Stuff reports:
New Zealand Post has unveiled a new $15 million logo and rebrand to visually unite its Courier Post, Pace and Rural Post courier services.
if they were privately owned I wouldn’t care, but last year taxpayers sank $130 million into NZ Post.
RNZ reports:
Businesses are being hit by massive rises to their power bills as dry weather and a natural gas shortage wreak havoc in the electricity market.
Which Government banned further natural gas exploration?
RNZ understands the new power contract for supermarket operator Foodstuffs is 70 per cent more expensive.
This will flow through into food prices.
This is the monthly average wholesale price for NZ for the last five years. In 2016 and 2017 it was between 5c and 15 c per KWh. In 2021 it has been shooting up every month and the average for May 2021 was 30.2 c per KWh – higher than the retail price.
Sums it up nicely.
More corporates should respond like this to hypocrisy from fellow corporates.
Speak up for Women is a group of women who oppose the proposed changes to the Births Deaths and Marriages Act, which are before Parliament. The current law only allows someone to change the sex on their birth certificate with a Family Court declaration. The bill would change this so one can change your birth certificate sex merely by statutory declaration.
On the issue I actually lean more towards the bill, than the current law. I think a Family Court declaration is too onerous. I’m not entirely convinced going all the way to merely doing a statutory declaration is ideal either, but I certainly support making it easier. So I disagree with SUFW on this issue.
The key thing is this is an issue before Parliament. It is exactly the sort of issue that people should be able to advocate on. If you can’t take a position on a law change before Parliament, then we don’t really live in a democracy.
On the 1st of June SUFW booked the Palmerston North Library for a public meeting on 25 June. This would allow people interested in this issue to go along and hear SUFW’s view on the issue and ask questions. It also allows those who disagree to go along and ask questions,
This is a basic right in the Bill of Rights Act:
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.
But on the 17th of January the PN Library cancelled the booking, SUFW with support from the Free Speech Union applied for a judicial review and won. This is a major victory pushing back against cancel culture where bullies try and prevent speech they disagree with.
Some extracts from the Court decision:
Palmerston North ratepayers will not be out of pocket by thousands of dollars due to the staff decision to try and cancel the booking.
This outcome shows why it is great we now have a Free Speech Union in New Zealand. Without the FSU, there would have been no way SUFW could have afforded to take legal action to uphold their rights. You can join the FSU here.
And other Councils are on notice now. If they give in to the bullies who try and suppress speech, then they will be taken to court, and lose.
Glenn Loury is an economist, academic and author. He was the first black Professor of Economics at Harvard. He writes at Quillette:
Socially mediated behavioral issues lie at the root of today’s racial inequality problem. They are real and must be faced squarely if we are to grasp why racial disparities persist. This is a painful necessity. Activists on the Left of American politics claim that “white supremacy,” “implicit bias,” and old-fashioned “anti-black racism” are sufficient to account for black disadvantage. But this is a bluff that relies on “cancel culture” to be sustained. Those making such arguments are, in effect, daring you to disagree with them. They are threatening to “cancel” you if you do not accept their account: You must be a “racist”; you must believe something is intrinsically wrong with black people if you do not attribute pathological behavior among them to systemic injustice. You must think blacks are inferior, for how else could one explain the disparities? “Blaming the victim” is the offense they will convict you of, if you’re lucky.
I claim this is a dare; a debater’s trick. Because, at the end of the day, what are those folks saying when they declare that “mass incarceration” is “racism”—that the high number of blacks in jails is, self-evidently, a sign of racial antipathy? To respond, “No. It’s mainly a sign of anti-social behavior by criminals who happen to be black,” one risks being dismissed as a moral reprobate. This is so, even if the speaker is black. Just ask Justice Clarence Thomas. Nobody wants to be cancelled.
The same applies in NZ. While there will be some areas of implicit bias, the main reason we have such a high level of Maori in prison is because more criminals happen to be Maori.
Or, consider the educational achievement gap. Anti-racism advocates, in effect, are daring you to notice that some groups send their children to elite colleges and universities in outsized numbers compared to other groups due to the fact that their academic preparation is magnitudes higher and better and finer. They are daring you to declare such excellence to be an admirable achievement. One isn’t born knowing these things. One acquires such intellectual mastery through effort. Why are some youngsters acquiring these skills and others not? That is a very deep and interesting question, one which I am quite prepared to entertain. But the simple retort, “racism”, is laughable—as if such disparities have nothing to do with behavior, with cultural patterns, with what peer groups value, with how people spend their time, with what they identify as being critical to their own self-respect. Anyone actually believing such nonsense is a fool, I maintain.
I recently blogged on the huge ethnic differences in truancy rates. If kids are not going to school, they will have worst educational outcomes.
The “structural racism” argument seldom goes into cause and effect. Rather, it asserts shadowy causes that are never fully specified, let alone demonstrated. We are all just supposed to know that it’s the fault of something called “structural racism,” abetted by an environment of “white privilege,” furthered by an ideology of “white supremacy” that purportedly characterizes our society. It explains everything. Confronted with any racial disparity, the cause is, “structural racism.”
As we see in NZ.
These racial disparities have multiple interwoven and interacting causes, from culture to politics to economics, to historical accident to environmental influence and, yes, also to the nefarious doings of particular actors who may or may not be “racists,” as well as systems of law and policy that disadvantage some groups without having been so intended. I want to know what they are talking about when they say “structural racism.”
The full essay is worth reading.
Stuff reports:
Labour laws should be changed to make it easier to dismiss highly paid staff who are underperforming, the NZ Initiative says.
The think tank has issued a new report, which calls for the removal of unjustified dismissal provisions for people in senior management roles, earning more than $250,000 a year.
Since 1991, all New Zealand employees have been able to take a personal grievance if they were dismissed unfairly and without good reason.
Report author and NZ Initiative chairman Roger Partridge said underperforming senior managers could have a negative effect on an entire business, and could depress the wages that were able to be paid to other staff.
But he said the provisions – intended to protect vulnerable staff – meant that the only way an underperforming chief executive could be dismissed was if a board of directors developed a performance management plan, consulted with the chief executive about the plan and then monitored the executive’s performance over an extended period.
In the meantime the business could be failing under the person’s watch.
“No one wants vulnerable workers being unjustifiably dismissed. But by constraining firms from getting rid of underperforming bosses, laws introduced to protect the jobs of ordinary workers may be placing those jobs at risk,” he said.
I agree. When you get to a certain level of seniority and pay, your employer should be able to terminate your employment without the hugely complex and time intensive process used for more junior staff.
An employer can carry an underperforming junior staffer, but an underperforming CE or CxO can cripple a business.
For those interested (and willing to subscribe) here’s some recent posts I have done on Patreon:
Stuff reports:
Housing Minister Megan Woods’ office has blamed a “clerical error” for wrongly claiming the Government was not sponsoring media stories on NZME’s OneRoof real estate website.
Stuff revealed last week that Government housing developer Kāinga Ora was paying $25,000 a month for 64 media stories styled to look like news stories on the OneRoof site.
The stories did not have a disclaimer added until Stuff approached the KiwiBuild developer and NZME for comment, meaning it was not possible for the public to know they were sponsored.
National’s housing spokeswoman Nicola Willis had asked Woods in a written Parliamentary question in May whether a commercial relationship between Kāinga Ora and NZME existed, given the flavour of the stories that were very favourable towards Kāinga Ora.
Woods responded that no such long-term agreement existed.
But a new round of written questions eventually revealed that an agreement did exist.
Woods’ office wrote to Willis to correct the earlier answer, saying a “clerical error” was to blame.
That new response revealed the contract was worth $475,000.
So there was an almost $500,000 contract for NZME to run propaganda for the Government disguised as news stories and the Minister denied there was any such contract.
But it is even worse than that. One of the articles paid for out of the $475,000 was this one on 27 May 2020. It is about how the driving force behind the Hobsonville Point community was Arena Williams and is full of details about what she has done for her neighbours.
Arena Williams is of course now a Labour MP. At the date this taxpayer funded propaganda was published as a news story, she was battling Louisa Wall for the Manurewa nomination – a battle she won just two days later when Wall withdrew.
So we have a government agency paying to promote an aspiring Labour candidate (and impossible they did not know she was) a few days before a selection meeting, and having it appear as a genuine news story with no recognition it was a paid for story (the disclaimers were just added on this week).
Stuff reports:
Gang activity in Napier has led to locals being far more fearful about their safety than they used to be.
A survey of 597 local people, undertaken in February, has revealed that 44 per cent of locals felt the city was not a safe place to live. That compares to just 17 per cent last year, and 19 per cent in 2019.
An increase from 17% to 44% is massive. That’s an extra 18,000 people in one city who now say they are scared for their safety in their city. And the same will be the case in many other provincial cities.
Gang activity and presence came through as the biggest safety concern, with “Get rid of gangs” and “Ban gang patches” the most cited suggestions to improve safety.
Fifty-five per cent of respondents said gangs were the greatest safety concern.
Labour seems to be the worst of both worlds – soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime.
And all but one of the responses were received prior to a gang shooting outside popular bars at West Quay on February 28.
So would be higher now.
Most of the campaign ads I highlight are negative or attack ads. But this is a great example of a positive ad, introducing a candidate. A very compelling backstory.
Amazing playing from the Black Caps to become the official (and inaugural) world champions at test cricket.
The path to the title was:
NZ was also runner ups in the one day world championship in 2019 and made the semi-finals of the T20 world cup in 2016, so in all formats we are one of the top teams.
Stuff reports:
A dance advocacy group is accusing the country’s national arts funding authority of unlawfully influencing a decision that saw it denied public money.
Lawyers representing Dance Aotearoa (DANZ) have told the High Court in Wellington that its business will likely shut down as a result of it not receiving new funding.
On this issue, I’m with Creative NZ.
I’d far rather than funded actual dance groups, as opposed to a dance advocacy group.
The Herald reports:
A community board member’s report complaining about use of te reo Māori at a local government conference has been deemed unacceptable by the Dunedin City Council.
Brian Peat, of the Mosgiel Taieri Community Board, referred to “a young Māori chap” talking in te reo for at least 20 minutes without translation into English, but his recollection has been challenged by one of the conference organisers.
Peat has called for all Māori content to be translated.
So he wasn’t saying that te reo Maori shouldn’t be used. He was saying that if there is lengthy use of it, it should be translated for the 96% of the population (including 80% of Maori) who can’t converse in it.
His rejected report included the claim New Zealand’s first language was English and that the community boards’ conference content “seemed somewhat slanted” on two subjects — Māori and climate change.
Peat asked for his report to be included in the community board’s agenda, but Dunedin City Council chief executive Sandy Graham said this would have been inappropriate.
Its contents were not consistent with the council’s partnership obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi, she said.
“The board member is entitled to his views, but as chief executive I must also manage the DCC’s relationship with mana whenua as our Treaty partners,” Graham said.
“Put simply, I was not prepared to allow the report to form part of the DCC’s official record.
This is such bullshit. He is an elected representative, and she is not. If the relationship can’t survive a report where someone complains about a lack of translation, that’s pretty sad.
But this is part of a wider malaise. Organisations now use so called obligations to censor views they disagree with. What if he expressed a view on Maori wards? Would that be censored if the CE didn’t like it? What if he expressed a view as an elected official that the RMA should be changed so Iwi have less power to block developments? Would that be banned?
Elected officials should not have their reports censored by staff unless they are in breach of the law.
NewstalkZb reports:
One of Auckland’s biggest sex scandals is set to hit the small screen.
The story of former Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s affair with ex council adviser Bevan Chuang will be told in a made for TV movie.
The movie is called Princess of Chaos and will receive $2.6 million from NZ on air.
Chuang made headlines in 2013 when her two year affair with Brown was revealed days after his successful re-election campaign.
Former Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Chris Finlayson told The Weekend Collective that, objectively, he would not fund it, but bodies like NZ on Air and Arts Council are at “arms length” from ministers, and this is the kind of “stupid decisions” these bodies make.
“20 odd years ago, the Arts Council decided to fund the Venice Bienalle, and the star attraction was going to be a donkey braying in a toilet.”
He says that it’s unfair to Brown to put this story back out there, and “some decency” should be shown to his family.
I agree with Finlayson.
Len Brown had sex with someone he wasn’t married to. Why does that need to be made into a TV movie, let alone get $2.6 million from taxpayers?
The NZTU have published their annual Ratepayers Report that allows you to see the average rates (and more) for every Council in NZ.
The five highest average residential rates are:
The five highest average commercial rates are:
Also of interest are the highest paid Crs are at Christchurch Council at $114,505 each on average.
The Herald reports:
Phil Goff has expressed an interest in a diplomatic posting overseas if the opportunity arises, but is committed to seeing out the current term as mayor of Auckland.
Rumours are circulating in Wellington and Auckland that Goff could be off to Washington as New Zealand’s Ambassador to the United States, replacing career diplomat Rosemary Banks who has been in the role since February 2018.
Goff told the Weekend Herald he had heard the rumours but would stay on as mayor of Auckland for the full three-year term of office, which ends in October next year.
“I’m elected to serve three years as mayor of this city and that is what I intend to do.”
Goff said he will decide early next year whether to seek a third term as mayor.
The deal is done. Labour need to hold Auckland and Goff is unpopular. So he gets Ambassador to Washington (a role he is most suited for) and Labour’s candidate will be Richard Hills who has been standing for elective office since he was 25.
The Herald reports:
A North Korean defector who moved to the United States says she thought she was entering a country that promoted free speech – instead, she found the opposite when she went to university.
Yeonmi Park attended Columbia University and she soon realised she was in a system that focused on political correctness and contained anti-Western sentiment.
She says she thought the system would encourage free thinking and open dialogue but instead found they were being forced to think a certain way.
Following her experience she said “even North Korea isn’t this nuts”.
“I expected that I was paying this fortune, all this time and energy, to learn how to think. But they are forcing you to think the way they want you to think,” Park told Fox News.
“I realised, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying.”
Park, 27, says she couldn’t believe she would be asked to do “this much censoring of myself” at a university in the US.
She is not alone. More and more people are self-censoring to appease the mob,
Park saw the red flags immediately after being scolded by a staff member for admitting she enjoyed classic literature such as Jane Austen.
She was told “those writers had a colonial mindset”, were “racists and bigots and subconsciously brainwashing you”.
Jane Austen is not on the approved woke list of acceptable books.
Her professors gave students “trigger warnings”, sharing the wording from readings in advance so people could opt out of reading or even sitting in class during discussions, Park told The Post.
“Going to Columbia, the first thing I learned was ‘safe space’,” she said.
“Every problem, they explained to us, is because of white men.” Some of the discussions of white privilege reminded her of the caste system in her native country, where people were categorised based on their ancestors, she said.
She found she would get into arguments with lecturers and students about subjects and eventually learned “how to just shut up” in order to maintain her good grades.
“I literally crossed the Gobi Desert to be free and I realised I’m not free, America’s not free.”
And this disease of control is already taking root here.
Newshub reports:
Newshub can reveal just five extra acute mental health beds have been added as a result of the Government’s much-lauded record mental health investment. …
In Budget 2019 the Government announced $1.9 billion for mental health – $235 million of that was allocated to building mental health and addiction facilities.
The Ministry of Health told Newshub that almost all of it has been committed but they couldn’t say how much had been spent.
“I don’t know where that money’s gone but from a person in the community and a patient, I don’t see it at all,” says Kiana.
The Prime Minister couldn’t say on The AM Show on Monday morning how many extra beds that record investment created for acute youth.
“That’s not something that I can share with you right off the bat,” she said.
But Newshub can reveal the grand total of new acute mental health beds is just five.
So they announced almost $2 billion over two years ago. And in that time all they have managed is five extra acute beds,
It takes something special to make Kiwibuild look like an unqualified success, but they’ve done it!
Stuff reports:
Officials are warning that work to restrengthen Wellington’s heritage-listed Town Hall could increase by about $9.7 million, new documents show. …
In February 2019, city councillors voted to approve a further $20 million for the building’s restoration.
That brought the budget up to $112.4m, not including a “contingency allowance”, which had also been approved by the council. Back in 2013, the budget was just $43m.
So the $43 million renovation is now over $120 million.
There was no need to restore the Town Hall. We have the Michael Fowler Centre already for musical performances. To waste $120 million on a second venue is criminal, and why rates are going up 15%.
Here’s the timeline of costs:
I’d say it could well end up getting closer to $150 million which would be a cost of $2,000 per household. If you got to individually vote on this project how many households would vote for a new town hall over keeping $2,000?