No Minister reports on how Don Brash not only can’t get an op ed published by Stuff, but they are refusing to even allow him to buy advertising space.

This is not something unique to Don Brash or Stuff. The media cry they are unprofitable and need taxpayers to bail them out (thanks Labour for $50 million) yet they often refuse paid advertising from centre-right organisations.

Off memory the NZTU, Sensible Sentencing Trust, Family First and others have all had paid advertisements decline because the media company in question disagrees with the advertisement. And not once. Media are overtly hostile to CR ads in a way they never are to CL ads.

Now the media companies as private companies have every right to decline advertising. But we should be aware that this means they are not in anyway neutral reporters of news. They are a company running an agenda, and become close to political actors in their own right. And when they cry poor, we should tell them not to bludge off taxpayers.

Newshub reports:

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has conceded that quietly changing information online about the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out “may not have been the best way”. 

The Ministry of Health has updated when Group 4 – the general population – will be invited to receive Pfizer jabs. Its website now says they can get vaccinated from the “end of July”, when a few days prior it simply said “from July”. 

National’s COVID-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop says the Government needs to be “far more upfront with New Zealanders” about the progress of the vaccine programme. 

A quiet updating of a website rather than a media release. They were hoping no one would notice.

My pick is they will vaccinate one general population person at 11.30 pm on 31 July so they can claim the rollout started in July!

The Herald reports:

An Invercargill father called mental health services 40 times in the weeks before his son killed his stepson.

Today, Joseph Kevin Boyle was found not guilty by reason of insanity of the murder of his stepbrother, 19-year-old James Clark, at a High Court hearing in Invercargill. …

In October 2019, Boyle’s father contacted his son’s treatment team again with concerns his son was not taking his lithium medication.

His father was again concerned in late November 2019, when he saw his son going from normal to aggressive.

“It was reported in the month before 8 December 2019 he [Mr Boyle’s father] had made some 40 phone calls to mental health providers to get Mr Boyle medically reviewed.”

No father should have to make 40 phone calls to get their son assessed. That suggests deep systemic failings.

Stuff reports:

Former National candidate Jake Bezzant is no longer a member of the party as serious allegations against him from an ex-girlfriend emerge.

A podcast was released publicly on Monday featuring allegations that Bezzant had impersonated the ex-girlfriend, using explicit images of her in order to impersonate her in sexting conversations with other men.

The podcast featured Tarryn Flintoft, who said the behaviour was continuous during and after her relationship with Bezzant, and was still happening in recent weeks about a year after they had broken up.

“Jake Bezzant, who is involved in the National Party in New Zealand, used to impersonate me online and would make Snapchats and dating sites and things and would engage in online sex as me, and would send nude images and videos of me,” Flintoft said.

It should go without saying that no-one should use intimate photos or videos of their partner or ex-partner without their consent.

The allegations here is that Bezzant posed as his girlfriend and later ex girlfriend in order to have cyber sex with men, who thought he was her. Bezzant has denied this.

She said she complained to the police about the matter, who investigated it but could not press charges as Bezzant was not technically breaking the law.

With respect to the Police, I think they are wrong. Not only is there civil liability under the Privacy Act but I believe the Harmful Digital Communications Act could apply. You can be jailed for up to two years for posting a digital communication with the intention that it causes harm to a victim.

You could also look at S240 of the Crimes Act about causing loss by deception. Even forgery could apply as that is about making a false document to gain a benefit and arguably gaining cybersex could be deemed a benefit.

Bezzant was asked to respond to the allegations by Stuff. He did not address them directly but said there were “two sides to every story”.

“Personal relationship break ups sometimes get messy. Two sides to every story. There is more than just her and I involved so I am going to respect that and so I am not going to discuss it. This needs to be seen in the context of a relationship break up,” Bezzant said in a written statement.

He also confirmed he would not be seeking another National Party candidacy.

The party will be relieved, with hindsight, that he didn’t win Upper Harbour. Having these allegations against a former candidate is bad enough, but against a sitting MP would be a magnitude worse.

Eric Crampton writes:

Emissions pricing and congestion pricing have a lot in common. The economics of both are straightforward. And the politics of both are a mess.

Like carbon charging, congestion charging simply makes sense. About 90 per cent of economists surveyed endorsed carbon and congestion charging – a decade ago. And the case for both has not got weaker with time.

At 90% endorsement, you can say the science is settled!

Most taxes cause distortions. Congestion and carbon charges instead eliminate distortions. They would be base-broadening measures that could allow some worse taxes to be cut while providing room for some additional spending.

If you had decent congestion charging then you could lower petrol tax, and also help solve the issue of funding from non petrol vehicles.

In the real world, fear of high carbon or congestion charges hitting poorer households means politics gets in the way. The equity concerns are real, although in the case of congestion charges, they are rather more debatable.

But there is a better solution than interfering with the ETS, or skewing congestion prices.

In both cases, collected revenues could fund a dividend that would be returned to households.

Excellent idea.

TVNZ reports:

A petition has been launched to strip National MP Simeon Brown of his police, corrections, SFO and youth portfolios after what the Mongrel Mob claims was a “racist rhetoric” posted online following the death of a senior member in Hawke’s Bay.

On Tuesday, members of the gang were reportedly driving dangerously and doing burnouts during a tangi.

Photos show motorbikes flooding State Highway 2, which Brown slammed online.

“Unbelievable. Another gang funeral in Hawke’s Bay where gangs were are able to take over the road. This should not be tolerated,” he wrote.

“The same gang who effectively shut down Hawke’s Bay roads today also shut down a school for two days – where they held their funeral. Do gangs just have free run in NZ? Do they face any consequences? Unbelievable.

“Is it acceptable under this Labour Government for schools to shut down kids – so that gangs can hold funerals?” …

The petition was set up by Lou Hutchinson, who handles public relations for a Hamilton chapter of the Mongrel Mob.

Fatupaito said the petition also calls for Brown to apologise to the affected whānau, that he be censured by the National Party, he be censured by the Speaker of the House, that his Facebook and Twitter posts be removed pertaining to the tangihanga and his social media accounts be suspended until completion of a cultural sensitivity counselling course or when the Speaker of the House sees fit.

The Mongrel Mob seem to have given up on the death threats against Simeon, and now are petitioning to have him sacked. If they keep this up, he’ll soon start appearing in the Preferred PM polls as the average NZers will think anyone whom the Mongrel Mob are trying to get sacked must be doing a great job.

TVNZ reports:

Mental Health advocate and educator Mike King is returning his New Zealand Order of Merit medal ahead of Gumboot Friday after sending an open letter to Jacinda Ardern.

It comes as the former New Zealander of the Year is stationed down at Auckland Domain ahead of his annual fundraising event tomorrow to raise money for free counselling for New Zealand youth.

King sent the letter to Ardern this afternoon, telling her he felt “honoured” to receive the medal at the time but now feels uncomfortable with New Zealand’s unchanged mental health landscape.

“It no longer sits comfortably with me. Every day I look at myself in the mirror and ask, ‘How can you wear this title when things haven’t changed and so many are still suffering?’

“The truth is I can’t. I know none of this is your fault Prime Minister and I know you truly care about our children but the system is broken and it seems to our most vulnerable Kiwis and their families that no one is trying to fix it,” King says in the letter. 

“On that basis I stand with those families and with great sadness I will be returning my NZOM Medal to Dame Patsy Reddy before she leaves office.

“I know this is the last thing you needed to hear but I can no longer stand idly by hoping things will change and knowing they won’t.

“To paraphrase Martin Luther King, ‘For incompetence to prevail all it needs is for good people to do nothing.'”

It’s almost as if saying “be kind” isn’t enough!

Lisa Lewis is auctioning off her membership refusal letter from ACT.

Parties of course can reject anyone for membership, but I do wonder why Lisa Lewis was rejected. Sure she is well known as a sex worker, but we have had at least one other MP before who has been a sex worker.

I actually met Lisa around 10 to 15 years ago at a friend’s place (who used to help babysit for her). What struck me was how commercially minded she was. She was very interested in website optimisation to drive traffic and income etc. I would have thought her entrepreneurial skills would make her suitable for ACT. I mean she is even making money out of their rejection letter.

Because certain demographics have unequal outcomes, we are told this means the system is broken and we must make changes to reduce these inequalities. That people shouldn’t face a life of lesser outcomes because of an inalienable characteristic they can’t control. The fact one gender may be paid less on average or one race has worse health outcomes is all blamed on the system.

So let’s look at the very significant disadvantages another minority has compared to the average male. They are:

• 14% greater risk of heart disease
• Perform slightly worse on IQ tests
• Less likely to be a CEO
• Get paid around $166,000 less over 30 years
• 13% greater risk of strokes
• Less likely to be promoted
• 50% more likely to have dementia
• More likely to have depression
• Less likely to be elected to office
• 9% more likely to commit suicide

Where are the Government initiatives to close the gaps for this minority? Surely if an inequality of outcome is deemed unacceptable for some demographics, it should be for all demographics.

To find out what this minority is, scroll down.

Nick Smith announced:

National MP Nick Smith has announced he will retire from Parliament on 10 June at the end of the current Parliamentary sitting block.

“I have decided to retire for personal and professional reasons, including a current Parliamentary Services inquiry into an employment issue.

“I was disappointed to lose the Nelson seat at the 2020 election after 30 years representing the region. It was working for constituents and advocating for the region that I enjoyed most and I have come to realise that the role as a List MP is just not me. I had decided to retire earlier this year and the only question was when.

It is no surprise that Nick doesn’t want to stay long-term as a List MP. He has loved being MP for Nelson and won the seat off Labour and held it for 30 years, despite it never being a blue seat. He had very strong cross-party appeal for most of that time and many Labour and Green voters still voted for him.

Nick has pretty much devoted his life to National. I met him in the late 1980s when he was the NZ Deputy Chair of Young Nationals and I was the Southern Regional Chair. He became an MP in 1990 and has devoted all his energy to National, as an MP and Minister. Everything he did, he did with vigour.

“Parliamentary Services have been conducting a confidential inquiry into a verbal altercation in my Wellington office last July that has not concluded.

“I was advised on Friday that the inquiry and its details have been leaked to the media for release tomorrow. It is inappropriate for employment disputes to be litigated in public. I will put on the record that I regret the incident, I apologised at the time and I apologise again today. I have decided the best course of action for the parties involved, the National Party, my family and myself is to retire now.

Sad to have this as part of Nick’s end story. Not 100% surprising as Nick was known to fly off the handle from time to time.

“This is an opportunity for National to renew. The Leader, Party and Caucus will continue to have my full support.

“It has been a huge privilege to be a National Member of Parliament, serve as 15 different Ministers under four Prime Ministers and to represent the Nelson region for 30 years.

His replacement will be former Whanganui MP Harete Hipango.

“I am looking forward to re-joining the Smith family crane and construction businesses in New Zealand, Australia and in the Pacific.”

Nick is an engineer by training.

I wish Nick well in the future and will miss him. I always enjoyed working with him.

A reader writes in:

Suggestion for (highly populated) General Debate threads.

HAVE ALL GD CONTRIBUTORS BEGIN THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS (STARTING WITH THE INITIATOR) WITH (SAY) A THREE (FOUR) WORD THREAD-TITLE –in BLOCK TYPE… eg; “RACIST”-PARLIAMENT-DEBATE

Whilst this may only be a matter of “convenience; to contributors (wading through much of the more “general” GD content) … it would be a great timesaver OK?

Stuff reports:

Seats for Māori on all Taranaki councils is just a first step to full power-sharing, says the former New Plymouth mayor who pushed for Māori wards. …

“I’m now asking you to truly step up and actually mandate true partnership around every council – actually around every community public entity. Fifty-fifty, there is no other way the partnership can work. Fifty-fifty. Until we get there, until you mandate true partnership with Māori, nothing will truly change.”

Judd no longer believes in one person one vote. He believes in someone with the right blood ancestry getting three to four times as many votes as someone without the right blood ancestry.

At least Judd is honest that he wants the votes of non-Maori to be diminished to 1/4 of a vote of Maori. Have no doubt others want the same goal, but are staying silent.

The Green Party take the side of Hamas in almost every flare up with Israel. They never ever criticise Hamas, but always use highly emotive language against any response from Israel. They ever ignore international law rulings (from Sir Geoffrey Palmer no less) that the sea blockade of Gaza is legal, and their MPs take part in pro-Hamas attempts to subvert the blockade.

They could rightly be called the Party of Hamas in New Zealand by the fact they take their side every single time, and more recently share their slogan calling for the destruction of Israel. Hamas of course is well known for having the destruction of Israel in its charter.

But don’t think Hamas is anti-Israel just because of territorial disputes. They are 100% raging Jew haters. If you don’t believe me, then check out their own founding document or charter.

The enemies have been scheming for a long time, and they have consolidated their schemes, in order to achieve what they they have achieved. They took advantage of key-elements in unfolding events, and accumulated a huge and influential material wealth which they put to the service of implementing their dream. This wealth [permitted them to] take over control of the world media such as news agencies, the press, publication houses, broadcasting and the like.

The old “Jews control all the money and the media”. But it gets better,

[They also used this] wealth to stir revolutions in various parts of the globe in order to fulfill their interests and pick the fruits. They stood behind the French and the Communist Revolutions and behind most of the revolutions we hear about here and there. They also used the money to establish clandestine organizations which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies and carry out Zionist interests. Such organizations are: the Free Masons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, B’nai B’rith and the like. All of them are destructive spying organizations.

The Jews are responsible for most of the revolutions in the world and are also behind Free Masons, Rotary and Lions which are organisations that spy for the Jews. This is paranoid antri-semitism of the highest order, and this is whom the Greens side with time and time again, and chant their slogans.

They also used the money to take over control of the Imperialist states and made them colonize many countries in order to exploit the wealth of those countries and spread their corruption therein.

Jews also are to blame for colonisation!

As regards local and world wars, it has come to pas s and no one objects, that they stood behind World War 1, so as to wipe out the Islamic Caliphate. They collected material gains and took control of many sources of wealth.

The Jews caused WWI and profited from it!

They obtained the Balfour Declaration(51) and established the League of Nations in order to rule the world by means of that organization.

And set up a world government they controlled!

They also stood behind World War II, where they collected immense benefits from trading with war materials, and prepared for the establishment of their state.

This is the most vile part. They hate Jews so much they claim they were responsible for WWII and benefited from it!! Yep, Hamas thinks the Jews benefited from the Holocaust!

So make no mistake. Hamas hates Jews. They want to kill Jews. They want to destroy Israel. This is not a territorial dispute. This is anti-semitism on full display. And anyone who takes their side, is siding with outright hatred of Jews,

The Herald reports:

An Oamaru man who set up a hidden camera to secretly film five women has been sentenced to eight months’ home detention.

William Andrew McLellan, 20, appeared in the Dunedin District Court this afternoon after pleading guilty to five counts of making an intimate visual recording.

The women whose privacy he had violated all spoke of the anger and distrust that had remained after they had been informed of the offending. …

McLellan created an alcove in a bathroom in which he placed a toilet bag.

In that bag he fashioned a small hole through which a small GoPro camera was able to film the unsuspecting victims as they used the toilet.

Judge Kevin Glubb outlined how the offending moved on.

McLellan later pierced a hole in the wall another bathroom, attaching the GoPro camera to film what happened.

So he invaded their privacy and made intimate recordings of them on the toilet. Incredibly unsettling for the victims.

The judge imposed the sentence of home detention and added 100 hours’ community work to provide “a sting in the tail” and to get McLellan out of the house.

The defendant was to pay each victim $500 and an order for destruction of the electronic devices was made.

Judge Glubb refused the Otago Daily Times’ application to photograph McLellan because of the potential impact on his mental health.

What about the mental health of the victims? They had their photos taken without consent by this man. Why should he be protected?

There were numerous stories about how a study has shown physical discipline has reduced from 77% to 42% of parents in the last 15 years. But those stories missed a key aspect, which Thomas Lumley points out:

There’s a new research paper out from the Christchurch Health and Development Study, which recruited a group of people when they were born, in mid-1977, and has been following them ever since.  Those of the participants who were parents have been asked about physical discipline of their children on four occasions: when they were 25, 30, 35 and 40.  Obviously, over time, the number who are parents has increased (from about 150 to over 600), and the children have (on average) gotten older — when the parents were 25, most of the kids would have been pre-school; the group now includes a few very young children but many who are teenagers.

The impact of children getting older is likely to be hugely influential. A US study found physical discipline was used on only 35% of infants but 94% of three and four year olds and then declines from age five onwards.

The good feature of birth cohorts like the Christchurch study is that you get to see the same people throughout the course of their lives; the bad feature is that at any given time everyone is exactly the same age.  In statistician jargon, age is completely confounded with period: you are completely unable to distinguish effects of ageing from time trends. When you see that the proportion of parents reporting hitting their kids has gone down from 77% to 42% over the 15 years, you can’t tell, at all, whether this is an effect of these specific parents getting older and more experienced or an effect of parents in general being less likely to hit their kids.  It’s hard (though not impossible) even to tell if it’s an effect of the kids being older.

What would be useful would be to break the data down by age of child. I suspect that would account for much if not most of the reported decrease.

Sad to see the final column from Martin Van Beynen. I enjoy both his excellent reporting and his columns. He jokingly labels himself the “thinking man’s redneck”.

He states:

My instincts are what most would call conservative. I am opposed to radical change and wholesale condemnation of the past or status quo. And yet another side of me likes the idea of big simple solutions and rapid change.

I have often wondered what makes people right wing or left wing – conservative or progressive. With the left and progressives in power and in the ascendancy in New Zealand, the right seems less and less confident, and outdated.

As I might have said before, I think right wing people have a more negative view of their fellow humans and therefore feel trying to interfere with human nature or the natural order is doomed to failure. Leftists seem to have a more positive view of the species, believing that given the right environment and rules, people’s intrinsic goodness will come to the fore.

I disagree. I believe the opposite. I find many (not all) on the left have a terrible pessimism of their fellow humans. They think if left alone, we will make terrible choices. This is why the Greens have around 100 things they want to ban us from being able to do. This is why so many on the left seem to hate the words choice, competition and markets – they don’t trust us to make choices they approve of. And again many on the left think many of their fellow humans are racist, sexist and bigoted etc.

I find right wingers (not all, but overall) are endlessly optimistic about people both individually and collectively making the right decisions. They don’t think we are going to destroy the world. They do believe people can achieve far beyond what their group characteristics might suggest.

So I have enjoyed Martin’s columns but I will respectfully disagree with this part of his final one.

Stuff reports:

An animal activist group’s call not to kill mice plaguing rural parts of Australia in the name of “human supremacy” has been labelled “stupid” by politicians.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) spokesperson Aleesha Naxakis told NCA NewsWire the “bright, curious animals” are just looking for food to survive.

“They shouldn’t be robbed of that right because of the dangerous notion of human supremacy.”

Rural parts of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia are enduring a once-in-a-decade mouse plague, ruining crops and livelihoods.

Naxakis suggested instead of poisoning the “innocent” rodents, farmers should set up humane traps to gently catch and release the mice unharmed.

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack​ snapped back, telling News.com.au the “real rats” in this plague are the “people who come out with bloody stupid ideas like this”.

PETA are right. The mice should be humanely caught and released. They should be released in the houses of PETA spokespersons.

People may not realise how quickly mice breed. Here’s the timeline for one pregnant mouse.

• Day 1 – 1 pregnant mouse
• Day 20 – 8 mice, of which four are female
• Day 60 – four pregnant mice
• Day 80 – 36 mice, of which 18 are female
• Day 120 – 18 pregnant mice
• Day 140 – 180 mice, of which 90 are female
• Day 180 – 90 pregnant mice
• Day 220 – 810 mice, of which 405 are female

Former Herald editor Gavin Ellis writes:

The latest example to get me in hot water was a public service announcement on the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine which stated: “Based on how the vaccine works, experts believe it is as safe for pregnant people as for everyone else.” I made the mistake of questioning why the announcement had used the word “people” instead of “women” and rashly pointed out what I thought were biological certitudes.

Oh dear. Heresy.

Is that why we are seeing an increasing number of media reports, particularly sourced from Police, that tell us that ‘a person’ has been killed/injured/assaulted/arrested? In my newspaper today, for example, I was told “A member of the public was taken to hospital after their car was hit by a driver fleeing police…” However, righteous prohibition doesn’t seem to have permeated the entire force. Alongside it was a Police-sourced story saying “A man [unnamed] has been charged with murder’ and another (similarly sourced) saying “A man has died after being injured…” Would the world stop turning if the first story had informed me whether the member of the public was a man or woman? Of course not, and there was no valid reason for not doing so, except that it wouldn’t be very PC.

One day almost all stories will just refer to a “person” with no descriptions of gender, age or race.

I believe it was the result of our language becoming sterilised, as more and more develop what I might call idiomatic mysophobia or a pathological fear of the use of certain contaminating words in case someone might have their feelings hurt.

Saying ‘man’ or ‘woman’ does not amount to a harmful failure to acknowledge those who nominate another gender identity. Frankly there are far more serious forms of discrimination against those groups and individuals that should concern us.

Exactly. Concentrate on the issues that matter.

It is equally appropriate for journalists to accept and report whatever gender the subject nominates. Last week, for example, actor Eddie Izzard reaffirmed the use of ‘she’ and ‘her’ as preferred pronouns. Good on her.

It’s also okay to talk about ‘pregnant women’.

I agree. One should respect people’s preferred pronouns while also using general terms such as “pregnant women”.