The Public Service Commissioner has announced:

The public housing agency, Kāinga Ora, fell short of the standards expected on political neutrality when it published an article about a political candidate, Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes has found.

The Commissioner said Kāinga Ora got it wrong when it considered the principle of political neutrality, which is fundamental in the New Zealand Public Service.

Concerns were raised last year about the conduct of Kāinga Ora officials regarding an article it sponsored on community spirit at its Hobsonville Point development. Kāinga Ora drafted the article in mid-May 2020, for publication on the oneroof.co.nz website on 27 May. The focus of the article was the Hobsonville Point Gets Ready Group, represented by Arena Williams (now a Member of Parliament). The article was published despite Ms Williams advising Kāinga Ora that she was not far away from announcing that she would be standing as a candidate in the 2020 general election. That announcement was made on 29 May.

I blogged on this issue in November. The summary was:

• Kainga Ora (Housing NZ) signed a contract with NZME to spent $25,000 a month for almost two years in return for stories they would write that would look like news stories.
• NZME failed to state that this was supplied content, and for many months they appeared without any disclaimer that they were paid for.
• The Minister of Housing, Megan Woods, denied in a written question that there was any agreement between NZME and Kainga Ora. This was false, and later blamed on a clerical error.
• One purchased article was in May 2020 and featured Arena Williams (now a Labour MP) and was full of details about what she had done for her community – it appeared three days before the Labour selection for Manurewa.
• Kainga Ora staff said that they would just pretend not to know she was about to announce her candidacy

The full PSC report is here, and the details show how badly Kainga Ora behaved. They include:

1. KO staff knew enough to know that continuing with the advertorial with Williams carried risk
2. KO misunderstood the principle of political neutrality
3. KO staff did not even consider whether it was ever appropriate for public funds to be used to give positive exposure to a political candidate
4. KO staff did not escalate to senior management team
5. KO did not take the advertorial down, after Williams was announced as a candidate
6. The KO SCA twice said they could pretend they didn’t know she was about to become a candidate and none of her managers or colleagues at the time thought this was inappropriate
7. Kāinga Ora did not immediately acknowledge and distance itself from the suggestions in the emails that the agency could act as if it didn’t know about the disclosure
8. Kāinga Ora’s media response to the OIA release ignored the central issues
9. Kāinga Ora misled in their media response when they said they only became aware of Williams intended candidacy in the latter stages of the writing process, when it was known from the very first conversation with Williams and before anything was written.
10. The Kāinga Ora media release also misled in attributing the decision to a staff member making a personal call, when it was discussed with four staff or contractors and escalated to a third level general manager.
11. The KO Chief Executive defended the decision to publish initially
12. The PSC found there was a pattern of minimisation within KO
13. The PSC concluded “the sponsored article provided publicity that favoured one political party, just before and during an election period.”
14. Kāinga Ora maintained a position that minimised the issues and contained some errors about key facts, demonstrated a misunderstanding of the principle of political neutrality at all levels within the organisation, and how it should have operated in this context.

So it is a very thorough and robust report by the Public Service Commission. The question that one has to ask though is how is it possible that no one has lost their job?

The New Zealand Association of Economists and the NZ Initiative have done a survey of leading economists, and found they do agree on certain issues. The economists surveyed are not cherry picked but are Distinguished Fellows, life members, and former Presidents of the New Zealand Association of Economists or recipients of the NZIER ‘Economist of the Year’ award.

The panel of 17 includes Brian Easton, Allan Bollard and Arthur Grimes. The three propositions they agreed on were:

• Rent controls for some rental housing units (such as in New York City) have had a positive
  impact on the amount and quality of affordable rental housing. 82% disagree and 6% agree for net disagreement of -76%.
• The average Kiwi would be better off if more highly educated foreign workers were allowed to migrate to New Zealand each year. 88% agree and no disagree for net agreement of +88%
• Countries that borrow in their own currency can finance as much real government spending as they want by creating money. 82% disagree and no agree for net disagreement of -82%

In the full results you can see how each economist answered the proposition, and also how confident they are in their answers.

Nine of the 17 economists said their confidence that housing controls won’t work was over 90%!

It will be interesting to see what other propositions will be surveyed in future, to see if there is a consensus.

I had read stories about how difficult it is to get RAT tests, but until you experience it yourself you don’t realise the level of incompetence involved.

A family member was sick earlier this week so they went to a testing station on Monday and got tested. The result was negative. But as they still have cold like symptoms, they wanted to get a RAT test before they head back into their office next week.

It looked really simple. You just go to the website, give your details and how many people live in your household, and they calculate how many tests you can pick up. Then they text you your order number and say they can be picked up at any of the community facilities on the website. I was impressed by how easy it appeared to be. Alas, I should have known better.

I drove half an hour to the community facility (a pharmacy). I walked in and said I had an order number so could I grab some RAT tests. They told me that I can’t just turn up, and that I needed to ring up and make an appointment in advance. They further told me I can only pick them up between 2 pm and 4 pm, despite their hours being listed as from 9 am. And that they need to have staff in full PPE supply me with the tests, even though I am not sick, and do not need to be tested there – all I needed was for them to give me some tests in a paper bag to take home. If the website had told me this was the case, then I would have rung up in advance and gone in at 2 pm, but it didn’t. I guess they expect people to have ESP.

So that is one hour wasted. I then decide to go to one of the mega testing centres having checked you don’t need an appointment for then. I drive there and there is no separate queue for picking up a test as opposed to getting tested. The queue is probably over a km long, and it would take me I estimate three hours to merely have someone hand over a bag full of tests to me to take home for my family member.

I gave up. We tried to do the right thing, but the system incentivises you not to. Most other countries allow you to just buy (or get for free) RATs in any supermarket or pharmacy. Here we have a Soviet style bureaucracy which actively works against allowing New Zealanders to get tested.

The Daily Mail reports:

The editor of the British Medical Journal has slammed Facebook for ‘censoring’ its report into allegations of malpractice during Pfizer’s Covid vaccine trials.   

Dr Kamran Abbasi accused the social media giant of suppressing ‘fully fact-checked’ journalism and ‘trying to control how people think’. 

A BMJ investigation in November warned that a contractor which ran a number of Pfizer‘s original jab studies may have falsified data and skewed findings. 

Its report was based on dozens of internal documents, photos, audio-recordings, videos and statements from three former employees. 

But when some users shared the journal entry on Facebook, their post was automatically given a ‘missing context’ label. 

This is the danger of elevating fact checkers to some sort of unimpeachable position on issues.

Last election we saw AAP do a fact check I labelled the worst ever. They labelled a statement from Simeon Brown as misleading for saying “When we were in government we increased renewable energy from 65.4 percent to 81.9 percent”. This is despite the fact the MBIE data shows in November 2008 it was 65.4% and in September 2017 it was 81.9%. AAP fact checkers said it was misleading because they decided this increase happened in spit of the Government, not because of it. Atrocious.

The behaviour of the mob of remaining protesters at Parliament is appalling. It doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with them on vaccine mandates. Some of them should be going to jail for what has become a violent riot. Their actions include:

• Setting the playground slide on fire
• Multiple fires elsewhere
• Throwing bricks at the Police
• Exploding LPG cannisters on the fires
• Attempts at molotov cocktails
• Ripping up paving stones to use as weapons

And don’t even try to peddle the conspiracy nonsense that those who did this are ANTIFA infiltrators. About as credible as the fake moon landings.

Protesting against vaccine mandates was a very valid cause. The refusal of the Government to set out criteria when the mandates will end, meant that many of those affected thought they had to protest and even occupy. But again no matter how much one might sympathise with their cause, can justify their actions.

The nature of the protest has changed over the three weeks, In the first day or two it was very confrontational. But then it did change into more of a hippie type occupation and there was a huge diversity of people there ranging from Green Party voters to Advance NZ voters. But in the last week it changed again and a lot of those remaining were the more confrontational ones, and today they basically rioted.

A number of police officers have been injured, and the Police have a tough enough job without having people throw bricks and stones at them. I hope those who did so are identified and charged.

Great news in the ASH survey of Year 10 students. The daily smoking rate is now down to 1.3%. At the turn of the century it was over 15%. The daily vaping rate is 9.6% which is somewhat concerning, but vaping is far less harmful than smoking.

But only 3% of students who have never smoked vape daily. While 80% of students who are daily smokers vape daily. This strongly indicates it is mainly turning smokers into vapers, rather than attracting non-smokers.

The daily smoking rate for Maori students is down to 3.4%. A year ago it was 5.8% and 20 years ago it was a massive 30%+.

It’s great to see such huge progress. If one can stop someone getting addicted to tobacco at age 14, that makes a real difference.

Newshub reports:

A Christchurch family is being forced to leave New Zealand because the parents can’t get residency for their four-year-old daughter.

Ruby O’Connor was born in New Zealand. Her mum Kerry Hayes, dad Bryan O’Connor, and baby brother Leon can all get residency, but she can’t because she has a disability and her medical bills run into the tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Her parents say their immigration experience has been demoralising and disgraceful, and want changes to the policy.

“She’s just not wanted, and it’s pretty much massive discrimination against someone with a disability even though she was born here,” Hayes tells Newshub.

“You just feel like you’re not good enough, you know.”

The family’s heartbreaking story began with such promise. O’Connor is a builder who moved to New Zealand at the end of 2013 to help with the rebuild in Christchurch after the earthquakes.

Hayes, a beauty therapist, arrived a month or so later, attracted to the lifestyle. Both are Irish and had working visas.

They met in Christchurch, fell in love, and in 2017 welcomed Ruby into their world. 

They key thing is the parents have been legally living and working in New Zealand for almost nine years. They are not overstayers. They are not illegal immigrants.

When Ruby was two, she started having seizures and soon after she was diagnosed with TBCK – a rare neuro-genetic syndrome. She’s the only person in New Zealand to have it and one of just 17 worldwide.

“It affects every aspect of her life. She can’t walk, talk, she has seizures, she’s peg-fed, so she can’t have anything orally,” Hayes says.

She’s also visually impaired, has osteoporosis, and is immune-compromised. She’s already been hospitalised, in ICU, with serious bouts of pneumonia.

“We nearly lost her on two occasions, it was quite close. They had no hope for her but she kept fighting,” Hayes says.

As Ruby fought for her life, her parents fought hard to keep her in the country, in the only home she’s known.

Poor little mite.

The family wanted residency since New Zealand has been their home for eight years, but they say they were told only mum, dad, and their healthy baby son Leon could stay. Ruby couldn’t because of her disability and medical needs. Even though she was born here, she’s included in her parent’s resident visa application as a dependent child. 

The family spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to secure her residency – applications, lawyers, letters – but to no avail.

“We just get this block every time and she’s constantly refused because of her medical criteria,” Hayes says.

Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March says this is a disgrace and he wants the immigration disability policy changed.

A rare occasion when I agree with him.

It would be different if the parents were not already in New Zealand (legally). If a family resident overseas has a seriously disabled child and they apply to move to New Zealand, then the costs of healthcare for that child should be taken into account. Migration to New Zealand is a privilege, not a right.

But this is a couple who have lived here for almost nine years. Their child was legally born in New Zealand. The child has never lived elsewhere. The Government should so some kindness and give Ruby residency.

The Government declined on Tuesday to use urgency to introduce legislation to allow sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. I guess they think an invasion doesn’t require an urgent response.

Now contrast that to what they have used urgency for in the last four years, and what does that tell you about priorities. They include:

• introducing regional fuel taxes
• a levy on international visitors
• abolishing election for Waikato DHB
• reducing the amount a foreign person can donate to a party
• giving prisoners the vote
• classifying on demand videos
• abolishing the right of voters to decide on local Maori wards

So when the Government wants to give prisoners the vote or remove the vote from ratepayers it needs urgency. But to legislate for sanctions against Russia, no urgency at all.

if any designers out there want to create a graphic showing what Labour will and will not use urgency for, feel free to do so and post links to graphics. I’ll happily share them on social media.

And it has been done, thanks Andy.

NZ Doctor reports:

South Auckland doctors say two new anti-viral drugs to treat patients with COVID-19 are needed now in a bid to manage the country’s Omicron outbreak.

But according to drug buyer Pharmac, the drugs may not be available until April at the earliest.

Other countries have had these drugs for months. Once again we are last. These drugs can massively reduce the impact of Covid-19 on those infected. We needed the drugs in February, not April.

South Auckland GP Dr Api Talemaitoga, chairman of the Pasifika GP Network, said doctors on the front line in Counties Manukau need all the help they can get to manage the Omicron outbreak, and the anti-viral drugs are needed now.

“We’re expecting a peak in case numbers in March, so I can’t understand why we might have to wait until after April for these drugs?”

A good question.

In a statement, Pharmac’s chief medical officer Dr David Hughes said it expected the new medicines to arrive in the country between April and June.

This means we’ll probably get them on 29 June.

This website looks at how far out of step New Zealand is with our usual allies on Israel. We are the only country of Australia, Canada, UK and US to have:

• awarded a degree for holocaust denial
• not designated Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups
• sanctioned BDS activity
• not taken action against UNRWA teaching hate
• ignored resident Nazis
• not have an embassy in Israel
• not invested in holocaust education
• not joined the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

It all adds up.

And we are seeing the same pattern on Ukraine. Every other Western country is imposing sanctions or providing assistance to Ukraine so they can resist the invasion. New Zealand is merely firing off press releases.

Fraser Newman has a petition to Parliament stating:

That the House of Representatives enacts an autonomous sanctions regime against the Russian Federation under urgency.

I believe that the Russian Federation has waged a war of aggression without justification against the sovereign nation of Ukraine, transgressed its borders, attacked its cities, and killed civilians. In the absence of an autonomous sanctions regime, New Zealand is unable to join our allies in strongly sanctioning the Russian Federation for its aggression.

The Government’s stance of not imposing any sanctions on Russia unless Russia agrees to them can’t be allowed to stand. Let them know they are wrong, and totally out of step with world opinion.

Lady Deborah Chambers writes:

The emergency legislation in response to Covid-19 giving our Government the right to control our freedom of movement is no longer demonstrably justified in removing the fundamental rights to which New Zealanders are entitled.

It was once, but it isn’t anymore – I agree.

The announcement on January 26 required anyone known to be infected to lock themselves in their homes for 14 days. Anyone else in the house automatically becomes classified as a close contact and must also isolate for the same period and then for an additional 10 days as well. If in those last 10 days any of the previously uninfected close contacts in your house test positive, then the whole process starts again.

On February 14, phase 2 was announced reducing the length of self-isolation slightly to 10 days and seven days for close contacts, regardless of testing negative for “non-critical workers”.

If Omicron spreads as quickly here as it has in other countries, it seems possible that at some point nearly every household will be forced into isolation. The new rules incentivise New Zealanders to simply not get tested and not use the Covid tracer App.

This can be seen in the data for the number of people using the Covid app. On 21 January it was used by 1.16 million people and on 21 February that had dropped a massive 37% to 0.73 million people.

The closed borders continue, at least until the end of this month. The mandatory managed isolation system restricting New Zealanders’ rights to enter New Zealand including those triple-jabbed and testing negative when people in our community with Covid can isolate at home cannot be demonstrably justified as reasonable.

It once was, but now for every case at the border there are 100 times as many in the community.

The Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce has suggested:

Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce (AGCC) has asked the Scottish Government to scrap plans to permanently enshrine emergency lockdown powers in law, describing the move as “corrosive” to democracy and detrimental to Scotland’s economic recovery.

Should the government choose to proceed with the plans, the Chamber has requested that five conditions be attached, including that they must have the backing of at least 75 MSPs or more, and that politicians and government officials take a 25% pay cut for the duration of any future business restrictions to “understand” the financial impact.

That would incentivise MPs to consider whether a lockdown etc is really necessary.

An excellent article by Hamish Price on Russia is here. Some extracts:

Russia has overwhelming military superiority. Yet they will still suffer devastating losses. Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine has doubled its army, and modernised its equipment. Ukraine has 250,000 armed personnel, and 7 million men of fighting age.

Russia has captured the port of Odessa to block Ukraine’s access to shipping. It is now carrying out shock-and-awe air-strikes on Ukrainian cities with relative impunity.

But to force the removal of the government in Kiev and install a puppet regime, Russia needs to engage in urban warfare and land troops on the ground in the capital. As Russian forces descend on Kiev from multiple fronts, there are already signs that they are making less progress than they had planned. Russia’s losses are mounting.

Ukrainian losses will be martyrs in defence of the motherland. Russian casualties will diminish morale. The ground invasion of a country with a land mass almost twice the size of Germany will only lead to bloodshed that will eclipse all other conflicts in Europe in the last eight decades. And the blood will flow for years.

The invasion of Ukraine is now in its fourth day and progress is slow. By comparison the ground war in the first gulf war was over in 100 hours.

But New Zealand is now an outlier among modern liberal democracies in not having an autonomous sanctions regime. When our closest like-minded friends are prepared to make such huge personal sacrifices to stand up for Ukraine’s sovereignty–in the case of much of Europe, this means literally going cold in winter; then it is no longer tenable to rely on travel bans or an antiquated commitment to a compromised UN system to send a message to Ukraine.

It is hand-wringing weakness to opine that New Zealand wants reform of the permanent membership veto on the Security Council. That reform will not happen. We need autonomous sanctions to take action against the most egregious violations of international law.

Although foreign affairs is occasionally a balance between our values and our interests, in the case of Russia, New Zealand needs to allow our values to prevail. We must align ourselves with Europe, the UK, the US, Japan and others on Russia. We need to be prepared to cut off trade with Russia, cease dealings with all Russian financial institutions, and freeze all Russian assets. We need to expel all of Russia’s diplomats and close our embassy in Moscow.

We need to make it clear to Russia that as long as they attempt to tear up the United Nations Charter, attack other sovereign states, and undermine our values, we can have no relationship with them.

We must commit to defeating Russia’s information war against our values, and play our part in advancing the cause of democracy and human rights, and combating authoritarianism. Some of those discussions will be hard.

I like the line if placing our values ahead of our interests. I agree.

The reputational risk to New Zealand is not simply whether we stand up with like-minded countries for the values that we have extolled in New York, Geneva and Vienna over nearly eight decades. The doors are closing on Russian finance. But finance is mobile. Even if there is agreement to lock Russia out of the SWIFT transaction system, New Zealand is still vulnerable. We have the tenth most-traded currency in the world. Our investment and business regime is among the most liberal. Two years into a comprehensive Western embargo on Russian finance, we will become an outcast if we have become an easy safe-haven for it.

Brownlee has attempted to table his Bill again this week. Mahuta responded loftily that the Bill is not “fit for purpose”. Yet they have made no attempt to replace it. The events in the last 24 hours have now made autonomous sanctions an urgent priority for New Zealand foreign policy. Brownlee’s legislation may not be perfect, but the critical need is to provide a mechanism to sanction Russia immediately. National leader Chris Luxon has offered National’s support to fast-track such a regime.

Ardern is due to travel to Europe shortly to press New Zealand’s case for the long-awaited FTA with the EU. When she visits European leaders, she will claim that we are like-minded modern liberal democracies with shared values. Each of them will then ask her what New Zealand is doing to show our commitment to those values. If all we have done is berated a Russian Ambassador and imposed a travel ban on Vladimir Putin, then they will laugh her out of the room.

Australia is not doing nothing. Australia is sending weapons from their military to Ukraine. Almost every liberal democratic country is doing something, except (so far) New Zealand.

Great to see the PSA join the Taxpayers’ Union in attacking the unfairness of not adjusting the tax brackets for inflation. Real union solidarity there.

Someone who earns $50,000 in Australia pays $1,300 less in income tax than the someone earning $50,000 here. Australia almost every year adjust their tac brackets, but we don’t.

ABC reports:

In a striking political acknowledgment Tuesday, a former top Democratic foreign policy official revisited her comments from the turbulent 2012 presidential campaign and directly and openly said she owed then-Republican nominee Mitt Romney an apology.

Madeleine Albright, who served as President Bill Clinton‘s secretary of state and supported President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, apologized to Romney, then Obama’s Republican opponent and now Utah’s junior senator, for her repeated criticism of his claim that Russia was the country’s “number one geopolitical foe,” as he said during the campaign.

Romney’s claim drew a memorable slam from Obama during a presidential debate: “The 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” Obama said, seeking to paint Romney as out of touch on a key foreign policy issue.

Albright, who similarly criticized Romney in 2012, said she’d “underestimated” Russia back then.

“I personally owe an apology to now-Senator Romney, because I think that we underestimated what was going on in Russia,” Albright said during a House Intelligence Committee hearing.

It’s been clear for some time that Romney was right. I always thought he would be a good President and it is a shame he didn’t win in 2012.

A reader has started a Kiwi History Channel on Youtube called Interesting FiNgZ.

Here’s one of his videos for those interested in Kiwi history and wanting to subscribe.

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Newsroom reports:

Questions have also been raised about why labs are already under such strain well below New Zealand’s stated maximum testing capacity, with the Opposition accusing the Government of using misleading figures to overstate the state of play.

In late January, Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall announced the Government had increased the nationwide capacity for Covid PCR tests “from a maximum of 39,000 tests a day to a baseline of 58,000 tests”.

Questions have also been raised about why labs are already under such strain well below New Zealand’s stated maximum testing capacity, with the Opposition accusing the Government of using misleading figures to overstate the state of play.

In late January, Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall announced the Government had increased the nationwide capacity for Covid PCR tests “from a maximum of 39,000 tests a day to a baseline of 58,000 tests”.

You expect delays when the Government reaches its claimed testing capacity. But to have five day delays in processing when you are at half the claimed capacity tells you there is a problem.

Taylor said the Government needed to continue the rollout of rapid antigen tests (or RATs) across the country, while there needed to be much more selective criteria for who should seek PCR tests.

Yet RATs are still banned from general sale. Fortunately the Government is finally about to relent and may let us purchase RATs in March.

A guest post by Mike Wilkinson, former Executive member, New Zealand Republic

Many would have missed a small bit of news in Australia last week. The Australian Republican Movement announced a new model for how a republic would work. Much more water needs to pass under the bridge before it has any real influence here. Yet, proponents of a republic in New Zealand should take heart.

The new model, the Australian Choice, is summarised on ARM’s website. It would allow governments in each State and Territory to nominate one candidate to be Head of State. The Federal Parliament could nominate up to three. A national election would then decide which candidate becomes Head of State.

ARM’s model is designed to overcome problems shown by a republican referendum held in 1999. That vote considered a system where a Head of State was chosen by a two-thirds vote of Parliament. Opponents successfully painted this as a “politicians’ republic” – many voters preferred that they choose the Head of State in an election. The result of the referendum was 55% against – Australians chose to stay with the monarchy.

ARM has tried to build consensus on the Australian Choice – it was the outcome of a 2-year consultation. Yet, ARM’s opponents point to the 20 years since the referendum, asking why has ARM taken all that time? Consensus is difficult because even now, the issue still divides those who want a republic. Some such as Liberal MP Jason Falinski welcome the new model warmly. Others like former PM Paul Keating, staunchly criticise it – they say only Parliament should choose the Head of State. Keating says he would even prefer keeping the monarchy to ARM’s model. 

ARM believes 73% of Australians would vote for a republic if the Australian Choice Model was put to a referendum. Yet, much water needs to pass under the bridge before that happens. Will ARM convince enough supporters to back its new model at the ballot box? Or will its opponents once again succeed dividing those supporters, by say calling the model as a politicians’ republic again? Time will tell. Still, New Zealanders who support a republic should even now applaud ARM’s work. We can hope it leads to further steps in Australia that help republicanism in New Zealand.