to the fertilizer ban. Over 90 percent of Sri Lanka’s farmers had used chemical fertilizers before they were banned. After they were banned, an astonishing 85 percent experienced crop losses. Rice production fell 20 percent  and prices skyrocketed 50 percent in just six months. Sri Lanka had to import $450 million worth of rice despite having been self-sufficient just months earlier. The price of carrots and tomatoes rose fivefold.

Such misery and poverty all from a single Government decision.

Things were worse for smaller farmers. In the Rajanganaya region, where the majority of farmers operate two-and-a-half-acre lots, families reported 50 percent to 60 percent reductions in their harvest.

No wonder they revolted.

National introduced a target of 95% of ED patients being seen within six hours. This saw the proportion rise from 86% to 95% and then stay in the 93% to 94% range for some years.

Labour came in and scrapped the target. Here’s what happened:

• Sep 2018 89.1%
• Sep 2019 84.8%
• Sep 2020 86.6%
• Sep 2021 80.2%
• May 2022 74%

Note that it dropped well before the pandemic, and has continued to drop during it.

Andrea Vance has written a book called Blue Blood, which has had many extracts from it in the media. I haven’t yet purchased a copy, but plan to. It is about the National Party past John Key.

As always, just because someone says something doesn’t mean it is true. Julie Johnston (Deputy Chief of Staff to Judith Collins) has responded to two claims in the book at Newsroom.

There is no doubt that the problems with the fiscal plan dealt a major blow to the campaign, and I wrote about it at length in my submission to the party’s 2020 election review.

There is only light coverage of the fiscal plan issue in the Vance book but what is said, via an anonymous source, about the timing and origin of the plan, completely misrepresents what actually happened.

Vance pinpoints National’s electric vehicle announcement on September 11, 2020 as a turning point in the campaign and she suggests that it was at this very late stage, that Judith asked for a fiscal plan …

This is totally wrong. The fiscal plan was requested very early in the campaign in late July and early August, well before the EV announcement.

And Julie provides documents to back this up, such as e-mails in early August.

And in relation to the Nick Smith resignation, Julie also notes that the information about media interest in Nick came to a senior staffer from someone who worked with a ex-National staffer who had been involved in the employment investigation, and:

A few weeks after Nick’s resignation, both Richard Harman and Tova O’ Brien, as the most vocal proponents of the “stitch up” or “smoke- out” conspiracy theory, were given the name of the person from the lobby group  who had given the information to the National Leader’s Office staffer.

Tova was told in person by me. Richard was told by a mutual acquaintance. I was told that Richard knew the person from the lobby group. Tova said she didn’t know them. If Richard and Tova genuinely believed the whole thing was a stitch-up, they were given the information to get to the bottom of it.

This information from Julie helps set the record straight.

Stuff reports:

The decade-long debate over whether Christchurch’s Te Kaha stadium goes ahead is now over, but a fight over how to pay for it is just beginning.

After nearly six hours of discussion on Thursday – and listening to Hospitality New Zealand spokesman Peter Morrison courageously sing “Imagine there’s a stadium” to ram home his view – city councillors voted 13-3 to push on with the hotly-debated project.

The budget for the multipurpose, covered stadium will now increase by $150 million. It is set to open in April 2026.

Crusaders chief executive Colin Mansbridge said he was “absolutely stoked” and on the verge of tears after the decision.

Tears of joy that the ratepayers are paying for a stadium, rather than his hugely profitable franchise.

The decision means the stadium budget has jumped from $533m to $683m and the difference will be funded through borrowing, which will take the city closer to its debt limits.

Paying back the debt will also sting Christchurch residents in their rates for 30 years to come.

The cost represents $5,000 per household in Christchurch.

It is going to cost five times as much as the Sky Stadium in Wellington. And that only cost ratepayers $40 million.

The Telegraph reports:

Mr López Obrador, an old friend of Jeremy Corbyn, has employed a radical approach to the relentless wave of cartel violence in his country: “Abrazos, no balazos.” “Hugs, not bullets” is the idea that poverty reduction and social programmes can provide a substitute for the war on drugs. And it is failing.

How amazing it is failing. Who would have guessed it?

Seems to me that slogan could apply to Labour’s law and order policy in New Zealand – “hugs, not bullets”!