Better late than never. An open discussion on the role of matauranga Māori within the science curriculum is always what should have been the response to the letter from the seven academics. Discussion and even debate is the whole point of universities. Instead what we saw was the modern equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition with what can only be called a mass campaign of bullying.

It is good to see Auckland University now doing the right thing. It might have been forced into it, but it should still be welcomed.

The important lesson from all this is that institutions and people do respond to incentives. When a couple of leftish academics orchestrate a mass pile-on, then the institutions join in because their incentive is not to become the target themselves.

But due to the valiant efforts of journalists such as Graham Adams and Karl du Fresne, the Free Speech Union, and eminent global scientists, the institutions are learning that joining in the pile-on will mean they suffer adverse reputational consequences. This means that the incentives have changed, and hopefully in future the response to these issues will be “Let’s discuss this” rather than “Let’s denounce the heretics to prove how pure we are”.

Stuff reports:

The foreign ministry spokesman for the Taliban is a former New Zealand resident who previously lived in Hamilton, multiple sources have told Stuff.

The spokesman refers to himself as Abdul Qahar Balkhi. Based in Kabul, Balkhi has become a prominent representative of the Taliban regime, due to his interviews with international media and his excellent English.

However, Stuff understands he immigrated to New Zealand many years ago with his family. …

In a statement, a New Zealand government spokesman said they were aware of media reports suggesting a senior member of the Taliban may be a New Zealand citizen.

“As with all cases that may have national security implications the Government is not in a position to comment on specifics.

“The Taliban is designated as a terrorist entity under New Zealand law and is subject to United Nations Sanctions.

“New Zealand takes its global counter-terrorism commitments extremely seriously and any New Zealander involved with a terrorist group can expect to be investigated under New Zealand law.”

What if they make him the Ambassador to New Zealand?

The Herald reports:

Auckland boundary restrictions should have already been lifted and the whole country, bar Auckland and Northland, should be in the orange setting, according to previously unreleased public health advice.

The Ministry of Health also initially thought some regions should start in green – though this was later revised due to the spread of Delta – despite its concerns that starting the traffic light system in early December could put vulnerable Māori at greater risk.

This should destroy the myth that the Government is simply following the scientific advice. The scientific advice was that many regions should be green, and some of the red regions should be orange – plus that the Auckland boundary should have gone by now.

It was Jacinda’s personal decision to over-ride the advice and keep restrictions going for longer than deemed necessary.

Have embedded below an interesting analysis of the benefits and costs of vaccine mandates. An analysis such as this is what should drive decision making, rather than fear.

R Covid Vaccine Mandates by David Farrar on Scribd

I’ve just presented the full poll results of the December 2021 Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll to the NZTU AGM. The full results are confidential to NZTU and Curia corporate clients, but the NZTU has made some of the key graphs available here.

This is the first poll to be done entirely after Christopher Luxon was elected Leader of the National Party, and it shows National finally having broken through the 30% barrier. In fact National is up 7% to 33%. The overall gap between the centre-left and centre-right is basically unchanged at 6%, so the centre-right needs to pick up another 4% or so to be in a position to form a Government. The key difference to last month, is that people now want to hear from National, and both National and Labour are in the 30s.

Also very noteworthy is Luxon’s ratings. He enters the Preferred PM ratings at 20% (Ardern 39%). That 20% rating is the highest outside an election period for any opposition leader (excluding Ardern’s six weeks) since John Key.

More importantly Luxon has a positive net favourability rating of +15%. This is in fact slightly higher than Ardern who is at +14% (in October it was +33%).

So overall a very reassuring poll for National. The change of leader doesn’t mean they are ahead in the race to form the next Government, but it does mean they are now competitive and they have a leader who has high favourability, which means people will want to listen to him and consider giving their vote to the party he leads.

A guest article by Graham Adams:

Robert Nola’s academic specialty is the philosophy of science but the Royal Society is investigating him over what it claims are “misguided” views regarding Māori knowledge. Graham Adams reports.

Professor Robert Nola’s bread and butter is analysing what makes science science. And it has been his focus for more than 50 years. Yet, he is facing a disciplinary hearing by the Royal Society for expressing his views on science and mātauranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge).

Nola was one of seven eminent professors from Auckland University who, in a letter to the Listener in July, criticised plans to include mātauranga Māori in the school science curriculum and to give it equal standing with “Western/ Pakeha epistemologies” — which means subjects such as physics, biology and chemistry.

The professors acknowledged the value of indigenous knowledge as “critical for the preservation and perpetuation of culture and local practices” and that it “plays key roles in management and policy”. But, they wrote, while it “may indeed help advance scientific knowledge in some ways, it is not science”.

For reasons best known to itself, the Royal Society felt moved to respond with a public statement: “The recent suggestion by a group of University of Auckland academics that mātauranga Māori is not a valid truth is utterly rejected by Royal Society Te Apārangi. The society strongly upholds the value of mātauranga Māori and rejects the narrow and outmoded definition of science outlined in The Listener Letter to the Editor.

“It deeply regrets the harm such a misguided view can cause.”

Unfortunately for a statement put out in the name of the nation’s premier academy for the sciences and humanities, it was sloppily worded and seemed to show a poor grasp of what the professors had actually written.

As has been noted elsewhere, the professors never said mātauranga Māori wasn’t a “valid truth” — which of course could describe anything from witchcraft (at least in the eyes of its practitioners) to the great Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Furthermore, the professors didn’t “outline” a definition of science in their letter, as the society claimed, although it perhaps could be said to have implied one.

Possibly the Royal Society’s most egregious assertion, however, was that the professors’ views were “misguided”.

That description can cover a multitude of sins, from being “unreasonable or unsuitable because of being based on bad judgment or on wrong information or beliefs” (Cambridge English Dictionary) to “led or prompted by wrong or inappropriate motives or ideals” (Merriam-Webster).

Synonyms include unwarranted, unfounded, ill-advised, ill-considered, foolish and  confused.

To accuse a group of no fewer than seven outstanding professors of being “misguided” because they hold a particular view of what demarcates science from non-science seems… well… misguided. And perhaps no more so than in Professor Nola’s case.

It would certainly be news to the editors of the prestigious journals and book collections which have published his work in the philosophy of science over decades that his views are misguided. Just as it would be news to the eminent scientists around the world who have contacted the Royal Society to condemn its investigation and to back the professors’ opinion on mātauranga Māori and their right to offer it.

Professor Nola, a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, has an MSc in mathematics, and an MA and a PhD in philosophy.

His résumé on the University of Auckland website details his professional interests as: “Philosophy of science; metaphysics, including naturalism; epistemology; selected areas in social and historical studies of science; atheism; science and religion.”

It is difficult to imagine anyone in our universities who might have a better-informed view on the boundaries of science or why mātauranga Māori should not be included in the school science curriculum. Obviously, that is not a reason to immediately assume his views are correct but it is a reason to assume they are well considered and that he has the standing to make such a judgment in a professional capacity.

That is, of course, unless it is argued that mātauranga Māori is a form of priestly knowledge that only an initiate — presumably Māori — could understand and comment on. But if that is the case, it confirms immediately that traditional Māori knowledge is not scientific.

As the professors stated in their letter: “Science is universal” — which Nola points out can mean that it is “applicable by anyone anywhere”.

The same point was made by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in the letter he sent to the Royal Society NZ last week (and tweeted to his 2.9 million followers) that decried the disciplinary investigation against Nola and his eminent colleague, Māori medical researcher Professor Garth Cooper:

“Science is science is science, and it doesn’t matter who does it, or where, or what ‘tradition’ they may have been brought up in. True science is evidence-based not tradition-based; it incorporates safeguards such as peer review, repeated experimental testing of hypotheses, double-blind trials, instruments to supplement and validate fallible senses etc.”

In his letter to the Royal Society, Jerry Coyne, professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, made the point that only scientific method can determine what parts of mātauranga Māori can be classified as scientific knowledge:

“Māori science is a collation of mythology, religion, and legends which may contain some scientific truth, but to determine what bits exactly are true, those claims must be adjudicated by modern science: our only ‘true’ way of knowing.”

The problem for the Royal Society in rejecting what they see as the professors’ “narrow and outmoded definition of science” is that a wider and more fashionable view of what constitutes science leads inevitably to a philosophy of “anything goes”, or a sort of epistemological anarchy.

Once Māori myths and legends are introduced into the school science curriculum there is no justifiable reason not to include Creationism (the belief that the universe and the various forms of life were created by God out of nothing) as well.

Parts of mātauranga Māori are, of course, creation myths, including the roles played by Ranginui, the Sky Father, and Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother, in the formation of the world.

As Dawkins wrote: “No indigenous myths from anywhere in the world, no matter how poetic or hauntingly beautiful, belong in science classes.”

As it happens, Professor Nola is no stranger to an elastic view of science — and what areas of knowledge and belief might fall under such an expanded remit.

He was a lecturer in Auckland University’s philosophy department when Paul Feyerabend arrived from the University of California, Berkeley, to teach during the winter terms of 1972 and 1974.

In the second half of the 20th Century, Feyerabend was one of the world’s best-known philosophers of science — and certainly the most mischievous.

He was a charismatic showman with a prodigious intellect and astonishing range of interests, and one who reliably packed out the biggest lecture halls in the university. He argued (as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it) that “in order to maximise the chances of falsifying existing theories, scientists should construct and defend as many alternative theories as possible”.

Feyerabend’s first book, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge — published in 1975 (and expanding on the essay version that appeared in 1970) — consolidated his reputation as a thorn in the side of the profession. He argued that there is no such thing as the scientific method.

In an era when university lecturers were still allowed to discombobulate if not alarm their students with radical ideas, he challenged his Auckland University students to convince him that witchcraft was not scientific — and prescribed the 15th Century text Malleus Maleficarum (the Hammer of Witches) as a set text.

So Feyerabend ended up likening science to voodoo, witchcraft and astrology and defending them as systems of knowledge. He also expressed support for Creationism being included in the public school curriculum.

You might even say, to echo the Royal Society’s formulation, he saw each of them as “valid truths”.

Interest in Feyerabend’s views, however, dwindled in the succeeding decades, not least because what makes science science is manifestly different to traditional belief systems such as religion. Presented with evidence that confounds their theories, scientists are obliged, sooner or later, to adapt them to fit the facts or to abandon them entirely — unlike religion.

Professor Nola has written extensively on Feyerabend’s philosophy. While freely admitting that the demarcation between science and non-science is contestable, he has rejected a Feyerabendian epistemological free-for-all.

He wrote in the NZ Herald in 2016 to warn about “post-truth” displacing “objective facts”:

“Insofar as studies in humanities have not resisted the views of post-truthers, too bad for humanities. But what of science? It would be quite alien for science to reject the search for truth and evidence, the core of its critical methods.

“In science we have models of what the rational approach to believing ought to be. If followed, they are an important way to keep the post-truth era from engulfing us.”

However, a significant problem for anyone — including the seven professors — who wants to assess the scientific nature of mātauranga Māori is deciding exactly what status it has.

Nola points out that there are two distinct camps of thought regarding mātauranga Māori — the “accommodationist” and the “exclusionist” positions.

The former accommodates the possibility of scientific testing to determine the scientific truth or validity of its claims. As Vision Mātauranga (2007) tells us: “Scientific knowledge has superseded traditional Māori knowledge in many ways, however, mātauranga Māori contains suggestions and ideas that may yet make a contribution to research, science and technology.”

The latter exclusionist view asserts that it is impossible to judge mātauranga Māori by the standards of science because they are fundamentally incompatible ways of knowing. (Feyerabend would have called them “incommensurable”.)

A quote by Professor Sir Mason Durie in the document Rauika Māngai: A Guide to Vision Mātauranga, published in 2020, made this position explicit: “You can’t understand science through the tools of mātauranga Māori, and you can’t understand mātauranga Māori through the tools of science. They’re different bodies of knowledge, and if you try to see one through the eyes of the other you mess up.”

In the same document, the exclusive nature of mātauranga Māori was further emphasised. Aroha Te Pareake Mead expressed a view about the exclusive control of mātauranga Māori which appears to preclude any non-Maori from learning about it: “Māori are the only ones who should be controlling all aspects of its retention, its transmission, its protection.”

Nola says that “lots of the claims from Vision Mātauranga Māori (2007) can be accommodated into science in a quite familiar way and with that I have no problem” — but the exclusionist position is more challenging.

It is ironic that the professors who wrote to the Listener have been roundly criticised for saying “Indigenous knowledge… is not science” when influential Māori thinkers like Mason Durie — who is one of New Zealand’s most respected academics — have been making a much more radical claim along these lines for years.

In a 300-word letter to the Listener it was simply impossible for the professors to make the distinction between the accommodationist and the exclusionist approaches, but the problem remains.

As Nola puts it: “Which version of MM is the real MM? There might not be one!”

Graham Adams was a philosophy student in 1972 and 1974 at Auckland University when Paul Feyerabend was a visiting professor. Dr Nola taught a course in the philosophy of science in 1974 that Adams was enrolled in.

A petition at Parliament asks:

That the House of Representatives conduct a binding referendum to determine if the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 should be made supreme law.

I support this petition. Such a change should be made by referendum. And I lean towards supporting it, as too often we have seen Government ram through law changes without consultation that affect our rights.

My preferred model would be Canada where the Supreme Court can strike down a law, but Parliament can over-ride it for a period of five years, if it explicitly chooses to do so. The Federal Parliament has never used the clause as there is political odium in doing so.

Pew Research has done polling in 17 countries on what makes life meaningful, and has included NZ. Some interestings extracts:

In order NZers said family, occupation, friends, material well-being and society were most important. Only Australians listed the same order.

Interesting that NZ is 2nd highest for religion.

I’m part of the 56%. Surprised how low this figure is in some countries. The four Asian countries are all under 30%.

We’re number one for pets!

In many countries, Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) for Covid-19 is widespread. They cost a fraction of other tests, don’t need medical professionals to administer and give you a response within 15 minutes. They are not quite as accurate as other tests, but some are 98% accurate for positive and negative results. They are not as accurate as saliva and nasal tests but they are very useful in testing those with no symptoms.

In some countries such as Austria and Slovakia they have rolled RATs out to the entire population.

As Christmas approaches, many families are under huge stress as some family members may be unvaccinated. They are feeling pressured to ban unvaccinated family members from visiting, which is of course the opposite of what Christmas should be about.

RATs could reduce these stresses by allowing an unvaccinated person to get tested on the way to a family gathering. That way families don’t need to exclude their own at Christmas time.

But the Government is killing off RATs through bureaucracy. In many countries you can buy RATs at a supermarket and do it yourself. In NZ the Government decided that for now they could only be sold and administered through pharmacies. Now that might have been okay, if you could just turn up to a pharmacy, buy a test, have it done, and leave 15 minutes later. In fact this is what the Government told pharmacies would happen.

But at the last minute, new advice has gone out replacing the old advice. Now people need to book an appointment in advance with a pharmacy to have a RAT, and the pharmacist has to get into full PPE to administer the test. This will make it expensive, cumbersome and a deterrent to getting one. Remember, in many countries you can just buy them in a supermarket. And those who get a RAT are by definition asymptomatic as if you have symptoms you’d get a nasal swab test or saliva test. So requiring pharmacists to get into full PPE for a Rapid Antigen Test is absolutely counter-productive.

So once again the Government is stuffing things up with last minute rule changes,. with no appreciation of practicality.

Stuff reports:

Health officials in Canterbury, Bay of Plenty and Waitematā asked for money to boost their intensive care unit (ICU) capacity weeks ago, but the Ministry of Health is yet to respond.

On October 18, the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) asked the Government to fund 21 additional ICU beds as authorities around the country prepare for the spread of Covid-19.

There’s no hurry. We’ve only been in a pandemic for 20 months!

Business Desk reports:

Three Waters Reform Programme officials are keeping secret both the advice that led to its controversial television advertising campaign and the identity of its author.

In its OIA release, the three waters programme directorate deleted several paragraphs summarising the proposed campaign, an appendix with the full proposal, and the identity of its author. The anonymous supplier is described in the paper both as “an independent marketing and communications consultant”, and “an independent consultancy firm“. 

Donnelly said it was also “not acceptable” that it took 50 working days for the three waters programme to decide not to release the advice and its author.  This comprised the statutory 20 working days allowed under the OIA, a 15-day extension (also allowed), and another 15 working days without a deadline extension. “The statutory obligation is to respond to a request for official information as soon as reasonably practicable,” Donnelly said.

This looks very suspicious. They took 50 working days (10 weeks) merely to refuse to release the name of the author. Why are they hiding this information?

Stuff reports:

Two Wellington bar owners have been left with permanent injuries and feel like they have lost 10 years of their lives after an unprovoked attack on them by a patron.

Ray and Sue Cullis​ were in court to see what finally happened to Hugh Soper, having waited more than two years for a resolution.

Both had their victim impact statements read to Wellington District Court judge Bruce Davidson​ at his sentencing on Friday. They detailed the suffering and medical treatment they had undergone in the years since the 2019 attack.

Soper, then 23, had been at their pub, the Sprig and Fern in Thorndon, on a Sunday night. After a minor argument where a friend of his was asked to leave, Soper threatened to hit Ray Cullis, 72, with a pint handle before punching him three or four times and stomping on his head.

Sue Cullis had her hand broken when she tried to intervene. Others had to drag Soper away.

Ray Cullis had his jaw displaced and had to have a head scan to see if any bones were broken in his skull. He has been left with permanent damage to his left eye and needed surgery to correct it, while his wife had to have multiple surgeries on her left hand after it was rebroken several times during treatment.

My God, the poor bar owners. It’s a lovely little bar I’ve been to often. Someone in their 20s beating up a couple in their 70s is despicable.

Judge Davidson sentenced Soper … to seven months’ home detention, ordered him to stay away from alcohol, and to pay $4000 emotional harm reparation.

Seven month’s home detention seems far too light, for such an awful assault – even if he is a first time offender.

NB: Only discussion of the assault and sentence will be on-topic – anything about the family of the assailant will be deleted as not relevant.

The Government has said that government departments can no longer hire unvaccinated staff, so the vaccine mandate applies to pretty much the entire state sector as well as retail and hospitality sectors etc.

This raises interesting questions. What happens in a few months when the vaccines reduce in effectiveness? Will public servants have to get a third booster shot or lose their jobs? Will cafe workers? Will teachers?

And what if annual booster shots are needed for years to come? Will people have to get an annual booster or have say 80% of jobs in New Zealand made off limits to them? And what will this do to social cohesion?

A guest post by Jackie Foster:

Greg King was a well known lawyer and dubbed “one of this country’s finest legal brains”. He was tenacious, fearless and had all the attributes that any criminal barrister would want. He was known for his commitment to each case he picked up, his ability to befriend those he met including those with opposing views and his ever strong fight for justice – even if it meant meticulously picking apart every aspect of a Crown’s case.

To King, it didn’t matter who you were, you deserved a fair trial and if you ignored standards and rules for one case, where would i t end?

The idea of everyone deserving a fair trial is one spoken about and believed by many to happen. It’s a fundamental principle of our justice system and is a right outlined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. But, from our experience and what I ’ve heard from others’ experiences since Jamie’s trial, this simple standard is not always adhered to in our justice system.

I’ve spoken before in Part 2 about evidence that was withheld by the police. With suppressions in place, it’s impossible to share with you the extent of this error. It’s also why mainstream media wouldn’t touch Jamie’s side of the story.

However, what I can expand on is that the documents the police withheld from the court, the defence counsel, the judge, and the jury were documents pertaining to conflicts of interest. Police Instructions around Conflicts of Interest are viewable online.

Investigating officers on a case must disclose actual, potential and perceived conflicts in cases they work on to ensure a
Police employee’s ability to be impartial, objective and independent. It is important that conflicts of interest are recognised and properly managed. Conflicts of interest that are hidden, or poorly managed, create the risk of misconduct (or the appearance of misconduct), and could undermine public trust and confidence.
In Jamie’s case, 8 forms were signed by 8 officers.

7 of them disclosed a conflict of interest.

The conflicts were raised with two senior officers of which neither signed a conflict form themselves. But, despite nearly all of the officers disclosing a conflict of interest, all officers remained on t he case.

The forms were later stamped DO NOT DISCLOSE and withheld from everyone. It was later found that more officers who didn’t sign forms t o disclose a conflict, had a sure fire connection. Use of nicknames in job sheets was a clear giveaway t here were personal connections. These purposely hidden documents were later discovered by defence counsel, 5 months after the trial and requested from the police who finally handed them over.

At that point we’d hoped the Court of Appeal Judges might see a problem – they didn’t. They danced around the issue in their judgement and their final decision was “Having reassessed the trial Judge’s ruling in light of the additional information, we accept that it may have been appropriate to have allowed further cross-examination regarding the conflict of interest issue that was only raised for t he first time in re-examination. However, having assessed the material ourselves and its potential influence, we are satisfied there is no real risk of it having affected the outcome of the trial.”

Given the Court of Appeals’ limited ability to investigate Police policies and procedures and specifically the conflicts themselves, we were encouraged to take this task to the organization whose role was to investigate Police and keep them accountable. The IPCA or Independent Police Conduct Authority.

We compiled a comprehensive and detailed complaint to them numbering 62 pages with proof from documents, job sheets, letters and emails. We clearly stated the questions we sought answers for. I t was not a matter of proving Jamie’s innocence or with intention of overturning his conviction because the I PCA can’t do that. We simply needed answers on what we believed to be clear errors and mismanagement of this case. I t should be of huge concern for the public, that dishonesty and misconduct within the force can be overlooked or worse, covered up so easily without consequence.

It is important to reiterate again, the fact that there are suppressions in place that prevent me from being able to fully explain the magnitude of these conflicts and why they were hidden. We believed that because of these conflicts, specific witnesses were bullied into changing their statements and choice of wording.

Some witnesses (serving police officers at the time) were pressured, told to be careful what they say and served employment investigation notifications minutes before making statements. It’s not a new idea that there is bullying within the Police Force. A review done earlier this year in March showed about 40 per cent had personally experienced poor behaviour towards them over the past year.

Initial statements taken directly after the alleged incidents were later changed and reformatted. One witness, in fear we believe, left out crucial evidence of asking Jamie what was happening with him and the complainant and Jamie telling him that she had told him to meet up later. He later made a third formal statement mid-trial to include this evidence – the day before taking the stand.

The judge ruled out this evidence under section 21 of the Evidence Act and a jury never heard it. Section 21 rules that if a defendant in a criminal proceeding does not give evidence, the defendant may not offer his or her own hearsay statement in evidence in the proceeding. However, this wasn’t Jamie’s evidence as the defendant. It was the evidence of the witness and therefore shouldn’t have come under this ruling.

Additionally, the Crown were allowed to offer some parts of words uttered by Jamie (if it helped their case) but the defence were prohibited from offering other parts of words uttered by Jamie, because section 21 prohibited it.

When we submitted our complaint to the IPCA, we received the standard reply of thanks and the added notice that the investigation could take between 2-4 months to carry out. Not 10 days later, we received a substandard and frankly disappointing response from the IPCA stating that they had ‘carefully considered the issues outlined in the complaint, material submitted and reviewed police records and court judgements’. All of that….apparently….in ten days.

They then discarded their own role as an Independent authority to actually be independent, do their own investigation into the police conduct and fell back on the response of the Court of Appeal – who also never did any sort of investigation.

Greg King is quoted saying “At the end of the day when the state comes against you, you’d better hope there’s someone in your corner who’s prepared to f ight for the underdog because, believe me, you are the underdog.”

“We have a system of justice that values finality of verdict higher than correctness of verdict. People are interested in having cases closed and the door nailed shut on them…..and change will only come with t he exposure of serious miscarriages of justice – more of them – the ones we’ve had aren’t enough obviously”

From the Police mishandling and hiding documents, to a Judge ruling out crucial evidence, to the Court of Appeal who agreed to errors and then definitively somehow knew decisions a jury would have made and even an organization who stands to be independent, failing…I can’t help but agree with Greg King. Instead of anyone standing to do the right thing, they all fell back on each other to uphold a facade of ‘Justice’ when it is anything but.

Greg King was one of the few who stood against adversity, for truth. To do the right thing, to bring true justice. He believed that there’s no greater sin that a state can commit than to wrongly convict and imprison an innocent person. The enduring sense of injustice that a person must go through sitting in a prison cell in the middle of the night when they are innocent – is too sickening to even contemplate. That’s why he worked so tirelessly – he believed ‘we have to get it right’.

He believed that i n NZ, people get convicted for crimes of which they were innocent on a far too regular basis.

Unfortunately for him, he stood mostly alone in his battle for true justice in a broken system. And that ultimately became the one thing that took his life.

We need to unite against injustice, against a ‘system’ which claims to govern. Our sons, fathers, uncles and friends rely on us to stand up and do what’s right. It’s why nearly 2 years later, I’m still standing, still writing, still hoping for someone to do the right thing – push through the fear or consequences.

Alone we can do little, but together we can achieve a lot.

Business Desk reported:

The Three Waters television ad campaign that used taxpayers’ money to influence the opinions of ratepayers was cut short after intervention by the Public Service Commission, BusinessDesk has learned.

When the first of the adverts was aired around the middle of the year, the commission “raised concerns” with the sponsoring Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) on “how the government advertising guidelines had been considered”, the commission said in a statement.  The guidelines require publicly funded campaigns to be accurate, factual and unbiased, but the cartoon-style adverts are notable for their lack of factual information.  They portray a dystopian future in which taps run dry or are full of sludge. As if by magic, a smiling cartoon plumber – presumably the alter ego of a post-reform three waters agency – fixes problematic pipes with a single tap of his spanner.

The ads were so one sided and terrible, they probably backfired on the Government with their attempts to portray a complex issue as good vs bad. I’m not surprised that they were seen as advocacy, not information, as that is obviously what they were.

A guest post by Tripewryter:

Back in the 1990s my children and I lived in a state house.

Thirty years later they and I still feel gratitude for what we were provided.

My private sector landlord had jacked up the rent by a fifth. It was beyond my means to pay.

I went to the-then Housing Corporation. A nice woman offered me a three bedroom house on a large section. The rent was way lower than what I was paying and would be paying.

The neighbourhood was private housing. It was quiet and safe. On one side my neighbour was a retired air force officer and his wife and teenage children. On the other were an ancient couple in their 80s and 90s.

Along the road was an official who worked for the governor-general. Across the road was a senior manager in the city council.

It was a beautiful neighbourhood. I could not believe my luck. My kids were not going to be living in a solo parent ghetto.

I had to furnish the house myself and buy the curtains and the carpets. I was able to do that because my share of my mother’s bequest had arrived at the right time.

The house was a 1940s-era structure. It was basic, uninsulated but otherwise dry and solid and safe.

We lived in it for six years.

I’ve been thinking about that house in recent days because of the furore with Kainga Ora and some of its violent, anti-social tenants, whom it appears not to know how to deal with.

The government is trying to cast these tenants as ‘vulnerable (mispronounced as ‘vunribbul’) people with complex needs’.

Maybe they are. But what about their neighbours whom they terrify?

It is misplaced compassion to allow bullies to continue with their behaviour because they have children and if they are evicted they will go back to living in cars.

No-one else is responsible for the children but the parents. If the parents behave anti-socially and that results in the family being made to live in cars then that is on the parents. Their behaviour got them into this. No-one else.

This problem is not going to be molly-coddled away. Kainga Ora has to make the neighbourhood bullies in their tenancies responsible for their behaviour. They owe it to the terrified and exasperated neighbours, to the taxpayers who pay for the houses – and to the tenants who are grateful for the digs they live in and call home and respect that. 

The NY Post reports:

Jussie Smollett was convicted Thursday of staging a hate crime nearly three years after he claimed two Trump-loving bigots beat him up, tied a noose around his neck and doused him in bleach in a misbegotten bid to raise his public profile. 

Twelve jurors in Chicago criminal court found the disgraced actor guilty of five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report following testimony from 13 witnesses and more than nine hours of deliberation. 

There are actual hate crimes in the US, and because of Smollett actual victims are more likely to be met with scepticism.

There is a sniff test that is usually right with alleged hate crimes. Is the alleged crime too perfect?

Smolleet alleged that his two assailants were:

• White
• Had MAGA hats
• Used racial slurs
• Used homophobic slurs
• Poured bleach on him
• Tied a noose around his neck
• Said the attack was probably due to his criticisms of the (then) Government

From his viewpoint this was the perfect story. Both bleach and a noose. MAGA hats. It would be the hate crime attack to beat all other hate crime attacks. It would be like a hollywood script. And it was a script. The assailants were hired by him.

Stuff reports:

The Government will ban young people from ever being able to purchase tobacco in their lives under world-leading plans to make New Zealand smokefree.

This will make NZ smoke-free only in the sense that NZ is cannabis free or America was alcohol free in the 1920s.

It seems bizarre that a Government which told us (correctly) that prohibition is the wrong strategy for cannabis, thinks it will work for tobacco. They wanted to legalise cannabis and ban tobacco!

“We want to make sure young people never start smoking, so we will make it an offence to sell or supply smoke tobacco products to new cohorts of young people,” she said. “People aged 14 when the law comes into effect will never be able to legally purchase tobacco.”

It’s nice that the Government is so keen to help gangs diversify their revenue stream, so they don’t have to apply for $2.75 million government grants so often.

We have already seen the black market in tobacco explode in the last few years. What this move will do is allow drug dealers to also sell tobacco.

Eric Crampton writes:

If you’ve ever had concerns about economists’ ethical commitments, relax.

It could be worse.

Just consider medical ethics.

Pfizer recently stopped its trial of anti-Covid treatment Paxlovid, currently in international approval processes.

The pill was just too good.

It became really obvious really quickly that Paxlovid is really effective. Patients given the drug shortly after infection were 89% less likely to go to hospital or die, compared to those given placebos.

Continuing to give placebos was obviously unethical. It condemned the control group to a massive increase in the risk of hospitalisation or death.

That all sounds eminently reasonable. The drug proves effective, so just give it to everyone.

But that’s where medical regulatory ethics give us all a nice kick in the pants.

The drug is still in the American approval process – as well as new Zealand’s. It is deemed unethical and actually illegal to provide it until it is approved. Except as part of a clinical trial. But the trial had to end because it was unethical not to provide the drug to the control group.

If the trial had continued, people registering for the trial would have had a 50/50 chance of getting Paxlovid. Now they have a 0% chance of getting Paxlovid until the bureaucracy stamps some forms.

A modern Kafka could have written the story. But it’s sadly not fiction.

This is beyond crazy.