Senator Paula Simons writes:

Let me be very clear. There is no good-faith way to debate or question the reality of the Holocaust, one of the best‑documented, well-researched atrocities in modern history. Anyone who questions or denies or diminishes its full horrors is not engaging in authentic, intellectual debate; they are spreading hate. Holocaust deniers are hatemongers. There is no way to question the reality of the Holocaust that is not, by definition, anti-Semitic.

Downplaying the Shoah is every bit as morally vile. When people who oppose masking rules pin yellow stars to their chests or dare to compare vaccine mandates to the Nazi war crimes prosecuted at Nuremberg, their facile appropriation of the horror of the Holocaust dishonours the memory of all those who died and all who survived.

Yet, my friends, today I rise in this chamber to oppose Bill C-19’s efforts to criminalize the denial or downplaying of the Holocaust.

Attaching criminal sanctions to such statements and actions won’t reduce anti-Semitism. It will, however, give neo-Nazis and racists a platform to play the martyr, to wrap themselves in the rhetoric of free speech and to claim the public spotlight as faux defenders of intellectual freedom. Is this funny? I don’t think this is funny. Maybe you could stop laughing. How do I know this will not work?

I agree. We should ridicule and expose holocaust deniers, not jail them.

I do not believe we can fight hate by criminalizing speech, however vile or deluded. Nor by silencing it, even if we could. Driving hate underground to curdle and fester doesn’t help.

Once we start to criminalize speech, to police what is true and what is false, once we use the Criminal Code and the criminal courts to silence the nasty political fringe, we start down a path that leads precisely where we do not wish to go.

Sadly many want us to go down that path.

Tom Pullar-Strecker writes:

But BusinessNZ is responsible to its members, not you or me, and it is its members’ opinions that matter most right now.

As a lobby group, BusinessNZ can allow companies to outsource their opinions on controversial topics such as tax policy and employment rights, so they can get their points across to politicians and the public without having to directly express views that might annoy some of their customers or staff.

At the same time, I would be surprised if companies in the telco sector, for example, which have been taking increasingly progressive stances on a range of social and economic issues, were entirely comfortable with all the statements BusinessNZ has been making.

Spark chose not to take up an invitation to put some space between itself and the lobby group on BusinessNZ’s Fair Pay campaign, with spokesperson Ellie Cross saying it “didn’t have anything to contribute to this conversation”.

Vodafone spokesperson Richard Llewellyn said it would have a closer look at whether it agreed with BusinessNZ’s representation on Fair Pay and “as members, provide any feedback direct to BusinessNZ”.

Tom seems to be suggesting that major corporates which are members of BusinessNZ should distance themselves from BusinessNZ’s advocacy against so called Fair Pay Agreements.

I’m surprised he is ringing up staff at Vodafone and Spark to see if they will do so, when he could just ask his bosses at Stuff, as Stuff is a member of Business NZ!

Billy Matara is a second striker.  He attempted to murder a man by shooting him with a shotgun. The victim was lucky to survive.  That was Matara’s second strike offence.

Ironically the attempted murder took place at a hostel for prisoner rehabilitation!

His first strike was an aggravated robbery in which he and another offender terrorised a shopkeeper in their antique shop.  He committed his first strike offence while on bail.

Matara has 129 criminal convictions.  He is a very dangerous man and a hard-core recidivist offender.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern want him out of prison early to continue his lengthy criminal career of seriously harming others.

Under Three Strikes, he has to serve his entire 10 years, 2 months term of imprisonment, without being released early on parole.  Three Strikes keeps him in prison until at least July 2026.

Without Three Strikes he would be eligible for parole after just 3 years, 4 months imprisonment – around September 2019 – almost 7 years less than under Three Strikes.  The sentencing Judge suggested that without Three Strikes, a minimum term of 40% – or 4 years – would have been imposed.  That’s only 6 months more than the bare minimum!

How many more victims will he create in those extra 7 years he gets to be out in the community? Does anyone think he is going to stop at offence no. 130?

Oliver Hartwich writes:

Finland and Sweden intending to join Nato is not just a radical departure from decades of Nordic foreign policy, it also shows how the invasion of Ukraine has altered the political landscape in Europe – not just in Scandinavia.

There was a time when many left-leaning politicians in Europe viewed everything related to defence and security alliances with suspicion. Their anti-militarism and pacifism then sometimes merged with a broader anti-American sentiment, especially under US Presidents such as George W Bush and Donald Trump.

Putin’s war has changed such pacifist reflexes.

Perhaps it is no surprise the European left has exhibited a greater resolve and clarity towards Ukraine than many right-wing politicians. That is because many on the progressive side of politics see the brutal aggression against a peaceful, democratic country as what it is: a moral issue, not a business matter.

The PM of Finland is a 36 year old woman who heads up the leftwing SDP. The PM of Sweden is a 55 year old woman who heads up their leftwing SDP. Both are leading their countries into NATO.

With Sweden and Finland joining, all Nordic countries will soon be Nato members (Denmark, Norway and Iceland were founding members in 1949). It is a significant shift, happening at a time when all five countries are led by centre-left parties.

These Nordic developments are historic, but the changes on the left of the German political spectrum are perhaps even more striking. In Germany, it is the Greens who are most in favour of Nato and defence spending these days.

I so wish the NZ Greens were more like the German Greens.

The Greens are one of three coalition partners in the government of Germany. Former female co-leader Annalena Baerbock is the foreign minister, while her male counterpart, Robert Habeck, is the economy and energy minister. Following the invasion of Ukraine, their ministries have become crucial, and Baerbock and Habeck are prominent in the German government.

Habeck publicly advocated sending arms to Ukraine almost a year before the war. He is now fast-tracking any applications for weapons deliveries as a minister. At the same time, he is managing a transition away from Germany’s reliance on Russian energy.

Baerbock, meanwhile, has visited Ukraine several times since becoming foreign minister late last year. She is also the first German cabinet minister to visit Ukraine during the war, while the social democrat chancellor, Olaf Scholz, appears timid and indecisive.

Since the Greens’ roots are in pacifism, their transformation into a party at ease with military engagement is all the more remarkable.

The German Greens are mature enough to realise that when the world changes, their stance needs to change. Brazvo.

Radio NZ reports:

The Westpac McDermott Miller Consumer Confidence Index fell sharply in the three months ended June, falling 13 points from the previous quarter to 78.7.

It is the lowest level recorded since the survey began in 1988 and well below the average of 110.2. …

Household budgets were being squeezed in a way they had not been for decades, Westpac acting chief economist Michael Gordon said.

I remind people that the Government plans to soon pass law that will impose an extra tax on employees and employers up to $1,800 a year. Yes household budgets are the most stretched in decades, and Labour wants to whack an extra tax on to reduce your take home pay even further.

This graph is fascinating. It shows that in the past the 12 month outlook has sometimes been very negative, but that NZers have always been optimistic over the five year outlook. This is the very first time in 34 years that more NZers have been pessimistic over that medium term.

REPOSTED, ORGINALLY POSTED 31 MAY 2018.

As the Government has announced it wants to repeal the three strikes law, I’m going to start a new feature to show had awfully bad this is.

I will be regularly profiling a second striker. These are people whose second strike has meant they are ineligible for early release on parole. The Government wants to change the law so they can be released after possibly just one third of their sentence.

Hugh Tareha is currently serving a “Second Strike” sentence of 12 years and 9 months imprisonment without the possibility of parole for bashing and sexually violating an 87 year old grandmother in her own home in Napier in 2013.  Later the same day, he burgled a 73 year old woman’s home with the intention of sexually assaulting her.  He was on parole at the time of this offending.

His first strike offence was a home invasion burglary which he committed while subject to a sentence for prior offending.  He invaded the home of a 68 year old woman and attacked her, grabbing her by the throat and threatening her and then robbing her.  He was imprisoned for just 3 years and 4 months. The Parole Board released him early, considering he did not present an “undue risk”, and even reported the day before this attack that they were “pleased with his performance”.  Well done New Zealand Parole Board.

In 2008, Tareha was imprisoned for a home invasion burglary in which he targeted a young woman to whom he was attracted.  He has numerous prior convictions, including others for burglary.

Tareha is a hard core recidivist.

The sentencing Judge for his second strike didn’t think his record of offending was serious enough to invoke “preventive detention” – an open-ended sentence that may mean indefinite imprisonment for the public’s protection.  Thank goodness for Three Strikes, which steps in at this point.

Without the Three Strikes law, Hugh Tareha would be eligible for release by the Parole Board, who got it so badly wrong when they let him out in 2013, after just 4 years and 3 months.

Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden, and her Justice Minister, Andrew Little, want this man back on the streets so he can continue his career of home invasions and sexual violations of elderly women.  The people of Napier have good reason to fear this man and the Government’s lenient view of him.

Eligible for release – under Three Strikes:

Around July 2026 (current situation) (8 more years)

 Eligible for release – without Three Strikes:

Eligible for parole January 2018 (if Three Strikes repealed)*

If Labour, with NZ First’s support, repeal three strikes and make it “retroactive” this man will be eligible for immediate release from prison.

* Note the Judge said he would have imposed an eight year non parole period if the three strikes law had not been in place. It is unclear if it is repealed if an indication by a Judge could be applied retrospectively.

The Herald reports:

Freshly-appointed Justice Minister Kiri Allan has hit out at comments that the Government is “soft on crime”, calling the rhetoric “abhorrent”.

Allan said such comments ignored the complexities of crime, and in reality, the Government had made no changes to sentencing or penalties.

However, the Opposition claims it is doing just that by repealing the Three Strikes legislation, which is being debated further in the House this week.

They’re about to change the law so the worst of the worst get shorter sentences and/or eligibility for parole. The average second striker has 42 adult convictions and third striker 74, and they want to let them out early.

And not only are hey pushing through a law change to reward the worst criminals, they have voted against the following:

1. Sep 2018 – voted down bill to allow Police to issue firearms prohibition orders against gang members with a history of firearms or violent offending
2. Oct 2018 – voted down bill to allow for random testing of drivers for drug impairment
3. May 2019 – voted down bill to increase maximum penalty for selling or supplying unapproved psychoactive substances from two to 14 years
4. June 2020 – voted down bill allowing maximum penalty of 20 years for “coward punches” causing death
5. Mar 2021 – voted down a bill requiring a school to be notified if a registered sex offender lives within 5 kms of the school
6. Apr 2021 – voted not to proceed with a bill that increases the maximum penalty for assaults on first responders or prison officers to 10 years
7. April 2021 – voted down a bill imposing a maximum penalty of five years for killing a police dog
8. June 2021 – voted down a bill that clarified  carjacking is robbery
9. Oct 2021 – again voted down bill to allow Police to issue firearms prohibition orders against gang members with a history of firearms or violent offending
10. Apr 2022 – voted down a bill to ban the Government funding gangs
11. May 2022 – voted down a bill to increase the power of Police to seize assets gained through significant criminal activity

Allan told the Herald the law was a good example of a “knee-jerk reaction” to crime, something she said she was committed to avoiding in her new role.

“There was no evidence that it worked. It had been trialled in places like California and deemed to be an abject failure.

The California law is vastly vastly different.

As for the NZ law, the number of people going on to do a second strike offence after the law passed was significantly down from the same time period before the law passed. So the reoffending rate actually dropped.

In 2018 I profiled some of these second strikers and their crimes. As the Government seems set on repealing the law, I am going to repost these profiles so people can see who they will be wanting to let out early.

The annual world competitiveness rankings are out, and New Zealand has fallen 11 places from 20th to 31st.

They note NZ had the steepest drops in economic performance and business efficiency along with domestic economy and labor market.

They explicitly cite:

• Labour shortages
• Low productivity
• High house prices
• Short term policy thinking

In a global world, competitiveness is critical along with productivity. We’re failing.

NewstalkZB reports:

Asked what impact the legislation will actually have, Tibshraeny explains: “Fair pay agreements are a way of requiring employers and employees to agree on baseline conditions and pay.”

This is incorrect. It does not require employers and employees to agree. In fact the current law requires such an agreement but this law will allow a Govt appointee to set conditions and pay for an entire industry regardless of agreement.

Under the proposed rules, if a public interest test is met, or 10 per cent or at least 1000 workers in an industry or occupation decide to start a negotiation process with employers, negotiation needs to happen.

Minimum pay and working conditions will only be ratified if a majority of both employers and employees in a sector agree to them. All employers and employees get a vote.

This is not right. If a mere 10% of employees (or in a large industry of 100,000 it could be 1%) say they want an industry wide agreement, then there will be one imposed no matter what employers or employees vote on.

“Presumably, to get a majority on both sides, you will need the conditions to be reasonable,” Tibshraeny says.

No you don’t.

If there is a stalemate in the negotiations, the matter can be passed on to the Employment Relations Authority.

Not so much can, but will. If a proposed FPA is not agreed upon twice, then a union can unilaterally take it to the Employment Relations Authority. There will be compulsory arbitration which will bind every single employer – even if 99% voted against it.

The ERA will establish a panel of 3 people who will have the power to impose terms and conditions on an entire industry or profession – it could be every journalist in New Zealand or it could be every cafe worker – regardless of if they work for a owner operated cafe in Invercargill or Starbucks.

So who appoints the ERA? The Government of course. They are appointed for four year terms, so a Government can quickly appoint an entire slate of ERA members who will be far more likely to rule in favour of the unions (who partially fund the Labour Party).

The Government could have given the power to determine an FPA to the Employment Court. The Employment Court Judges must be lawyers with at least seven years experience and crucially they taken a judicial oath and are appointed for life. a Government can’t just not reappoint incumbent Judges to replace them with friendly faces.

So there is a reason the Government has given the FPA power to the ERA, not the Employment Court.

This legislation is even worse than the national awards of the 1970s. They still required agreement to be reached between employers and unions. This law does not. 1,000 union members can get terms and conditions imposed on 99,000 other workers through the compulsory arbitration clauses.

Nothing on Earth will stop the Government from passing this law, as the unions want this even more than compulsory unionism. But it won’t survive a change of Government, and nor should it.

UPDATE: My post shouldn’t be seen as implying the journalist quoted has not described the law correctly. Rather they have just not assumed that unions would always take a proposed FPA to the ERA if employers did not agree to it.

But personally I think it is almost unthinkable that a union would not do so. They wouldn’t go the the time and expense of drawing up a proposed FPA and just dropping it simply because employers didn’t agree to it. Why would they?

The Mail reports:

A BLACK trainee vicar was blocked from becoming a Church of England priest after a white bishop voiced concerns about his belief that Britain was not institutionally racist. 

In the latest storm to hit the Church, Calvin Robinson, a TV presenter and political commentator, accused senior figures last night of torpedoing his planned ordination because of his conservative and anti-woke views.

So the black vicar was sacked because he did not think he was discriminated against due to his race!!!

Mr Robinson also claimed that the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Sarah Mullally, lectured him about racism in the church, insisting that ‘as a white woman I can tell you that the Church is institutionally racist’.   

Heh.

Geoffrey Miller writes:

Jacinda Ardern’s decision to attend the upcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) summit in Spain, but to skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Rwanda symbolises the changes she is making to New Zealand foreign policy.

Chogm starts today in Kigali, while the Nato summit will be held in Madrid next week.

However, Ardern is only attending the Nato summit. She is sending her foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, to attend the Commonwealth meeting in her place.

I’m delighted to see Ardern attending a NATO summit. There are many issues I disagree with the Government on, but the decision to clearly back NATO and Ukraine vs Russia is the right call.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed the world. Sweden and Finland are joining NATO. Ukraine is joining the EU. Switzerland has abandoned neutrality. And China’s implicit backing of Russia has made people realise that China is far from benign.

As the facts change, so should stances. It is very pleasing that Labour has realised there is no sitting on the fence with these conflicts. An independent foreign policy is not the same as a neutral one. Independent means we independently decide who we think is right and wrong. It doesn’t mean we don’t back democratic countries who are threatened and invaded by authoritarian countries.

Ardern’s invitation to attend the Madrid summit will also be something of a reward for aligning New Zealand’s foreign policy more closely with Nato – and the West generally – over the past few months.

After all, Ardern has overhauled New Zealand’s foreign policy by introducing sanctions against Russia and sending military equipment and weapons to Ukraine – and by making a symbolic contribution of New Zealand troops to Europe to assist with the war effort.

Ardern is probably the most pro-NATO Labour PM since Peter Fraser. Not because her views have changed, but because the world has changed. Again we should all fully support her Government’s work in this area.

It does make me wonder if one day, there will be an impetus for New Zealand to join NATO. At present it doesn’t really make sense, but if China turns into the Russia of the Pacific, then it may. Time will tell.

A guest post by Mark Keating:

The current political and public debate about tax policy is being dressed up as a need to achieve “equity” by ensuring the rich pay their fair share.

The Prime Minister stated boldly that “parts of New Zealand’s tax system are unfair” – although she refused to be drawn on what changes or new taxes Labour would like to introduce to address that alleged unfairness.

The Minister of Revenue started the whole debate last month by proposing is to enact a Tax Principles Act setting out the foundations of our tax system.  In doing so he argued that more financial information about high wealth individuals must be gathered by IRD to ensure the tax system is working fairly.

The Greens picked up that ball and ran with it.  Its Revenue spokesman stated:

“Our tax system is unfair and it needs urgent attention.”

“The most straightforward solution is to introduce a capital gains tax or a wealth tax on individuals’ net wealth over $1 million – not including mortgages and other debt. This would only apply to the wealthiest six percent of New Zealanders,” she said.

So it seems the political Left are doubling down on the traditional “eat the rich” approach to taxation and want to soak them even more to ensure the tax system reflects their version of “fairness”.

But what’s missing from the present debate is the facts about how much tax is already paid the wealthiest Kiwis. I have waited in vain for some journalist to drop this other shoe … but apparently such facts would only get in the way of the prevailing narrative that the rich are currently undertaxed and should pay more.

Yet such hard date is not hard to find if you want to.  For example, Treasury helpfully publish statistics on Who pays income tax… and how much? (treasury.govt.nz)

Those figures record that in 2020 (the last year for which figures are available) the top 5% of income earners (some 196,000 individuals – the very people that the Greens are targeting) paid a total of $11.31billion in income tax (out of total income tax of $36.85billion paid by the 3.85million individual taxpayers). 

So the top 5% already pay 31% of all tax paid by individual taxpayers. By contrast, the bottom 74% of income earners (2.84m individuals) pay only $10.95billion, which represents only 29.7% of all tax paid by individuals. 

This means the top 5% are already paying more tax than the bottom three-quarters of taxpayers combined. 

And those statistics were gathered by Treasury before last year’s increase in the top personal tax rate on income from 33% up to 39%.  Presumably the statistics for the 2022 year will be even more skewed against the top 2% of taxpayers earning over $180,000, who already pay $8.6billion or 24% of the total tax paid by all individual taxpayers. 

None of this sounds very fair – but presumably not in the way Miss Adern or Mr Parker mean.

Likewise, a common allegation is that “the rich” should pay even more but instead hide their wealth in companies and trusts, which pay a lower rate of tax (28% and 33% respectively).

But that myth is exploded by statistics kept and published by IRD on the tax payments by the very wealthiest New Zealanders.  Just in March this year IRD released a Discussion Document floating novel proposals to impose new taxes on the wealthy (Dividend integrity and personal services income attribution – a Government discussion document (March 2022) (ird.govt.nz)

That Document included the following details regarding the tax affairs of the very wealthiest 350 Kiwis, who already have an entire unit of IRD dedicated to monitoring their full compliance with all tax obligations.  It explained:

Inland Revenue analysed existing data it holds on 350 high wealth individuals (individuals and families with more than $50 million in net assets) and found that they used or controlled 8,468 companies and 1,867 trusts.  For 2018, these 350 individuals paid $26 million in tax, while their companies and trusts paid $639 million and $102 million respectively.

While IRD still quibble that so much of their income is generated through companies and trusts so don’t pay the new 39% tax rate, it overlooks the simple maths that those richest 350 individuals and families already pay a combined $767million in taxes (an average of $2.2m each)!

Yet it appears from the current debate that even that fleecing is not enough for the Government and its political allies.    That approach ignores the reality of our current tax system.  To paraphrase the famous words of Sir Winston Churchill: Never has so much been paid to so many by so few.

Mark Keating is a Tax Barrister working in Auckland

The Platform reports:

We decided to look closer at the fund and exactly what those receiving funding had to agree to. The information is all available publicly and in plain sight. A copy of the standard funding agreement is available on the NZ On Air website. Upon reading the documentation we were struck by two significant things:

1. The funding agreements are set up like loans.
2. In the first section of ‘General Eligibility Criteria’ a document is provided as a ‘resource’ called Te Tiriti Framework for News Media which references He Puapua as an authoritative document. 

That is essentially how the Public Interest Journalism Fund is set up – like a loan. Not only do applicants have to thoroughly explain how they will adhere to the particular co-governance model of understanding the Treaty in order to get the funding in the first place, they have to agree that should they deviate from presenting this perspective NZ On Air can say that they have defaulted on the agreement and demand the funding be repaid.

So if a media organisation that got some of the $55 million from the Government started running an editorial line that the Treaty of Waitangi did not establish a co-governance partnership, then they could be forced to repay the money they got.

Radio NZ report:

The government is proposing to change the electoral law to allow Māori voters to switch electoral rolls at any time.

Currently, Māori are only allowed to switch between the general and Māori rolls once every five years, a rule which critics have called undemocratic.

Minister of Justice Kris Faafoi said a bill to change the option to any time would be introduced to Parliament.

Allowing a change at any time, up to and including polling day, would allow Māori to fully exercise their voting rights, Faafoi said.

But to pass, the bill will need the support of three quarters of Parliament, including the National Party.

National should oppose this. The media have almost without fail neglected to give any balance to coverage of this issue. Here are the facts:

1. Only voters of Maori descent even get a choice between the two types of roll. This is a privilege no other voter has.
2. The current law allows voters of Maori descent to change between rolls after each census and before each redrawing of boundaries. This is because the law requires all electorates to have the same electoral population within 5%.
3. Relatively few Maori change rolls. At the last option only 18,000 out of 470,000 changes or 3.8%
4. Allowing people to change rolls after the boundaries are set could and would lead to campaigns to switch rolls to affect close races for electorate seats
5. Allowing people to change rolls after the boundaries are set could lead to some electorates being drastically smaller or larger than other electorates

Now you might argue what does it matter under MMP, as the party vote determines the Government. This is true, but electorates are still very important to parties. Parties place great store on winning them. They can get you parliamentary representation if you get less than 5%. They get you greater parliamentary resources. They give the electorate MPs greater ability to be reported in local media etc.

I can guarantee you that if this change goes through, parties of the left will campaign for Maori to transfer to the Maori roll for the boundary setting (to gain more Maori seats) by telling people they can transfer back to the general roll once boundaries are done. At the moment Maori voters know that if they enrol on the Maori roll, they have to vote in the Maori seats and wards. This proposed law change will allow people to enrol purely for boundary setting, then swap out.

It will also be used tactically. In seats like Southland, having people transfer from the Maori to General roll will have little impact on the election results as it is a safe seat with few Maori.

But in seats like Northland and East Coast which are 37% and 52% Maori a tactical voting campaign could absolutely change who wins the seat.

The current law is simple. If you choose to be on the general roll or Maori roll for the purpose of setting the boundaries, you must vote on that roll until the next time boundaries change. Labour and others want people to be able to enrol on a roll purely for the purposes of boundary setting, but then tactically swap to the other roll to vote.

National should resist this law change.

The result for Tauranga is:

1. Uffindell 56.4% (+12.9% from Bridges)
2. Tinetti 25.2% (-14.0% from 2020)
3. Luxton 10.3% (+6.3% from 2020)
4. Grey 4.7%

Considering the Greens didn’t stand, it’s a bad result from Labour. The two CR candidates got 19% more than in 2020.

It’s a basic and well known law – you can’t campaign for votes on election day. So who in Labour decided this doesn’t apply to them for the Tauranga by-election?

So this is the Labour candidate (and Cabinet Minister) flagrantly breaking the law and campaigning for votes on election day. Now sure you expect members of the public or even some low level activists not to know the law, but this is the actual candidate herself.

Anyway the polls have now closed. The Electoral Commission hopes to have half the polling places reported by 9 pm and 95% of them by 1030 pm.

UPDATE: The last screenshot from a No Right Turn is not the blogger as I assumed, but someone else using that phrase.

The public results are here.

Party Vote

• National 37.4% (+0.6% from May)
• Labour 34.2% (nc)
• ACT 9.4% (-1.5%)
• Greens 8.3% (-1.4%)
• Maori Party 1.8% (-0.6%)
• NZ First 2.3% (+0.5%)
• TOP 3.0% (+1.6%)
• Conservatives 1.4% (+0.1%0

Seats

• National 50 (+17 from election)
• Labour 45 (-20)
• ACT 12 (+2)
• Greens 11 (+1)
• Maori Party 2 (nc)

Government

• National/ACT 62/120
• Labour/Greens 56/120

Country Direction

• Right 36% (+2%)
• Wrong 50% (+2%)

This is the first time the Taxpayers’ Union/Curia poll has shown the wrong direction at 50%.

The Herald reports:

More than two thirds of Auckland’s $58.9 million light rail spend has been on consultants, Newstalk ZB can reveal.

The Transport Minister’s office has defended the spend and a spokesman said projects of this scale required significant planning, investigation, and design before spades hit the ground.

But National’s transport spokesman Simeon Brown said the project was going nowhere.

“Labour promised to build light rail from Auckland’s CBD to Mt Roskill by 2021, but all they have delivered is millions of dollars worth of reports.”

Brown accused the Government of being all talk and no action on its promises, while Aucklanders were stuck in congestion.

In the past five years the Government has spent $58.9 million on the Auckland light rail project and $41.5 million of that has been on consultants, as of early June.

If a consultant charges $1,000 a day then that is 41,500 days of consultants.