Much of the focus around Three Waters has been the co-governance of the regional entities that effectively will appoint the boards of the four proposed water companies. But Graham Adams reports there is more to it than that:

According to Cranmer’s analysis, a direct and unbreakable chain of command flows from the Māori Advisory Group via Taumata Arowai to control the four new Water Services Entities (WSEs).

The WSEs control the day-to-day management of the operations of Three Waters. We have been repeatedly told they will be completely independent, working at arm’s length from the higher echelons of the complicated water bureaucracy.

However, it is made clear in legislation that the water regulator Taumata Arowai has to jump when the Māori Advisory Group says jump. When it — and Tipa as chairperson — speaks, Taumata Arowai has a statutory obligation to listen and act on that advice.

And the clincher is that Taumata Arowai directly regulates the Water Services Entities. In short, if Tipa Mahuta chooses, she can — as chair of the Māori Advisory Group — call the shots throughout each level of water management.

So the Minister’s sister is appointed to chair a group that the industry regulator must pay heed to.

And what role or powers does the Māori Advisory Group have? It has statutory powers to advise the board of Taumata Arowai on Māori interests and, per s17(3) [of Taumata Arowai — the Water Services Regulator Act], the board must have regard for that advice and must demonstrate in its annual report how it’s had regard.

So the board of Taumata Arowai ignores Tipa at its peril. And good luck to the Water Services Entities if they don’t comply with its regulator, Taumata Arowai.

 And, anyway, if Tipa isn’t getting her way, she can always call her sister, the Minister of Local Government.

The above is a quote from Thomas Cranmer on Twitter. The statutory direction to the regulator that it must follow or have regard to the advice from he Maori Advisory Group, and demonstrate that it has done so gives immense power to the group – chaired by the Minister’s sister.

For instance, the Water Services Entities Bill, introduced by Mahuta in early June, gives mana whenua whose territory includes “a freshwater body in the service area of a Water Services Entity” the right to provide that entity with “a Te Mana o te Wai statement for water services”.

This statement can be provided “by an individual iwi or hapū, or by a group of iwi or hapū”. It can be summarily ditched and a new statement provided at any time.

So the water companies must follow the statements prepared by Iwi, and if they don’t:

So there is no ‘co-governance’ at the operating level. [But] WSEs need to follow Te Mana o te Wai statements prepared by iwi — and the regulator charged with ensuring compliance is the minister’s sister, Tipa.

These are issues worthy of debate.

Stuff reports:

Wellington mayoral candidate Paul Eagle’s lawyer has asked Wellington City Council to retract its statements claiming he is breaching election policy by advertising his campaign.

More digital billboards have popped up around the capital this week, after the first batch caused confusion online last Monday, the day Eagle announced he was running for the mayoralty. Twitter users questioned their legality as they fell outside the permitted election advertising period.

Wellington City Council spokesperson Richard MacLean said displaying the signs before August 27 went against council policy – but as the signs were on private property, there wasn’t anything the council could do.

This is entirely wrong. The policy applies to signs on private property. What it doesn’t apply to is commercial billboards. It applies to temporary signs of under three square metres.

Eagle said other candidates had in previous years advertised early without problems, to which MacLean said in this case “we’ve received a lot of heat [from the public] so we feel compelled to act”.

This is an appalling admission. They’re saying they demanded a candidate take down signs that were 100% legal, because people on Twitter complained about them. The job of Council staff and electoral officials is to enforce the rules fairly and impartially, not to smear a candidate because of complaints on Twitter.

Eagle’s campaign spokesperson Georgina Stylianou said on Friday afternoon, the electoral officer contracted by the WCC confirmed to Eagle’s lawyers that there is no legal basis for him, or the WCC, to require the campaign advertising to be taken down.

Angry people on Twitter is not a legal basis. I’m amazed WCC don’t realise this.

Stuff reports:

When Phillip James Williams crashed his red Ford Falcon into a power pole at a speed of at least 112kph, he did so to try “to get rid of” his partner.

After she had been flung about 13 metres from the vehicle, she woke up on the crash scene screaming and realised Williams seemed disappointed she had survived.

Williams, 36, was sentenced to nine years of imprisonment in the High Court in Christchurch on Wednesday after he had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, two counts of assault, and impaired driving causing injury.

Because Williams received his second strike warning for his latest offending, he will serve his full sentence without the possibility of earlier release on parole. Williams has 48 prior convictions.

Thanks to three strikes, Williams is locked up for nine years. Labour is changing the law so that he will be eligible for parole after just three years. He has 48 previous convictions, yet they think he just needs another chance!

Experts had found Williams was at high risk of intimate partner offending. This was not the first time he had been violent towards a partner. In 2017, he was convicted of kidnapping, threatening to kill and assault after he had threatened to drive his partner at the time off a cliff at 120kph. She managed to escape.

Sooner or later he will probably kill someone.

Stuff reports:

The Wellington branch of the NZ Law Society has voted to pursue a motion that would see an international jurist look into the conduct of NZ judges and judicial independence.

Wellington branch president Christopher Griggs said about 40-50 members met for the branch’s annual meeting on Wednesday evening and voted “by a significant majority” in favour of presenting two motions to the council of the NZ Law Society at its next meeting in October.

Both motions concerned a memorandum written by legal luminaries including Sir Geoffrey Palmer, several QCs and various law professors to address concerns raised in the “Moana” case.

I’m heartened to see Wellington lawyers at least think judicial independence is worth fighting for.

The conduct in question involved Family Court Judge Peter Callinicos being contacted by Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu and Principal Family Court Judge Jackie Moran in relation to the part-heard “Moana” case. They contacted Callinicos after being contacted by the then-chief executive of Oranga Tamariki, Sir Wira Gardiner who claimed Callinicos had “bullied” Oranga Tamariki staff.

The committee found the actions of the senior judges “highly unconventional” and said private meetings between Heads of Bench and a party to a current proceeding “undermines the separation of powers and independence of the judiciary” and “has the potential to undermine public confidence in the judicial system”.

You have a powerful party (the Government) in a court case which is going terribly badly for them having private meetings with the heads of bench to try and pressure the Judge to change how he manages the case. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

As a result of that vote, the Wellington branch will present its motion to the national body seeking the adoption and implementation of recommendations made in the memorandum, and to direct the president Jacque​ Lethbridge to write to the Attorney-General requesting him to advise the Governor General, Dame Cindy Kiro, “to appoint a current or retired senior jurist [a judge, lawyer or academic] from a common law jurisdiction outside of New Zealand, to inquire into, and if appropriate make recommendations upon, the matters raised in the Rule of Law Committee memorandum”.

That would be a great way forward. The heads of benches are compromised on this issue. The Chief Justice is compromised. A senior international jurist would be an excellent idea.

One News reports:

Checks weren’t done on Matthew Tukaki’s resume before he was appointed to a key Government role.

And in the same week he was appointed to Director of the Suicide Prevention Office, 1News can exclusively reveal his CV holds inconsistencies.

Just over five years ago, Tukaki came home from Australia with claims of an extraordinary career, claiming he held down a role with the United Nations (UN) and led Drake International through the global financial crisis (GFC).

Back in New Zealand, he became the Māori spokesman on just about everything, and has taken on a number of Government roles.

That includes chairing an advisory board to turn around the maligned ministry, Oranga Tamariki, being a director for the Workforce Development Council for the Tertiary Education Commission, and this week he was appointed as the Director of the Suicide Prevention Office.

The circumstances surrounding Tukaki’s departure at the UN are disputed.

In his Māori Council bio, Tukaki claimed he was directly appointed to the global entity by the then Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to sit as a member of the institution’s governing board. According to Tukaki, he undertook the position for over three years.

A UN spokesperson said it was an elected position, not an appointment by the Secretary General, and one which he held for less than a year.

“He then had to resign the role of Local Network Representative when he was asked to step off the [Global Compact Network Australia] Board for an alleged serious breach of Director’s Duties, including misrepresenting himself at meetings with the Australian Government.”

Tukaki disagrees with the spokesperson’s representation of his departure.

“First of all, we were appointed by Ban Ki Moon in a press release on the sixth of May of 2013. And you’ve got to understand the process of election, I was elected. I’m very proud of that.

Just because you get mentioned in a press release doesn’t mean you are the personal appointee of the Secretary-General.

I could play that game. Back in the 2000s the UN set up a “Secretary-General’s Working Group on Youth Unemployment”. Various global youth groups were asked to nominate reps to it. For a meeting in Beijing I was asked to attend on behalf of the International Young Democratic Union and an obscure parliamentary staffer called Jacinda Ardern was due to attend on behalf of the International Union of Socialist Youth. We were both on their respective boards. Now never in a million years would I suggest that I was personally appointed by the UN Secretary-General. He wouldn’t know me from a block of cheese.

In various places, including on LinkedIn, his biography for the Māori Council, and the information he presented to the Tertiary Education Commission, Tukaki described leading Drake International through the GFC, and holding power of attorney for the Southern Hemisphere at the recruitment company.

A spokesperson for Drake International rebuffed Tukaki’s description.

They say he worked there for a year between 2007 and 2008, and a further month in 2010, and that his title in their records in Australia was ‘General Manager, Government and Public Sector’.

A further top source at the company said Tukaki “overstated” the scope of his employment. When queried whether Tukaki had led the company through the GFC, the short response was, “not at all”.

Good reporting by TVNZ, but I should point out Cactus Kate actually exposed this claim over 14 months ago in May 2021.

Tukaki was never asked for a CV when charged with turning the organisation around and being paid a rate of $1000 a day, on the taxpayer dime.

There was no requirement to check Tukaki’s employment history, says the Minister for Children, Kelvin Davis.

He was well-known and had previously been appointed to Government positions, Davis says.

“So we just trusted in what they had done, and I’d heard about the stuff he’d done apparently overseas.

There’s two issues here. One is that Tukaki had massively exaggerated his CV – say an 8.5/10 on the Golriz scale.

The second is that he got appointed to senior government roles without a reference or employment check. Kelvin says there was no need as they knew him. You’d get sacked in the private sector for that.

Tukaki is of course a very vocal critic of National and ACT. Maybe that was the only reference checking they decided was needed?

The 2021 Residents Survey in Wellington was a terrible terrible results with less than 1 in 5 Wellingtonians happy with the Council. I thought that was rock bottom, but no they have managed to go even lower so now barely 1 in 10 Wellingtonians are happy with them.

The 2022 survey is here.

• Net satisfaction with Council decision making has dropped from +3% in 2019 to -40% in 2022 (12% satisfied, 52% dissatisfied)
• City Centre is lively and attractive has dropped from 88% in 2017 to 43% in 2022
• Ease of cycling has dropped 37% in 2017 to 17% today
• Feeling safe in the CBD after dark has fallen from 76% in 2019 to 45% in 2022
• Belief WCC makes decisions that are in best interest of Wellington down from 50% in 2017 to 17% in 2022

Wellington needs change.

Labour would have you believe our high inflation is all due to international factors. But the reality is that Labour’s own policies are contributing to inflation and tighter household incomes. Have a look at the PM’s speech in January.

• New requirements for rental properties pushes up rents and hence inflation
• The car feebate scheme pushes up the costs of most cars and hence inflation
• The ban on gas exploration has pushed up electricity costs (we now have to import coal more) and hence inflation
• The immigration restrictions pushes up costs for employers unable to recruit and hence inflation
• The Fair Pay Agreements will push up staff costs for entire industries and hence inflation
• The unemployment insurance scheme will see after tax wages drop by up to $1,800 a year

And that is before one even looks into the macro impact of borrowing and printing billions of dollars to fund their overall spending.

The Court of Appeal recently ruled in a case about:

This appeal concerns a decision by the Chief Ombudsman under s 28A of the Ombudsmen Act 1975 refusing permission for a private dispute resolution service to use “ombudsman” in its name. Without that permission, it is unlawful to use the ombudsman name in connection with any business, or the provision of any service.
The appellant is Financial Services Complaints Limited (FSCL). FSCL’s dispute resolution scheme is approved under the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008 (FSP Act). Two other such schemes have permission to use the ombudsman name in connection with their schemes. FSCL wishes to do likewise.

We trust on the Ombudsman to be the fair neutral party holding the Government to account. But in this case they were found to have acted very badly.

The summary is:

• FSCL applied in 2015
• Then Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem refused permission in 2015 and FSCL applied to judicially review this decision
• FSCL applied again in 2016 to new Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier. He refused in 2016
• The Court of Appeal in 2018 found that refusal was unjustified and directed him to reconsider
• In 2019 he again refused and the High Court then set that decision aside as pre-meditated and ordered it be reconsidered by someone delegated by the Chief Ombudsman

The Court of Appeal found:

• We conclude that there is no objectively supportable basis for the Chief Ombudsman’s view that allowing FSCL to use the ombudsman name would lead to such confusion in the mind of the public and to undermine the office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman
• We have reached the point that, in our view, there was no objectively reliable basis for the Chief Ombudsman’s final decision.
• As there were no factors that, objectively, justified refusing FSCL’s application, the discretion to refuse permission was only of the most residual kind. We consider that the only lawful decision the Chief Ombudsman could have made was to grant FSCL the permission it sought.

Why this is important is that the Court of Appeal found the Chief Ombudsman didn’t decide this issue fairly. The decision was predetermined. And the role of the Chief Ombudsman is to make sure the Government doesn’t predetermine things and treats people fairly. So there is an obvious loss of confidence following this ruling.

A guest post by Sean Devine:

Free speech is only a means to an end.  The end is for the people, as far as is possible, to know what is going on. Where this does not happen, so-called free speech ends up to be the right of the powerful to control the great unwashed.

The fact that the FBI and the powerful US institutions, by claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, suppressed the right of the people to know.  The fact that trusted institutions could do this is a far more serious threat to a democracy than anything Hunter Biden might have done.

So too, with Ukraine.  Until February, I was a signed-up member of “The Russians are to blame” brigade.  But as the Russian threat grew, I tried to find out what was going on. What I found was that I, and people like me, were completely misinformed.

I discovered that the East of Ukraine did not accept the 2014 US supported coup against the last Ukrainian democratically elected President, even if he was naive.  This seemed to me no different from Taiwan rejecting the Revolutionary Government of China.  Russia annexed Crimea, but Ukraine initiated a civil war against the rest of the East.  Not unreasonably, the Eastern states wanted a Federal structure within Ukraine.  The US weaponized West Ukraine while Russia weaponized the East leading to an 8-year civil war.

I had not heard of the Minsk peace agreements.  In 2015, the Federalists and the West Ukrainian Government, agreed to a ceasefire and a peace settlement known as the Minsk II.  This was sponsored by France and Germany, supported by Russia and the UN. I found out that the 8-year civil war that killed more than 14,000, was still going on in 2022, and that West Ukraine made no effort to implement the Minsk agreement.

In February this year, President Macron of France, seeing the danger of war, called for the implementation of Minsk II, but President Zelensky was not interested. Russia inevitably invaded.  In March, Denis Kireev, a Ukrainian delegate to the initial peace talks in Belarus, was assassinated on his return.  Vlolodymy Struk, the mayor of Kreminna, was also assassinated. In both these cases, no formal investigation occurred, suggesting the Ukrainian government was not an open, democratic one.

By late March, as Russia took control of East Ukrainian territory, peace seemed possible within the agreed Istanbul framework.  Putin and Zelensky had even agreed to a joint signing.  But, at the end of March, President Zelensky, presumably with US and UK support, walked away from any agreement.

As Russia continued fighting, the West, by controlling the information flow, has been able to transfer all blame to Russia, implementing tough sanctions.  These, by putting the global economy at risk, make famine in poorer parts of the world inevitable.

As it is unlikely that Russia trusts Zelensky and the Western leaders, unless diplomacy can prevail, the most likely outcome is that everyone will lose.  The less we know about what is happening, the greater that loss will be, particularly for the poor Ukrainians caught in the middle of the war.

Without the freedom to know, we will be unable to counter threats that our global society faces.  

A number of media outlets have written about government contracts that have gone to members of the Mahuta family.

The Platform reports in detail. It ranges from her sister being appointed to numerous boards to a five person waste strategy working group having no fewer than three Mahuta family members on it.

I should make clear that I don’t think this is a story about any wrong doing on the part of Nanaia Mahuta. The analogy I would use is that this is more a Hunter Biden situation. Joe Biden did nothing to help Hunter Biden gain board appointments, yet it is obvious that Hunter was appointed to roles he had no expertise for, because of his family connection. Hunter Biden was appointed to the boards of a Ukrainian energy company and a Chinese investment company.

Of course having a Minister as a family member should not be a bar to receiving Government appointments. What you have to look at is whether they are roles they would have gained anyway. Sir Wira Gardiner was appointed to many roles by both National and Labour Governments. But these started long before he married Hekia Parata. Denese Henare was appointed a Judge, but no one thinks this is because she was married to Wayne Mapp. Apryll Parata was appointed a second level manager at the Ministry of Education when her sister was Minister. But Parata had a long career in education. Interestingly the appointment of Apryll Parata was criticised by no less than Nanaia Mahuta.

But this is very different to three out of five members of a government working group all being members of the same family. I can’t recall that ever happening. And the process used was very non-transparent. Were these family members regularly gaining Government contracts before Mahuta was made a Minister would be a key question?

They were paid $90,000 for their work on waste strategy. Were there no other waste experts in New Zealand that three of the five members had to come from the same family?

News from Finland:

Finland’s Green Party (Vihreät De Gröna) has voted by a large majority at its party conference to adopt a pro-nuclear approach. The party manifesto now states that nuclear is “sustainable energy” and demands the reform of current energy legislation to streamline the approval process for small modular reactors (SMRs). Finland’s is the first Green Party to adopt such a position.

“This is a historical moment in the history of the green movement, as we are the first green party in the world to officially let go of anti-nuclearism,” said Tea Törmänen, who attended the conference as chair of the Savonia/Karelia chapter of Viite, the pro-science internal group of the party. The Green Party shift represents a win for the Finnish Greens for Science and Technology, (Viite) which was founded in 2008 as an internal party grouping to “advance political decision making that is based on scientific knowledge.”

Nice to see a Green Party put science ahead of hysteria.

I’ve been sent a copy of a very lengthy paper (101 pages long) that finds that pre 1840 Auckland was never referred to as Tāmaki Makaurau. They assert it was constructed in the 20th century from a proverb which originated in the 1860s

I do not have the knowledge or skills to judge if the paper is correct. But it is a very serious paper with 226 referenced footnotes. I have embedded it below so people can read it for themselves.

Dan Hannan writes:

Do watch Britain’s Strictest Headmistress on ITV on Sunday evening – especially if you are a teacher. It will cheer you up. The documentary about Michaela Community School in Brent shows kids who begin life with few advantages leaving school confident, ambitious and qualified.

But it may do more than cheer you up. It may restore some old truths that, deep down, we always recognised, however unfashionable they became among educationalists

Katharine Birbalsingh, the headmistress in question, did not start out as a traditionalist. At Oxford, she joined the Socialist Workers Party. When she began her teaching career, she went in with all the usual assumptions: schools were underfunded, the biggest obstacle facing non-white kids was structural racism. But she found that her classroom experiences could not sustain those pre-conceptions. The real problem, she came to realise, lay in the attitude of the people who oversaw our schools.

Instead of imparting knowledge, teachers were overseeing child-led discussions. Instead of promoting confidence, they were encouraging victimhood. Instead of upholding the canon, they were seeking out obscure texts on grounds of identity politics. Instead of expecting high standards, they were indulging pupils from under-privileged backgrounds, and thus unintentionally condemning them.

Sound familiar?

Note Birbalsingh is Indo-Guyanese and Jamaican and is technically a Kiwi – she was born in NZ.

Birbalsingh began to dream of a different kind of school – a school with houses and uniforms and discipline and classics. Why, she wondered, should these things be the preserve of the rich? Didn’t children in deprived boroughs need them more?

Not in the view of the Labour councillors who ran those deprived boroughs. The last thing they wanted was a traditionalist school showing up its neighbours. Again and again, Birbalsingh was rebuffed before, in 2014, finally being allowed to take over an old office block by Wembley Park tube.

In these unpropitious surroundings, she has pulled off what I can only call a secular miracle. Many of Michaela’s children come from estates poisoned by drugs and gangs. Perhaps nine in ten are from ethnic minorities, with dozens of different home languages. Forty-one per cent of her first intake were officially classed as disadvantaged, meaning they had qualified for free school meals. Yet in 2019, that cohort, the first to sit GCSEs, secured some of the best grades in the country: 54 per cent got 7, 8 or 9 (the top grades, equivalent to A or A* under the old system) as against a national average of 22 per cent.

So her school got results two and half times as good as the national average, despite being in a very poor area. It shows the difference one person can make.

What is Michaela’s secret? A set of principles that could be made to work in any school: gratitude must be taught; phones banned; competition encouraged; learning teacher-led; national cohesion promoted; high standards expected; adult authority upheld.

Not rocket science.

I did; and I did. I have never met more impressive teachers. They engaged their students through dozens of techniques that would work in any classroom. For example, when questions are posed in class, instead of responding immediately, pupils are encouraged to pair up and explain their answer to their partners, so that everyone has to formulate it.

As they walk into lunch, the kids belt out verses that they have memorised – Kipling’s If, Henley’s Invictus, passages from Shakespeare. This is the only time they make a noise inside; there is usually no talking in the corridors – which means no misbehaviour and no bullying.

Over lunch, they are given a topic to talk about. Afterwards, they express their appreciation for someone – a teacher for helping them, another student for making them feel welcome, their mother for always having their uniform ready. Gratitude is a happier emotion than grievance, and perhaps the most striking feature of Michaela is how cheerful its children are. The school’s detractors imagine it as a Dickensian poorhouse; in fact, children like order and respond to being stretched. The listlessness, anxiety and rudeness that I have seen in schools that pride themselves on their liberalism are unimaginable here.

Gratitude not grievance,. I like it.

Stuff reports:

Former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has launched legal proceedings against Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard over a defunct trespass order.

Peters said he filed judicial review application against Mallard at the High Court in Wellington on Monday afternoon.

He was seeking a declaration from the court that a trespass order placed on him, and then withdrawn, was “unlawful, unreasonable, and irrational”.

This will be a fascinating case, if not settled out of court.

Kiri Allan announced that the disclosure level for donations to political parties will be reduced from $15,000 to $5,000. Once again we see Labour trying to push through partisan changes to electoral law without wide support.

The current level of $15,000 was the result of a bipartisan agreement in 2008 or 2009 between National and Labour. National wanted the level increased from $10,000 as it hadn’t kept pace with inflation and Labour opposed that. Labour wanted to keep a registration regime and spending limits on third parties, which National had opposed. They compromised and agreed on a bill which increased the disclosure limit and retained the third party spending limits. That was the system working – compromise and agreement.

Now Labour is reneging on that, and planning to push through a partisan law change to try and suppress donations to other parties. They are proposing a disclosure limit that will represent around 0.1% of what a major party spends in an election year. The idea that a donation to a party that represents say 0.2% of its income would buy policy influence is conspiracy theory land.

What this is really about is Labour has had its donations dried up. So they want to discourage donations to other parties.

The donation disclosure limit was set at $10,000 when MMP came in, in 1996. In 2022 dollars it would be $17,000. So the current level of $15,000 is less in real terms than in 1996.

Stuff reports:

Wellington mayoral candidate Paul Eagle says he won’t be removing his election signage from digital billboards around the city, despite being asked to by the council.

Eagle says he will be leaving the signs up until this weekend, as he had planned.

The signs caused confusion online on Monday, the day Eagle announced he was running for the mayoralty. Twitter users questioned their legality as they were on display outside of the permitted election advertising period.

Wellington City Council electoral officer Warwick Lampp said he had asked Eagle to remove the ads until the formal election hoarding period began on August 27, but Eagle maintained he was within his rights.

He was clearly within his rights and it appalling that a returning officer would try to pressure a candidate to remove a legal sign. I have long advocated that rather than have each Council appoint a Returning Officer, the Electoral Commission should be in charge of all local elections. They have legal expertise and resources so they don’t just make things up.

Lampp said the policy is designed to create a level playing field for candidates and has been generally respected for many years. The council website says signage on private land must be displayed only between August 27 and October 8.

But lawyer Graeme Edgeler says this applies to only temporary corflute signage.

“I am entirely confident that these are lawful,” Edgeler said. “As long as this is a commercial billboard space – and Paul has said it is, and it clearly looks to be one in the picture.”

Edgeler is an electoral law expert. The Returning Officer should apologise for his actions.

UPDATE: It is even worse. A later story points out:

Two previous mayoral candidates also have confirmed they were never told to take down their advertising at a similar stage of their campaigns.

An invoice viewed by the Herald shows 2016 Labour mayoral candidate Justin Lester paid for campaign advertising over the course of July that year.

Lester’s opponent Nick Leggett also has pictures on his Facebook page of advertising on buses and billboards as early as May.

The Returning Officer should potentially be sacked for this. He has effectively smeared a candidate by inventing a new rule and claiming the candidate broke it. Further evidence shows previous mayoral candidates were advertising in July and never asked not to. This smacks of partisanship.

Stuff reports:

Traditional values advocate Family First New Zealand has lost a bid to be able to register as a charity.

In a unanimous decision issued on Tuesday the Supreme Court said the main issue in the appeal was whether Family First met its stated charitable purpose of advancing education.

“The activities of Family First do not support the proposition that its purpose is educational,” the court concluded after reviewing its purposes, activities and 17 research papers it had published.

Family First lacked balance and objectivity, the court decided.

I actually agree with the decision. I do not think lobby groups should get charitable status. However the Supreme Court made the opposite decision with Greenpeace and ruled they can be registered as a charity. That decision was wrong – both Greenpeace and Family First are lobby groups.

So effectively what we seem to have is a Supreme Court that says lobby groups we like can be charities, but ones we don’t like can’t be. That is very unfortunate.

I personally think the definition of charitable purposes should be far tighter. Charitable status should be reserved for charities that primarily actually help people like the Red Cross, CCS, Fred Hollows etc.

Stuff reports:

The Government was sent a letter by all district health boards a year ago, warning of “considerable pressures” and outlining “critical workforce issues” being faced by DHBs and exacerbated by the immigration settings at that time.

DJs were being allowed in while doctors and nurses were not.

“DHBs are experiencing significant challenges to maintain safe levels of services that are being exacerbated by workforce supply challenges. Most importantly this includes the risk that existing overseas-trained employees will leave due to an inability to secure their futures as residents of New Zealand,” it said.

And this happened.