The High Court has ruled major aspects of the MIQ system were illegal. Readers will recall the Government’s initial lockdown was also illegal, as was one of their vaccine mandates, so in terms of trampling on the Bill of Rights Jacinda has a record.

The court decision includes details of many NZ citizens who suffered massively through MIQ not being fit for purpose.

Some of the findings are:

• It was not an appropriate mechanism where demand significantly exceeded supply and those seeking to access that supply had a fundamental right that was potentially impacted to different degrees. The virtual lobby did not prioritise New Zealand citizens over non-citizens and nor did it prioritise on need or the delay experienced by a citizen.
• The offline emergency process was too tightly constrained to address this deficiency
• The respondents have not shown that a less rights impairing MIQ system was not reasonably available and that would have sufficiently achieved the Government’s public health strategy during the Relevant Period.
• The respondents have not shown why an online system could not have prioritised New Zealand citizens over others or prioritised based on the time period that a person had been seeking to return
• Nor have the respondents demonstrated that wider criteria for offline applications and a corresponding greater number of rooms allocated for those applications were not reasonably available alternatives to the system as it operated.
• The emergency allocation process as it operated was an inadequate method of seeking to ensure that New Zealanders could return if they were facing unreasonable delays or had a need to return that warranted priority.
• The evidence indicates that at least some New Zealanders experienced unreasonable delays in exercising their right to enter
• The combination of the virtual lobby and the narrow emergency criteria operated in a way that meant New Zealanders’ right to enter their country could be infringed in some instances in a manner that was not demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Ministers knew all about these problems and chose not to fix them. It would have been relatively simple to prioritise people based on how long they had been waiting to return. It would have been simple to prioritise NZ citizens over visiting DJs. But they didn;t.

Interesting to look at the current Covid-19 death rates per million capita for the Australian states, and New Zealand. They are:

1. Western Australia 44
2. Tasmania 87
3. ACT 117
4. New Zealand 133
5. Northern Territory 163
6. Queensland 164
7. South Australia 185
8. NSW 332
9. Victoria 434

Some huge differences there. Victoria had long and strict lockdowns but ended with the highest death toll (so far). Western Australia has a rate of around 1/4 of New Zealand and 10% of Victoria.

Stuff reports:

Workers at Hutt City Council’s resource consents team are walking out the door, exhausted and unable to cope with record numbers of applications, a staffer says.

The council has come under fire from developers and planners who say the “broken system”, in which processing times have blown out to nine months, is putting a halt on works and increasing costs.

“The amount of stress and burnout is unreal,” said the employee, who requested anonymity.

The council received a record 650 applications last year – an increase of 50% on the previous year, which has been put down to the relaxation of housing intensification rules and an increase in developer contributions.

The increase was predictable. Of course if you put fees up, there will be more applications before they go up.

The staffer said the consents team had shrunk from 12 staff six months ago to about five. Some of those who left were so desperate to leave they did not secure new jobs before resigning. They expected more would be leaving soon.

So staff are bailing out. A good employer can retain staff by paying them more, or hiring in extra staff or contractors to reduce the load. They can even sub-contract other Councils to handle some consents for them.

The employee said the influx had been anticipated, but no planning or additional resources were put in place to cope.

So it is a failure of governance and management.

Planning consultant Dr David Batchelor​ raised concerns over the council’s application of the discounts.

Correspondence between Batchelor and a member of the planning team shows the council initially declining to apply the late discount to additional charges invoiced to one of his clients. After citing sections of the RMA to the staffer, the council, after consulting a legal advisor, later agreed the discount should be applied to those charges.

The Council is legally obligated to discount the fees for late consents. An applicant shouldn’t have to argue and persuade the Council to do what the law says.

Two former Labour MPs have their say. First Richard Prebble:

Last week only one issue was so urgent that a select committee needed to meet in Parliament’s recess. The Māori Affairs Select Committee met to consider the Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangement) Bill. The purpose of the bill is to reduce the value of my vote.

The bill proposes, among other things, to create a Māori ward and a general ward both electing three councillors. There are 21,700 voters on the Māori roll and 55,600 voters on the general roll. My vote will be worth 39 per cent of a vote in the Māori ward.

It might be the first time in the last 100 years that Parliament has voted for a bill to reduce the value of the vote of a segment of the population. Rotorua already has three Maori seats mandated for them – this bill is about reducing the power of those on the general roll.

Parliament regards just six provisions as so important for democracy that they can be only changed by the vote of 75 per cent in parliament or by a majority in a referendum. One such provision is clause 36 of the Electoral Act that guarantees everyone, regardless of race, has an equal vote.

This is an important point. At a national level equality of suffrage is deemed so vital, nothing less than 75% of Parliament can change it. But at a local level, Labour and Greens can end it within a few weeks.

The mayor is ignoring no taxation without representation. The general roll voters provide most of the council’s rates. Why should we pay rates if we do not get an equal say in how our rates are spent?

And this is one problem with ending equality of suffrage – a minority will get to determine how much tax the majority must pay.

And Shane Jones:

In short, this Bill proposes to circumvent the Local Government Act and ditch the principle of one person one vote. According to the council, there are 21,700 voters on the Māori roll and 55,600 on the general roll in their boundaries. It is proposed that the former will elect three members from a Māori ward and the latter will elect three members from a general ward onto the council. Do the math yourself, it’s a definite ethnic gerrymander.

That’s a good term for it.

This local Bill must have been discussed and approved by the Labour Party caucus. There is no constitutional duty on a political party to rubber-stamp local bills – certainly not one this contentious. The Rotorua council was deeply divided over this Bill. It should never have got onto the floor of our House of Representatives. It seeks to weaken the very principles that legitimise the existence of MPs.

This is a key point. Labour discussed this bill in caucus. They knew it ends equality of suffrage in New Zealand, and they all voted for it. They could have voted it down at first reading.

Stuff reports:

A $7.7 million initiative to make Wellington’s central city safer appears to be failing to curb crime.

Two men were shot and critically injured opposite Te Aro Park on Dixon St in the early hours of Saturday. It sparked a retaliatory shooting at an occupied home in Tawa – part of ongoing gang tensions between the Mongrel Mob and the King Cobras.

Te Aro Park attracted so much crime it was one of the locations that inspired the Wellington City Council, police, and other agencies to in 2021 launch the Pōneke Promise – an initiative to improve safety through measures such as lighting, laneway improvements and a new community hub.

Police and the council were asked for any evidence the promise was working. Data from the police website for central Wellington between March 2021 and March 2022 – and the same period one year earlier – shows a small drop in assaults, robberies and burglaries, but small increases in sexual assaults and thefts.

So $8 million spend and no decrease in crime.

Wellington City councillor Diane Calvert said the promise had failed and people were avoiding the area.

The proliferation of emergency housing in the area was part of the issue and the Pōneke Promise was just putting a plaster on the problem, she said.

“People currently don’t feel safe to walk, shop and visit, let alone cycle.”

It is impossible to ignore the impact of the emergency housing in the CBD.

Councillor Jill Day said the council working with other agencies could only strengthen the response to the “very serious issue” of safety in the city.

“This sort of change takes time, but I am confident that the Pōneke Promise is focused on delivering the change that is needed to make the central city safer.”

But councillor Tamatha Paul said the promise needed more resourcing. Health-based, compassionate responses were always worth the investment, she said.

So Cr Calvert accurately points put the problem, while Cr Day gives platitudes and Cr Paul thinks we need to spend more on being compassionate to gang members.

Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons agreed: “The language of blame and failure will not solve these problems. The solution lies in improving education, ending poverty and the work of the Pōneke Promise.”

Cr Fitzsimons also goes for platitudes and blames it all on poverty. By this logic poverty must have skyrocketed since 2017, as crime in the CBD has.

Councillor Sean Rush said the agencies involved “can only do so much” and described the safety issues as “a failure of government policy”.

“Housing gangs in the CBD does not fix homelessness. We have to deal with government policy that invites them into the very heart of where our most at risk young people are.”

Cr Rush correctly works out the problem.

Stuff reports:

Billionaire Elon Musk tweeted “Yesss!!!” after Twitter’s board approved his US$44 billion (NZ$66 billion) acquisition of the social media company, and has said he will revitalise the world’s “digital town square”.

Musk says he intends to make Twitter “better than ever”, while saying the platform has “tremendous potential”.

He intends to enhance the product with new features, including making the algorithms open source, defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans.

This is potentially very exciting, especially the publishing of the algorithm. It will allow us to see exactly how Twitter works.

The outspoken Tesla CEO, the world’s wealthiest person, has said he wanted to buy Twitter because he thinks it’s not living up to its potential as a platform for “free speech.” He says it needs to be transformed as a private company in order to build trust with users and do better at serving what he calls the “societal imperative” of free speech.

This basically came about because Twitter suspended the satirical Babylon Bee from Twitter because of their satirical story announcing Rachel Levine as Man of the Year. So because some employee at Twitter decided to suspend the Babylon Bee, Musk purchased the entire company!

Musk has described himself as a “free-speech absolutist” but is also known for blocking or disparaging other Twitter users who question or disagree with him.

There is no contradiction there. Sad the journalist thinks there is.

A guest post by Louis Holbrooke:

A survey by Today FM has ranked Hōne Heke as the second greatest New Zealander of all time, behind Sir Edmund Hillary.

Heke’s ranking is well-warranted. He iconically cut down the British flag at Kororāreka (Russell) three times, a rebellion that has become a cornerstone of our national history. However few New Zealanders are aware of what specifically motivated the famous warrior.

Hone Heke was an anti-tax campaigner. In 1841 he was angered by the new Government’s introduction of tariffs on tea, sugar, flour, grain, spirits, tobacco, and all other foreign goods. As James Cowan writes in The New Zealand Wars (1922):

And when the storekeeper had passed on the increases to his customers, with no doubt a considerable extra margin of profit for the Maori trade, the warrior [Heke] who came in to renew his supply of whin, or twist tobacco, to purchase a new blanket or a musket, or to lay by a store of lead for moulding into bullets, received the clearest proof that the Treaty which he had signed had not improved his condition of life.

Moreover, Heke was inspired to rebellion by the way America had responded to British-imposed taxes with full-blown revolution:

[US Consul] Mayhew had helped to instil into the minds of Pomare and Heke a dislike to the British flag, consequent on the imposition of Customs duties. From him and other Americans the discontented chief had heard of the successful revolt of the American colonies against England, and the lesson was not forgotten; he burned to do likewise.

Heke went so far as to fly the American flag as a symbol of his anti-tax, anti-colonial crusade – an image that tends to be excluded from modern illustrations of Heke’s protest.

From [former US Consul] Smith he obtained an American ensign, and paddled on to Kororareka; and when the flagstaff fell to a Ngapuhi axe for a second time up went the foreign colour on the carved sternpost of Heke’s war-canoe. The warrior crew paraded the harbour, their kai-hauta, or fugleman, yelling a battle-song, Heke at the steering-paddle, the American flag over his head.

Heke’s anti-tax rebellion wasn’t just provocative – it was effective. In exchange for Ngapuhi surrendering a token number of muskets and Heke offering to erect a new flag mast, the Government declared the Bay of Islands a free port, and abolished all customs duties.

The truth of Hōne Heke’s rebellion deserves to be more widely-known. His story was the beginning of a proud lineage of anti-tax protest that is today carried on by the Taxpayers’ Union (even if we prefer to use arguments over axes). So congratulations to Hōne Heke for rightfully being recognised as one of the greatest New Zealanders. If it were up to us, he might even be ranked number one. How many taxes did Sir Ed cut, after all?

Enter your captions below. As always, funny, not nasty.

Kevin Norquay writes:

We all know them: “friends” who say they have your best interests at heart, then run off with your girlfriend, dive into your fridge and quaff the champagne you were saving for your wedding anniversary, or tell you they know someone dying of the very disease you have.

If you respond with annoyance at such betrayal or absence of feeling, you’re the problem, not them.

“What is it with you man? She wasn’t right for you, I did you a favour,” or, “alcohol is bad for you, jeez” or simply a forlorn head shake that implies you’d best hurry off and get your affairs in order.

Which brings us cheerfully to our friendly “be kind”, “listen to the science”, “we’re so transparent” Ardern-Robertson government, which seems to be now acting like a “friend” who would like you to look the other way, so it can get on with what’s good for it, such as getting re-elected.

A great analogy – they are the friend who screws you over and then can’t understand why you are not grateful to them for it!

In 1863, US President Abraham Lincoln called democracy “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. In 2022 NZ, it’s starting to look more like “of the people, by the party, for the party.”

How else to explain health officials in November telling the Government MIQ was “no longer justified”, yet having the Government keep inbound MIQ in place for another 15 weeks, then trying to avoid releasing the details publicly?

“Listening to the science” now carries a taint, as decisions made could be seen as party political, rather than public health related.

It’s an erosion of trust. Why cover up things that are supposedly done in our best interest?

They fought to keep it hidden for four months.

Robertson echoed that, adding: “I continue to believe MIQ did a significant job in keeping New Zealanders safe and in saving lives.”

There’s that “friend” again, telling us all the secrecy was for our own good. Whether MIQ did a good job is not the point here, it’s when that good job might have ended.

You could argue “we listen to the science” remains accurate, with the coda “but our decisions are based on the politics”, but transparency was always a fiction written boldly on a blocking PR wall.

What’s the next slogan: “You’ve got to be cruel to Be Kind?”

I think their next slogan is “We’re tweaking democracy”

As once again war has broken out in Europe, we recall all those New Zealanders who gave their lives in previous conflicts. We shall not forget them.

Gallup has calculated the average approval rating for Presidents in their 5th quarter of office. They are:

1. Bush GW 79.5%
2. Kennedy 78.0%
3. Bush GHW 70.5%
4. Eisenhower 67.8%
5. Nixon 56.6%
6. Clinton 52.1%
7. Obama 48.8%
8. Carter 48.0%
9. Reagan 46.3%
10. Biden 41.3%
11. Trump 39.1%

I expect this may drop even more as cost of living bites there also.

Josie Pagani wrote:

It’s a good time to be thief. The police appear to have legalised stealing by ignoring it. But God help you if you drive at 57kph in a 50km zone.

My daughter is a university student. The single largest asset she owns is her scooter, which she uses to ride to campus and her part-time jobs.

A couple of weeks ago she locked it up on the street while she sat an exam. Someone tried to steal it. Unable to break the steering lock, the thieves ripped off plastic moulding and cut wiring to hotwire it. They were interrupted by a security guard, who also filmed them.

When my daughter emerged, the scooter was an unusable mess. Call the cops: Too busy. They told her to visit a website, and upload details and the video. No fingerprint dusting. No-one came to check if the thieves were still around. It was dark. She was alone.

A few days later she got an email from the police. They were closing the case. They hadn’t even watched the video of red-handed robbers.

The only way they could be caught now is if they turned up at the cop shop and said, ‘’’We did it guv’. We’re turning ourselves in.’’

The police have decided not to enforce section 226(2) of the Crimes Act 1961, which provides for up to two years in the clink for attempting to nick a vehicle (and seven years for actually pinching one).

Parliament imposed tough penalties. It meant these crimes to be serious. So consider the constitutional consequences of the police deciding to overrule Parliament. If the police are wrong in their judgments about which crimes to enforce, then there is no way for the rest of us to bring about justice.

While the police were too busy to attend the fresh scene of the scooter crime, I was driving up Transmission Gully.

Police cars seemed to be waiting, menacingly, every couple of kilometres. Elsewhere, one of my family got a ticket for driving in an empty bus lane.

Road rules are rules, but who decided that bus lanes and doing 110 on a brand new motorway are a higher priority than robbery?

A very good question.

The second round of the French Presidential election is this weekend, and it looks like Macron shoukd win by around 55% to 45% for Le Pen.

There have been 76 polls in April, and Macron has led in 75 of them, including the last 60.

If Putin had not invaded Ukraine, then I suspect it would be much closer.

Kris Faafoi has announced:

The Minister for Broadcasting and Media has confirmed the nine-member Establishment Board to lead the work on creating a new public media entity in New Zealand. …

The Establishment Board is: Tracey Martin (Chair), Michael Anderson, Andy Coupe, Barbara Dreaver, Bailey Mackey, Dr Jim Mather, Peter Parussini, John Quirk and Aliesha Staples.

A former MP should not be on the board of a public broadcaster, let alone chairing it. This is another nail in the coffin for trust in media.

I’d like to see all future appointments to boards of public broadcasters and NZ on Air to be made non-partisan by requiring them to have the agreement of the leader of the opposition. If National wins the election, I hope they do this.

Inflation is at a 32 year high, and the Government’s response to this is going to include cutting the take home pay of every working family in New Zealand.

Yes they are bringing in a new tax, which will see both employers and employees pay 1.4% of their income to the Government, so that people made redundant can spent eight months not working or looking for a job.

So just as hundreds of thousands of Kiwi families are trying to cope with everything costing 7% more, the Government is going to reduce their take home pay for the average family by another $100 a month.

Crazy.

The Attorney-General has reported on whether the Rotorua bill ending equality of suffrage breaches the Bill of Rights Act, and has concluded it does. Some extracts:

In a representative democracy, it is important to maintain approximately the same level of representation for everyone. The proposed arrangements in the Bill would make the number of council members for the Māori ward disproportionately higher than the number of council members for the general ward in comparison to their respective populations. As the disadvantaged group is those on the General roll, changing representation arrangements away from proportional representation therefore creates a disadvantage for non-Māori as they cannot in future elect to change rolls.

So the official word is the bill will discriminate against non-Māori.

This proposed arrangement detracts from the key constitutional principle of equal representation in a representative democracy. I consider that there must be strong reasons to depart from this fundamental constitutional principle and, accordingly, to justify the limit on the right to freedom from discrimination. Departures from the Local Electoral Act may also have broader constitutional impacts and need to be carefully considered. Arrangements like these, if replicated across other local bodies could result in significant impacts,  which may be better considered in full by central government and Parliament.

Indeed, a major constitutional change should not be done by way of an obscure local bill.

For the above reasons, I have concluded the Bill appears to limit the right to be free from discrimination affirmed in s 19 of the Bill of Rights Act and cannot be justified under s 5 of that Act.

Of course this advice is not binding. The AG actually voted for the bill at first reading.

Radio NZ reported:

Women make up about 90 percent of those who lost jobs during the pandemic, while many shouldered heavy economic, emotional or care-giving burdens. …

Mirroring these trends, women in Aotearoa New Zealand faced greater economic, social and health challenges than men.

In 2020, women made up 90 percent of pandemic-related redundancies.

I recall hearing that 90% figure before, but off memory it may have just been referring to one quarter or so.

The HLFS data shows that in 2020 the number of men in jobs rose by 15,000 or 1.0% and the number of women in jobs rose by 2,000 or 0.2%. So at the end of 2020 more women were in jobs.

In 2021 a further 35,000 men were in jobs and 66,000 women.

So compared to the end of 2019, there are today 3.5% more men in jobs and 5.3% more women in jobs.

An interesting analysis by Simon Bazelon:

Between those two factors, it’s reasonable to assume that Democrats are looking at a vote share between 47% and 48.5% this cycle. This means Republicans will probably win the generic ballot by between three and six percent, and the median scenario is probably Republicans winning by around 4.5%. Since Joe Biden won by 4.5% in 2020, this would mean that the national environment has shifted 9 percentage points to the right.

Assume, for a moment, that there is zero ticket-splitting, and this swing is uniform across all elections. This would mean any Democrat in a state that Biden won by less than 9% will probably lose. That includes:

• Mark Kelly in Arizona (Biden +0.3)
• Raphael Warnock in Georgia (Biden +0.2)
• Catherine Cortez-Masto in Nevada (Biden +2.4)
• Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire (Biden +7.4)

So this would reduce Democrats to 46 or 47 seats. But the real nightmare is 2024.

Since the Reagan Era, Democrats have averaged roughly 51% of the two-party vote in Presidential elections. If Biden gets this percentage of the vote, and the correlation between the Senate and presidential vote stays at close to .95 (as it was in 2020), then basically every Democratic senator in a state Biden won by less than 2% who is up in 2024 is likely to lose. 

That includes:

• Jon Tester in Montana (Biden -16.3)
• Joe Manchin in West Virginia (Biden -29.9)
• Sherrod Brown in Ohio (Biden -8)
• Bob Casey in Pennsylvania (Biden +1.2)
• Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin (Biden +0.7)
• Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona (Biden +0.3)

In addition, Debbie Stabenow in Michigan (Biden +2.8) and Jackie Rosen in Nevada (Biden +2.4) would likely be in toss-up races.

So what this says is that even if Biden wins 51% of the vote in 2024, the Democrats are likely to only hold 41 seats, maybe as few as 38.