The India – NZ FTA allows 1,667 three-year temporary employment entry (TEE) visas per annum (capped at a maximum of 5,000 at any point in time).

However 1,466 of those visas are for skilled occupations already on the green list. We already issue 28,000 or so of these a year, including 4,500 a year to Indian nationals. So those 1,466 a year will be zero increase on what we are already doing. It is a floor, but a floor at one third of the level we are already at.

So that leaves 200 a year to ‘iconic’ Indian occupations. The maximum at any time would be 600. Even if they do successfully bring in family, again the maximum number of “extra” people in NZ would be around 2,000 in a country of 5 million.

On an annual basis you are taking maybe 650 more incoming migrants a year on top of the 136,000 we already have. That is a 0.5% increase.

Radio NZ reports:

An average of around 70 million litres of untreated wastewater has been pouring into the capital’s South Coast since Wednesday morning.

That is a huge amount of wastewater, but also need to put into context that it is equal to a 41 by 41 by 41 metre cube. In terms of the volume of ocean by our coastline, it is enough to make it unsafe to go into, but shouldn’t leave permanent damage.

Wellington’s mayor Andrew Little told Morning Report there must be an independent inquiry into what happened, which he’s labelled a “catastrophic failure” and an “environmental disaster”.

“This is a sewage plant processing the sewage for a big city, and it has completely failed, it just completely stopped,” he said.

“Plants like this should not suffer the kind of catastrophic failure that we’ve seen.”

Sometimes the totally totally unexpected can happen. But in any major plants like that you expect there to be regular and thorough checks of all critical equipment. So it will be very interesting to find out exactly what went wrong, and how preventable was it.

Radio NZ reports:

A Green MP wants tohorā/whales to be recognised as legal persons.

In New Zealand, laws have been passed to grant legal personhood to natural features, allowing them to be represented in court and have rights similar to those of individuals.

Teanau Tuiono has lodged a member’s bill, the Tohorā Oranga Bill, which would give whales inherent rights, including the right to freedom of movement, a healthy environment, and the ability to thrive alongside humanity.

Why not give them the vote also?

And why stop at whales? How dare they say whales deserve legal personhood but not snails.

Chris Bishop’s speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day:

Today we remember the death of over six million Jews, including 1.5 million children, and the death of millions of Poles, Russians, Roma, the disabled, political opponents, and homosexuals by the despotic Nazi regime.

We remember who they were. Scientists. Authors. Lawyers. Doctors. Teachers. Artists. Mothers. Fathers. Sons. Daughters. Grandmothers and grandfathers. Brothers. Sisters.

My great grand-father Marcus Feuer was a Polish leather merchant. He was taken by train to the Majdanek or Lublin concentration camp (prisoner number 90) and died there along with around 80,000 others.

My great grand-mother Gisela Feuer (nee Spira) was the daughter of a Czech trodler. She had three children with Marcus. She was taken by train to the Majdanek or Lublin concentration camp (prisoner number 93) and died there along with around 80,000 others.

I have found the response to October 7 almost unfathomable, both here in New Zealand and worldwide.

Rather than unequivocal condemnation of clear human rights violations, war crimes and mass brutality on an industrial scale, the response from many people has been the opposite.

 The Jewish people know all too well that there is always a “but”

 “October 7 was wrong, but…

 “It’s bad that over 250 hostages were ripped from their homes and taken to Hamas tunnels, but…

 “Rape and sexual violence is abhorrent, but…”

 “Believe all women” – but not Jewish women

So sadly true.

I think of my Jewish friends who feel unwelcome and unsafe in their own country, who have “Zionist” spat at them as if a belief in self-determination for the Jewish people is somehow immoral or illegal.

Any Jew who believes in a two state solution are by definition Zionists.

So, please, let’s drop the “From the River to the Sea” chants. The Jewish community has made it very clear what they think this chant means. Political leaders in New Zealand involving themselves with this should know better. Can we make the “lived experience” of Jews matter too please?

Likewise, “long live the Intifada” and “globalise the Intifada” are not just simple protest slogans. They mean violence and plenty of it.

When Jewish people hear these chants, what they hear is not a call for liberation, but a call for the denial of their basic humanity.

Saying that we should’t listen to how Jews perceive “From the Rover to the Sea” should be akin to saying we shouldn’t listen to how African Americans perceive the n-word.

The Herald reports:

A man believed to have suffered around 1000 instances of sexual abuse as a young boy was scared into silence by his abuser’s threats.

But 30 years on, after decades of pain, the man has faced his abuser and reclaimed his voice and his power.

“I want my voice to be heard,” he said last week at the sentencing of Randall Kevin Wilson, a former tattooist from Hikurangi.

Wilson, 49, was sent to prison when he appeared in the Whangārei District Courtfor sentencing on charges of sexual violation against two boys.

He has previously served a prison term for causing the death of a motorist in 2019, after he drove off without paying for $108 of petrol and crashed into her vehicle.

The historical sexual offending dates back to three decades ago and relates to two boys who were under the age of 10 at the time, with one being just 3 years old.

Who would have guessed Mr Wilson was such a bad man. If only there was some subtle sign that could have given people a hint.

Again, if only there was some sort of clue.

Juliet Moses writes at Quillette:

The furore surrounding the storied Adelaide Writers Festival, the longest-running and largest literary festival in Australia and one that receives significant taxpayer funding, has made international headlines. Our drama ostensibly begins when the Festival’s board disinvites Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, an Australian writer with Palestinian heritage. 

Its climax sees a cultural stampede of 180 writers escaping the inferno of ignominy engulfing the Festival, before its smouldering wreckage collapses. Well-known names elbowing their way through the flames include Zadie Smith, Trent Dalton, Roisín O’Donnell and perhaps most high-profile of all, New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern, who was to be promoting her memoir A Different Kind of Power.   

So who is Randa Abdel-Fattah?

While Abdel-Fattah has been an activist for some time (in 2021 she spoke on a panel with Hamas’s “head of international relations”), she has earned notoriety since 7 October 2023. She has repeatedly glorified that day’s Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel, while simultaneously denying its mass sexual violence. The next day she changed her Facebook banner to a paraglider (of the sort that was utilised by Hamas in the attack on the Nova music festival, at which 378 mostly young partygoers were slaughtered); and has said the attack gave her a glimmer of hope. On the day itself she mocked terrified young people fleeing the Nova festival and wrote about “all the Zionists staying up tonight hammering out… coloniser cries victim op eds.” There is footage of her teaching young children chants of “intifada”—no doubt inspired by UNRWA schools’  pedagogy that it is never too early to indoctrinate children into eliminationist hatred. She explicitly hopes for the eradication of the “murderous Zionist colony” and that “every last Zionist” will “never know a second’s peace.”

So you can see why organisers may have felt that having her speak just a few weeks about Jews were slaughter at Bondi Beach was a bad idea. Someone who celebrates the slaughter of Jewish civilians in Israel is part of the problem, not the solution.

Now you may make the case that on free speech grounds she should not have been disinvited (which I tend to agree with). You could argue that it is important to have a wide variety of views at such festivals. Well the problem there is Abdel-Fattah herself has tried to cancel numerous other people:

Abdel-Fattah has previously stated that “Zionists” should be made to feel culturally unsafe, and, fair dinkum, took part in the doxxing of 600 Jewish Australian academics and creatives on a Whatsapp group.  She campaigned to have Thomas Friedman, a Jewish Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist (and strident critic of Israel’s current government), removed from the Festival’s 2024 slate. (He says he was subsequently mysteriously cancelled over “timing.”) She also campaigned to have Deborah Conway, a renowned Jewish Australian singer-songwriter, deplatformed from a Perth festival, and led a boycott of a 2022 Sydney arts festival after it received $20,000 in funding from the Israeli embassy for presenting a dancework created by an Israeli choreographer. And she signed a petition to ban Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born ex-Muslim activist against Islamism, from touring Australia.   

So basically the view of the Adelaide Writers Festival now is that it is hideous to not invite a speaker who has celebrated the slaughter of Israeli civilians, but its is repugnant to have Pulitzer Prize winning journalists who are Jewish speak.

One of the critics of Abdel-Fattah participating has been South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas who said:

Mr Malinauskas at a press conference last week in which he asked reporters to imagine if a “far-right Zionist walked into a Sydney mosque and murdered 15 people”.

“Can you imagine that as premier of this state I would actively support a far-right Zionist going to Writers’ Week and speaking hateful rhetoric towards Islamic people?” he said.

“Of course I wouldn’t but the reverse has happened in this instance and I’m not going to support that either and I think that’s a reasonable position for me to have. It’s a view that I believe.”

Abdel-Fattah is now threatening the Premier with defamation. I sincerely hope she proceeds, as the court case would be wonderful.

Radio NZ reported:

Plans to showcase F-22 Raptor fighter jets at Warbirds Over Wānaka have drawn condemnation from a former Doctors Without Borders worker, who says the display legitimises US military force and weapons used to kill civilians.

The show is “Warbirds” and Radio NZ is reporting a story because one person complains that a show about warplanes include, umm a warplane!

Grant Kitto said a strike from a US Air Force gunship – also built by Lockheed Martin – killed his colleagues in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in 2015, at a Doctors Without Borders hospital.

It is very sad his colleagues were killed by mistake. But what has that got to do with the planes (which are not even the same type of plane). It was human error, not a plane error.

The Post reports:

The Wellington City Council’s latest budget blowout has been revealed ‒ a $56 million shortfall between what was budgeted and reality.

The second phase of the council’s social housing upgrade programme (Hup2) had plenty of known numbers: A $446m budget over a 10 year programme, 825 units across about 50 projects with 2308 beds being brought up to standard.

But during a councillor briefing it was revealed that one vital number was missing: The 15% GST bill, which the council could not recover. That equated to $56m in real terms.

If only any of the 1,800 staff at WCC had accountancy degrees, where you would be expected to know about GST.

The blowout comes after two blunder-induced rates errors, just months into a new triennium, as the new council deals with the fiscal fallout of last term’s $80m sludge plant blowout and a $147m blowout on fixing the Town Hall.

There is a difference between a cost blow-out and an error. This is the third error in as many months revealed by WCC. That is simply not good enough for a large organisation with so many staff. Of course people make errors, but you are meant to have systems for checking so that errors are discovered before final decisions are made.

Will any staff member be held responsible for these errors?

The Herald reports on Scott Watson:

A video of convicted murderer Scott Watson attacking another prisoner was played to the Parole Board as it met to decide if he should be released from jail after 27 years.

In the video, several inmates are seen socialising and playing cards at tables in a prison unit. 

Watson steps up behind another man and grabs him around the neck and upper torso from behind, pulling him off a bench.

As the man tries to get up, Watson pushes him back to the ground.

After the man manages to get to his feet, another prisoner steps forward and punches the victim in the face.

That’s a pretty good sign that Watson shouldn’t be released. Unprovoked violence.

And they also report on Clayton Weatherston:

The reports referred to his diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder – specifically characterised as “gross narcissism”.

They also mentioned “psychopathy” and categorised Weatherston as being a high risk of reoffending. 

Weatherston said he was “not convinced” by the diagnosis as it “overlooked” other positive and pro-social aspects of his personality. 

“I don’t subscribe to the severe narcissistic personality disorder opined by [one psychologist in particular],” he told the board.

This should ring huge flashing bells. A refusal to accept he has a problem.

He was asked directly to explain why he mutilated Elliott’s body after he had killed her by stabbing her 216 times.

“With Sophie, a lot of things were going on in the relationship … I was full of an uncontrollable rage,” he said.

What is important to recall is he didn’t do this in a flash of anger, say in the midst of an argument. He went around to her house the day before she was leaving Dunedin and took a knife with him so he could slaughter and mutilate her while her family tried to get into the room. His actions were not rage of the moment, but a psychological need to destroy here because she broke up with him.

“Reflecting some more, it was just an ‘f you’ about everything about her, and about that I’m ashamed. It was incredibly misguided.

Misguided? Everything about his testimony screams that he should not be released.

n his thousand hours of reading he had come across a book with a message that was helping him navigate his “post-offending” life.

“S*** happens, and we have to drop anchor and deal with it,” he mused.

Again this is so minimising. Shit didn’t happen to him. He slaughtered and brutalised a young woman because she broke up with him.

Sophie’s father Gil Elliott shared his submission with the Herald – saying he wanted the panel to understand “how awful Clayton Robert Weatherston is”.

“As a narcissist [he] is never likely to change his ways – is incapable, in fact, of changing his ways,” he said in the submission, which he penned on what should have been his daughter’s 40th birthday last year.

Listen to Gil.

Today we celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi – a day which should be called Emancipation Day. For on the 6th of February 1840, slavery became illegal in New Zealand. The granting of British citizenship to Maori freed the slaves in law (the practice took a while longer to end)

Slavery was not a fringe part of New Zealand prior to 1840. To quote NZ Geographic:

In 1836, the missionary William Yate told a House of Commons select committee that about half of the Māori population in northern New Zealand were slaves, but that in the South Island it was more like one in 10. Samuel Hinds, who had never set foot in the country, told an 1838 select committee that by his estimate, 90 per cent of the population were enslaved.

We should celebrate 6 February 1840 as the day slavery was made illegal in New Zealand and tens of thousands of Maori slaves gained the rights of British citizens.

The proportion of the population who were slaves was very high in New Zealand. Even if you accept the lower estimate of around 50%, here is what other countries were at their max:

• Brazil 35%
• Roman Republic 15% to 30%
• United States 13%
• Spain under 10%
• Ottoman Empire 5% to 10%
• UK around 1% to 5%

So the Treaty of Waitangi was, as a proportion of the population, one of the greatest emancipations in history. We should celebrate and honour it.

Radio NZ reports:

2026 is a “Goldilocks” year for first-home buyers, with lower interest rates, lots of houses to choose from and banks willing to lend to people with small deposits, market commentators say.

Property data firm Cotality (formerly known as Corelogic) has released data showing first-home buyers have reached a new record market share, responsible for 28.4 percent of all real estate transactions in the December quarter of last year.

That’s great news. I want as many people owning a home as possible.

Just four years ago the Herald was reporting:

A combination of record house prices and the limited further potential for growth makes this year the worst for first-home buyers since 1957, new research by economics consultancy Infometrics has found.

Falling house prices and falling mortgage rates have made a real difference.

The NY Post reports:

More than 36,500 Iranians were allegedly killed during a brutal, two-day crackdown against anti-regime protesters, the deadliest in the history of the Islamic Republic, according to a new report. 

The latest estimates paint a horrific image of the violence that fell across Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 when Tehran’s security forces opened fire on thousands of civilians protesting the government’s rule and failure to fix the nation’s ailing economy.

Iranian security forces have stormed hospitals and arrested wounded protesters in response to the unrest — with even celebrities swept up in the crackdown, according to reports.

Despite downplaying the death toll in recent weeks, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ own records allegedly acknowledge that more than 36,000 people were killed during the two-day crackdown, sources from the Supreme National Security Council told Iran International.

Such evil, and so many people silent about it.

Wellington Deputy Mayor got in a Twitter exchange and referred to another user as a “nonce”. The person complained to WCC that this was a breach of the code of conduct, as nonce is a term used to call someone a paedophile.

Mayor Andrew Little has upheld the complaint saying:

Mayor Little has determined that there has been a breach of the Code of Conduct, and has determined the appropriate actions to remedy this breach are:

• Deputy Mayor McNulty must make a post on X explaining that he did not understand the offensiveness of the term used, which was part of the clarification made by Deputy Mayor McNulty in his response.
• Make a direct apology to you, acknowledging the use of the term “nonce” was inappropriate.

The full finding by the Mayor about the Deputy Mayor is:

The Council Code of Conduct includes as a general principle that “Elected members should remember the respect and dignity of their office in their dealings with … the public”. The Code of Conduct under the heading “Relationships with the community” also refers to individual citizens being “accorded respect”.

I have assessed the complaint on the basis that the term “nonce” means “paedophile” as that is an accepted meaning of the word, it is a meaning any other reader of the correspondence could apply and it is the meaning [redacted by DPF] took from the use of the term.

I find that an elected member describing a correspondent on a social media platform such as X as a nonce, and therefore as a paedophile, constitutes a failure to remember the respect and dignity of the elected member’s office when dealing with the public. It is also a failure to accord respect to an individual citizen, even if the identity of the citizen is unknown at the time the comment is made. I, therefore, find that Mr McNulty breached the Council Code of Conduct.

As remedies, [redacted by DPF] seeks a public apology, damages, a formal censure from Council and removal of Mr McNulty from the role of Deputy Mayor.

In relation to the claims for remedies I find:

• As the statement made by Mr McNulty was made in a public forum, he should make an acknowledgement publicly and privately that the use of a pejorative term like “nonce” is inappropriate. I say more below about how this remedy is to be met.
• There is no basis to claim damages whether from Mr McNulty or the Council. Damages are normally sought when there is harm to reputation. [redacted by DPF]’s participation in the exchange on X was anonymous (his identity was not known). Using an offensive term in a public forum about a person whose identity is not known cannot cause harm to that person. An essential requirement of a successful defamation claim is that the person claiming to have suffered damage to their reputation as a consequence of a statement made about them is identifiable to a reasonable person hearing or seeing the statement when it is made. No reasonable person could identify [redacted by DPF] as the person about whom Mr McNulty’s statement was made. In dealing with this complaint, the issue of the anonymous nature of [redacted by DPF]’s participation in the exchange between him and Mr McNulty was expressly raised with [redacted by DPF] and a comment sought from him. [redacted by DPF] made no comment on this point.
• In relation to a formal censure, this decision amounts to a formal finding that Mr McNulty has breached the Council Code of Conduct. I do not consider any further action is needed.
• In relation to the claim that Mr McNulty should be removed from his role, such a remedy would be disproportionate to the wrong that was done. Although it is clear Mr McNulty intended to use a disparaging term in his exchange with the X interlocutor, he did not intend to use a term meaning “paedophile”. He was responding to a provocative statement to the effect he was not fit for public office. In this respect, [redacted by DPF] does not come to this complaints process with clean hands. The remedies should reflect this.

On Tuesday The Post published an op ed from me, arguing that the collapse of the rules based order meant that New Zealand should become the seventh state of Australia. I say:

Since World War II there has largely been a rules-based order which has been very beneficial to small countries like New Zealand. It has allowed us to prosper, and develop strong economic and political relationships with competing powers such as the US and China. The rules-based order was about more powerful countries agreeing to restrain their power, in the interests of global stability and security. …

New Zealand is a minnow country. We do not have, and never will have, the economic or military might to defend our interests. Our protection in the past was the rules-based order.

However Australia is what people call a medium power. We are already highly integrated into Australia with CER. Culturally we are very alike, and we are basically cousins. I say it is time we upgrade from cousins to siblings.

I look at what a combined Australia and New Zealand would be:

• A population of 33 million, taking us from 122nd most populous country to 47th.
• An economy of US$2 trillion (NZ$3.3 trillion) GDP, taking us from the 53rd largest economy to the 12th largest. We would be part of an economy larger than Spain, South Korea and Turkey.
• The combined defence force would have 70,000 active personnel and 35,000 reserves – around half as large as the United Kingdom’s. The defence budget of US$35 billion (NZD$58b) would be the 11th largest in the world – larger than Canada, Poland and Israel.

There has been quite a lot of interest in the argument. I seemingly managed to unite the entire NZ Parliament against me:

If there’s one thing party leaders from all sides of the political spectrum can agree on, it’s that New Zealand should not become Australia’s seventh state.

I am not at all surprised that no party leader would publicly agree with it. I partly wrote what I did, because I think it is a debate we should have – and one MPs can’t actually lead on.

The Post summarised reader response here.

Kevin Norquay does an analysis of the issue here.

Stuff has done an article on it. Also an article with a poll and feedback.

I was interviewed by Heather DPA on NewstalkZB about it.

Liam Hehir argues against.

I was also interviewed about it on The Platform Wednesday afternoon, Radio NZ Wednesday evening and should be on Three News tomorrow.

Also had a lot of interest in Australia with a radio interview with 4BC, and a TV interview with Channel 10. Also covered by 9 News.

My purpose in igniting the debate is I don’t think the status quo is going to work for us in the future. The world has changed, and it isn’t turning back. What we have seen as our strengths in the past, may now be weaknesses. As Canadian PM Mark Carney said “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu”. And I don’t see how we get to be at the table when we are so small. Europe has the EU. Canada, Australia and the UK are medium powers, as are Japan and South Korea.

Anyway of course it won’t happen anytime soon, but I hope we do debate the issue, and especially the wider issue of what New Zealand needs to do in a might is right world to avoid being on the menu.

The Post reports:

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and the Electoral Commission are in open disagreement over the date they will be able to deliver full election results, following Goldsmith’s controversial law aimed at speeding up the count.

The Electoral Commission confirmed last week following the announcement of the election for November 7 that full results ‒ including the impact of special votes ‒ would not come until 20 days after the election on November 27, the same period of time it took in 2023.

This is despite a law passed by Goldsmith late last year which banned voters from enrolling during the advance voting period or on election day, aimed at speeding up the final count ‒ with Goldsmith targeting a return to a two-week counting period.

While some elections are obvious enough to be called “on the night”, the tendency for special votes to change a few seats have held up coalition talks from starting in both the 2017 and the 2023 elections.

There is a simple solution here and that is for the Electoral Commission to release daily updates on the revised vote count post-election. This is absolutely standard practice around much of the world. It is ridiculous that on election night we have 100% transparency over the results and then you have a 20 day blackout where no-one but a couple of officials know what is happening with the vote count.

The reality is that by the end of Monday or Tuesday after the election, 90% or more of the special votes are probably counted and known. Daily updates would allow people to work out what the likely distribution of MPs are to a high degree of probability.

This is what used to happen in NZ when the Ministry of Justice used to do the vote count. But the Electoral Commission has refused to do this.

At 5 pm every day after E-Day the Electoral Commission should disclose the latest vote tallies. This would allow people to judge the very very likely final MPs numbers for the purpose of government formation.

IDEA reports on a recent decision from the Supreme Court of Fiji with regards to the 2013 constitution of Fiji.

They had to decide whether the 2013 or 1997 constitution of Fiji was valid, and as importantly whether the amendment provisions in the 2013 constitution were also valid.

The 2013 constitution was not democratically adopted. The Commodore promulgated it. However the Supreme Court found, despite this, it was valid:

The Court held that the 2013 Constitution was legally effective and so the Court did have jurisdiction. It did so by looking to the common law of Fiji, a source of law transplanted from Britain through colonisation and subsequently developed by Fijian courts to meet the circumstances of Fiji.

The common law rule of recognition allows a court to give legal recognition to a constitution that has become integrated into the life of the country and broadly accepted by the people, even though it was made unlawfully after a coup. Drawing on the criteria developed in the 2001 case of Fiji v Prasad, the Court held that the 2013 Constitution had provided the framework for government for 12 years, during which time three elections were held, over 400 laws passed by parliament and many public officials (including the judges themselves) had been appointed.

On this basis, the Court held that the 2013 Constitution was legally effective and provided the Supreme Court with jurisdiction to answer the questions referred to it by the Cabinet. This decision also confirmed that the 1997 Constitution no longer applies.

So that by itself is interesting. A constitution that was imposed by fiat, can become legitimate over time. But of more interest is the amendment provisions:

The Court held that the prohibition on making any changes to the amendment provision and the three-quarter majorities required in parliament and at referendum meant that there was no “workable” pathway to change the 2013 Constitution. It noted that these majorities were “unusually high” in comparison to past practice in Fiji and the constitutions of other democratic countries.

The constitution said that any amendment had to receive not just three quarters of those voting at a referendum, but three quarters of those eligible to vote. So if only 80% of Fijians voted, you would need 94% voting in favour to amend the constitution. The Supreme Court said that this meant there was no effective way to change the constitution, and hence was invalid.

A constitution must be amendable.

The court changed the requirement to only a two thirds majority in Parliament and a majority in a referendum of those who actually vote.

The importance to New Zealand is with regards to those who insist the Treaty of Waitangi is a constitutional document or supreme law, which can over-ride Parliament. If people want the Treaty to be supreme law or constitutional, then there has to be a workable way to amend the Treaty. In the absence of an ability to amend, it can not be a constitutional document.

My view is that the Treaty of Waitangi should be seen as asking to the US Declaration of Independence, rather than say the US Constitution. It is aspirational, not constitutional.

Ani O’Brien has a long and excellent piece on the failure of organ donation reform.

The TLDR version is:

• Strategy released in 2017
• Law change passed in 2019
• Funding of $3 million a year for implementing new strategy derived in Budget 2022
• Organ Donation NZ used all the new funding for existing operations, rather than implementing the new strategy to increase donor rates
• Donation rate in 2017 was 73 and in 2024 was just 70

It is simply unacceptable.

If you needed any more proof that Police Professional Conduct (i.e. the sub-department within the Police which deals with complaints about police misconduct) is biased and will not discipline its own officers, check out this article: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/ipca-finds-police-officers-use-of-force-on-woman-who-gave-him-thumbs-down-was-unlawful/ZNM5AU6NCZDZ3M4ZBBT5PVJ5LE/

A woman was driving when she saw a police car driving in the opposite direction. She held her hand out the window and gave him the thumbs down sign. That was the extent of what happened. The officer signalled for her to stop, but instead she drove 800 metres back to her parents’ house. He claimed that he thought she might be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but the IPCA found (for a whole variety of reasons explained in its report) that giving him the thumbs down was the real reason he told her to stop.

When she arrived at her house, she asked if he was stopping her because of the thumbs down. According to the IPCA, he did not reply and asked instead for her driver’s licence and details. She refused to provide these and turned away. He then told the woman she was under arrest and tried to grab her. In the process, he tore her shirt and left her bra exposed. She ran off and yelled at her parents for help, and accidentally hurt his finger when she closed the door. (The IPCA found it was accidental.)

She changed her top and then came downstairs with her hands up as her mother tended his injured hand, and told him he could arrest her. He responded by pepper spraying her directly in the eyes multiple times and taking her into custody, even though she had her hands up when she was sprayed. She was charged with failing to stop, failing to provide her name and address, and resisting arrest. This would have led to thousands in legal bills.

The IPCA found the officer was unjustified in stopping her vehicle, and in using subsequent force. The IPCA also found that the officer in question did not have a genuine belief that she might have been using drugs or alcohol. Instead, in the IPCA’s view he was reacting to her thumbs down gesture. Accordingly, the IPCA said he had no right to stop her, arrest her, use force when he grabbed her, attempt to enter her house, or pepper spray her.

The IPCA said that disciplinary proceedings against the officer were appropriate. The Police ignored this and said that giving someone the thumbs down can “reasonably indicate driver impediment” and accordingly the officer’s actions were justified, and the Police did not intend to discipline him. This is despite the fact that the IPCA identified multiple aspects of the officer’s evidence which indicated dishonesty.

The takeaway points are as follows: firstly, PPC simply will not discipline its own officers if there is any possible way to avoid it. I have now seen this again and again and again: not just in this case, and not just in my case, but also in Daniel Maxwell’s case and in other IPCA reports I have read. The woman was pepper sprayed in the face for heaven’s sake. Is there nothing that PPC will not explain away in its own officers?

But secondly, the other point to take from this case is that I hope people are noticing a pattern once again of the IPCA making findings against a police officer and the Police ignoring those findings. It shows, as I have been saying for nigh on a year now, that the IPCA truly are independent and do not have a cozy relationship with Police. This case is another testament to their integrity.