Fox News reports:

A British blood donor said he was turned away after refusing to answer a question asking if he was pregnant, citing that he is a man in his 60s, according to reports. 

Leslie Sinclair, 66, told the Daily Mail he has given 125 pints of blood over the past five decades. But on his last trip to a clinic in Stirling, Scotland, he was told to fill out a form that asked if he was expecting a child or had been pregnant in the past six months. 

After noting that he is a male, the clinic staff said they could not accept his blood unless he provided an answer despite a push by officials to attract new blood donors. 

Wokeness strikes again. I guess this means the Pope couldn’t give blood either in case he is pregnant!

On the right sidebar is a counter which shows how many shootings and ram raids there have been since Chris Hipkins became Police Minister. It will be updated regularly.

I strongly encourage people to go to the TV3 website (note need to register) and watch the full interview between Guy Williams and Leo Molloy. I was laughing almost non stop through it.

Leo probably can’t believe his luck that one of the other candidates for Mayor complained about it, as it just resulted in way way more people seeing it.

A copy appears to be on Youtube so have included it below for easy watching.

Anyone who really thinks climate change is an existential threat would not be against nuclear power.

Here is the mean life cycle tonnes of CO2 per GWh:

1. Lignite 1,054
2. Coal 888
3. Oil 733
4. Natural Gas 499
5. Solar 85
6. Biomass 45
7. Nuclear 29
8. Hydro 26
9. Wind 26

Hydro and wind are great but they are weather dependent. Nuclear is almost as low emissions as them, and is not weather dependent.

Brooke van Velden released:

“After capitulating to squatters at Ihumātao, and stopping 480 houses from being built, Labour says it’ll take 6.5 years to figure out what to do with the land,” says ACT Deputy Leader and Housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden.

“The Government made a $29.9 million agreement with taxpayers’ money to buy the land at Ihumātao from Fletcher’s. This is same Government that spent its time in Opposition complaining about the housing crisis, only to do nothing but make it worse when it got into Government.

It has taken them 18 months just to agree who will be on he working group, and the group has five years to recommend a plan. Even by Labour’s standards this is very slow.

The Herald reports:

The National Party says the European Union free trade agreement is a “step forward” but farmers here have “every right” to feel let down as agriculture has been largely left out.

Trade spokesman Todd McClay gave the deal a “6 out of 10”, given major wins for kiwifruit, seafood and Pharmac.

“It is a good agreement. It is a step forward. There are many parts of the economy that will benefit from this. It does allow us to take steps forward with the European Union.”

He said he would not have “walked away”, but would have kept the negotiations going around meat and dairy open.

He also cautioned the wider implications in terms of the precedent it set in negotiations with other countries and the missed opportunity for diversifying further away from China.

It’s probably the best that could be achieved considering how wedded the EU is to protectionism in primary industries.

It is a shame they are, because geopolitically the smartest thing right now would be a giant free trade zone between the EU, US, UK, Australia, NZ, Canada, Japan and South Korea – basically the liberal democratic countries.

By blocking us greater access to EU markets, the EU is leaving us more vulnerable to China. When China does the equivalent of Russia and Ukraine, we will be very painfully exposed. If the EU wants us to stand up for liberal democratic values, they need to help us be less reliant on China.

The results of the first ballot are:

1. Rishi Sunak 88
2. Penny Mordaunt 67
3. Liz Truss 50
4. Kemi Badenoch 40
5. Tom Tugendhat 37
6. Suella Braverman 32
7. Nadhim Zahawi 25
8. Jeremy Hunt 18

So Zahawi and Hunt are out. No candidate got over 25% of the vote so it is pretty open.

You need to get 34% of the vote which is 120 MPs to make the final two. Would be hard to see Sunak not making the final two, so the question is who will make the final two with him. It is almost certain to be a woman.

Stuff reports:

Parliament is set to appoint a new Independent Commissioner into Parliamentary Standards in a bid to improve MP behaviour and accountability.

The newly created commissioner job was recommended by the damning 2019 Francis Review into Parliament’s culture and MP behaviour. The recommendation was adopted by the Parliamentary Service Commission, a cross-party committee that considers the services provided to MPs and parliament.

The new person will be able to “receive, investigate, and resolve complaints about conduct of Members’ of Parliament which do not align with the Behavioural Statements for the Parliamentary Workplace.”

The commissioner will also produce an annual report which will keep a count of complaints and any “systemic issues” in the system.

“This role has been established as part of our commitment to improving the culture of Parliament,” Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard said.

“The nature of Parliament means there are power imbalances here, and we must keep them in check. Establishing this role guarantees another channel through which staff can confidentially raise concerns about members’ conduct.”

The appointment will be made for five years by the speaker on the recommendation of the commission and the party leaders

This seems like a good step forward. The person appointed will be critical to its success.

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.