The Herald reports:

Then-Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins received advice about the potential risks of a second Covid-19 vaccine dose for teenagers at a time when tens of thousands of them had yet to get a follow-up jab.

The Phase Two report from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 response said the advice was never delivered to ministers, but the Herald has unearthed a Cabinet paper, in Hipkins’ name, from March 2022 that includes the advice in question. 

It was from the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group (CV TAG), on December 9, 2021, and it covered the possibility of “unnecessary risk” of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) following a second dose of the Covid vaccine for under 18s. 

It recommended considering changing the requirements of existing vaccine mandates – for the 12-17 age group – from two vaccine doses to one. …

Labour’s response to pressure from the Government has leaned on the Royal Commission’s report, which said: “Ministers we interviewed could not recall receiving that advice, nor is there any evidence it was provided to them in the material we obtained from agencies.”

But Hipkins’ Cabinet paper indicates he knew of the advice, which was shared with Cabinet colleagues in a Cabinet Social Wellbeing Committee meeting (Hipkins is not listed in the minutes as being present at that March 2022 meeting).

This direct contradiction is very hard to reconcile. I can only think of three ways you can do so.

1. Hipkins didn’t read his Cabinet papers, and signed off on a paper without reading it, and the paper was inaccurate.
2. Hipkins forgot he had received the advice
3. Hipkins lied about receiving the advice

None of these possibilities reflect particularly well on Hipkins.

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Chris Hipkins isn’t providing an alternative plan of action to help struggling New Zealanders facing pain at the pump and the threat of rising prices elsewhere. 

Asked repeatedly what alternatives Labour could suggest, Hipkins said the onus to present ideas was on the current Government. 

He gave some principles, such as that any support should assist people on low, fixed income, and generally that Labour wanted to ensure a transition to renewable energy. 

The lack of detail of alternative ideas contrasted heavily with the Green Party’s offerings this morning. It wrote to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon with a variety of policies to support New Zealanders. 

What’s worse – lots of stupid ideas, or no ideas at all?

David Harvey makes a salient point:

There is a particular kind of political cowardice that masquerades as wisdom. It speaks in the language of restraint, dresses itself in the garb of responsibility, and calls itself prudence. But strip away the euphemisms and what you are left with is a simple, damning truth: nothing. No ideas. No vision. No plan.

Chris Hipkins delivered a masterclass in this art form this week, and in doing so, he did New Zealand a genuine service — not the service he intended, but a revealing one. He showed, with uncomfortable clarity, exactly why Labour is unfit to govern this country.

Standing before the press gallery in the shadow of a genuine global crisis — weeks into the war in Iran, with New Zealand households facing real and escalating economic pressure — the Leader of the Opposition opened his mouth and produced precisely zero policy ideas.

Not one.

Instead, he did what the modern Left does best: he criticised, he gestured vaguely at incompetence, and then, when pressed for substance, he retreated behind a wall of excuses so flimsy it would embarrass a first-year politics student.

“The Government needs to come up with a plan,” Hipkins told the Herald when asked what should be done to help struggling households.

That’s it. That’s the contribution. That is the sum total of alternative thinking from a man who wants to be Prime Minister of New Zealand. …

What Hipkins offered this week was the opposite: an opposition that has decided the work is optional, that ideas are a liability, that the safest political ground is the empty ground of permanent critique.

He is, of course, correct that the Government is in the hot seat today. That is true. Voters rightly hold governments accountable for their performance in a crisis. But voters are also watching the alternative. They are forming judgements not just about whether the current government is adequate, but whether there is anything better waiting in the wings.

What they saw from Hipkins this week was a man standing in the wings, refusing to learn his lines, insisting that knowing the lines wasn’t really his job until opening night.

That is not leadership. It is not even competent opposition. It is the political equivalent of turning up to a job interview and declining to answer the questions on the grounds that you don’t actually work there yet.

All very astute points.

I was at a forum on Tuesday where the Reserve Bank Governor was asked about the role of fiscal policy in responding to the increase in prices caused by the Iran war. She said that any assistance should be timely, targeted and temporary.

I agree, and this is of course in great contrast to what the last Government did with the Covid-19 response where the spent a shocking $30 billion of Covid-19 response funds on stuff that had nothing to do with Covid-19.

So how does the announcement by Nicola Willis stack up to the three Ts.

Timely

The extra assistance will start on 7 April, just 14 days from the announcement.

Temporary

It is for a maximum of 12 months (so will not become a permanent entitlement) or until petrol drops below $3/litre for four consecutive weeks., Sensibly tied to the problem of families being hit by the cost off petrol at a historic artificial high.

Targeted

It is not a cash for everyone splash. There simply is not enough money available to cushion the shock for every household. So it is targeted towards low and middle income households that are working and have children. Very sensible because you don’t have a choice about getting your kids to school and getting to work. It will benefit 143,000 families – the majority earning under $80,000 a year

Even better Nicola Willis said this won’t be funded out of additional borrowing, but will come from the Budget operating allowance – so in other words through savings elsewhere or not proceeding with something else they would have funded.

If Labour had not blown spending out from 28% of GDP to 34% of GDP, leaving us with a permanent structural deficit, we would be better positioned to respond to the fuel crisis.

So I am very pleased to see a sensible approach to helping the families that most need support, but not adding to the debt that will have to be paid back by future generations.

Bryce Edwards has blogged on how National is having a fundraising dinner with the leader and senior spokespersons. This follows a NZ Herald story.

Bryce did this graphic of the invite:

Below is what is in the NZ Herald story.

Do you see the difference? The Herald version states maximum seven guests per table. This implies (correctly) that the price is for a table of seven.

But Bryce ran a graphic that excludes that detail. I can only assume he deliberately trimmed the image to exclude that, because a story about paying $5,000 to $10,000 for a seat at a dinner is more sexy than paying $700 to $1,400.

I like to assume incompetence over malice, but it is very hard to see an innocent explanation for deleting the part of the invitation that states the prices is for a table, not per person.

This sounds like something an integrity institute should scrutinise!

UPDATE: Bryce has commented that the editing was done to fit into Substack, and not related to the content. I take him at his word. I would note though that the change was very material, as almost no one reading it would realise it was a table price.

Winston has been hugely critical of the decision by Fonterra to sell its Mainland consumer brands business to Lactalis for $4.22 billion.

I am not an expert in the dairy trade, supply chains or marketing. So I don’t know if it was a good decision or not.

But what is relevant is this was not a decision by the Fonterra board. It was voted on by thousands of dairy farmers up and down NZ. And it was backed not by 51%, or 60% or 70% or even 80% or 90% but by a massive 98.85%.

The farmers are those with skin in the game. They made the decision. I trust their ability to know what is good for them, more than a politician.

Kevin Bishell should not be at large. Here is his record:

• Numerous convictions for careless driving before 2018
• Killed an 18 year old in a dead on collision in 2018 – only got 30 months
• Breached a release condition by testing positive for amphetamine, methamphetamine and cannabis
• August 2024 – clocked at 190 km/hr, and found with meth and cannabis in car
• Jan 2025 – driving while suspended, more cannabis and meth in car

He got given nine months home detention for the latest offences, and disqualified from driving for just 12 months.

It is almost certain he will cause another fatal crash. He should not be on home detention.

Radio NZ reports:

New Zealand Customs has warned tobacco smuggling is becoming more organised, large-scale and sophisticated, with the government pledging to stop the country following Australia into tobacco gangland warfare.

But a public health professor says while criminal involvement is a concern, there is no evidence of a dramatic increase in the size of the tobacco black market.

No evidence????

By chance Eric Crampton has just pointed out:

So far this year, the government’s tobacco excise revenue is $164 million below forecast. If that pace continues, the annual shortfall will reach about $225m.

That is 16% below forecast.

Now either smoking rates have dropped 16% in just a few months, or smokers are getting their tobacco from sources that don’t pay excise tax.

Susan Hornsby-Geluk writes:

Among the most controversial aspects of the recently enacted Employment Relations Amendment Act 2026 is the introduction of a high-income threshold for personal grievance claims.

Under the new provisions, employees earning $200,000 or more in annual remuneration will lose the right to bring a personal grievance for unjustified dismissal, or an unjustified disadvantage claim where the disadvantage relates to their dismissal. …

Additionally, the change is promoted as making it easier for employers to address underperformance in key roles.

This is correct. A dud receptionist doesn’t threaten the viability of a business. But a dud CEO, CFO etc can.

Another unintended consequence, but with immediate practical implications, is that highly paid employees are unlikely to accept a loss of statutory protection lying down.

Therefore, pre-employment negotiations for affected employees may become more intense, as they seek contractual certainty in exchange for giving up certain rights.

Consequently, there is likely to be a rise in high-income employees demanding extended notice periods and severance entitlements.

This is a good trade off. As someone who has been an employer of executives who haven’t been right for the role, I would happily happily take a (say) six month notice and severance entitlement for the certainty that we could part ways, compared to the status quo of months of meetings, letters, performance management, lawyers, threatened court action and then eventually a pay out.

Stuff reports:

The number of Kāinga Ora tenants getting kicked out for disruptive behaviour has plummeted, with the organisation putting it down to its new “firm but fair” approach.

In the year ended June 30, 2025, there were 74 tenancies ended due to disruptive behaviour.

In the eight months since then there have been 43.

That is a reduction but hardly a plummet. It was 6.2 a month and now it is 5.4 a month – a 13% reduction. That’s good and welcome but again now what I would call a plummet.

ACT Deputy Leader Brooke van Velden has announced she will retire at the election, after two terms as an MP. She is only 33 years old and many (including me) thought she would succeed David Seymour as ACT leader.

This is a big loss for ACT. I worked with Brooke on the End of Life bill when she was a staffer, and it was clear back then how talented she was. She worked with MPs from Greens, Labour, NZ First etc to get the bill through (as did David Seymour, whose bill it was). Her Holidays Act reform is a masterclass in good policy and politics.

I am sure she will do amazing things in her next career, and it will probably be one that will give her a better work life balance.

ACT hope to still retain Tamaki, but without Brooke standing it will be challenging. National’s Mahesh Muralidhar should go buy a lotto ticket as it is a very lucky week for him!

The latest health targets data is out, for the Oct – Dec 25 quarter. Let’s look at what has happened over the last 10 years for each of them, remembering that Labour basically dropped all the previous targets when they came into office.

The Key/English Government saw those needing cancer treatment and starting within 31 days going from 84% to 90%. From 2021 to early 2024 under Ardern and Hipkins it dropped to 83% and now is at 87%. The target is 87% by June 26 and 90% by 2030 so well on track.

This one is heart breaking. We had immunisation rates at over 90% and they dropped to around 75% under Labour. They are now to 83% with the target of 87% by June 26 and 95% by 2030.

Over 90% of ED patients were being dealt with within six hours under Key and English. The target was scrapped and it dropped to under 85%. It recovered slightly and dropped during the pandemic. However even after the pandemic it kept plummeting under Ardern and Hipkins to under 70%. It has increased by around 6% to 74% and the target by June 26 is 77% and 95% by 2030.

Under Key and English almost 100% of people needing to see a specialist saw one within four months. It dropped to 90% under Ardern. The pandemic saw it drop to 75% and then recover to 90%. But the next two years of Ardern and Hipkins saw it drop to under 65%. 2025 has seen it increase from 58% to 62% but some way off the target of 65% by June 26 and 95% by 2030.

Again almost 100% of patients needing elective treatment were getting hot under Key and English. It fell under Ardern to under 90%. The pandemic saw it fall to under 70% and then recover to 85%. But then Ardern and Hipkins saw it drop to 55%. It is now at around 65% and the target by June 26 is 70% and by 2030 95%.

There are three conclusions we can draw from this:

• Under Key and English the health system was performing very well against health targets.
• Under Ardern and Hipkins, every metric declined massively. While Covid-19 obviously was a partial factor in 2020 and 2021, the data shows that decline often continued under Ardern and Hipkins. Also decline started before Covid-19 also.
• Under Luxon there has been improvement in all the health targets in the last year (it takes time to turn things around). For three of the targets the improvements are significant and basically on target, while for two the improvement is significantly less than targeted (but still improving)

I will update these with the March 26 data, which I expect in June and finally with the June 26 dats in September.

Now Labour have done a reshuffle, I thought it would be timely to look at what the ministry could look like under a Labour-Greens-Te Pati Maori Government.

Rather than be subjective, I have followed three rules:

1. The number of Ministers for each party is proportional to their share of the vote
2. The rank in the ministry follows the st lague formula to allocate seats proportionally
3. The portfolio they are allocated is the most significant one they currently have. If someone from another party is ranked higher and has that portfolio, then they get the next most significant.

The one exception is that I have Edmonds having Finance as that traditionally goes to the largest party.

It would certainly be a very interesting Government!

The Post reports:

The Crown has dropped its case against a man accused of damaging a Treaty of Waitangi exhibit at Te Papa Tongarewa in December 2023.

A judge in Wellington District Court was told on Tuesday that the move came after defence lawyer Julia Spelman had given the Crown a draft of a defence expert’s evidence for the future trial of Te Wehi Ratana, 31.

Does anyone think charges would have been dropped if it was say a protester who damaged the Tino Rangatiratanga flag as a protest? No of course not.

Ratana had also taken part in climate change protests that disrupted traffic around Wellington several times in 2022 and 2023.

He and others stood trial on a charge of endangering transport but a jury could not agree on verdicts against him. In that case the Crown decided it was not in the interests of justice for the Ratana and others to stand trial again.

We have a justice system that encourages law breaking – so long as it is left wing activism.

Radio NZ reports:

US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reached a final conclusion or completed their investigation, two US officials told Reuters.

If the deaths were caused by the US, this was one of the worst mishaps in modern warfare. It is a tragedy for the families involved.

There is no suggestion it was deliberate, but that is little comfort to the parents who have the unimaginable horror of having to bury their children.

I hope there is a full investigation into what happened, if for no other reason than to minimise it reoccuring.

Simon Brown has blogged his submission to the Medical Council:

Let me start by stating I support the Council’s goal of promoting culturally responsive care and addressing health disparities. New Zealand’s healthcare system must evolve to meet the needs of our diverse population, and I acknowledge the well-documented inequities in health outcomes for Maori, such as lower life expectancy (7–8 years below non-Maori), higher rates of preventable deaths, and unmet primary care needs (44% for Maori). These gaps are real and demand action.

My core concern with the drafts, however, is their tendency to conflate socioeconomic status (SES) with systemic racism as a primary causal explanation for these disparities. While the draft documents do not explicitly state “systemic racism” it is evident from the use of terms like “systemic bias,” “unfair systems,” “institutional structures,” “power imbalances,” and “colonial histories”. This attribution of systemic racism remains unproven on rigorous scientific grounds and risks embedding socially and scientifically contested interpretations into professional standards, potentially at the expense of more practical, evidence-based solutions focused on prevention, education, and individual responsibility.

So the goal is good, but the draft is bad.

However, the drafts’ mandatory requirements for medical doctors to “actively acknowledge and address your own power, privilege, biases” and “use your professional influence to work in partnership with Maori to identify and dismantle unfair systems and power imbalances” imply acceptance of “systemic racism” as a settled fact. This goes beyond encouraging respect and self-reflection; it mandates endorsement of a causal framework that conflates SES-driven problems with racism, without sufficient causal evidence.

The Medical Council is trying to impose a political view on all doctors, without evidence.

The Medical Council’s role is to ensure clinical competence and patient safety, not to enforce interpretive frameworks on causation. By conflating SES with racism, the drafts risk dividing the profession and distracting from holistic solutions. I urge the Council to refine these statements to prioritize evidence, prevention, and individual agency alongside equity. I believe this balanced approach is better suited and will better serve all New Zealanders.

Hopefully the Council listens.

Andrew Little has released his Triennium Plan for WCC. Let’s take a look at it.

Create a $50,000 per annum External Legal Advice Fund for representatives to test the council organisation’s legal advice by seeking an external legal opinion.

Excellent. Really important governors can access legal advice directly.

Strive to keeping rates as low as practicable in an effort to make Wellington more affordable, while acknowledging there will always be a range of views about what that means.

I blogged in September what that would look like. “Well the Whanau Council has a 12% rates increased planned for next year, so a minimal success would be getting that to under 10%. The current Council has further rates increases of 7% for out years. So rates increases of under 5% from 27/28 would qualify.”

Protect the Council’s ownership stake in Wellington International Airport Ltd.

Why? As a minority shareholder you have no real say, and it means you are not independent when dealing with the airport. I’d sell the airport shares and invest it in water infrastructure.

Rapidly review approved capital projects valued at $1 million or more where construction has not started (or a future tranche has not started), so representatives have assurance each is realistic and affordable.

Good.

Any identified expected cost escalation of more than 5 percent in any project worth $1 million or more must be reported in writing within 7 days to the Chair of the project’s authorising committee and the Mayor’s Office

Good, but amazing this was not already the case.

The Herald reports:

Senior Government minister Louise Upston visited Gloriavale in late January, months after refusing to rule out closing the religious community following allegations of child abuse in the community.

Newstalk ZB has confirmed Upston visited the sect on January 30, alongside officials from the Ministry of Social Development.

This story is puzzling. As far as I know a Cabinet Minister can’t close down a religious community. The Government can close schools etc, but if a group of people choose to live together, and follow a religion together, that is not something a Minister needs to approve.

The Herald reports:

A woman’s 14-year-old grandson was nearly mowed down by her neighbour’s car, while her son was threatened with a machete.

Now an elderly Tongan woman has gone to the Tenancy Tribunal after Kāinga Ora refused to terminate her tenancy despite the woman living in “constant fear” of the family next door. …

She and her son had reported the behaviour to Kāinga Ora numerous times during the tenancy but their response had always been to tell her and her family to keep to themselves and not engage with the neighbours. …

Kāinga Ora said it had considered whether it could terminate the neighbour’s tenancy under section 55A of the Residential Tenancies Act (termination for assault) following the machete incident, but ultimately determined it could not do so because the neighbouring tenant herself was not home and the male at the address was not a listed tenant and had threatened this tenant’s son and not the tenant herself.

This is disappointing. Generally Kainga Ora has got better at dealing with abusive tenants, but this case shows they still have work to do.

They seem to hide behind a technically that the threats came from the tenant’s partner or friend, and were aimed at the other tenant’s son.

The organisation was also unable to apply to terminate the tenancy for antisocial behaviour as there had not been three incidents within a 90 -day period.

Three within a year would be a better test.

Tribunal adjudicator Melissa Allan said the tenant had been “left in a very difficult situation”.

“She has not felt free to move about her property, often remains inside, and has been subjected to unreasonable levels of noise, rubbish being thrown, screaming and yelling and threats being made to her family members.

“The landlord should have filed an application to terminate the neighbouring tenancy. It is not necessary for criminal charges to be proven or even laid. 

“The landlord only needed to prove, to the civil standard, that the tenant has been interfering with the reasonable pace, comfort and privacy of the tenant and that the breach is of such a nature and of such an extent that it would be inequitable to refuse to make an order terminating the tenancy.”

By failing to take steps the landlord had breached its obligations, she said.

Kāinga Ora was ordered to pay the tenant $5000 in compensation for breach of landlord’s obligations and was looking to transfer the tenant to a tenancy that is more suited to her current health needs.

The Tenancy Tribunal got it right. It is unfortunate Kainga Ora didn’t.