This weekend National will elect up to four people onto its governing board. There are 10 candidates standing, which is a good sign so many want to contribute.

I’m not a delegate and won’t be saying who I think people should vote for. Delegates should decide on their skills, backgrounds, reputations and platforms. But I will profile briefly the candidates here.

Grant McCallum

Grant is a farmer and longtime activist for National in Northland. Very well known in the party and was previously on the Board (but isn’t at the moment). He has deep rural connections but also strong business connections (went to Kings College).

Lliam Munro

Lliam has been a member for almost 15 years and held several regional and electorate roles. His professional background is with risk management, strategy and leadership. He has worked for the GCSB, Ministry of Justice, Fire Service and MBIE.

He wants a culture change in the party and less interference in electorate decision making.

Aryana Nafissi

Aryana is the Chair of the Northern Young Nationals, managed their 2020 campaign and is a tax consultant at a major accountancy firm having graduated with a LLB and BCom.

She wishes to champion organisational excellence and have an unrelenting focus on KPIs to ensure National is positioned to win in 2023. She thinks National needs to have competent, disciplined governance and not get distracted by internal static.

Jannita Pilisi

Jannita is a director of Pacific Poppies Consulting and has a BA and LLB from Auckland University.

Felicity Price

Felicity is an experienced director and chair who is a Fellow of the Institutes of Directors. She is on the Regional Leadership Team in Canterbury-Westland. Her background is PR and Comms and crisis management – useful skills for a political party.

She wants to strengthen candidate vetting, include electorates more in decision making and fix the black hole of policy remits.

David Ryan

David has been a member for over 30 years (He and I were in Young Nats together). He has an MBA from the UK and retired early after a successful business career and has a number of governance roles.

He wants the party to get better at campaigning, have better information sharing between electorates and make National a more attractive proposition for candidates and voters.

John Sunckell

John is a dairy farmer in Canterbury. He is a current member of ECan and has a governance role with St John. Has been active with National for over a decade and is a former campaign chair for Amy Adams.

He is standing for decisive decision making, more due diligence for selections, more diversity and more discretion.

Stefan Sunde

Stefan is a former Chair of the Young Nationals and an incumbent director. His professional background is in international tax.

He wants the board to set a positive tone, cohesive strategy and focused agenda.

Sylvia Wood

Sylvia has been involved in National since 2014 and has held numerous riles including electorate chair and campaign chair. She has an HR business and says she is good at vetting candidates. She is a member of the Institute of Directors,

Her focus is regaining the 500,000 voters National lost and making it easier for busy people to get involved in National.

Newshub reports:

The Prime Minister went on to explain that some of the outcomes of the Government’s $1.9 billion investment in mental health services in Budget 2019 – such as more trained staff – may take years to reap rewards.

But mental health advocate King said he was “gobsmacked” by Ardern’s claim a lack of mental health workers was behind long counselling wait times.

In a Facebook post he said his charity Gumboot Friday had thousands of staff ready to go, and asked earlier this year for extra funds from the Government to pay them.

“Knowing you as a woman of integrity I can only assume that you have once again been lied to by your MOH officials so allow me to set the record straight,” he wrote.

“On February 10th this year I informed Health Minister Andrew Little that [Gumboot Friday] had 3854 registered counsellors ready to go and we just needed extra funds to pay them. We also informed him that 100 percent of funds would go to counsellors and we would pick up the admin costs…

Only Labour could announce $2 billion in extra funding for something, and end up making everything worse.

The Government is considering changing our electoral law so that Maori voters can flip between electoral rolls at whim, rather than as part of the boundary setting process.

I consider this a very bad thing to do. My brief submission against is below:

I am submitting in favour of the status quo that the Maori Electoral Option only be run after each census.

Under both the FPP and MMP electoral system, a key cornerstone of electoral integrity was that all electorates should be of similar size, with a 5% tolerance allowed.

The Maori Electoral Option allows the Representation Commission to set boundaries for general and Maori seats on the basis of similar population sizes.

If one allows voters of Maori descent to select one roll for the purpose of setting the boundaries and then change their roll for the general election, you may end up with seats of vastly different electoral populations. This would be repugnant to NZ’s long history of having seats with a similar electoral population. There is no room in New Zealand for “rotten boroughs”

Also a law change to allow people to change their roll outside the boundary setting timetable would lead to those of Maori descent having the ability to transfer rolls before a general election in order to tactically influence an electorate race by going from a safe seat to a more marginal seat. This would result in not all voters being equal, but advantaging voters who are of Maori descent. I have no doubt you will see political parties use any such ability to run campaigns urging people to swap between rolls in order to help those political parties in those seats.

Changing the law will undermine equality of electorates and equality of voters.

Submissions close tomorrow on the review.

For anyone with a mild interest in our soiree with the Ministry of Education. The wonderful Leighton Smith talked to me for 30 mins or so today. My best achievement was not calling them sweary words for their actions towards an 8 year old child and family with a long connection to our Trust – let alone them choosing to deprive 480 students with needs per annum of the expertise our staff can bring. The great Eddie Vedder would not have hesitated … When you withhold good it is as bad as doing intentional harm.

Welcome to share.

Alwyn Poole

Villa Education Trust

[email protected]

The Spectator reports:

top editor at the New York Times instructed Times staffers not to investigate the origins of COVID-19, two Times employees confirmed today.

‘In early 2020,’ a veteran Times employee tells me, ‘I suggested to a senior editor at the paper that we investigate the origins of COVID-19. I was told it was dangerous to run a piece about the origins of the coronavirus. There was resistance to running anything that could suggest that [COVID-19 was manmade or had leaked accidentally from a lab].’

The global pandemic was then in its early stages. Donald Trump was running for reelection and calling SARS-CoV-2 the ‘Chinese virus’. His secretary of state Mike Pompeo had told ABC’s This Week in May 2020 that he had seen ‘significant’ and ‘enormous evidence’ of the virus originating in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A few weeks later, Sir Richard Dearlove, the ex-head of Britain’s MI6 spy service agreed: ‘I subscribe to the theory…that it’s an engineered escapee from the Wuhan Institute [of Virology].’

Yet the Times, according to two well-placed sources, refused to investigate the biggest story of our time. Instead, senior editors are alleged to have suppressed efforts to probe the virus’s origins, and the Times led the charge to dismiss any questioning of the WHO’s now-discredited line as conspiracist or even ‘racist’.

And trust in media plummets even more.

Stuff reports:

A “long tunnel” between the Terrace Tunnel and Kilbirnie would be the best way to reduce Wellington’s traffic congestion and open up land for development, according to a report commissioned by Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM).

The long tunnel is part of four transport network optionsbeing considered by LGWM, the $6.4 billion transport and urban development programme focused on the area between Wellington Airport and the Ngauranga Gorge.

The Property Group, a consultancy firm, proposed a “long tunnel” – through Newtown, Mt Cook, and Te Aro – saying it would open up the most new space for housing and urban development. It would give the potential for more than 39,000 new dwellings and almost 1.3 million square-metres of commercial floor space.

The concept is good. Ideally you don’t want SH1 to be intersecting with other traffic and a tunnel would massively reduce congestion.

However the cost would be many billions of dollars and it is unlikely there would be a positive benefit to cost ratio. However it would be good to have a business case done for it.

Of course the BCR for light rail in Wellington is a miniscule 0.05 so anything better than 0.05 would be an improvement on the current plans!

NZ Herald reports:

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson wants the Government to bring forward work on a second Waitematā crossing, likely to be a tunnel.

It is understood that the Government is also considering scrapping its $785 million walking and cycling bridge over the harbour.

On Tuesday, Robertson would not confirm that the walking and cycling bridge would definitely be going ahead, only that the bridge was the current proposal.

When asked whether he would renege on building the bridge, Robertson said “we continually look at the network and the programme to make sure that it works well”.

The billion dollar bike bridge is deeply unpopular. Polling Curia did for the Taxpayers’ Union found only 18% in favour and 63% opposed to it. And a massive 52% said they were strongly opposed.

While not a sole factor, this has been part of why Labour dropped 10% in the recent polls. The public think they are obsessed with cyclists and hate motorists, so dumping the billion dollar bike bridge is necessary for political viability.

UPDATE: A Newshub poll has also found that the billion dollar bridge is about as popular as vomit. They found 82% opposed and just 12% in favour. Even 76% of Labour voters are opposed.

Enter your captions in the comments. As always, should be funny not nasty.

Oliver Hartwich writes:

A few days ago, Otaki Medical Centre posted about one of their doctors on Facebook: “We’re disappointed to have lost Dr Richards back to the UK after being unable to secure him and his family residency due to a Government freeze in place with Covid-19,” the GP practice wrote.

“Here is an amazing doctor, who cares about our community and wanted to make NZ home. Sadly – after months of fighting – we have had to close the practice to new patients.”

Richards is one of many migrants affected by the Government’s restrictive and inflexible residence policies. According to reports, there are at least 1000 registered doctors and nurses waiting for a decision on their residence status.

This is beyond crazy. We need doctors and nurses. They are already here and doing valuable work yet the Government can’t or won’t make decisions on residency.

While these migrants are waiting, they cannot open a KiwiSaver account, they cannot buy a house and, crucially, they cannot bring in their family.

It is not just medical professionals, either. The total queue of applications for residence from migrants already in the country exceeds 10,000 people.

It affects all walks of life, including many of those areas in which New Zealand desperately needs skilled workers.

Many of these workers have been with us since lockdown last year and have been treated terribly. Short-term work visa extensions are issued at the last minute, leaving everyone on tenterhooks. Few employers are willing to take on staff whose visas could soon expire.

It really has been shameful.

The Government is effectively forcing skilled migrants to leave the country, while trying to find space in MIQ for other foreign workers to replace them. It is madness in a time of skill shortages and MIQ shortages.

Only the Government could oversee such daftness.

In a first instance, the Government should apologise to the thousands of migrants and their families for the distress caused. It was not the Kiwi way to treat people like that.

After that apology, the Government should fix the situation. Everyone who was legally here with us through last year’s lockdown, and who has stuck with us since then, could simply be given residence immediately.

If the migrants have dependent children and partners abroad from whom they have been separated for these past sixteen months, their family should be given residence as well, along with priority entry into the MIQ system.

I agree.

The Herald reports:

The Labour Government’s plans for light rail in Auckland have come under fire from an elder statesman of the party, Sir Michael Cullen.

In his last two columns in the Weekend Herald, Cullen has raised concerns about the enormous cost and disruption of light rail and suggested electric buses are a better solution.

“It looks like an idea whose time has passed,” said the former deputy prime minister and finance minister when talking about light rail.

Cullen has also taken a pot shot at supporters of light rail, saying they have airily dismissed the enormous cost and disruption as of little consequence and arrived at the solution before adequately analysing the problem.

On this issue I hope they listen to Dr Cullen.

It is not clear what a $10 billion-plus tram line will add to a bus network, said Cullen, saying nobody can make the light rail project have a positive benefit-cost ratio, whatever heroic assumptions about inner-city redevelopment are made.

This means the benefits from light rail will be dwarfed by its costs.

The Court of Appeal has dismissed Winston’s case against the Ministry of Social Development over publicity around his superannuation overpayment. He had already abandoned his case against Anne Tolley and Paula Bennett.

The Court of Appeal basically dismissed his arguments on every single ground.

Hopefully the taxpayers will recover some of the costs incurred in defending this from Mr Peters.

The Herald reports:

Justice Minister Kris Faafoi isn’t ruling out parents being criminalised if they stopped their children from taking hormone blockers in a way that is deemed to be harmful conversion therapy.

Faafoi announced the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill today, to follow through with Labour’s election manifesto promise to ban so-called gay conversion therapy.

“This bill isn’t about criminalising people. It is about making sure we prevent harm that is happening as a result of these conversion practices,” Faafoi said.

Asked whether parents could be jailed if they stopped their 12-year-old children from taking hormone-blockers, Faafoi said anyone intentionally changing or suppressing someone’s gender identity or sexual orientation could be breaking the law.

There is a case for banning conversion therapy on the grounds it is harmful quackery.

But to have the Minister say parents could be sent to prison because they do not agree to their 12 year old taking hormone blockers is massive overreach and will make many parents shudder at the thought.

Newshub has released their latest Reid Research poll..

Party Vote

• Labour 43.0% (-9.7% from May)
• National 28.7% (+1.7%)
• Greens 8.5% (+1.4%)
• ACT 11.1% (+4.2%)
• NZ First 3.4% (+1.5%)
• Maori 1.9% (+0.7%)

Seats

• Labour 56 (-9 from election)
• National 37 (+4)
• Greens 11 (+1)
• ACT 14 (+4)
• Maori 2 (nc)

Governments

• Labour/Green 67/120
• National/ACT 51/120

Preferred PM

• Jacinda Ardern 45.5% (-2.6%)
• David Seymour 8.6% (+3.0%)
• Judith Collins 8.2% (+2.6%)

Better Leader

• David Seymour 41.7%
• Don’t Know 32.4%
• Judith Collins 25.9%

Better Leader (National voters)

• David Seymour 43.1%
• Judith Collins 38.5%
• Don’t Know 18.4%

This poll, along with the last two Morgan polls have all confirmed that Labour had shed a huge amount of support. A 10% drop in two months is massive. Of course Labour was polling so highly that even with a 10% drop, they still remain in a good position to govern with the Greens.

All three polls have also shown National remains in the high 20s and that ACT has clearly over taken Greens as the third polling party.

The Herald reports:

Former NZ First MP Fletcher Tabuteau has thrown his hat in the 2022 Rotorua mayoralty ring after mayor Steve Chadwick confirmed she would not be standing again.

Tabuteau is unlikely to run unopposed, however, with sitting councillor Raj Kumar also confirming he will make a bid for the mayoral chains.

Fellow councillor Reynold Macpherson said he “may or may not” run for the mayoralty.

Former Labour MPs who are Mayors seem to be bailing. Dalziel out, Chadwick out and Goff very likely to go to Washington.

There has been some digging going on with the level of disengagement with State schools in NZ.

Keeping it simple:

There are 826,347 school students in NZ.

10,500 of compulsory age have opted out to the point that they are not enrolled anywhere. (making it 836,857 who should be there).

33,053 are in Private Schools.

7,893 are home-schooling.

Only 68% are fully attending by Ministry data.

So we have around 299,000 students in NZ who have opted out of, or are significantly disengaged with the State school system. (i.e. above 35%)

In 2020 12% of our school leavers (7003 young people) left with no qualification. It was 23% for Maori and 4% for Asian students.

Asian students get UE at 70%, European at 47%, Pasifika at 27%, Maori at 23%.

Decile 1 school leavers have UE at 17.5%. Decile 10 school leavers have UE at 73%. (NB: when schools publish their qualifications statistics always make sure they are talking about school leavers and not their survivors – some schools have lost up to 40% of their students by 17yo – their Y13 NCEA stats do not reflect that important aspect.)

I need no further commentary than the Ministry of Education motto (on each letter and email).

“We shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes.”

The government/Ministry is proposing nothing that will be effective at addressing this. The sound that you don’t hear right now is the incredibly incompetent and clueless leaders of our education bureaucracy taking responsibility for this genuine crises and resigning.

As just sent to me – among the social ills this all leads to – on the production side:

“I think you could argue this is fundamental to our poor productivity as a Nation. We:- work 17% harder- are 40% less productive- earn 30% less GDP/capita than our OCED comparators.”

Newshub reports:

Performing conversion practices intended to change or suppress someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, could end in a five year prison sentence under a new law change. 

Conversion therapy is a harmful hoax. You can no more convert a gay man to heterosexuality than you could convert me to homosexuality. You don’t control whom you feel attracted to.

But is five years appropriate as a maximum sentence? Let’s compare that to other crimes.

• Indecent communications with a young person under 16: 3 years
• Indecent act on public place: 2 years
• Injuring with intent: 5 years
• Aggravated assault: 3 years
• Assault on a child: 2 years
• Poisoning with intent: 3 years
• Assault with a weapon: 5 years

Five years seems rather too high.

Karl du Fresne writes:

Changes in the health sector reflect another dominant trend under Labour: a return to Big Government.  In education and local government as well as health, power is being stripped from local administrators and placed in the hands of unwieldy central bureaucracies, remote from the people they supposedly serve.

In other radical changes, union power is being restored through a return to a discredited national pay agreements system and proposed ‘hate speech’ laws will place new restrictions on freedom of expression.

Meanwhile the government is showering money on pet causes such as cycling, announcing recently that it would commit $785 million to a second Auckland Harbour bridge that will be used only by cyclists and walkers. The plan was rightly ridiculed as humouring a small but vociferous minority of the affluent middle classes.

It didn’t go unnoticed that this indulgence was announced only days after nurses, with overwhelming public support, staged a national strike in support of pay claims that would have cost the government far less. It was a telling demonstration of Labour’s priorities.

So far, the smiling zombies — five million of them — have tacitly encouraged all this radical transformation through their silence. This can partly be attributed to the still-potent Ardern Effect, the political fairy dust that a charismatic young prime minister scattered over the country following the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacres and again when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

But it’s possible to sense a mounting pushback, particularly in those parts of the media — such as commercial radio — that haven’t been ideologically captured. Opposition to Labour’s agenda has been fuelled in recent weeks by concerns over a compulsory school history curriculum that will indoctrinate pupils with neo-Marxist theories of colonisation and white privilege; by the ascendancy of violent criminal gangs that the police seem unwilling or unable to challenge; and by the announcement of generous taxpayer subsidies for electric cars (another handout to the affluent middle class), with corresponding punitive taxes on diesel vehicles that will hit farmers and tradies — two groups that are crucial in propping up an economy severely hit by the downturn in international tourism.

Labour certainly isn’t wasting their majority.

If you are unsure over what you are saying will be hate speech under the new laws, check out this hate speech detector to guide you.

I’m a supporter of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. We have a good justice system but there are miscarriages of justice.

Bob Jones wrote a fascinating blog on how around 60 years ago he was on the verge of being arrested for an arson with strong circumstantial evidence against him. But fortunately the police officer interviewed a neighbour who identified someone as hanging about, who as it turned out had just been released from prison for arson, and was the one responsible.

If someone like Bob Jones could almost end up falsely charged (and probably convicted) it can happen to anyone. Not that it happens often, but it does happen.