As New Zealand enters Level 1, it is an opportune time to assess how the country has dealt with the coronavirus. The current wisdom in most of New Zealand and amongst liberal media admirers across the globe is that New Zealand’s supposedly swift and decisive action in closing its borders and strictly locking down its economy has led to elimination of the coronavirus in the country. New Zealand’s lockdown was backed by overwhelming majority of the local population and has led Jacinda Ardern and the NZ Labour Party to stratospheric polling leads over National, almost unprecedented in modern NZ political history. NZers you speak to or read on social media glow with pride at the country’s accomplishment (the ‘team of 5 million’ etc.) and look askance at the huge numbers of cases and deaths in Europe and the US.

To counter the damage to the economy, the NZ government has poured tens of billions of dollars into a vast wage subsidy programme backed with loan guarantees for small businesses and various packages designed to assist various industries. Once lauded for its relatively low government spending as a percentage of GDP and budget surpluses, NZ is expected to more than doubling its debt to GDP ratio and rack up massive budget deficits as it pours ever more money into an artificially moribund economy.

I never met Lecretia Seales but I have gotten to know her widower, Matt Vickers.

His letter to her, five years after she died, is very raw but also powerful. I won’t even try to summarise it, but I do comment it to readers.

Stuff reports:

The Government has again delayed the installation of cameras on all commercial fishing boats, pushing mandatory monitoring of the industry beyond the election.

Labour has been accused of kowtowing to coalition partner NZ First and the interests of the fishing industry, which has opposed efforts to roll-out cameras onto vessels to monitor bycatch of seabirds and endangered dolphins.

The Government on Tuesday delayed a deadline for requiring nearly 1000 fishing boats to have onboard cameras, changing a July 1 “holding date” for the regulation to kick-in to October 1, 2021.

Once again Labour sells out. National introduced the legislation to have cameras on board fishing vessels. Labour, National and Greens could easily pass the law requiring this.

But Labour is allowing NZ First to block it.

National Party conservation spokeswoman Jacqui Dean said National continued to support the policy of putting cameras on fishing vessels, and it appeared the Green Party – a confidence and supply partner in the Government – had walked away from the idea.

Conservation Minister and Green MP Eugenie Sage recently issued a seabird protection plan that included no mention of cameras, Dean said.

Sage’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Instead, comment from Green Party animal welfare spokesman Gareth Hughes was provided.

“We are disappointed the roll-out date has been delayed again …. We know that cameras are an effective tool and we are working constructively with our partners in Government,” a statement from Hughes said.

Working constructively with our partners in Government seems to be code for rolling over and having our tummy tickled.

Stuff reports:

NZ First backbencher Clayton Mitchell has announced he will retire from politics at the coming election.

The Tauranga-based MP, who has spent six years in Parliament, announced he would quit in a statement issued on Friday. He said he decided a year ago that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

NZ First confirmed eight of its nine current MPs would stand in the 2020 election, with only Mitchell retiring.

Mitchell, the party’s whip, has primarily attracted headlines for controversial reasons in the past year – including a scuffle in a bar and links to a donations scandal.

A Stuff investigation into previously undisclosed donations received by the NZ First Foundation, which was attached to the political party, found Mitchell received many of the large donations that were funnelled into the foundation. NZ First donors told Stuff that they thought donations were headed to the party, not a secretive trust.

The Serious Fraud Office continues to investigate the NZ First Foundation, and expects to complete the investigation before the 2020 election.

I think his retirement is because they know there is a fairly high probability he will be charged by the Serious Fraud Office.

The Electoral Act states:

Every person to whom a party donation is given or sent must, within 10 working days after receiving the donation, either transmit the donation to the party secretary; or deposit the donation into a bank account nominated by the party secretary.

The donors have said the donations were for the NZ First Party. If Mitchell received them he was legally obliged to pass them onto the party secretary or pay into a bank account nominated by them.

UPDATE: I’ve had it suggested to me Mitchell never handled the cheques and that he only told donors what bank account to pay into. This may mean he isn’t liable under the above provision but may still have issues as a potential transmitter.

The real person of interest is the person who directed Mitchell as to which bank account to give to donors.

Stuff reports:

The police union has hit back at the Green Party for using the death of George Floyd to take a swing at New Zealand Police and its recent trial of armed cops.

New Zealand Police Association president Chris Cahill said he was appalled at the Greens conflation of the trial of armed police teams (ARTs) in New Zealand, with the death of Floyd.

Following the terror attack in March last year, the police, independently of the government, launched a six-month trial to tackle illegal guns.

The trial ended in April and evaluation results are due at the end of the month.

His outrage follows a letter penned by Greens Co-leader Marama Davidson and Justice spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman, to Police Commissioner Andrew Coster, urging him to rule out the roll-out of ARTs.

They said it could shift the country towards “dangerous, military-style policing” and that the recent trial saw patrols roaming “in low socio-economic and predominantly brown communities”.

“We only have to look to the United States to see how violent things can get under a militarised police force. This is especially so for minorities and communities of colour,” Davidson said.

Cahill said using Floyd’s death as a conduit to make claims about New Zealand police discrimination, which resulted in increased police brutality and death, was offensive to officers.

“On behalf of the association’s thousands of members I object to this overt inference that they are to be held up as the problem.”

It is offensive to our Police.

The NZ Police are very restrained in their use of force. You can’t compare them to the scenes we regularly see in the United States.

Stuff reports:

A businessman has been jailed for his role in the country’s largest cigarette smuggling case.

The man and his company have interim name suppression and appeared at the Auckland District Court on Thursday after earlier admitting charges of defrauding customs, making erroneous entries in customs documents and selling goods without paying duties.

The operation involved the smuggling of over 19 million cigarettes into Auckland, hidden inside office cabinets imported from China. The smuggling avoided excise customs duties of over $18 million.

When the tax is $1 a cigarette the black market becomes a very attractive proposition for smugglers.

Collette Devlin writes:

Her demeanour, as she rattled off the list, could be likened to a primary school teacher addressing a class. Ardern was at pains to point out that these ‘”rules” were needed to keep the virus at bay and “prevent a return to where we have been” – and no-one wants to return to lockdown.

The message itself isn’t the problem, but it’s far from a rule and Ardern’s patronising delivery was not motivating. As the country grows weary of Government edicts, she risks losing her captaincy of the team of five million. No matter how many times we’re told to “be kind”.

Everytime I see a billboard urging me to be kind, it makes me the opposite.

Around 500 people have donated to Kiwiblog or subscribed to my Patreon. I’m very humbled and appreciative of the support.

I am very motivated to increase the number of analytical and data intensive posts I do, and also have ways where people can have input into them.

One idea I have is people could suggest or vote on what data they would like me to obtain under the OIA, to work into a post. There’s a lot you can do in the crime and health areas, for example. So feel free to comment below if there is any particular area you’d be interested in seeing data on.

The Guardian reports:

Boris Johnson has opened the path to what he called one of the “biggest changes” to the British visa system, stating he was ready to offer a right to live and work in the UK to any of the nearly 3 million Hong Kong citizens eligible for a British National Overseas passport. …

The prime minister’s offer would come into play only if China presses ahead with new security laws that strip Hong Kong of its traditional freedoms.

Johnson wrote in the Times that if the security laws were pursued, “Britain would have no choice but to uphold our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong”.

He said: “Today about 350,000 people hold British Nationals (Overseas) passports and another 2.5 million people would be eligible to apply for them. At present these passports allow for visa free access for up to six months.

“If China imposes its national security law, the British government will change its immigration rules and allow any holder of these passports from Hong Kong to come to the UK for a renewable period of 12 months and be given further immigration rights including the right to work which would place them on the route to citizenship.”

He added: “This would amount to one of the biggest changes to our visa system in history. If it proves necessary Britain will take this step and take it willingly.”

This is a stunningly bold and good move.

If China proceeds, it risks losing half of Hong King’s population. The economy would be worse than decimated.

And the UK would gain a couple of million very grateful, hard working and well educated citizens. Over half the population already speak English.

Roger Partridge writes:

CS Lewis once warned that of all tyrannies, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies”.

The great 20th century writer might have been describing Forestry Minister Shane Jones’ new Bill to “fix” the forestry industry.

Great comparison.

Jones has decided the industry can’t fend for itself and needs an extra dose of regulation. Yet his actions suggest the industry’s interests are not his main priority. His innocuous sounding Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Amendment Bill will sacrifice the interests of forest owners – among them North Island iwi owners – in favour of utopian plans for an enhanced domestic wood processing sector, which Jones hopes will boost employment, especially in his homeland in the Far North.

The whole premise is the Ministers know better than the individual forestry businesses what people want to buy. Forestry companies tend to sell raw logs because that is what other companies want to buy. But Jones is saying oh no we must turn the logs into finished products and hey presto then they’ll buy those instead.

The Bill was introduced into Parliament under urgency on May 14. Indeed, Jones was in such a hurry that he gave the industry only a week to provide submissions to the Select Committee considering the Bill. (And for reasons best known to the Minister, the Environment Select Committee has been tasked with evaluating the Bill, not the better qualified Primary Production Select Committee.)

One week for submissions for a major law change. Disgusting. And the choice of committee is no doubt that the Government has a majority on one and not the other. They want to ram it through.

The Bill then proposes extensive regulation-making powers. Regulations may permit the Forestry Authority to set open ended “conditions of registration” and other rules imposing obligations on forestry owners, giving the Minister and the Authority a means of controlling the sale of logs by forest owners.

Using these rules, the new Forestry Authority could, for example, require forest owners to divert or withhold a proportion of their logs destined for international export markets to support Jones’ hoped-for new domestic timber processing industry, possibly even at subsidised “domestic” prices.

So instead of forestry companies being able to decide for themselves who they sell to, the Minister could then require them to see to local businesses in Northland at a subsidised price.

Unsurprisingly, in its submission the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee raised concerns about the consistency of the Bill with “fundamental constitutional principles and the rule of law.” Indeed, the Committee even raises concerns about the legitimacy of the provisions in the Bill which purport to grant regulation-making power to an “undefined private body.”

Maybe the intended body is the NZ First Foundation?

Politico reports:

Mattis called the decision to clear protesters in Lafayette Square an “abuse of executive authority” and said that Americans should “reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”

Mattis also urged the public to reject Esper’s characterization of American cities as a “‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate,’” referring to the defense secretary’s comments comments to governors on Monday. (Esper said on Wednesday that in retrospect he would have used different language “so as not to distract from the more important matters at hand or allow some to suggest that we are militarizing the issue.”)

Mattis noted that when he joined the military, he took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution, and “never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.”

A reminder that General Mattis was in the Marine Corps for 44 years and commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War.

In the Persian Gulf War he commanded the 7th Marines assault battalion as a Lt Colonel. In Afghanistan he again commanded the 7th Marines as a Colonel and then the 1st Marines brigade as a Brigadier General. He was often found in a fighting hole with enlisted men in freezing weather.

In Iraq he commanded the 1st Marines as a Major General.

He has commanded US Joint Force Command, NATO and US Central Command as well as serving as Secretary of Defence.

It must take a lot for him to publicly criticise his sucessor.

I’ve embedded a survey below where you can rate the major media websites in NZ on whether or not you think they lean left or right, or are neutral.

There’s also a question on how your normally vote so we can breakdown the perceptions of each media outlet by how the respondents normally vote.

Results should be interesting, which I’ll blog here of course.

Stuff reports:

The Teaching Council is considering complaints made about an Auckland teacher who wore a “Make America Great Again” hat to Auckland’s Black Lives Matter march and posted a video on Facebook defending his actions.

The man, a teacher at Manukau Christian School, was one of thousands at the protest on Monday, which was organised in response to the death of George Floyd and in solidarity with a wave of protests across the US.

The Teaching Council should dismiss this complaint immediately.

Teachers are entitled to have a political opinion, including whether or not they like the President of the United States.

It is repugnant that people are trying to get a teacher disbarred, simply because they disagree with his choice of political apparel.

In case any uneducated snowflakes get offended by the headline, the quote in full is “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” from George Orwell’s Animal Farm and is a comment on the hypocrisy of governments.

The Herald reports:

The Police Minister says there’s “no place for racism in the New Zealand Police” and promises if instances are found, it will be weeded out.

Stuart Nash said he did not think there was systemic racism in the police.

He was asked today to explain the over-representation of Māori in police statistics and said “we are dealing with that at the moment”.

The over-representation is primarily because more crimes are committed. This is not the fault of Police.

Men are also massively over-represented in police statistics. This is not because the Police are sexist against men. It is because men commit more crimes.

There are legitimate issues around when Police use discretion, if they use diversion, what charges are laid. But any issues there make up only a small portion of the huge difference in offending rates.

Media who assume that the over-representation of a particular demographic in crime statistics must be the fault of the Police in some way, do the public a disservice.

Stuff reports:

Enforcing alert level 2 restrictions at the Black Lives Matter marches could have caused tension in an otherwise peaceful protest, says one of New Zealand’s top cops.

Oh my Goodness. If you enforce the law it might cause tension, so instead we let people break the law.

Schwalger said the police’s role is to ensure safety and uphold the law while recognising the lawful right to protest.

The trouble is it was an unlawful protest. Personally I think the protest should have been lawful, but the Government has kept us at Level 2, which meant the protest was unlawful.

Have just published the first of my monthly Patreon posts analysing how well positioned Governments are for re-election in Aus, Canada, NZ, UK and US.

The analysis takes a long time to compile – around six to seven hours as there are 30 different data sources. It’s a good example of the sort of stuff I ave been wanting to do more of.

The graphic above shows the summary, without the data and legend.

I’ll be doing a new post in the first week of every month.

Newshub reports:

The National Party has been leaked a recent Cabinet Committee paper that says New Zealand could be at alert level 1 already. 

It outlines the criteria for a move saying we need to have eliminated chains of transmission and had no new cases of community transmission for 28 days, and if that’s been achieved there’s no need for restrictions. 

“The permissive nature of the alert level 1 controls reflect it is predicated upon having eliminated chains of transmission and there have been no new cases from community transmission for at least 28 days,” it says. 

“If that has been achieved, and we have confidence in our border controls, there is theoretically no need for restrictions on people’s movements, interactions or activities.”

It’s now been longer than 28 days – the last community transmission case was 33 days ago. 

So Cabinet itself has been advised you can go to Level 1 after 28 days of no community transmission, yet they are keeping us at Level 2.

I have been sent a copy of a complaint to the Auditor-General about the Mayor of Hutt City. It raises very important issues around taking donations and conflicts of interest.

The Mayor is Campbell Barry. It relates both as a Councillor and Mayor. Mayor Barry stood on the Labour ticket.

My summary of the complaint is this:

• The E Tu union campaigns for Councils to adopt a “living wage” policy for Council staff and contractors. This obviously benefits many E Tu members and the union itself, if it occurs.
• On 7 June 2019 E Tu donated $5,000 to Barry’s election campaign. It was his largest donation (if you ignore his self-donation).
• Four days later in 11 June 2019 the Hutt Council met to decide whether or not to introduce a “living wage” for staff. Cr Barry spoke in favour and voted in favour of doing so. The vote was won on a split vote.
• Cr Barry did not disclose the E Tu donation (or his membership of E Tu) to his Council colleagues. He did not disclose any conflict of interest, despite both the donation and the membership being obvious conflicts.
• Cr Barry met with two officers of E Tu in private just prior to the vote.
• A further Council vote was held in December 2019, when Barry was Mayor, to extend the “living wage” to contractors. It was passed by just one vote – the Mayor’s whose successful campaign for Mayor was funded by E Tu. Again no disclosure was made of the donation or membership to the Council.

It would seem to me to be a no brainer that if four days before a Council meeting, to vote on a controversial issue, you receive a large donation from the major advocate to vote yes on the issue, you must disclose it as a conflict of interest.

Could you imagine the outrage if say a business lobby group dedicated to stopping the living wage donated $5,000 to a Councillor four days before the same meeting, and that Councillor met with them privately, and then voted against the living wage with no disclosure of the donation. The media would report this as a major scandal.

I’m not suggesting that Barry should have been unable to vote because of the donation or that the donations influenced his views. Money tends to follow policy, rather than policy follows money (except for one political party in Government). But absolutely Mayor Barry should have disclosed the donation as a conflict of interest so his colleagues would be aware he had just received $5,000 from the union pushing the living wage policy.

I will report further on the complaint once the Auditor-General determines how they plan to proceed.

David Fisher reports:

Photographs have emerged of the Prime Minister and director general of health posed for pictures close to wellwishers, prompting accusations of hypocrisy from a National Party MP warned by police for doing the same.

It has led to an admission from the Prime Minister it was a struggle to maintain “appropriate distancing” with people approaching wanting “handshakes and hugs”.

Bloomfield has also coughed to being in a photograph with strangers but says it was only for a moment.

The rules are for us to follow, not them, it seems.