In June 2019 media reported:

On the train, Jones held a press conference, where he described the day as a great one for Hawke’s Bay.

Jones said KiwiRail had had “so little for so long”, and the $6.2 million investment so far was a big deal, especially in relation to moving trucks off the roads.

It would also allow businesses to grow their logistics capacity, and boost exports. …

He forecast up to six trains travelling the line per week, meaning about 5000 fewer truck journeys initially, and more than 15,000 as services increased.

So the Government told us there would be six trains a week and it would replace 5,000 truck journeys.

The Herald reports the reality:

Since January 26’s first train, only two further trains have travelled down the line, and the line is “not currently in use”, a KiwiRail spokesperson said.

That was in March. Since then zero further trains.

So taxpayers have paid out $2 million per train trip. It has replaced at best 150 truck hauls which is $40,000 per truck haul.

Stuff reports:

Social distancing protocols are being ignored.

People mingling with others at different points in their isolation, as children run riot in the hallways.

Nurses stationed in hotels are leaving work in floods of tears after copping abuse.

Some are even refusing Covid-19 tests.

These are some of the allegations made by people from two of the country’s border hotels. …

McEwan also filed a complaint on Thursday after “a huge influx of new arrivals” were put in rooms “surrounding her”.

“They’ve been socialising in each others’ rooms. Children playing in the hallway. And I said to the hotel, it is actually making me quite anxious because I am coming to the end of my quarantine.

“I’m healthy. I’m well. I’ve followed the rules. And now I am being put at risk by people who are fresh off a flight. Yesterday, I was quite stressed about it,” McEwan said. …

“It has become clear that the policies and procedures in place regarding testing are not down to negligence at a facility level, but a direct order from the Ministry of Health itself.

It is clear the isolation facilities are a mess.

I like the idea from David Seymour that we should not be mixing new arrivals with people near the end of their isolation. He suggests there should be seven isolation facilities and each takes two days worth of arrivals, so that you don’t have new people mixing with old.

I’d also stipulate that any facilities used for isolation should be exclusively for that purpose – no other guests. Covid-19 will cost us over $100 billion and the Government is being too cheap to buy out entire hotels for the duration.

I’d also suggest we only have one port of entry – Auckland. No international flights to other centres. That way you have just seven isolation facilities in Auckland, and after people are released they can do domestic travel to their ultimate destination.

This should not be beyond the Government.

Tom O’Connor writes in Stuff:

This latest set of demands to rewrite history, or erase those parts some people don’t like, has grown out of the Black Lives Matter slogan presently sweeping the world. The mistreatment of African Americans, from the era of slavery to the present day, is something only America can correct. Showing moral support for the victims of such mistreatment however is commendable and typical of mainstream New Zealand more so than most other countries. Attempting to translocate that cause to New Zealand and then demand name changes for cities and the removal of statues and memorials on the spurious argument that they represent everything from slavery and oppression to murder and racism might convince a few politicians, out of fear of being labelled racist but most people will simply disengage at best or retaliate with equally ill-informed demands.

It should not be forgotten that the initial economy of almost every nation in the world, including New Zealand, was built on slave labour. From the Roman Empire to early Britain slaves, serfs and peasants were a massive forced labour source. Even the Australian economy was initially built on the forced labour of transported convicts. The 1830s flax industry of Wellington, commanded by Te Rauparaha, and the kauri timber trade in Hokianga, commanded by Tamati Waka Nene and others were both totally reliant on thousands of slaves. When Maori invaded and conquered the Chatham Islands in the same era the resident Moriori, who survived the initial conflict, were enslaved. It was simply the way things were done back then by all nations. If we were to pull down the statue of every person involved in or who might have benefited from slavery there would be very few statues anywhere in the world and that may not be a bad thing.

New Zealand has, with doubt, a serious issue with racism which few are prepared to admit let alone address. But it needs to be resolved by an intelligent, well-informed and honest discussion. Changing names and removing memorials to the past will just make that task harder as the majority of people will simply continue to turn their backs on it.

A very reasonable column that the appeasers should read.

A useful history lesson from The Prow:

As in many other cultures, slavery was a key element of Māori society.  Mōkai (servants or slaves) were usually spoils of war, condemned to lives of drudgery, danger, heavy physical work and obedience to their masters or mistresses’ whims;  they were expected to fight under supervision, could be used to negotiate with enemies, or as food if supplies were short.  Female slaves might be prostitutes, or become secondary wives to their conquerors. …

The Treaty of Waitangi, 1840, outlawed the taking of slaves, and made all Māori British citizens, but did not affect pre-Treaty arrangements.

So in the case of NZ, colonisation led to the end of legal slavery.

I’m in no way saying colonisation has been wholly beneficial, but I get sick of people who try to portray everything done by the British and NZ Governments as evil, and that pre-colonisation society was wonderful.

RNZ reports:

New Zealand is among the first countries to negotiate a trade agreement with the UK post-Brexit.

Trade Minister David Parker said the UK is one of New Zealand’s oldest friends.

“New Zealand and the United Kingdom have a close relationship, including strong trade and economic ties, common values and traditions and a shared history. A free trade agreement will be an important new milestone in that relationship.

“In the post-Brexit environment, it makes more sense than ever for us to be working together to grow this partnership for the future,” he said.

The UK is New Zealand’s sixth largest trading partner, with two-way trade totalling almost $6 billion last year.

I’m quite optimistic on this FTA. It may come close to being a true FTA with minimal quotas and tariffs.

The Fox News poll is one of the more accurate ones. Their final 2016 poll was spot on for Clinton and only 2% shy for Trump. Of course the state polls matters most, but a 12% gap in the national vote has huge implications for the swing states.

Their latest poll finds:

• Biden 50%, Trump 38% (in April they were tied)
• Net favourability scores of:
  • GW Bush +21%
  • Biden +9%
  • Trump -13%
  • Romney -2%
  • H Clinton -15%
• Demographic breakdowns for presidential vote:
  • Men: Biden +3%
  • Women: Biden +19%
  • White women: Biden +1%
  • Moderates: Biden +37%
  • Urban: Biden +21%
  • Suburban: Biden +22%
  • Rural: Trump +9%

I can’t wait for there to be more state polls as they are the ones that matter most, but the national polls certainly indicate that Trump has gone backwards in the last two months.

A quick rule of thumb for adjusting polls to take account of the electoral college advantage for Trump is to add 3% on to Trump. In other words if Biden’s lead is 3% or less, then Trump is more likely to win.

This poll was 2% too favourable for Clinton in 2016 so if you adjust for that and allow for the normal 3% margin of error, then Trump needs to close that gap to under 8%.

An interesting judgment from the High Court. The Hospices Association sought declarations around various aspects of the End of Life Choice Act. Most of the declarations they sought were not granted because they would be dependent on the facts in a particular circumstance. But the High Court did make one thing very clear:

The End of Life Choice Act does not require hospices or other
organisations to provide assisted dying services. They are entitled to
choose not to provide these services. This does not depend on a hospice
or other organisation having a conscientious objection, although that
may often be the reason, and allowing hospices or other organisations
not to offer assisted dying services is consistent with the right to
freedom of conscience under s 13 of NZBORA.

This is a good outcome. Hospices do wonderful work. It is right that a hospice that wishes not to provide assisted dying services is fully entitled not to do so.

I’ve been forwarded the latest stats on the three strikes regime. This is for the period from June 2010 when it commenced to December 2019, so a period of nine and a half years.

• 12,045 first strikes
• 463 second strikes (so 3.8% of 1st strikers have done a 2nd strike)
• 14 third strikes (so 2.8% of 2nd strikers have done a 3rd strike)

It is pleasing that 96% of first strikers have not gone onto to do a second strike.

Now let’s look at the those who have had a second or third strike. The OIA said that they:

• had an average of 42 convictions as an adult
• 91% were assessed as being at a high risk of reoffending
• 56% committed their 2nd strike on bail or parole or whill serving a sentence
• 40% have a “strike type” conviction from prior to the three strikes regime

This data indicates that the three strikes regime is accurately targeting the serious recidivist offenders.

Those who get a 1st strike get no extra penalty – they just get a warning. And 96% have not (so far) committed a second qualifying offence. Of the 3.8% who have (and have generally lost parole eligibility), they are the hardcore recidivists the law is designed to protect us from.

The tragic fatal shooting of a Police Officer in West Auckland is a sad but timely reminder of how much we owe front line police officers.

Their job description requires them to put themselves in harm’s way, to keep the rest of us safe. The officer is the 22nd one killed on duty.

My thoughts go out to the officer’s family and colleagues. An awful day for them.

A guest post by David Garrett:

Readers will recall that during the level 4 lockdown, it was reported that Deputy Commissioner Wallace Haumaha was in regular contact with the president of the Waikato Mongrel Mob (Mob), one Sonny Fatupaito aka Fatu, and that Fatu had, with Haumaha’s assistance, become an “essential worker”, and was thus able to move around freely while almost everyone else was confined to their homes other than to go and buy food. The police denied, and continue to deny, that Haumaha had assisted the gang thug to become an essential worker, but did not deny they had been in contact. I decided to ask, pursuant to the OIA, a number of questions regarding that interaction. The formal response to my questions is here.

To summarize the response, Haumaha met the gang thug Fatu – a convicted killer – on at least three occasions as part of “their participation in a series of hui”. The purpose of these hui is said to have been “to bring people together”  to ensure that “the government’s Covid messaging was reaching communities in order to keep them  and their whanau safe” [emphasis added].  In other words, the Mongrel Mob and other gangs were given special treatment allegedly because if the police did not do so, gang women and children – said to be an “at risk population group” – might not be part of Ardern’s “team of five million”, and otherwise  be “unsafe”.

I note in passing that the major reason gang associated women and children are “unsafe” is because of their close association with gangs; part of the Mob code is to regard women as third class citizens – or “bitches” in gang parlance – to be “disciplined” at will. Many Mob members – such as the killer of Christchurch prostitute  Mallory Manning – get their patches as a result of the rape, and worse, of women.

Is treating gang members as “stakeholders” and holding hui with them a sensible and rational strategy to try and improve the safety of the misguided women and innocent children who form their “whanau”? I don’t think so. The Mongrel Mob and other gangs are criminal organizations (see below for the police comment on that) and ought to be treated as such at all times, and for all purposes. The only involvement the police should have with them is to harass and arrest patched members whenever possible, and do everything they can to help women and their children  move out of that benighted lifestyle.

The police deny that Haumaha assisted Fatu to become an essential worker, and make the point they have made elsewhere that a decision in that regard was not for them to make. That may be literally true, but if Fatu had a brain – and clearly no one gets to be president of the Mob if he is stupid – he would naturally make much of the fact to whoever was  responsible that he – Fatu – had taken part in several hui with Hamaha. In other words, he was a recognized “stakeholder” to use current parlance.

In their response, the police do admit that:

“Discussion within the hui  did address the existence of general advice on the status of essential workers that was posted on the Covid-19 website…”

In other words, to mangle an old metaphor, the police led Fatu to the source of  water, but left it up to him to work out how to drink from it. Again, Fatu would have to have been stupid not  to make much of his positive  contacts with Haumaha and the police generally in his apparently successful quest to become an essential worker with far greater freedom of movement than the rest of us.

My final question was a very simple and straightforward one, inviting a simple yes or no answer. That question was: “Is it still the position of the New Zealand Police that the Mongrel Mob is wholly or in part a criminal organization?”  I deliberately made the question somewhat loose  by including the phrase “wholly or in part” so as to avoid obfuscation about what purposes the Mob may have or serve other than criminal activities.

Rather than the simple answer “yes”, I got a long rambling disquisition on the Prohibition of Gang Insignia Act, the gist of which is as follows:

1. Section 4 (a) of the said Act includes a list of 34 named gangs, one of which is the Mongrel Mob;
2. Section 5 (2) of the Act requires that, to be identified as a “gang” under the Act, the Minister of Police [note NOT the Commissioner of Police] must be satisfied that the organization association or group concerned has  the following characteristics:

• A common name or common identifying signs, symbols or representations, and

• Its members, associates, or supporters individually or collectively promote, encourage, or engage in criminal activity.

I find the above response to be distinctly odd. In addition to not being responsive to my question – which surely invites a clear and unambiguous answer of “Yes”, given the framing of the question and the above extracts from the Act – the answer can be interpreted in at least two ways. One of those may be “Well, the  Minister may regard the Mob as a criminal organization, but we, the Police, may not necessarily agree”.  If the intention is not to obfuscate and blur how the Police regard the Mob and other gangs, why not simply answer the question I asked? I intend to follow up asking just that question.

On 10 June the Mongrel Mob took over a street in Hamilton for the purposes of holding a tangi for a deceased gang thug. Stuff reports that there were cars parked four deep on both sides of the street in question, that “hundreds” of gang members were milling about, and that residents were terrified by their presence and actions. The tangi apparently went on for three days, including loud music until the early hours of mornings.

Most disturbingly for me according to Stuff:

“Multiple police cars were seen in surrounding areas as gang members loitered in the streets.”

In other words the Police stood by for three days while behavior continued which would certainly have got any group of ordinary citizens arrested promptly.  It is surely significant that Fatu was reportedly among the gang members present during this clearly unlawful prolonged gathering.

In my view, what happened in Moeroa street Hamilton is a direct result – or at least a consequence – of Haumaha granting Fatu some form of status by treating him as a stakeholder two months before. Did Haumaha, either directly or indirectly, tell the Waikato police to “monitor” the tangi, but take no other action? Did Fatu call his mate Haumaha to get some advice on how to avoid police action? Who knows? I have made a formal complaint about the inaction of the Waikato police in this regard, so the answer to that might – eventually, once they have followed their usual obfuscatory delaying tactics – reveal why they did nothing in the face of blatant illegality.

What do we make of all of this? In my view the only conclusion can be that rather than harass them at every turn, using the numerous laws already at their disposal, the police have chosen – perhaps reluctantly – to accept the gangs as a reality, and to deal with their leaders if not as equals, at least as stakeholders with whom they are willing to engage, and who are entitled, at the very least, to have a blind eye turned to some of their illegal activities.

In my view this is emphatically not  the correct approach to the gang problem, and neither is it a necessity.  Some police commanders in some districts have shown they have balls, and instructed their officers to “turn over” gang members wherever they find them. There is some evidence that such an approach at the very least reduces the impact of these criminals on ordinary citizens. But that is a topic for another day.

Newshub reports:

Let me start with PPE.

I’ve reported very persistently on this issue. Health workers couldn’t get it. Nurses were instructed to remove masks. 

Those working on COVID-19 wards at Waitakere and Burwood Hospitals didn’t feel fully protected, and had gear that didn’t fit. Hundreds of thousands of old masks kept in pandemic storage had perished. 

But while all this was going on, the reassurances from Dr Bloomfield came as quickly as the complaints. The Auditor General John Ryan has now validated the concerns of health workers. 

In a nutshell, the claims of having “plenty” of PPE did not stack up. 

Dr Bloomfield’s reassuring comments about staff needing to “feel safe and be safe” and wear masks if they wanted led to “confusion”, when the Ministry’s guidelines for PPE use were actually much narrower. 

In February 2020, according to the Auditor General, the Ministry of Health actually had no idea how much PPE DHBs had, nor did it know how to forecast future demand. 

The reserve stocks that DHBs did have were suitable for population sizes in 2005. There’s been a population growth rate of 19 per cent since then. 

Importantly, the Health Ministry had stopped requiring DHBs to report what PPE stocks they had, and what had expired, back in 2016. That’s an incredibly basic failure in terms of having a robust pandemic plan. 

Fourteen DHBs had actually reported to the Health Ministry that their stock had expired or they had no national reserve stock at all. When I was first tipped off about expired PPE, the Ministry was anything but forthcoming. In fact staff at the Ministry bent over backwards to avoid revealing the true extent of the problem. 

A familiar pattern.

This brings me to the next point about the multiple quarantine fails. We’ve had lots of updates about no new cases, our strict border measures and the team of five million. 

Yet it took a journalist’s question on Tuesday before Dr Bloomfield acknowledged that two teenagers let out of quarantine to attend a gang tangi had run away afterwards. What occurred here is really important. If the pair had been COVID-19 positive, it would have been even more concerning. 

It’s interesting that this potentially very significant matter was basically hidden from the public until someone found out. It also raises questions about what else is being left out or watered down during the daily updates. 

What we now know for certain is that the two COVID-19 positive women allowed out of quarantine at the Novotel didn’t follow all the rules. The claim by Dr Bloomfield that they “did everything that was asked of them” and didn’t have any interaction with the public wasn’t true.

You wonder how much more bad news is out there hidden. No one in the Government it seems is able to answer the basic question about how many people have been let out of isolation or quarantine without being tested for Covid-19?

I accept that Dr Bloomfield may not have had all the information when he informed the nation on Tuesday that the Auckland to Wellington road trip went without a hitch, but if that was the case, why didn’t he tell the public this instead of being blatantly misleading. 

The quarantine blunders (yes there have been multiple) amount to sheer incompetence and poor communication from the Ministry of Health. 

We’ve heard so much about the importance of our borders and yet we don’t require returning travellers to wear masks at the border, or in quarantine, nor do we test travellers as they land in Auckland. 

 It’s been four months and we still have no testing at airports.

As I reported on Wednesday, another serious blunder occurred in Christchurch with up to 10 people being let out of quarantine early for a burial. That’s despite rules issued by the Ministry on June 9 stating that exemptions for funerals are not allowed. 

Remarkably, the Health Minister David Clark didn’t seem to know about any other breaches apart from what happened at the Novotel. 

This is nothing short of astonishing. 

If you’re the minister, and the borders are our biggest defence, surely you would be getting daily updates about who has been exempted, for what reason, and from which quarantine site. Surely it would be critical you receive confirmation that those who do get out have returned a negative test result. 

Tony Ryall would have been.

The Government has tried to deflect attention from their near hourly stories of incompetence in their quarantine and isolation regimes by blaming Hutt South Chris Bishop, saying he asked them to grant compassionate leave to the two sisters from the UK.

Bishops’s response is above. But Liam Hehir has got hold of a copy of the letter Bishop wrote to David Clark:

Looks legit to me.

Like almost everyone, I thought it was a good move that Ardern had called in the military to take over the quarantine system after the failures exposed this week.

But it turns out it was all spin, and we all fell for it.

Newshub reports:

Newshub has learned Air Commodore Darryn ‘Digby’ Webb, who was recently appointed to manage the border, isn’t so new after all.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Webb would take charge of protecting New Zealand’s borders on Tuesday.

However, he has actually been “responsible” for a while. A spokesman confirming, he “started four weeks ago“. 

Therefore Webb was already in charge when the two women with COVID-19 were allowed to leave quarantine under a compassionate exemption.

We all fell for it hook line and sinker.

The Reserve Bank says New Zealand faces its worst economic crisis for 160 years – and today’s GDP stats confirm it.

Out of interest, New Zealand has experienced just two depressions and 12 recessions over the last 160 years:

• The Long Depression of the 1880s
• The Great Depression of the 1930s
• The Post-War Recession of March 1948 to December 1948 (4 quarters)
• The Waterfront Recession of March 1951 to December 1951 (4 quarters)
• The Wool Bust Recession of September 1967 to December 1967 (2 quarters)
• The First Oil Shock Recession of September 1975 to December 1975 (2 quarters)
• The Second Oil Shock Recession September 1976 to March 1978 (7 quarters)
• The Third Oil Shock September 1982 to March 1983 (3 quarters)
• The Sharemarket Crash Recession of December 1987 to June 1988 quarters (3 quarters)
• The Government Confidence Recession of September 1989 to March 1990 quarters (3 quarters)
• The Gulf War Recession of March 1991 to June 1991 quarters (2 quarters)
• The Asian Economic Crisis Recession of September 1997 to March 1998 quarters (3 quarters)
• The Cullen and GFC Recession of March 2008 to June 2009 quarters (6 quarters)
• The Canterbury Earthquakes Recession of September 2010 to December 2010 quarters (2 quarters)

The Reserve Bank said this downturn may be worse than any of these!

The latest abortion stats are here. They show another year of decline (which is good). What I find interesting is the vast drop in the number of teenagers having abortions.

It peaked at 4.277 in 2007 and 10 years later in 2017 it was 1,444. That is a drop of 66%. In the two years since then it has dropped to 1,238 – a further decline of 14%.

In terms of overall abortions, the ratio of abortions to live births peaked at 24.7% in 2003 and in 2017 was 18.1% and in 2019 17.7%.

The Bookseller reports:

Staff at Hachette UK working on J K Rowling’s new book The Ickabog have threatened to down tools over the author’s recent comments affecting the transgender community.

It is understood that between four and five employees, whose roles span the breadth of the full publishing team, communicated their reluctance to work on the project in a meeting held yesterday morning, and that these staff are now being spoken to individually by their managers.

The staff have the wrong idea. Rather than try to get Rowling’s book blocked because they disagree with her on trans issues, they should resort to what their predecessors did.

You allow the book to be published, then denounce the author as unsafe and hold huge public bonfires on which you burn the books.

Stats NZ reports:

Gross domestic product (GDP) fell 1.6 percent in the March 2020 quarter, the largest drop in 29 years, as the initial effects of COVID-19 restrictions impacted on economic activity, Stats NZ said today.

It is worth noting that 93% of this quarter was pre lockdown. The June 2020 quarter stats will be far worse.

The changes in each sector were:

• Agriculture -1.9%
• Mining +4.3%
• Manufacturing -2.4%
• Construction -4.1%
• Retail Trade/Accom -2.2%
• Transport -5.2%

John Armstrong writes:

After a brief hibernation, it is politics much as usual. When it comes to uniting for the recovery, there is huge disagreement between Labour and National as regards policy priorities, the desirable level of public spending and the extent of borrowing.

That’s further reason why the notion that Unite for Recovery is somehow not political is a nonsense. The campaign’s website might serve a purpose of being a one-stop shop which details everything you need to know about the Ardern Administration’s response to the pandemic.

In particular, given the No 1 priority now facing the country is the tackling of the scourge of unemployment and the resulting slashing of incomes in many households, it is essential that people are aware of benefit entitlements, training and apprenticeship opportunities, the mortgage repayment deferral scheme, protection from sudden rent increases, and so forth.

You won’t find any mention on the website of National’s policies dealing with such matters, however.

You thus might conclude the Unite for Recovery information campaign serves as a surreptitious means to define and dictate the debate about how best to rebuild New Zealand’s ravaged economy.

The problem is that the boundary between “informing” the public of Government measures and “promoting” those measures in order to gain political advantage is not easily drawn.

Even when such a line is demarcated, it can become blurred. The net effect is to hand Labour a massive advantage.

That would matter less if September’s general election was still some distance away.

But it isn’t. Any government contemplating either establishing a new taxpayer-funded information programme or rejigging an existing one when the country is little more than three months away from an election ought to think very hard about the constitutional propriety of embarking on such a course.

Good to see the propaganda get called out.

The story about the two UK travellers who were allowed out of quarantine despite having Covid-19 (they were not tested while in quarantine) has led to a floodgate of stories showing that there is a total mismatch between what we are being told, and what the reality is.

This is not the first time. We saw the same with testing and PPE in the early days – medical professionals on the ground were contradicting what the Government kept telling us.

Anyway here’s the stories out just in the last couple of hours:

• 10 people in quarantine allowed out to attend a funeral with 150 people, eight days after the Government said no exemptions for funerals were being granted
• A traveller from the United States went to a gathering with 40 people a day after she arrived in Auckland and before she was tested for Covid-19. This also occured four days after the Government said no exemptions for funerals and wakes.
• Six people absconded after being granted compassionate leave from Covid-19 quarantine to attend a Hamilton funeral.
• An allegation that two visitors from the UK did have undisclosed contact with people while travelling. (UPDATE: The allegations are correct, and the person who was in contact with them attended a gym the next day)
• The Chief Ombudsman has revealed his staff came into contact with people in quarantine.
• Health officials arranged a birthday party for a girl in managed isolation

Omnishambles appears to be the correct term to use.

One News reports:

A senior Defence Force official is taking charge of New Zealand’s Covid-19 quarantine procedure after it was yesterday announced a system failure allowed two cases slip through.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern outlined the changes at a press conference today, announcing that Assistant Chief of Defence Air Commodore Digby Webb will now be in charge of isolation facilities for Kiwis returning from overseas.

“Our borders and the controls at our borders must be rigorous, they must be disciplined and they must have the confidence of ministers and all of you, New Zealanders who got us here,” Ms Ardern said before outlining what Air Commodore Webb’s role will be.

“Air Commodore Webb will regularly report to ministers. As the Assistant Chief of Defence he can also seek access to our military logistics operational expertise, and if needed personnel to assist in the running of the facility.”

Basically an admission of failure. There have been multiple stories for months about people entering in NZ and never being tested for Covid-19. It took this latest incident for the Government to admit things were deficient.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she’s frustrated MPs are still getting full pay, two months after salary cuts were promised.

“They will still be happening and they will still apply for six months. What I am frustrated by is how long it’s taken.”

In the midst of the lockdown in mid-April, Ardern announced she, government ministers and top civil servants would take a 20 per cent pay cut for six months.

Today the Herald revealed two months after Ardern promised MPs would take a Covid-related pay cut to show solidarity, they all continue to receive full pay.

They could have passed a law change mandating the 20% pay cut in 24 hours, as they did with many other Covid laws.

Instead it won’t take place until three months after they announced it, and starts just two months before the election which means in fact the so called six month pay cut may be a two month pay cut.