One of the biggest disappointments of events early on Sunday morning at the National Party conference was that some excellent policy sessions were not reported. The media chose instead to focus on perceived disunity.

As good as the sessions which included Cameron Bagrie on the economy, James A. Brown on technology and Prof Des Gorman on health and Covid were, the highlight was far and away the session on mental health and suicide.

National has given Matt Doocey the spokesmanship for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, and Judith Collins announced on Sunday that, when National is elected in 2023, Doocey is likely to hold these specific roles in a newly-created ministerial portfolio. I personally believe that is a fantastic idea.

You may have heard of Grace Curtis. This is an excerpt from the transcript of the speech Grace delivered to the conference late on Sunday morning:

Grace’s speech held conference delegates spellbound. I would urge you to read the entire transcript, and even if you’re a cynical old fart like me, have a hankie or tissues handy. There was barely a dry eye in the conference venue. The silence at the end of the speech was broken by a prolonged standing ovation.

At 22, Grace has her whole adult life ahead of her, but her father won’t be there to pour her a beer, or give her the benefit of his farmer’s wisdom. Instead of wallowing in her grief, Grace and two other young women, Tori Wheelans and Georgie Harris, both of whom have also lost their fathers to suicide, have formed Cool Change NZ, an organisation to provide support and just an outlet to their peers who too have been bereaved by suicide.

After the conference ended, I was privileged to speak to Grace, and commend her on her bravery in talking about events which must still be incredibly raw. Talking with her was an experience I will remember for a long time, especially when I ponder the dark days in my not-too-distant past when I could have left my own children in the same space as Grace.

I was fortunate; I got help almost immediately after my breakdown. But hundreds of Kiwis are not getting the help they so desperately need when they have mental health crises. It’s simply not good enough, and neither the current Government or its National-led predecessor have done enough in the mental health space. It’s time that New Zealand took mental health and especially suicide prevention seriously. I’m sure that Grace Curtis wouldn’t mind having to wind up Cool Change NZ because there was no demand.

In the meantime however, I have nothing but deep respect for this courageous young woman and her equally brave friends, who are trying to salvage something positive from their own personal tragedies.

Stuff reports:

The Government is urgently investigating how 87 unvaccinated port workers were allowed to board a ship that carried 11 Covid-19-positive crew members.

Health authorities were urgently testing 98 Tauranga port workers on Monday, after they were involved in the unloading the container ship Rio de la Plata, which was cleared to dock at the city’s port last week.

Crew members on the boat have tested positive for the more-transmissible Delta strain of Covid-19, and the port workers who unloaded the ship spent days out and about in Tauranga before being asked to self-isolate.

It was confirmed after a Cabinet meeting on Monday afternoon that 23 of the 98 workers had tested negative, and the remaining tests were outstanding. Nine of these workers were fully vaccinated, and two had a single dose of the vaccine.

This is a level of incompetence that makes Kiwibuild look like a stunning success.

Border workers should have been the highest priority for vaccination and every border worker should have been vaccinated by 30 June or moved to a different role.

Vaccines have been available for nine months, and only 10% of port workers have been vaccinated. It’s crazy.

Stuff reports:

Cities and towns across the North Island were plunged into darkness on one of the coldest nights of the year, after nationwide demand for electricity reached an all-time high.

Power generation failed to meet demand across New Zealand on Monday evening. Tens of thousands of households were affected by mass power cuts as a result.

The national grid operator Transpower declared a “grid emergency” at 7pm and asked local distribution companies to reduce load on their networks, a spokeswoman for the organisation, Deborah Gray, said.

It was the first time in 10 years that such an emergency had happened.

Banning gas exploration was such a great idea, eh.

Newshub reports:

Former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says the Government’s gone back on its word at Pike River and he’s fighting to prove it in court.

Newshub Nation has obtained an affidavit from Peters backing 20 Pike River families who say the Government hasn’t delivered on what was promised. …

Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little says exploring 2.4km into the tunnel known as the drift is what was promised and what was delivered. Peters calls it “one of the most disappointing things” he’s ever seen in politics and is adamant Little is wrong.

“That’s preposterous – there’s no way we’d spend that sort of money just to recover the drift.” 

So who do you believe – Winston or Little?

The Herald reports:

Farmers took to the streets to protest against the tax last month, many upset with the impact it would have on rural New Zealand.

And it’s not just the farmers who aren’t happy.

A Newshub/Reid Research poll showed 52.6 per cent of those polled disagreed with the policy; just 37 per cent supported the scheme.

Labour is seriously in the minority on both the ute tax and the billion dollar bike bridge. The bike bridge looks to be terminal. Will they kill the ute tax also?

CNN report:

Seventy percent of New York voters said Cuomo should resign, according to a new poll released on Friday by Quinnipiac University. That number included 57% of registered Democrats, 76% of independents and 88% of Republicans. Among Democrats, the figure has jumped a staggering 34 percentage points since Quinnipiac last asked the question back in March.Cuomo’s approval rating is down to an all-time low of 28%.

I’d say he’ll be impeached in September and gone by October.

“We unequivocally condemn this and all sexual harassment and urge Governor Cuomo to resign,” George Gresham, the union president, said in a statement. The decision marked a stark reversal — emblematic of the changing political tides across the state — from just a little more than a month ago, when Gresham attended and spoke glowingly of Cuomo at a $10,000-a-ticket fundraiser in New York City, according to CNN affiliate Spectrum News, citing a person familiar with the event.

There’s an old saying that if you want a friend in politics, get a dog. Politicians will always turn on you once you are no longer politically useful.

Something I have learnt over many decades in National is to never underestimate regional factionalism. Members and delegates often get parochial and will vote for people from their region where possible. This makes sense from a regional perspective as the more people from your area on the board, the more likely it is your local candidates will do well with list ranking etc.

So the key takeaway in terms of the board elections was that three of the four elected were from Auckland, which is where the conference was hosted. Hosting the conference is an advantage as your delegates can attend without travel or accommodation costs so local electorates will all have full delegations.

And this was probably also an influence in the vote for President – board members are more likely to vote for someone from their own region as President.

This is not to suggest someone’s region is the only influence on the vote. Of course not. Those elected to the board all all good capable people. But it would be silly to pretend there wasn’t a regional influence on the voting. If the conference had been in Dunedin, there may have been a different outcome.

The job of the board now is to unite behind the President they have just elected and work towards ensuring National has lots of members and money by 2023, and that we select some excellent candidates.

The Herald reports:

Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield should explain just how much former Labour prime minister Helen Clark was involved in the medical evacuation of a UN staffer from Fiji to New Zealand, National’s Covid-19 spokesman Chris Bishop said.

On Friday, Bloomfield apologised and corrected an answer he had previously given to Parliament’s Health select committee about how the UN worker was allowed into the country for treatment.

Bloomfield had originally said he had no direct conversations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) about the transfer.

But on Friday, he wrote to the committee saying he had actually been texting MFAT secretary Chris Seed about it.

The texts, which were released to the committee, show Seed telling Bloomfield that Clark had talked with both himself and Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta about the transfer.

As well as being a former prime minister, Clark is the former head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Seed said that his ministry was “doing the right thing and staying well away”.

Bloomfield replied saying “we’re all over it. I think we will get resolution”.

This was followed by a text saying the issue was “[a]ll sorted”.

So the official line is that this was a decision made bu the DHB without interference, and they just happened to reverse their decision.

A former Labour PM lobbying the Foreign Minister had no influence.

A former Labour PM lobbying the Secretary of Foreign Affairs had no influence.

The Secretary of Foreign Affairs and the DG of Health texting on it had no influence.

The DG of Health just two hours later saying it was all sorted was unrelated to the above.

Stuff reports:

Greens co-leader James Shaw has comfortably seen off a leadership challenge at the party’s annual general meeting on Saturday.

James Cockle thought he was the man for the job, saying the traditionally left-leaning party had moved too far to the centre.

But the Dunedin software developer and environmental activist captured just four delegate votes to Shaw’s 116 at the meeting in Upper Hutt. Twenty delegates abstained from voting.

The Greens would have been mad to dump Shaw. So nice to see that they’re not.

Stuff reports:

Health officials are “in the market” for annual Covid-19 booster shots for emerging variants of the virus.

In the market? That means we have ordered none so far.

Have they learnt nothing from our slowest in the OECD rollout of the main vaccine? You need to order quickly, not after months of bureaucratic blungling.

We’ve known for four months that a booster vaccine after six to 12 months is recommended.

Germany is starting booster shots next month, and we’ve yet to even order any. Israel has already started the booster shots.

The UK plans to start boosters in September and the US has just ordered 200 million of them.

And we’re just talking about it.

Stuff reports:

A senior police officer in the Hawke’s Bay Organised Crime Unit has let rip at the government’s funding of a meth rehab programme being run by Mongrel Mob members, which was approved by the prime minister.

The Kahukura programme, which serves up to 10 participants over eight weeks on a marae in central Hawke’s Bay, has received $2.75m from the Proceeds of Crime fund.

The programme sees participants working in a ‘’community garden’’ at the home of the president of the Mongrel Mob’s Notorious chapter, Sonny Smith. …

Stuff has spoken to numerous officers who were stunned to hear of the funding.

In a letter to the editor of the Police Association magazine, Detective sergeant Mark Moorhouse, a supervisor in the Hawke’s Bay Organised Crime Unit has put into words how he and his colleagues feel.

He said claims by politicians that Hawke’s Bay police supported the programme was “BS”.

There is no way local frontline police who battle the Mob’s drug empire supported funding them to do drug rehabilitation from the very drugs they sell.

What will have happened is the District Commander would have been consulted by the Commissioner’s office and he or she would have said, we don’t object. There is no way this would have been the view of officers on the frontline.

“My gang-focus staff have for the past two years fought tooth and nail to confront the violence and insidious harm the Mongrel Mob, in particular, have unleashed in our community. More than 30 gang-related shootings in the year to date, and they openly flaunt the wealth they generate from the poison they infuse our communities with,” he wrote.

Imagine the risk those local officers have in dealing with 30 gang shootings and then finding out the Government has given $2.75 million to the Mob.

“We are undermined by the courts and poorly served by a justice system. Corrections is a mess and we’re not sure any more who runs the prisons.

The gangs seem to. If they cause enough trouble they then get given their own block, which becomes their fiefdom.

“The only job satisfaction I have had this year is the fact that the people who work around me have seized huge amounts of firearms, drugs and assets and had an impact on these groups. While it might be a small ripple in a big pond, it is the only ray of light we have had. I am encouraged by the professionalism and tenacity of these awesome people.

“Now you want to tell us that nearly $3 million worth of our blood, sweat and tears is going to be allocated to a scheme that only allows the individuals who are responsible for causing the harm to be enrolled in it, to the detriment of more worthy causes, and then tell the country that the Hawkes’ Bay Police support it. I need to call BS on this because the bulk of us don’t support it,” Moorhouse wrote.

Poor bastards who have to endure this.

Newshub reports:

In the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll, voters were asked: Is the Government doing enough to address the mental health crisis?

An overwhelming majority, 70.7 percent, said no, while just 18.2 percent said yes. 

Its not that I’m defending the Government’s performance in mental health (which has been no results for lots of money), but this is a very leading question.

First of all by using the term crisis, that in itself is a subjective term that will affect the results. A more neutral question would be “How satisfied are you with the Government’s management of mental health”.

The second aspect that is designed to gather a large percentage saying no is asking “Is the Government doing enough”. One can always think the Government can be doing more in an area, even if you think overall they are doing okay.

So while I do think the Govt’s performance in this area is lousy, this question by Newshub is designed to produce a large number saying no.

The Herald reports:

Stricter residency rules for entitlement to New Zealand Superannuation will be a step closer when Parliament votes to change a member’s bill on Wednesday.

The bill will require people to have been in New Zealand for a minimum of 20 years since the age of 20, instead of the current 10-year minimum (including five years since the age of 50).

This is a good change. People should have paid tax for an lengthy period before they are eligible for NZ Super.

The bill, the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill, has the support of all parliamentary parties, except for the Greens.

It is in the name of National MP Andrew Bayly. It was New Zealand First policy originally announced by leader Winston Peters and then promoted in a bill by former New Zealand First MP Mark Patterson. With New Zealand First out of Parliament, it was picked up by National.

The phased-in proposals set to be passed are as follows:

Age as at June 30, 2021, and Residence requirement (after age 20)

64 and over … 10 years
62–63 … 11 years
60–61 … 12 years
58–59 … 13 years
56–57 … 14 years
54–55 … 15 years
52–53 … 16 years
50–51 … 17 years
48–49 … 18 years
46–47 … 19 years
45 and under … 20 years

The phase in periods look sensible. We should of course also phase in an increase in the age from 65 to 70.

Newsroom reports:

Andrew Little is visibly annoyed by the problems he’s encountered in the health system since taking on the portfolio following last year’s election.

“We’ve put so much extra funding into the system since we’ve been in Government and the same pressures that were evident three years ago are evident now.

“So, what I’m saying is how can we possibly have pumped in billions of extra dollars, and it not appear to have made a difference?’’

A very good question. The answer is a mixture of incompetence and abolishing the health targets.

One is having funded over the last three years an additional 3000 full-time nurses to take the pressure off a stretched workforce.

Half of those roles remain vacant, so instead DHBs are paying overtime to already over-worked nurses and paying expensive bills for agency nurses to fill the gaps.

Well the Government is making near impossible for qualified nurses to get residency in NZ.

“After having made the decision in 2019 that we’re going to spend $235 million on these five (mental health) facilities – two years on we are still in so-called planning stages and in some cases a site hasn’t even been identified yet as to where a particular facility is going to go.

“It’s just ridiculous,’’ exclaims Little.

It is ridiculous and the role of a good Minister is to ensure things don’t die under bureaucratic blankets.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand’s labour market is running hot – but workers aren’t yet seeing the benefit, the Council of Trade Unions says.

Stats NZ revealed on Friday that the unemployment rate had plummeted in the year to June, to 4 per cent.

CTU economist and director of policy Craig Renney said the labour market looked to have largely recovered from the shock of the global pandemic.

Average wage inflation was at 2.1 per cent, Stats NZ said, which was up from 1.6 per cent the quarter earlier but still less than the 3.3 rate of inflation.

An average wage increase of 2.1% is fine if inflation is 1%. The problem is that inflation is at 3.3% so anyone who gets less than that is going backwards.

The answer isn’t to make inflation worse by increasing wages faster (which increases prices) but to stop printing money and get inflation down.

The Herald reports:

The Government’s communications spend has jumped more than 50 per cent in four years, and is now costing the taxpayer close to $90 million a year.

So it will be well over $100 million by the next election.

The biggest spender was the New Zealand Transport Agency/Waka Kotahi at $8.2m over 2020/21, up from $2.6m in 2016/17.

The number of staff there in communications roles has increased from 32 to 68.

To be fair NZTA probably does need many more comms staff. The agency used to build roads to reduce congestion. Now they are doing things to increase congestion (such as traffic lights and a pedestrian crossing on SH1 rather than an overbridge) so they have so many more people angry at them.

Over those four years, more than $300m has been spent. The number of full-time staff increased from 564 to 845.2.

280 more comms staff. Yay.

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Stuff reports:

Billionaire Google co-founder Larry Page is a New Zealand resident, the government has confirmed to Stuff.

On Thursday evening a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) confirmed the world’s sixth richest man has Kiwi residency.

This is great. Larry’s net worth is just over half of New Zealand’s entire GDP. So NZ has just become much richer!

More seriously, its a great thing if tech giants love New Zealand so much they wish to be residents here.

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.