This week on My Patreon:
If you want to cheer yourself up, read the replies to this tweet as it gets mocked ruthlessly.
The fact that an actual human being thought they needed to apologise for this is sad.
We now have over 2,000 votes in the Kiwiblog reader survey for preferred leader and deputy leader for National. The results are:
Leader
Deputy Leader
So the six most popular choices for Leader are Luxon, Reti, Bridges, Mitchell, Bishop and Willis.
The four most popular for Deputy Leader are Willis, Stanford, Reti and Bishop.
In terms of potential combinations, the most popular combinations were
So the preferred combination are Luxon/Willis followed by Reti/Willis and Luxon/Stanford
On Tuesday we’ll find out who caucus picks.
A guest post by David Garrett:
For anyone under 50 it is difficult to imagine the degree to which unions controlled the country during the 1970’s. Tell anyone in their thirties that almost without fail, every school and Christmas holidays one transport union or another paralyzed the country with strikes, and they think that at best you are grossly exaggerating matters, and at worst, simply making stuff up. I recently had cause to review a case which brought it all back to me.
Cook Island Shipping v. Colson Builders [1975] I NZLR 422 involved the shipment of pre-fabricated building trusses from Whangarei to the Cook Islands for the construction of a new airport hangar. This was to be the first voyage of the Lorena, a Norwegian ship brought to New Zealand by a Norwegian crew, including a male cook and the wife of the Chief Engineer. That’s where the trouble started.
In 1971 the Cooks & Stewards Union were one of the most powerful unions in the country. Every holiday, almost without fail, they shut down the Cook Strait ferries, effectively cutting the country in half. They would go on strike for any pretext. If they weren’t striking, it was the seamen, or the union representing the officers. Without members of all unions working, the ships could not sail. But back to the Lorena.
After arriving in Auckland, the vessel was to proceed to Whangarei to load the building materials referred to above. As was the custom of the time, the Cooks & Stewards Union demanded that the Norwegian cook immediately be replaced by a member of their union. That in itself can hardly be objectionable; how they went about trying to replace the cook is almost unbelievable in 2021.
The Cooks & Stewards first tried to stop the ship sailing with the assistance of the Seamen’s Union, but relations between the two unions at that time were not good (unions often fought among themselves in the 70’s). So the Lorena arrived at Whangarei with the Norwegian cook and stewardess on board. The Cooks & Stewards were not prepared to let the matter rest, and I now quote verbatim from the judgment:
“…there arrived at the wharf two motorcars carrying a total of eight delegates from the Cooks & Stewards Union. They were in a belligerent mood. They were also in an advanced state of intoxication. Their first move to achieving settlement of the dispute [the judge must have had his tongue in cheek writing that] was to challenge Mr Harry Julian [the ship’s owner] to personal combat”
So, a bunch of pissed up union thugs arrive and immediately challenge the owner of the ship to a scrap. As the Judge wryly observed:
“Mr Julian was a veteran of industrial confrontation…he diplomatically avoided that initial phase of negotiations (sic.), and managed to persuade the delegates to discuss the matter more in harmony with the concept of industrial conciliation.”
The issue was somewhat complicated by the fact that the Norwegian stewardess was married to the Chief Engineer, and shared his cabin. While the Norwegian cook could be replaced by a New Zealander, the replacement of the stewardess would have required immediate rearrangement of the sleeping quarters, and the provision of a separate cabin for the New Zealand steward. The report again wryly notes that “Mr Julian agreed to pay some hundreds of dollars to the union representing the pay of a New Zealand steward for a month as an interim solution”. But that was not the end of the matter; again quoting from the judgment:
“In order to protect their interim position the Cooks & Stewards attempted to form a picket line on the wharf but this decision happened to coincide with the afternoon tea break of the watersiders, and no effective picket line could be formed.”
To those of us familiar with the milieu of the times one can deduce from reading between the lines that the watersiders weren’t on good terms with the Cooks & Stewards either, and the fomer told the latter to fuck off when they tried to form a picket line on “their” wharf.
This case tells us a great deal of what industrial relations looked like when the unions had the kind of power they would just love to have again. It tells us that it was unremarkable for two carloads of pissed up union thugs to arrive and immediately threaten the ship’s owner with a scrap. It tells us that relations between unions were somewhat like alliances in the Balkan wars of more than a century ago; extremely fluid and often highly confrontational.
To those who think the above kind of bullshit was a relic of the 70’s I can assure you it was not. During a lull in oil drilling in early 1983, I took a job on the construction of the methanol plant in Taranaki. I became a delegate for the Engineers Union as it then was. It was only that which saved a demarcation dispute when I unthinkingly moved a strop out of the way – that was “rigger’s work”, and had it been anyone other than a union delegate doing it, a stoppage would probably have occurred. Because of the ever changing relations between unions, “demarcation” disputes happened all the time, frequently resulting in a stoppage of work.
So back to the present. Labour intends to introduce what they are calling “fair pay agreements” which are little more than the old National Awards in drag. If they come to pass, as they probably will, they will immediately result in more union power than has been seen since the Employment Contracts Act was introduced in 1991. You can be sure that flinty eyed ideologues such as Andrew Little are positively salivating at the thought of the “brothers” – or I suppose in these quite different times the brothers and sisters – having the power to blackmail a ship owner (that month’s pay Mr Julian paid as a bribe was probably the equivalent of $10-12,000 or so today) in order to enable him, the ship owner, to meet his contractual obligations.
I believe I have said here before that unions most definitely have their place. As a onetime delegate for both the Labourers Union and the Engineers at different times ten years apart, I have seen both the best and the worst of unionism. If we end up with them having the kind of power they had in 1975 we will be in a very sorry place.
As we did last time there was a vacancy in the National leadership, we’re running an unscientific survey to see who are the preferred candidates of Kiwiblog readers.
The last I heard is there are at least four potential candidates for Leader and even more for Deputy Leader. To make sure we don’t miss out anyone who may stand, we’re listing every National MP except the immediate past Leader. You can vote for Leader and Deputy Leader at this link, or embedded below.
Vote early, vote once and I’ll publish the results in due course.
Create your own user feedback surveyIt is sad to see Judith Collins ends her leadership in such a messy way, even if partially self-inflicted.
Judith took over the leadership at a horrible time. The sense of crisis in National at having had a newly elected leader resign 55 days after being elected and just before an election was massive. Everyone was in shock, and it was clear that Judith was the only sensible option as leader.
She actually handled the election period very well. Her handling of the Falloon issue was near perfect. She beat Jacinda Ardern in one (inarguably) or two (arguably) of the debates. Any unforced errors from her (such as obesity) were minor compared to errors from other and the poor election result wasn’t a refection on her. If she hadn’t taken over the leadership, National could have had a worse result in 2020 than ever 2002.
Since then she did help clean up some issues of poor culture around the party, and in recent months stopped the once weekly torrent of leaks from caucus. There has also been some very good policy work under her leadership.
The last few months, and definitely the last few days, didn’t see Judith at her best and the removal by caucus was not surprising. But we should acknowledge her many contributions both as leader, and as a Minister.
Multiple media are reporting that Judith Collins has been rolled as the National Party Leader.
This seems confirmed. What is not yet clear is who is leader. Some media are saying Shane Reti will be Acting Leader until next week when caucus will vote between Mark Mitchell and Christopher Luxon.
I can understand caucus wants a bit of time to consider who should be the next leader, but personally I would try and resolve it earlier and maybe have another caucus tomorrow.
The National caucus is having an emergency meeting at 9 am today.
This will be the first time I can recall when caucus will be potentially voting on a new leader but we don’t even know who is standing.
Anything could happen from Collins remaining leader to Ian McKelvie becoming leader as everyone likes him!
Stuff reports:
Speaker Trevor Mallard has lashed the Labour Government for its urgent passing of Covid-19 “traffic light system” legislation, though he has allowed the law to be passed.
The Government on Wednesday passed legislation that would seriously curb the freedoms of unvaccinated people, in a 24-hour session of urgent lawmaking to ensure the Covid-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill was in place for December 3, when the new “traffic light system” of Covid-19 restrictions will come into force.
Opposition MPs, legal experts and the Human Rights Commission have all condemned the move as poor lawmaking, and law professors have questioned the Government’s broad drafting of the law.
“There has not been a more important piece of legislation passed by Parliament this year, yet we’ve done it in 24 hours without consultation,” Victoria University law professor Dr Dean Knight said.
It’s the second or third worst use of urgency in the last 25 years.
On Wednesday afternoon, as the bill headed into a third and final debate in the House, Mallard said the Government, and wider House, had failed to better scrutinise the bill.
“Urgency of this type used to be common. It isn’t any more for good reason, it resulted in bad law,” he said.
Mallard suggested the Government could have taken a day for each of the bill’s three readings, and included a shortened select committee process to hear public submissions in between.
He said the Government, which announced its plans for a “traffic light system” in October, should have made public its policy decision, legal drafting instructions and early drafts of the bill.
Very rare for a Speaker to condemn the Government like this, but quite justified on this occassion.
Simeon Brown released:
Prison violence is out of control under Labour, with prisoner assaults on Corrections officers increasing by an astonishing 95 per cent since the 2016/17, says National’s Corrections spokesperson Simeon Brown.
“Figures released to National and figures in the 2021 Corrections Annual Report show that, from the end of the 2016/17 financial year to the end of the 2020/21 financial year, assaults on Corrections officers have increased from 463 to more than 900.
It surely can’t be a coincidence that prison assaults have doubled in four years.
I didn’t know anything about this until I saw this tweet, so can’t comment on the substance.
I will say though that David Seymour will be a very happy man, as ACT will go up even further in the polls.
Stuff reports:
The Government is urgently passing legislation that will seriously curb the freedoms of the unvaccinated without conventional parliamentary scrutiny, so it can become law for Auckland’s reopening on December 3.
Opposition MPs, legal experts, and the Human Rights Commission have all condemned the move as poor lawmaking.
This legislation will make some citizens, second class. They will have fewer rights than other citizens. Such a law should not be rushed through under urgency. Labour will not even be allowing a single New Zealander to submit on this law, despite the fact it will take basic rights away from several hundred thousand Kiwis. Even if you support the law, you should be appalled at this abuse of process.
Victoria University law professor Dr Dean Knight said he supported the Government’s Covid-19 measure, but law change that “seriously implicated” rights such as this needed to be interrogated.
“It is a constitutional disgrace that the legislation mandating this vaccination regime is being passed urgently this week,” Knight said, on Twitter. He was unavailable for an interview on Tuesday evening.
Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt said anything less than robust scrutiny of the Government’s Covid-19 legislation as “highly problematic both constitutionally and in terms of the state’s human rights and te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations”.
“Balances have to be struck between human rights. This complex but essential exercise comes into sharp focus during a pandemic where measures that protect the rights to health and life must be balanced against other rights, such as the right to work and a decent standard of living,” Hunt said, in a statement.
People wonder why some protesters are getting angry. Some New Zealanders are going to be forced out of their jobs and lose their entire careers due to law changes, and Labour is not even allowing them to be heard.
From Parliament:
CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: How many fully vaccinated people, if any, who have travelled from Australia since 23 August 2021 have tested positive for COVID-19 in New Zealand, and how many travellers from Australia have completed stays in managed isolation and quarantine since 23 August 2021?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): It’s important to remember that the entire outbreak that we are dealing with right now, which has over 7,000 cases associated with it, stems from a single traveller traveling from Australia to New Zealand.
That single traveler was not required to produce a negative Covid-19 test, in a fit of Government incompetence.
I’m advised that between 23 August and 15 November, 2,544 travellers from Australia have completed stays in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ); three of these people tested positive—none of those people were vaccinated.
So of 2,544 travelers from Australia over four months, there have been zero positive tests from fully vaccinated travelers.
We now have around 4,000 people who are active Covid-19 cases who are isolating at home, and the Government thinks that fully vaccinated travellers from Australia need to spend 10 days in MIQ, as it is too risky otherwise!!
A guest article by Graham Adams:
Māori professor under investigation for views on mātauranga Māori
Dr Garth Cooper has devoted his career to helping fellow Māori but he now finds himself in the gun over his opinions about science and indigenous knowledge. Graham Adams reports from the front lines of the culture wars.
New Zealanders like their heroes talented and modest and preferably devoted to public service as well. Sir Edmund Hillary is the exemplar of that breed and very few have the mana he enjoys in our collective consciousness.
Nevertheless, there are many others similarly talented and dedicated to the collective good but who go largely unnoticed outside their professional lives.
One such is Professor Garth Cooper, who is suddenly in the news because he is under disciplinary investigation by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, the nation’s premier organisation promoting science and the humanities.
Cooper is a Fellow of the society and — alongside eminent philosopher of science Robert Nola — risks being expelled from the nation’s most prestigious academic club.
The reason for the investigation is that Cooper and Nola were among seven professors who wrote to the Listener in July questioning a government working group’s proposal to give mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) parity with what were described as other “bodies of knowledge” — “particularly Western / Pākehā epistemologies” — in the school science curriculum.
In other words, Māori knowledge would effectively be given equal standing with physics, chemistry and biology.
While the professors acknowledged “Indigenous knowledge is critical for the preservation and perpetuation of culture and local practices, and plays key roles in management and policy,” they concluded that, “In the discovery of empirical, universal truths, it falls far short of what we can define as science itself.”
They also responded to the working group’s claim that science had been used as “a rationale for colonisation of Māori and the suppression of Māori knowledge”.
The professors conceded that science — like literature and art — “has been used to aid colonisation” but stated: “Science itself does not colonise.”
In the uproar that followed, their views were denounced by organisations including the Royal Society, the New Zealand Association of Scientists, and the Tertiary Education Union — as well as the professors’ own Vice-Chancellor, Dawn Freshwater.
Notably, none of the professors’ critics defended mātauranga Māori as being scientific. Freshwater, for instance, lamented the “hurt and dismay” caused by the professors’ stance on “whether mātauranga Māori can be called science” but she never went beyond faintly praising it as a “distinctive and valuable knowledge system”.
Dr Siouxsie Wiles and Dr Shaun Hendy — who have been highly visible in providing scientific backing to political judgments by the Prime Minister over the past 18 months during the Covid pandemic — went as far as to co-author an open letter, announcing they “categorically” disagreed with the professors’ views.
Curiously for a pair of prominent scientists, they responded to the professors’ assertion that “Science is helping us battle worldwide crises such as Covid, global warming, carbon pollution, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation” with the baffling statement: “Putting science on a pedestal gets us no further in the solution of these crises.”
Dr Wiles also tweeted a request for reinforcements: “Calling all academics in Aotearoa New Zealand. Add your name to the open letter if you are also appalled by that letter claiming to defend science published last week in the NZ Listener. It’s caused untold harm and hurt & points to major problems with some of our colleagues.”
More than 2000 academics, students and alumni from all over New Zealand answered her call and signed (although how many had actually read the original letter to the Listener remains uncertain).
Shortly before news of the Royal Society’s disciplinary action against Cooper and Nola broke, the Times Higher Education — the bible for hundreds of thousands of academics internationally — discussed the “unintended consequences” of the push for the “incorporation of Māori understandings into curricula”, and asked whether debate was being stifled.
On November 11, under the heading “Does the teaching of indigenous knowledge need to be examined?”, the magazine’s Asia-Pacific editor, John Ross, outlined the expanding role of Māori language and culture in New Zealand before interviewing some of the protagonists in the national discussion that erupted in the wake of the Listener letter.
The Royal Society declined to answer Ross’s question of how it had decided the professors’ letter was not only “misguided” but caused “harm”. Others — no doubt mindful of possible risks to their academic careers — offered their opinions anonymously.
Professor Cooper was happy to respond. He said that although he didn’t speak te reo — because his Maori grandmother “thought my brother and I should learn English” — he nevertheless knew “quite a lot” of words in the language.
He went on to explain that the main reason he signed the Listener letter was because he was “concerned [that teaching] Māori kids about the colonising effects of science [would] lead to loss of opportunity”.
Crediting Ross Ihaka — a Māori mathematician who co-created the R open-source programming language — with producing “the most important thing that’s come out of New Zealand in the last 100 years”, Cooper worried about “young Māori scholars that would be the next Ross Ihaka basically missing out because they were told that science was a colonising influence of no interest to them.“
In response to this last assertion, a Māori academic — who had signed the open letter penned by Siouxsie Wiles and Shaun Hendy — emailed Cooper to ask if he “could please elaborate on how you came to the conclusion about what young Māori scholars want?”
In his reply (supplied to this writer), Professor Cooper thanked her for her query — and took the opportunity to “elaborate” as requested.
His reply is worth quoting at length to give some idea of the calibre of the doctor and medical researcher the Royal Society is now considering expelling over his defence of scientific method:
“I have taught young Māori scholars in medicine and in science for more than 30 years; during that time, I talked to several hundred (I estimate more than 400) about their career aspirations.
“Before that, I served as a medical officer (MB ChB) in Rotorua (1979-1980) where I served as house officer for Sir Peter Tapsell) and then in Auckland (1981-1985), including several years in South Auckland (based in Middlemore Hospital), where I looked after many (i.e. a large number) of young Māori as patients).
“During my time in Auckland, along with Dr David Scott, I pioneered a programme for a new approach to health care delivery in Ōtara, where a large proportion of the patients were Māori (1983-1985).
“I wrote and delivered the first course in New Zealand for lay community health workers, who went on to receive recognition by the Mayor of South Auckland (1985). The place where this programme was developed was the Whaiora Marae, where I worked part-time along with my roles in Middlemore.
“In my role as Professor in Biochemistry and Medicine at the University of Auckland (1995-present), I have personally written courses for young Māori and Pasifika students — specifically as part of the Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme programme at the University of Auckland — perhaps you know of it? This was between ~1994-2006. These courses were credited with leading to a substantial increase in the overall pass rate…
“I contributed, along with Profs Michael Walker and Linda Smith (~2005-2007), to the initial writing of the first (successful) application that led to the funding of Te Pai o Te Māramatanga, during which time I discussed their futures with numbers of Māori scholars who were entering into research careers through that programme.
“I have supervised young Māori and Pasifika scholars to completion of MSc and PhD programmes in science and in medicine. This involved in-depth interaction with these students over several years. They worked on my research programme on the origins and experimental therapeutics of type 2 diabetes, which I have undertaken over 40+ years because it is of major interest to Māori (kaupapa Māori research; vision Mātauranga).
“I have presented my teaching and research programmes to iwi at Hui a Tau, including Tainui/Waikato (with Dame Te Ata present), and to Te Rarawa and to Ngā Puhi. My teaching/research programmes were endorsed on each occasion.
“I was elected and served as a member of the Māori committee of the Health Research Council of New Zealand (for six years if I remember correctly), during which time I had the privilege of meeting with large numbers of young Māori at different marae from the deep South (Ngai Tahu) to the far North (Te Rarawa, Ngā Puhi).
“I served in a supervisory role on the Health Research Council for three more years, where my role was as an advocate for research in Māori Health.
“I also had the good fortune to be mentored during this time by people including Irihapeti Ramsden and Eruhapeti Murchie and was able to learn from them their views of the aspirations of young Māori.
“I also spent several years providing oversight and governance for a therapeutic intervention programme in the Bay of Plenty and East Cost of Te Ika-a-Maui for hepatitis B; this involved several thousand patients, most of whom were Māori, many of whom were young. I had the opportunity to learn from many of them at that time.
“Recently, I spent in-depth time with a young Māori MSc student who explained to me that he was very upset at Māori staff members who insisted on taking a one-sided view concerning his background, which was Pākehā (i.e. Ngāti Pākehā) as well as Māori, and that he was equally proud of both his Māori and non-Māori backgrounds.
“Finally, I also know what I think personally as one with Māori heritage (Ngāti Mahanga of Tainui/Waikato as well as Ngāti Pākehā) who underwent primary, secondary and tertiary education in New Zealand.
“In all, I estimate that I have provided substantive input and career guidance to as many as 5000 young Māori over 30+ years in these various roles.
“So this is how I know about young Māori and their aspirations.”
Astonishingly, this response to a specific query is not an exhaustive résumé of Professor Cooper’s work. As someone who is well acquainted with the extent of his contribution to medicine and health said: “There is much more he has done which he doesn’t discuss. Calling him ‘humble’ risks understatement.”
So, we have ended up in a situation where a very distinguished Māori-Pākehā scientist who has helped thousands of Māori in their careers over several decades is being investigated by the Royal Society for what can only be described as holding a heretical view about the distinction between science and mātauranga Māori.
Who knew an eminent scientist expressing an honestly held opinion — that mātauranga Māori, while valuable as a form of knowledge, is not science — would end up dealing with an Inquisition in 21st century New Zealand?
The Herald reports:
A terrified elderly couple say they were forced to cower inside their home after their abusive Kāinga Ora neighbours held a Black Power party at which a police officer was allegedly assaulted and a reveller tried to steal a patrol car.
As the party kicked off on Saturday night, police advised the Whangārei couple to stay inside their neighbouring Kāinga Ora property for their own safety.
Patched gang members boozed from hours of drinking allegedly crashed a car outside the property and urinated in their shared driveway while shouting obscenities as officers dealt with the disorder.
Yet none of this behaviour will get them evicted. Once again Kainga Ora is the worst landlord in NZ, subjecting neighbours to such abuse on a regular basis.
Kāinga Ora sought legal advice on its ability to stop the party, “but like any landlord there is no option for us to prevent it from occurring. We told our customers it was a bad idea, and let the neighbours know that the party was planned, and encouraged them to contact the police if they had any concerns.
“The behaviours from Saturday night are now being dealt with through the justice system, we are focused on our role of housing those most in need.”
This is bullshit. Any other landlord would have filed eviction notices by now.
Newshub reports:
The latest Newshub-Reid Research poll shows about 48 percent – almost half the country – doesn’t support the reforms. Just 27 percent support it, and another 25 percent are undecided.
Some people just don’t get it. Here’s a hint – Three Waters is not still, sparkling or tap. It’s drinking, waste and stormwater – and the Government wants to take away council control of them.
Three Waters doesn’t even float the boat of the majority of Labour voters. The poll found that 40 percent of them agree with it, while a third – 30 percent – don’t, and 31 percent are unsure.
When only four in ten of your own party’s voters support it, and barely one in four Kiwis overall, they are going to lose a lot of votes if they proceed.
Barry Soper writes:
Jacinda Ardern’s press conferences are on a whole new level, she’s had more practice at them than any other leader in recent history.
But for her, it’s all about control, to cut off a line of questioning before something difficult takes hold. If it runs the risk of taking hold, she’ll over talk the questioner through the power of the podium microphone and move on.
With the flick of a hand, she’ll switch to another questioner. She’s trained the media to raise their hands which allows her to rattle off the order in which the questions are to be asked.
If you’re working to a deadline, which if you have to go on-air in radio is constant, it’s of no consequence to Ardern, television takes precedence.
Admittedly the question she flicked away on her latest outing was probably one she wasn’t too keen on taking – was she going to do more than a token visit to Auckland this Thursday?
The current crop has all been media trained like no other occupants in the Beehive. The same modus operandi has been adopted by Ardern’s fellow preachers from the pulpit – Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins.
It’s called media control but asking questions is called democracy and accountability.
NZ political press conferences are absolutely tame compared to Australian ones.
The Public Service Commission announced:
Tā Wira Gardiner’s distinguished public service was celebrated today by Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes with a Spirit of Service Lifetime Achievement Award.
This award honours an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to New Zealand or their community and who exemplifies a spirit of service.
Tā Wira is affiliated to Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Te Whakatōhea, Ngāti Awa, and Ngāti Pikiao.
“In his many years in the Public Service and time in the Army, Tā Wira always left a mark,” said Mr Hughes.
“He has influenced generations of public servants through his authenticity and steadfast commitment to serving the people of New Zealand. Many exceptional public servants are what they are because of Tā Wira’s mentorship and inspirational example.
“Tā Wira was called on time and time again to assist in the resolution of major Māori Crown relationship issues. His dedication came from a desire to make a difference in our country.”
I remarked a couple of days ago to someone that Sir Wira was the most competent and accomplished Maori public servant of his generation. He has been a trouble shooter for Ministers of all Governments for over 20 years. New Zealand would be worse off, if it were not for his service over many years.
Also announced:
Te Mana Whakahaere o Awanuiārangi deputy chairperson Rauru Kirikiri and Minister for Children Hon. Kelvin Davis have today announced the Tā Harawira Gardiner Endowed Chair and the Centre for the Child.
The announcement was part of an event hosted by Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, honouring Tā Wira for his 58 years of public service, his leadership across the public sector, and for his contributions during some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most sensitive challenges in the Crown and Iwi relationship sphere.
Tā Wira received an honorary doctorate from Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato – University of Waikato, a Spirit of Service Lifetime Achievement Award from Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission, and the highest recognition from the wānanga he helped found and has led at various times – the establishment of an Endowed Chair in his name, and a research centre.
“We are so proud of Wira, all his achievements of course, but mainly of who he is – a loving father, grandfather and uncle, a good friend, and a generous and kind man. The Chair and Centre is such a great way of ensuring that what he has done with his life will have an enduring practical legacy for a better future for kids,” Hekia Parata said on behalf of his whānau.
I’ve known Wira for over 30 years. The fact he was still taking up difficult roles in his late 70s is a tribute to his commitment to NZ. He served in Vietnam, and has been CEO or Chair of so many entities I can’t keep up but they include Te Papa, the Tertiary Education Commission, Civil Defence etc.
This is appalling. They announced the intended traffic light system weeks and weeks ago, yet the legal basis for it they are just going to ram through Parliament under urgency with no ability for the public to have their say.
Radio NZ reports:
One GP said even though there is high demand for the pulse oximeters, they have not been all that easy to get.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said not every single Covid-positive household gets one, but the Ministry of Health said they do – while Health Minister Andrew Little said they don’t necessarily, and Grant Robertson said everyone does.
This story shows how you really can’t trust anything the Government says, without verifying it. In fact it is impossible to trust the Government, because who do you believe – The Minister of Health or the Deputy PM? Or the DG of Health or the Ministry of Health?
Whether or not every Covid-positive household gets a pulse oximeter should be a simple matter of fact – they do or they don’t. But not only do you have Ministers contradicting each other on this, you have the Director-General of Health being contradicted by his own Ministry.