The tweet above includes this graph:

The original tweet has lots of reasoning as to why this is. TLDR is social media.

Radio NZ reports:

A Hawke’s Bay man who distributed “repugnant” videos and images showing the sexual abuse of children, and who was dubbed a national security threat by police for planning a mass killing, can now be publicly identified.

A court order suppressing the name of Ronndog Elliot Keefe, 22, during court proceedings against him lapsed at 5pm on Friday.

Keefe collected and distributed thousands of videos and images of young children being sexually abused and violated by adults.

The self-declared “soldier of Christ” was also planning to attack either a mall or a mosque and kill men by stabbing them.

Police have told the courts he intended this to be a suicide mission.

Police searched Keefe’s house in September 2024 and found two bladed weapons – a machete and a bayonet.

An evil extremist.

Keefe’s lawyer Matt Dixon asked for name suppression to continue even after Keefe had been sentenced.

In part, he argued that naming him in public might impair his prospects for rehabilitation.

You could use that to argue every single criminal should get name supresssion.

Keefe’s threat to kill people came to police attention after a tip-off to New Zealand authorities from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had been alerted by a young American woman with whom Keefe had been communicating for about two years.

The American woman was not the girl he coerced into sending him images.

Court documents say he told the young woman in America “repeatedly and in detail” about his desire to commit a mass killing, wanting to copy high-profile terrorist and extremist attacks to gain public notoriety.

We should be very thankful to that young American woman, and the FBI.

Radio NZ reports:

It has been almost two months since Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s came into effect, and for Adyan, 14, life has not changed too much. …

The ABC spoke with teenagers across the country. Most of them had not been banned. Those who had found ways around it.

“I didn’t get any warning on anything. When I first made my social media accounts, I had already set my birthday before the year I was born. So I was born in 2010, I think I had set it to like 2007,” said Evie, a 15-year-old from Adelaide.

Alby, 14, also never received a warning. Instead, he has seen the ban spawn a new wave of entrepreneurs.

“Now there’s sort of like a market for it of younger people under the age of 16 giving money to their friends or people they know that are older to do ID scans for them, or your parents doing it for you. So it’s really easy to get around.

“I personally haven’t even gotten, like, a message saying, ‘You’re banned’ or had to do any ID scans. I’m still on it, but my friends that have, they’ve all got around it.”

You almost have to admire the teens who have basically set up businesses helping other teens get around it. Young ingenuity.

To be fair the ban will probably become more effective over time. Teens already on social media will of course find ways to stay on. But younger children who are not already on, may end up waiting until they are 16.

From Axios:

The number of murders fell 21% last year with a 40% fall in Washington DC.

Realestate.com.au reports:

Dame Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister for six years, has been seen looking at property on Sydney’s northern beaches fuelling speculation she and her family might be jumping over the ditch.

Ardern and her television presenter husband Clarke Gayford were spotted at a couple of properties for sale in the beachside suburbs of Curl Curl and Freshwater and were also seen eating at a Mexican restaurant in Dee Why.

Very nice areas. The median house price in Curl Curl is A$4.1m and A$3.9m in Freshwater.

The Herald reports:

Sir Peter Jackson’s long-rumoured movie museum plans appear to be gaining traction, with representatives holding talks with the Wellington City Council over the project.

Mayor Andrew Little and council officials met with Jackson’s team late last year in what a council spokesman described as a “general relationship meeting”.

“It wasn’t a meeting specifically about the movie museum, although that was one of the projects discussed,” the spokesman said.

Since then, further discussions have taken place between the council’s city development team and Jackson’s people, understood to relate specifically to his plans for a museum at his 2.7ha Lyall Bay site.

The Herald understands a resource consent application is being prepared for the development, and is expected to be lodged soon. …

At the time, it was expected the museum would attract 350,000 visitors annually, create 258 jobs, and generate $28.2m in new spending each year.

While I’m always sceptical of these projections, this is one that could be right. I am sure the movie museum would become the must see attraction in Wellington. It could even be one of those rare attractions that won’t just attract domestic tourism. but even some international tourism.

So I’m keen for the Council to facilitate the movie museum. By facilitate I don’t mean give it money. It should be commercially viable on its own terms. But there is a lot the Council can do without putting money in.

This should be the major news story of the week, or month. The massive increase in violent crime under Labour has not just reversed, but has dropped to another low according to the latest crime data.

In the year July 23 to Jun 24 there were 215,000 NZers who were victims of violent crime. This was an increase of 53,000 over two years earlier. This is what happens when the Government has a policy of reducing the prison population by 30% regardless of crime levels.

But since that peak of 215,000, the number of victims of violent crime has dropped by 79,000 to 136,000. Almost 80,000 fewer NZers were bashed or raped or assaulted. Of course Labour has opposed almost every law change made by the National-led Government to toughen up law & order.

This is a 37% drop in violent crime victims in under two years.

The NY Post reports:

A Gaza doctor who slammed Israel in a pair of New York Times op-eds is a colonel with terror group Hamas, according to an Israeli watchdog group and the Israeli Defense Forces.

Hussam Abu Safyia was photographed wearing a Hamas camo military uniform while at a gathering of Hamas elites to celebrate the completion of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in 2016, according to the Jerusalem-based watchdog NGO Monitor.

A fairly relevant omission I’d say. That nice doctor who wrote the op eds, is actually a senior commander in a terrorist group.

In July Te Pati Maori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said that Burkina Faso’s leader Ibrahim Traoré was his modern day hero. I thought it would be timely to check in and see how his hero is going.

Al Jazeera reports:

Burkina Faso’s military-led government has issued a decree dissolving all political parties that had already been forced to suspend activities after a coup four years ago.

This is justified on the grounds that multiple parties is bad for social cohesion. I’m sure Waititi would love to be able to do the same to parties he views as bad for social cohesion.

Human Rights Watch also touches on some other highlights from Waititi’s hero:

• In September, the junta passed a law making consensual same-sex relations a criminal offense punishable by two to five years in prison and fines.
• In July, the junta passed a law abolishing the Independent National Electoral Commission
• the Burkinabè military and VDPs have committed grave abuses, including the killing and unlawful forced displacement of civilians
• The junta has cracked down on political opposition, the media, and dissent, and used a sweeping emergency law to silence and unlawfully conscript critics, journalists, and civil society activists.

The amazing thing is no journalist in NZ has asked Waititi how he reconciles all this, with his statement that Traoré is his hero.

The Herald reports:

A bicultural overhaul of Army doctrine that features Māori cosmology at its core has led to a Government revolt, with the NZ Defence Force putting on hold part of the controversial programme.

The NZ Army’s new “general orders” to soldiers uses a pantheon of te ao Māori gods as guiding influences for its strategy “to achieve a bicultural status by enabling the recognition of Māori cultural interests as they are guaranteed within Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.

The Herald has confirmed Defence Minister Judith Collins only learned of the new doctrine after coalition partners Act then NZ First raised objections with her.

This shows how entrenched the view is in Wellington that absolutely every aspect of public life must be tied to the Treaty. What is astonishing is that the Minister finds out through MPs, rather than the NZ Defence Force.

I think part of the problem is all these agencies are headquartered in Wellington where 95% of the people they talk to share this view. We should shift Defence HQ to say Christchurch or Auckland to try and dewokify them.

The order introduced the Cultural Skills Framework, the section NZDF says is on hold, which set expectations for personnel at every leadership level. Those included understanding the Treaty of Waitangi, engaging with Māori communities, practising tikanga and developing te reo Māori.

For leaders in the Army, it said they should know at least two waiata, pronounce te reo Māori words correctly and have “beginner’s use” of te reo Māori. That included being able to “interact in predictable exchanges” using te reo Māori.

Those looking to “level up” would “read about Māori values, beliefs and history” and attend immersion language programmes.

So to be promoted in the Armed Forces you need to know all about the Treaty, be able to sign waiata, have good te reo pronunciation and be knowledgable about Maori gods.

I suspect the ones who would find this most idiotic are the many NZDF soldiers (not officers) who are Maori.

I was recently at Eden Park for the amazing Edinburgh Military Tattoo. A superb performance.

By chance a few days earlier the Government announced changes to the conditions for Eden Park, which will mean more people can enjoy more events. The major changes are:

• From 12 concerts a year needing consent to 32 concerts a year (not needing consent)
• Concerts now allowed on a Sunday (but finish by 11 pm)
• A five to six hour time limit for concerts extended to eight hours.
• A limit of 25 night time sports events a year abolished
• Night time sports events can go to 10.30 pm instead of 9.30 pm

Great news for Aucklanders, music lovers and sports lovers.

Newsroom reports:

Polymarket, Kalshi and similar prediction markets are illegal under New Zealand’s gambling laws, the nation’s gambling regulator has decided.

Polymarket and Kalshi are online markets where users can place bets on future outcomes, ranging from New Zealand provincial cricket results to what phrases Donald Trump will use next month.

This is bad enough, but even worse Kalshi has now geoblocked NZers from even viewing their sites.

This means NZers can’t even view the markets on those sites. I write a monthly newsletter on election outcomes in Australia, Canada, NZ, UK and the US. Part of my analysis is reporting on what the prediction markets are for upcoming elections.

So stupid nanny state means I can’t even perform basic journalism without a VPN. Is this New Zealand or China?

And why the hell does a so called centre right government with an ACT Internal Affairs Minister think it must make it illegal for people to bet on prediction markets?

I have huge respect for the way David Farrar operates Kiwiblog. As opposed to almost all other political blogs in NZ – he allows genuine debate.

I have, and never will have, a political affiliation. From the beginning of my career in education I made a choice to research and tell the story of what I saw – regardless of who was in power. People love to talk about “evidence based policy” – but when you present evidence that their policy is not working they do not appreciate the rug being pulled.

When I produced data sets to show that the decline in NZ education had been significant over the last 15 years – from a very low base in many ways – few on the “right” complained because Labour was in power at that time. A high up member of the PPTA even called me the most hated person in NZ education.

When Erica Stanford – for whom I had organised a highley successful two day education summit in Cambridge when she was National’s “spokesperson” – became Minister of Education I was hopeful.

When she immediately appointed long-term, and distastrous, Dep Sec of Education: Ellen McGregor-Reid (EMR), into her Ministerial office … I critiqued that decision immediately as all it did was signal that very little would actually change and that the Ministry would be the main power-broker – not the Minister.

I immediately received criticism from Jordan William (Taxpayers’ Union) about “friendly fire”. I then received an email from Michael Johnston from the NZ Initiative – who had been appointed as the chair of the Minister’s Advisory Group. He told me that “as a friend” (I had never considered him so), that the Minister was devastated and the the role of EMR was to do the difficult task of setting up the Minister’s office – and then change would take place. One could only assume that that change would include completly transforming the Ministry and keeping the election promise of reducing the FTEs to 2,700.

Well; EMR has since been appointed Secretary for Education (on approx. $700k per annum), the FTEs are approx 4000. The MInistry is no more functional that it was when the NZ Initiative leader Dr Oliver Hartwitch said that TNT was the only solution. And yet …. silence! A HUGE loss of credibility for all involved.

We live in a democracy – “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

The problem for NACT is not the Labour government’s intervening years – Labour do not care anymore about the failing aspects of the education system than Nationals and ACT do. They do not care about the incredibly poor outcomes for Maori, Pasifika and low-income students any more that NACT do. But NACT do not either and there is MASSIVE evidence of that over the last 27 months. The problem is that the purported supporters of NACT do not hold their people to account and fall back on … “Well, they might be crap, but at least they are not as crap as Labour/Greens/TPM.”

Then there is the moral repugnace of this type of communication I receive on occasions. The good thing is that this person chose an appropriate alias for anyone who understand the nonmemclature of the penis.

“I won’t be entering into any discussion about my note to you, it is meant only as feedback not engagement.

I am always sure that when you put up a post it will be negative and certainly anti government.

I can understand you being resentful because of your unsuccessful applications for 4 private schools (“sic” – we have an approved private school” , and some would say it is quite legitimate for you to air your resentful views on a platform such as Kiwiblog. However it becomes predictable and nauseous almost to see you prattle on as you do.

Do you seriously think that continually criticising the government is going to carry favour with a government of any hue or indeed with the public that reads your posts? 

I wish you luck with all of that.

JohnThomas”

The key thing here is that … you do your research and you express what you see. How morally repugnant that anyone would consider that you should “curry favour”. Or – as Michael Johnston said: “Being outspoken excludes you from being in the tent.” Why would I care? My life is very good! But – if it wasn’t – in a democarcy you are supposed to speak up when you see problems. And our education system remains a mess – and it may well be accelerating on the way down.

Being “tribal” on either side – damages NZ.

[email protected]

The Taxpayers’ Union has a job opening for a “Chief Agitator-in-Residence”

Some of the key responsibilities and competencies are:

• Lead research and analysis on public spending and economic policy
• Produce authoritative reports, briefings, and commentary
• Identify emerging fiscal risks and opportunities for reform
• Operate heavy machinery (certification may be desirable)
• Strong analytical capability, particularly in fiscal or economic matters
• Food manufacturing (ideally, dry goods)
• Basic taxidermy
• Familiarity with laminated documents
• The ability to remain motionless during prolonged applause
• Comfort around industrial-grade shredders
• Jazz singing
• Professional modelling
• Juggling
• Falconry
• Competitive debating (pre-1900 rules)
• Speaking confidently in rooms with no windows
• Latin (threat-level fluency)

I’m tempted to apply!

Note however the following exclusions:

Due to strong internal capacity in those areas, we are not currently considering applications from:

• The Treasury
• Anyone who has used the phrase “human misery” unironically in the last 12 months
• Professional clappers
• Owners of more than three lanyards

A reader writes in:

The EPA is responsible for various things including assessing new hazardous substances for import or manufacture for New Zealand. The majority of these are agrichemicals. There has been fairly vocal criticism of them from companies and farmers about their slow processing, for a few years now. Notably, the legislation they operate under (The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act) has barely changed since over the last 15 years. The only substantive changes are that some functions were stripped out and given to WorkSafe, and then another approval pathway that was supposed to speed up the assessment process for things already approved overseas was added.

For all the following graphs, each value is for the year to date, ending on 30 June of the labelled year. This aligns with the EPA’s annual reports.

To start with, here is the total number of applications decided by the EPA over time. 

So there’s a clear downward trend since Labour entered office in terms of overall output.

Not all applications are alike, and the EPA has four different pathways. In order of increasing complexity, they go Rapid, Category A, Category B, Category C. Over the last 14 years they’ve processed 475, 417, 58 and 65 of these respectively. Category C usually means a new active ingredient and so usually means more work for the regulator, but also something more innovative being introduced. According to what they’ve said in cost recovery consultations (see page 19 herehttps://www.epa.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Documents/Hazardous-Substances/Fees-consultation-Feb-2023/Hazardous-Substances-and-New-Organisms-Fee-Proposals-consultation.pdf) the EPA thinks it takes about 8-10 times the resource to process a Category C application than it does a rapid. In theory if the EPA were processing more Category C applications and fewer of the less complex ones, then the above trend may not mean any decrease in output/productivity.

However, when we break down for each category, the same trend of fewer applications decided, and taking significantly longer for each application, is apparent.

When a new active ingredient is taking 1600-1700 days rather than the 400-500 it did previously, its no wonder that companies like Bayer have said that they’re not going to bring future new active ingredients to NZ unless they’ve already started the NZ-specific work on them already, as they did last year.

One of the EPA’s go to excuses has been that they are not resourced appropriately to do the work required of them (particularly over Covid, although the downward trend started two years before then). This was mentioned by the EPA board chair in a letter to Rural News last month trying to hit back at critics. However below is the graph of the number of FTEs who work on hazardous substances applications and reassessments combined over time. It’s important to include reassessments here as until 2018 there was one unified team who processed both new applications and reviews of existing substances, so it makes it a like for like comparison. Some of these FTE’s may have relatively minor input into the process, but the key thing is that it’s a like for like comparison. Also, being in FTEs rather than $ accounts for potential impacts of inflation. 

In summary, resourcing remained relatively stable over time, until the last of the Labour years and National’s return, when they’ve had a boost. With this, we can then look at their overall productivity per staff member over time.

Even if we ignore 2012 as a possible outlier, there has been a massive drop in the output of applications by the EPA, when controlled for their level of resourcing which they claim is the primary cause of their issues.

Given that there have not been any substantive changes to the legislative framework under which they operate, it looks like a clear case of operational decisions that introduce inefficiencies being allowed when Labour was in power, and now the EPA is refusing to reverse these. Given that there has been such strong pushback from public sector agencies over efforts to shift back to pre-Labour headcounts and ways of operating, I wouldn’t be surprised if similar trends were observed across other agencies too.

The Free Press reports:

Fox Varian had her breasts removed when she was 16 years old as treatment for her gender dysphoria. At 19 she stopped identifying as transgender and filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against her psychologist and surgeon. She won.

People will be tempted to draw conclusions based on their political views around trans issues. Before we get into the politics, and whether legal blame should lie with the doctors, I think everyone can agree that it is an extremely bad outcome that a young woman had her breasts removed, and now deeply regrets it.

If the young woman had been an adult, it his unlikely there would be a lawsuit. Adults are deemed mature enough to consent to surgery – including surgery they later regret. So this isn’t about whether adults should be able to access gender change surgery. It is about whether under 18s should be able to – and how much time should be spent assessing whether this is justified.

The Free Press reports some details:

The trial was anchored by emotional testimony from Varian and her mother, Claire Deacon. Varian testified that Einhorn served as an enabler, repeatedly assuring her that the mastectomy she desired would greatly improve her well-being. Deacon testified that Einhorn browbeat her into consenting to her daughter’s surgery, threatening that she would otherwise commit suicide. 

It is fair to say that generally you expect medical professionals to give dispassionate advice on pros and cons, not emotional blackmail.

“It’s so hard to face that you are disfigured for life,” Varian told the jury. The physical toll, she testified, includes scarring, lack of sensation in her nipples, and nerve pain where her breasts once were. She will never be able to nurse an infant. “No amount of reconstruction,” she said, “is ever going to bring back what I lost.”

Again, regardless of who is legally to blame, everyone should feel sympathy for Varian that she has ended up like this.

Varian’s attorney argued that the defendants’ actions didn’t reflect what a reasonable professional in their respective fields would have done.

Deutsch did not seek to undermine the basic principles of this medical field during litigation. He and the three defendants’ attorneys maintained a consensus throughout Varian’s trial that mastectomies are an appropriate treatment for certain minors with gender dysphoria—a psychiatric diagnosis characterized by persistent distress over a conflict between a person’s gender identity and birth sex.

So they didn’t argue no young person should never be able to have this surgery – just that in this case they rushed to judgment without due care.

The lawsuit also accused both Einhorn and Chin of failing to thoroughly explain the risks and benefits of the surgery as well as alternatives with Varian and Deacon, who was responsible for consenting as the parent of a minor. In particular, Deutsch alleged that the providers had each failed to properly caution that the surgery might not meet the teenager’s expectations or address her psychological struggles, and in particular, that she might regret it. Einhorn and Chin, however, each asserted that they had done so.

Risks, benefits and alternatives are vital for informed consent.

At the crux of the case was Einhorn’s referral letter for surgery, which made no mention of what Deutsch insisted was a required diagnosis: gender dysphoria. Einhorn wrote that Varian suffered from body dysmorphia, which involves overwhelming rumination over a perceived physical flaw—a diagnosis that is actually a widely accepted reason not to perform plastic surgery.

“That letter to me is a stop sign,” testified Schechter, who is chief of gender-affirmation surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “I looked at this case really hoping—and even with an expectation that there would be enough—to support Dr. Chin’s care,” he said. “And I couldn’t do that.”

So this case may be an outlier in terms of bad practice. Time will tell as other lawsuits go through other courts.

Einhorn said Varian’s depression didn’t meet the criteria for inclusion at the time. However, Chin acknowledged that diagnosed conditions need to be in such a letter, even if they are under control. And Deutsch pointed to Einhorn’s session notes that characterized Varian as depressed and in a state of apparent personal chaos. The psychologist also documented in his notes that she had impaired judgment.

Major decisions by a young person with impaired judgment is another wise.

Following more than five hours of deliberation, the jury found that 70 percent of the fault for Varian’s injury lay with Einhorn, and so the burden of the $2 million award was split proportionately between him and Chin. The award included $1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering and $400,000 for future medical expenses.

Hopefully this will encourage other medical professionals to be cautious before proceeding with such major surgeries on under 18 year olds.

I’m pleased to announce that Curia is a proud sponsor of the ANZ Ukraine Cooperation Forum. It is launching in March, and meeting in Lviv. bringing together leaders from defence, emergency services, government, business, philanthropy, and civil society to build partnerships and explore practical opportunities for cooperation.

Ukraine is fighting for its survival as an independent country. Putin wants to turn it into a slave state. Any ceasefire or truce will only come about by Ukraine being strong and the cost of carrying on being too much for Putin.

The fate of Ukraine matters to me. That is why I proudly had Curia become a sponsor.

The Herald reports:

Laurie Johnston still can’t fathom how his daughter and two grandsons were shot by his son-in-law, Ben Timmins, just days after he was arrested over a family violence incident.

It should never have happened.

Just after midnight on January 14, the Herald understands Timmins, 60, is alleged to have opened fire on his wife and her two sons in a property in the town of Waitārere Beach, about 70km south of Whanganui.

One of the two young men, who were aged 17 and 21, is then understood to have fatally stabbed Timmins allegedly in self-defence. 

Laurie Johnston said Timmins used a handgun and praised the actions of his grandson to prevent a greater tragedy.

That young man saved his mother, brother and himself. Awful he had to kill someone as a young age, but thank God he did.

“As far as I’m concerned, that young fella should get a bloody medal.”

Agreed.

Johnston expressed exasperation that his son-in-law could return to the Waitārere Beach Rd property a second time after the protection order was in place.

“They were assured that they would be protected. He was not allowed on the property, not allowed in the bloody main road,” Laurie Johnston said of his understanding of the protection order in place.

Sadly protection orders are all but useless. We need a system where a deliberate breach of one results in automatic holding in jail for a period of time.