The Herald reports:

New Zealanders don’t “really care” about the details of one of the Labour Party’s key election policies, leader Chris Hipkins claims. 

The New Zealand Future Fund, which Labour unveiled last October with little detail attached to it, is intended to take the dividends of some Crown assets and redistribute them into New Zealand businesses, with the aim to incentivise job creation. 

The party has not said what assets may have their dividends redirected into this fund as it has said it won’t decide this until after the election, once it receives advice from officials.

This is from the party that came up with a plan to build 100,000 houses on the back of a napkin. They think details don’t matter. They do.

There is a lot going on in education.

Significant reports that the changes in curriculum and method at a junior level are not having the desired effect.

New English, maths primary curriculums had little effect on achievement, first results show.

Curriculum changes are being delayed.

New timeframe for years 0-8 curriculum rollout clarified, union claims win.

Qualifications changes are far from straight forward. I began teaching in 1991 and heard all of the timeline promises, the theoretical underpinning, and educational enhancement promises for NCEA. My, well thought through, expectation for the secondary school curriculum/qualifications is that the education sector has 12 years of chaos ahead. This is a combination of the Minister of Education having been captured by a very narrow range of ideologues and advisers, the deep incompetence of the Ministry of Education, the entrenched opposition of the teacher unions, and poor design from the outset.

NCEA replacement ‘not going to suit our young people’ says teachers’ union.

I am no fan – in any way shape or form – of the teacher’s union – but, like a broken analogue clock – they are right twice a day.

This is serious, but I was a little stunned by Ryan Bridge saying that “Old School is the Best School.”

I went through high school at Wanganui Boys College from 1980 to 1984. I then taught at Tauranga Boys’ College (1991 – 96), Hamilton Boys’ (1997-98) and St Cuthbert’s College (1998 – 2001). That time spanned the transition to NCEA that was supposed to be fully in place by 1996, but took until 2002.

What we had before that was a disaster. School Certificate results were determined around a 50% pass rate in English – destining approx. half of the students to fail – no matter how good teachers were. I remember one student at school asking a future All Black … “What were your best three years at school – 5^th form?”

Sixth Form certificate for schools was based on their School Certificate results (e.g. I got a “1” in economics because I had earned it in the previous year with my School Certificate result in that subject). Because I was “Accredited” UE and, knew that I would be from the beginning of the year, I did very little in the 6^th form, except practice my goalkicking and perfect my Euchre playing in an accounting class. University Bursary earned you diddly squat but you went through the charade.

“Old School is the Best School” Ryan?

I am deeply unsure why – given the choices the Minister is making – why she did not simply mandate Cambridge exams as the NZ qualification. It would be MUCH cheaper and also likely to be of much higher quality that the Ministry/NZQA combination will come up with.

I have to bring a lighter note. A couple of posts back a commenter doubted my assertions about caning in the 1980s. I raised the situation where two of us in my class lapped the other 28 in a PE run and all of those slow-pokes were caned. I mentioned that my co-conspirator in that crime was also caned 27 times by one teacher for not doing his homework. I should have mentioned that he was also caned by a teacher affectionately know as “Nude Nut” for the sin of blowing his nose.

I contacted the gentleman who had been thrown into doubt. Here are his responses:

“I remember both occasions vividly, especially being padded in advance for submitting the set 1000 lines as actual lines on a page instead of the required phrase. Poor Mr Ton, it sounded like he was caning a bouncy castle. A bean bag would’ve felt more.”

 “I also remembered the PE teachers reclining on chairs and rising only to rethreaten those running to lap those that could be lapped or deserving to get caned as well. The same teachers I remembered with one of them shoving you into the school pool after swimming, i.e., you were in your uniform and wearing your school bag. Brilliant educational facility.”

“I’d forgotten about being caned for blowing my nose, but there can’t be too many people punished that way for such a heinous crime. I mean what was the intended corrective behaviour that intervention was seeking to achieve?”

“Nude also had that affectation of cradling the back of his hand on his forehead and for someone teaching English, could barely speak it coherently. No wonder we were bored to distraction. He’d mumble some loose connection to the reading matter he’d then repeat it as scribble on the board until the bell saved us all. He couldn’t run a bath, let alone a class.”

“Or – if you walked into the classroom with a jacket on, he would yell “jacket off” – which was hilarious to 14 year olds. On some occasions we would all walk in with a jacket on and then pile them on one desk. Many times when he turned his back to write on the board someone would say “NUDE”.”

Maybe a good vent would be for people to tell their “old school” stories of what education was really like. I got freaked out at primary school by a teacher who seemed to love smacking bottoms and ended up being banned from teaching as he took his behaviour further with a selected few.

Please tell your stories!

[email protected]

Paul Goldsmith announced:

The Government has agreed to amend 19 pieces of legislation to ensure references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are clear and consistent, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says.

“Over the last 30 or 40 years, Parliament has made all sorts of references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Sometimes it’s ‘honour’, or ‘have regard to’, or ‘give effect to’, or ‘take into account’. We need to create some consistency here, in the interests of increasing certainty and supporting compliance. A core foundation of our success as a nation is predictability in the law. …

“The Government has agreed to amend two references to be more specific, repeal seven references, and specify no higher standard than to ‘take into account’ should be used in provisions to the Treaty of Waitangi across ten acts.

“The Government has also agreed a reference to both the Treaty of Waitangi and te Tiriti o Waitangi is preferable and should be used in all relevant provisions going forward.

“These decisions have been made as a first step. Conversations will continue around how this review could go further in the future.

This is all good and sensible stuff. My only criticism is it comes two and a half years in. This should have been a priority for the first 12 months.

Erica Stanford has confirmed the new secondary school qualifications. The key details are:

• Foundational Award for literacy and numeracy benchmarked at Year 11
• New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) in Year 12 (from 2029) 
• New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE) in Year 13 (from 2030) 
• To gain NZCE or NZACE students must gain the Foundational Award and pass at least three subjects
• All subjects will be assessed with a mixture of coursework and at least one exam
• Six grades will be available – A+, A, B, C, D, E – C or higher passes
• In Year 11, maths, English and science will be mandatory

So long as the Government is re-elected, we will have a secondary qualifications system that students, parents and employers will all actually understand.

The Herald reports:

Labour has admitted key details about its Future Fund, including the cost to the Crown and which state assets will be rolled into it, will not be released until after voters have gone to the polls. 

On Tuesday, Labour’s finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds admitted the party doesn’t itself know which public assets will go in the fund, and won’t know until it gets advice from officials after the election. 

Explaining why this was necessary, Edmonds said some state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may have Treaty of Waitangi obligations attached to them.

The Government would need advice on these obligations, which could only come after an election, meaning Labour will not decide on which assets go into the fund before Kiwis go to the polls.

This is really treating the voters as gullible idiots. They are claiming they can’t give details because of Treaty obligations.

The real answer is that they know their numbers don’t add up. They think if they give no details before the election, then they can’t be scrutinised on their credibility.

The Post reports:

Police Minister Mark Mitchell says he “wants to understand” why police contacted a New Zealand woman over a Facebook post and has asked them about it.

His comments come as both ACT and NZ First have weighed into the debate over the visit and argued police should not have been involved.

The post from Renee-Rose Schwenke featured herself with two men of South Asian appearance in what appears to be a public place, alongside the caption “Welcome to New India thanks to Luxsingh” – seemingly a reference to the India Free Trade Agreement, recently signed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

“No to mass immigration invasion!” she wrote alongside the post.

Schwenke told The Post police rang her household and sought to visit her there. She was not keen for this so organised to meet the police at a local station instead.

What she wrote is political speech. It is dumb and stupid political speech, but it is a million miles from being criminal.

The Police should not be contacting her in any way over what she wrote. Good to see the Minister agrees, and the Police have said they shouldn’t have contacted her.

Nicola Willis and Paul Goldsmith have announced the following:

• A target to return the ratio of public servants to the population of 1.0%, meaning a target of 55,000 by 2029
• A sinking lid on operating budgets for agencies that will save $2.4 billion with greater use of AI
• A reduction in the number of core department and ministries from 39 (Australia has 16)

The 55,000 figure will still be higher than what we had in 2019.

The ratio of public servants to the population was 1.00% back in 1993. It dropped to 0.75% in 2000. Under Clark it increased to 1.04% in 2009. It was basically stable from 2019 to 2018 at 0.97% to 1.01%. Then Jacinda, Hipkins and Grant went crazy and increased it to 1.21%.

This is a very significant reduction, and will be painful for those affected. But the country has to live within its means.

The Post reports:

News the Israeli embassy is moving to a new Wellington location, with some tenants currently unaware, is drawing parallels to “human shield” allegations made against Hamas.

The Israeli Embassy is on the 13th floor of a Brandon St office block but is soon moving to Ballance St, in a building shared by a number of other organisations, including the French Embassy. …

Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said questions needed to be asked about why the embassy chose a multi-storey building shared by non-embassy New Zealanders.

It seemed “’close to the ‘human shield’ issue Israel is accusing Hamas of doing”, he believed.

What a disgusting comment to make. The Greens are basically saying that they think the Israeli Embassy should be a standalone building, so that it can be blown up, with only the Jews in it killed.

An Embassy is not a military installation. To compare the placement of an Embassy to the Hamas practice of placing terrorist bases below hospitals is grotesque.

The PM gave a very significant speech recently. Matthew Hooton who is often fiercely critical of Luxon said it was “the most honest, realistic and substantive prime ministerial statement since the era of sloganeering began 20 years ago”.

I urge people to read it themselves. Parts that stood out for me were:

For too long, we’ve assumed our location protects us, that an ocean and a quiet reputation are enough. They aren’t. Geography gives us time, but it doesn’t give us immunity.

We have assumed our international relationships would carry us. They matter enormously, but we must invest in them. They are not unconditional; they are sustained by contribution. Partners support those who show they’re willing to help themselves.

We have assumed large investments in renewable energy would insulate ourselves from energy shocks offshore.

This is the opposite of Helen Clark’s benign strategic environment.

Secure and affordable energy matters just as much for manufacturers here in Auckland, as it does for mums and dads battling to keep up with the cost of living.

Secure access to global markets matters just as much at the milking shed, as it does for cutting edge companies like Halter and Rocket Lab, competing for capital and talent on the world stage.

And financial security matters just as much for Kiwis meeting the cost of a mortgage, as it does for governments worldwide grappling with the cost of borrowing.

The bottom line is we can’t have prosperity – more jobs, more exports, and higher wages – without security.

Luxon is basically making the case for how vital national security is, but that it is more than military. It is energy security, market access and financial security also.

New Zealand’s energy vulnerability is no longer a theoretical risk; it is a live crisis on full display in the Strait of Hormuz every single day.

Every week I speak to farmers, growers, manufacturers, truck drivers and tradies whose lives and businesses have been affected by events half a world away.

And that’s not just the rough and tumble impact of globalisation.

On too many occasions, private capital, eager to bolster domestic energy production, has been pushed to the sidelines by overzealous planners and politicians in recent years.

Several high-profile projects are now getting underway, thanks to our reforms like Fast Track, which I expect will continue to grow in popularity by leaps and bounds.

The reality is that when faced with energy shock after energy shock, it’s very hard to justify backing the skink over the solar farm.

Our lack of domestic supply is now an issue of national security. We must be less dependent on importing energy. That means producing more energy in NZ, and we can’t afford to be picky over what type of energy it is. We just want energy that can’t be blocked by a few guys with rocket launchers.

Energy independence must be treated as an immediate national security interest, instead of a contributing factor to a long-term climate strategy.

I’ve been anti-coal for a fair while, based on its greenhouse gas emissions. But you know what, having a huge warehouse of coal somewhere in case we need it isn’t a bad idea – especially as under Labour we had to import coal from Indonesia.

t’s worth acknowledging that at least some of the political fracturing evident in Europe in recent years is the result of politicians refusing to implement the preference of their voters on immigration.

Earlier this year, Erica Stanford spoke on many of the recent changes we’ve made to strengthen our immigration system, designed to prioritise skilled, not unskilled, migrants – through higher English language requirements, more enforcement and tougher penalties.

The temporary work visas granted under the India FTA are anchored in that approach, with visas available for specific occupations, where we have workforce shortages.

It’s an issue we’ll watch closely, and you should expect to see careful policy on immigration from National as we get closer to the election.

And my message to the business community is that when it comes to immigration, when faced with a choice between social stability and your bottom line, I will choose the former every single time.

Immigration done well is beneficial to NZ – economically and socially. But too much immigration too quickly can cause infrastructure challenges, and can raise issues with integration. I’m going to do a more detail post on the pros and cons and complexities of getting immigration right. Europe is a case of getting it wrong.

Finally, our financial security.

The truth is that small countries which borrow money from offshore can only live on credit for so long. Eventually, the bill must be paid.

Spending and borrowing too much can be just as big a threat to our national security as not spending enough of the NZ Defence Force.

I agree with Matthew Hooton, that it was an excellent speech.

Radio NZ reports:

The Green Party wants the government to force power companies to cap power bill increases at the the rate of inflation.

Power prices are going up because we have a shortage of supply. So the geniuses think the solution is to impose price caps, which would lead to less investment in supply – and even more shortages.

Sir Kenneth Keith has died aged 88. He was one of the great NZ jurists – the NZ Supreme Court, the International Court of Justice, the Privy Council.

I got to know him slightly when I worked at the NZ Red Cross in the early 90s. He was the international humanitarian law advisor to NZ Red Cross, and even back then he was held in huge regard internationally. He was so generous with his time, and very approachable. Some of his legal involvement was:

• member of the New Zealand legal team in the Nuclear Test cases before the International Court of Justice 
• leader of the New Zealand delegation on the additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions 
• member of the Settlement of Investment Disputes
• president of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission 
• An architect of architects the Official Information Act 1982, the Constitution Act 1986 and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990
• member of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System
• Judge of the New Zealand Court of Appeal 
• Judge of the Supreme Court of NZ
• Final appellate judge for Samoa, Cooks, Niue and Fiji
• member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 
• member of the International Court of Justice 

A truly remarkable career.

Fees free tertiary education a central policy for Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins. They promised in 2017, that it would boost tertiary participation, especially for those from poorer families, who they said were put off by high fees.

The policy bombed almost straight away. We know this because Labour never implemented the full policy. They kept it at first year only, because even they worked out it was a hugely expensive policy that simply transferred money from all taxpayers to students from wealthy families (who would go on to earn $2 million more than those who didn’t get a degree).

So Labour changed it from all years free, to first year free. National wanted to abolish it but did a compromise with NZ First to make it final year free (which was slightly better). But as the Herald reports it was still such a failure, NZ First then agreed to scrap it entirely. And the policy is so discredited, that not even Chris Hipkins is vowing to reinstate it.

The Herald reports:

The number of disadvantaged students using the fees-free scheme for university in 2024 slumped to the lowest figure in the scheme’s short history.

That was the final year of the scheme in its original form, covering the first year of course fees, before the Coalition Government changed it to cover the final year of tertiary education study.

Thank you Chris Hipkins.

There were 26,490 such fees-free students in 2024, up slightly from a cohort of 25,535 in 2023.

But only 1.3% of the fees-free students at university in 2024 came from EQI 7 schools. In actual numbers, this translated to 230 fees-free university students in 2024 from EQI 7 schools, while there were 775 students from EQI 6 schools. Both of these are the lowest numbers on record for the scheme’s six-year history.

So Labour’s policy only helped 230 students from the poorest areas, at a cost of $300 million or so a year.

It was billed as opening the doors of tertiary education to those for whom they would normally be shut, and was expected to increase participation in first-year tertiary study by up to 15%.

Do I even need to tell you it didn’t. In fact off memory enrolments declined.

One of the most common questions I get asked by audiences is whether NZ First will go with National or Labour after the election. My response is that there is no reason to not take Winston at his word when he says he has ruled out Labour.

But now a speech by Winston has given extreme doubt over his pledge not to go with Labour. In terms of how he will pay for his Marxist plan to nationalise the BNZ, he says:

A limited tranche of the NZ Future Fund and ACC investment, structured as a commercial equity at arm’s length and a market rate of return.

Now there is no NZ Future Fund. However one of Labour’s few policies is to create a NZ Future Fund. So Winston’s speech refers to using a fund that can only possibly exist if he puts Labour into power.

So do we trust what Winston said in his speech ruling out Labour, or what Winston said in his speech pledging to use a fund that will only be created if he puts them into power?

Or do we think that the reference to the NZ Future Fund is a mistake that wasn’t caught by any of the NZ First researchers, press secretaries or Winston himself?

UPDATE: NZ First have said Winston was referring to a future fund which he supported at a NZF conference in October 24. This future fund can’t be found under NZF policy on their website (I did check). Of interest though is Winston said:

It would be ring-fenced, he said, “from politicians and ring-fenced from political interference

Yet now he is saying it would be used to buy BNZ, which is of course the opposite of ring fenced from politicians.

This clip from The Thick Of It sums the policy up perfectly.

Winston Peters announced that NZ First wants to go down the path of Karl Marx and nationalise the BNZ, basically because it was once owned by the Government around 40 years ago.

The BNZ constitutes around 20% of the equity and revenue of National Australia Bank which has a market cap of around $137 billion. So the minimum you would expect to pay is $29 billion. Imagine wanting to spend $29 billion to buy back an asset from 40 years ago.

And then imagine what would happen to BNZ when their is a change of government and Chloe Swarbrick is Finance Minister and will appoint Golriz and Darlene as directors!

I thought it would be hard to find a worse policy than the Greens asset tax, but Winston has managed it.

The Government announced:

The Government’s unprecedented contract with Z Energy for close to 90 million additional litres of diesel, equivalent to around nine days’ supply, has been signed, Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones say.

This will make a real difference.

They also announced:

“Modelled scenarios indicate that it is highly unlikely we would ever get to Phase 3 or 4 of the Fuel Response Plan, but as a prudent Government we are ensuring that New Zealand is prepared for whatever the global environment brings. It is better to have a plan you don’t use, than to need one and be caught short. 

Nicola Willis said the chance of moving to Phase 4 is less than 10%. In fact it is possible (not probable) that we may never go beyond Phase 1.

If we do go to Phase 4, the categories are:

• Critical users – priority and uncapped access. This includes emergency services, health, schools, courts, money services and lifeline utilities.
• Food and freight – uncapped access to fuel, subject to demand reduction requirements based on fuel‑saving plans. The Government would monitor adherence to fuel-saving plans through spot checks.
• Commercial and community users – same access as food and freight, but higher savings targets in their fuel-saving plans. This includes businesses and organisations other than food and freight.
• General public – transaction limits at the pump aimed at reducing overall fuel use by an amount greater than what is expected for other groups.

All looks pretty sensible, except I do wonder why media are included as a critical user, with a higher priority than food providers.

The Guardian reports:

A rightwing provocateur’s plan to register the “Free Palestine party” and use it to funnel votes to conservative parties in Victoria’s state election has renewed concern over the state’s voting system.

Avi Yemini, a former Israeli soldier and self-styled investigative journalist who creates content for his YouTube channel, Rebel News Australia, on Tuesday announced plans to register the party, which he said would “flow our preferences on to parties that want to free Palestine from Hamas” in the November poll.

This is a hilarious genius move.

The Guardian reports:

A Reform government will not put any migrant detention facilities in any constituency with a Reform MP.

Nor will we put them where Reform controls the council.

And of the remaining areas, we will prioritise Green controlled parliamentary constituencies and Green controlled councils to locate the detention centres.

Put simply, if you vote in a Reform council or Reform MP, we guarantee you won’t have a detention centre near you.

If you vote Green, there’s a good chance you will.

This is totally unprincipled (and probably illegal), but also very funny.

Radio NZ reports:

Deakin University associate criminology professor Dr James Martin told RNZ the Australian approach had relied on enforcement to suppress the black market.

“This has been really ineffective,” he said. “We’ve got between 50-60 percent of all tobacco and nearly all vaping products in Australia now come from criminal suppliers, and it’s generated an absolutely black market.

Roughly AU$7 billion {NZ$8.5b) was spent on illicit nicotine products a year, Martin said.

“That’s around 40 percent of entire illicit drug economy, more than cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin combined.”

So in Australia the black market tobacco industry is bigger than cannabis, cocaine and heroin!

And this is what some public health activists would have us become, as they push failed policies.

The Spectator reports:

A terror attack on a synagogue was “not anti-semitism” but was “revenge” for Israel “murdering people,” according to a video promoted by a Green Party council candidate.

Sabine Mairey, a Green candidate for Clapham Town ward in Lambeth, south London, posted the video, by David Spevak, an American Jewish anti-Zionist, on her Facebook page last month. It’s still there at the time of writing.

Mairey was used by the Lambeth Green Party to launch its election manifesto this week, and is quoted in the party’s press release. The video on her Facebook page is posted with the caption “Ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-semitism. It’s revenge.” She cannot claim that she posted it without knowing what it says.

So this Green candidate basically said it is okay to kill Jews anywhere, because of what the Israeli Government has done.

By this logic, it would be okay to kill Muslims anywhere, as revenge for what a Muslim Government has done in another country.

Or okay to kill Hindu Indians anywhere, because of what the Government of India has done.