Oliver Hartwich has written a very enjoyable satirical novella, called The Martian Audit. An extract from Chapter 1:

Xylos lowered the ramp. He stepped out, ready to embrace the acoustic guitar lifestyle.

He was met with a silence that was not so much peaceful as it was litigious.

A white ute sat by the fence line. Leaning against it was a man.

He was not smiling. He did not have a dog. He was wearing a high-visibility vest that seemed to absorb the joy from the surrounding air.

He checked his watch. He checked the landing struts. He made a note on his clipboard.

“Greetings,” Xylos said, extending a long, slender hand. “We come from the Valles Marineris. We seek the simple life shown on your transmission Country Calendar.”

The man looked up. His name tag read WAYNE. His eyes were the colour of a council meeting room wall.

“Afternoon,” Wayne said. “South Wairarapa District Council.

You the owner of this structure?”

“It is a Class-4 Interstellar Transport,” Xylos corrected.

“Right,” Wayne said. “So, a non-consented dwelling.”

He walked around the ship, tapping the hull with a pen. “You’re in a Significant Natural Landscape overlay. You’ve exceeded the height-to-boundary ratio. And judging by the sheen on this alloy, you’re well over the visual reflectivity limits. I’m going to have to issue an abatement notice.”

The novella is free to download and read.

There are often calls for the US Cabinet to remove Donald Trump from office using the 25th amendment. One of the lawyers who helped draft the 25th amendment makes an important point:

Its purpose is limited and precise: to address presidential inability and fill a vacancy in the vice presidency. It was not meant to address political dissatisfaction with a president. ..

The framers of the 25th amendment declined to place in the amendment a definition of inability. They made reference to conditions or circumstances that would prevent the president from discharging his powers and duties, mentioning physical and mental illnesses, permanent and temporary.

Lawmakers at the same time, however, were clear that unpopularity, incompetence, impeachable conduct, poor judgment and laziness were not covered by the term “inability.”

These issues should be dealt with by impeachment, or an election. Not by the 25th amendment.

I’m amused that Labour parties always claim they are the party of diversity, yet UK Labour is about to replace their white male leader with another white male leader (Milliband or Burnham). All 19 leaders of the UK Labour Party have been white males.

While the Conservative Party doesn’t bang on about diversity. It just elects who they think is the best person for the job. And since 1977 they have had three female leaders, one British Indian leader and one British African leader.

Matt Nippert reports:

Charlotte Stanley, general manager of regulator Charities Services, addressed the Charities Review Board in July 2024 to deliver the findings of a five-year investigation into political funding by the Waipareira Trust for the campaigns of its chief executive, John Tamihere.

This funding occurred through what she described as “inflated payments” to Tamihere, a former candidate for Auckland mayor, and later Te Pāti Māori candidate and co-leader, and current party president.

Stanley recommended the Charities Review Board (CRB) take the ultimate sanction available to it and deregister Waipareira.

“The trust had engaged in support for political candidates or parties by way of support to its CEO, which is not charitable. In addition we think that the trust also does not qualify as charitable because of inflated or excessive payments to its CEO for his personal benefit,” Stanley told the CRB, according to briefing notes for the meeting.

Ms Stanley was 100% right, but sadly her board are cowards and backed down.

Here’s what the so called charity did:

1. Spent $393,993.16 on two political campaigns – Tamihere for Mayor, and Te Pati Maori for Parliament. Any board member who approved that should be sacked for not knowing it was illegal.
2. When caught out, defended it as legitimate, and finally under pressure agreed it would be repaid and converted it into a loan.
3. Then did nothing to actually have the loan repaid, and charged no interest on the loan.
4. Again under pressure, they then paid Tamihere a bonus salary of $393,993.16 – the exact amount of the loan, allowing him to repay it.

It is worth noting 99% of their income comes from taxpayer funded contracts. They have charitable status because they are meant to be helping the community, not the CE’s political ambitions.

Henry Cooke writes:

There are good reasons for our politicians to look seriously at the long-term affordability of superannuation.

It is by far our largest benefit, and largest single-ticket item, taking up around 16.6% of tax revenue and 5% of GDP. It costs close to five times what we spend on the unemployment benefit or more than our entire educational system. And given we are both living longer and having fewer children it seems set to eat up more and more of the wider budget. …

One of the reasons superannuation has become such a big-ticket item is the way it is “indexed” – the way that it automatically goes up over time.

All other benefits are indexed to match regular price inflation. So if you’re severely disabled and get a supported living payment, your benefit goes up in track with the price of a basket of goods every year – hopefully meaning you can continue to pay for the necessities in life.

But because superannuation is seen as a special other type of payment whose beneficiaries are more deserving, it is indexed to wage inflation. Wage inflation typically outguns price inflation over time, and this means that people on super don’t just keep up with prices rising, they keep up with wages too.

Treasury had a look at what changing the indexation to regular price inflation would look like recently. It would unsurprisingly save a huge amount of money – reducing the necessary taxes by so much that GDP per person would be $4900 higher per person by 2065.

This I 100% support, with one minor change. I’d index NZ Super to say inflation +0.25% so the level does increase slightly in real terms, but not as much as indexing it to the average wage does.

Radio NZ reports:

A developer is calling on the Upper Hutt City Council to let it build what it believes to be a crucial road, so it can construct 1600 homes.

Guildford Timber Company (GTC) wants to build the road through an area of council-owned land known as the Silverstream Spur, home to a number of native bird species.

It had been looking to develop 330 hectares of its own land for the homes in Silverstream, a 30-minute drive from downtown Wellington’s, since 2007.

It wanted to establish a link road between its sites on the ridgeline and valley floor, saying the “the best access available” was through the Silverstream Spur.

In 2024, Upper Hutt City Council decided to rezone the Spur as a natural open space, which would not allow for the development of a road on the land.

So the homes will be on private land – they just need an access road over the Silverstream Spur.

GTC stressed that a road would only take up a small part of the Spur – about a tenth of the area.

“I think there’s a misconception in New Zealand that just because an area is bush, it must have ecological merit and is somehow surviving by itself, and frankly that’s not the case. You know, land needs to be managed and it takes resources and people to do that,” Griffin said.

The project will produce 1,600 homes, see $500 million spent locally, create 200 jobs and also see 16 kms of walking and biking trails. Should be a no brainer.

A BSA decision:

TVNZ breached broadcasting standards in its reporting of comments by President Trump in an item on the arrest of the man suspected of shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found.

The Authority has upheld three complaints that the 1News item, broadcast on 13 September 2025, breached the accuracy standard by misrepresenting the President’s comment, “I couldn’t care less”, in response to a question.

The report’s introduction stated, “[W]hen the President was asked what he’d do to unite the country after this tragedy, he said, ‘I couldn’t care less’, blaming the radical left, and vowing to go after political violence”. This was accompanied by a large banner with a photo of Trump and the words, “I couldn’t care less”.

So viewers were led to think Trump said he didn’t care about the shooting or uniting the country. But in fact:

The BSA found this was inaccurate, as Trump actually said: “Well, I’ll tell you something that’s gonna get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less”. It found the obvious interpretation was that the phrase about not caring related to getting in trouble for comments he was about to make. 

Very different.

The annual donations returns were recently published, and the media focused on how CR parties had more than CL parties. They failed to look at the trend,

In the table below I compare 2025 donations to 2022, as like vs like. Both are mid years in the three year cycle.

National and ACT in 2025 got in around 20% more than in 2022. A modest increase.

The huge increases were Labour, Greens and NZ First. They all quadrupled their donations.

In an absolute sense, Labour had the biggest increase of almost $2 million.

Now let’s look at how the donations are made up.

With small donations under $1,500 National and Labour do best bringing in $2.1 and $1.4 million. Labour has an impressive 65,000 small donors. ACT and Greens also have over 10,000 small donors.

In terms of medium sized donors, National cleans up. They had over 600 donate an average 2,300. National gets in 10 times more than other parties when it comes to medium sized donors.

National also does best with large donors, but the average donation is around $18,500. Labour is lower at $13,500 but ACT is $39k, NZF $24k and Greens $21k.

The proportion of donations that comes from large donors is:

1. NZ First 69%
2. ACT 61%
3. Te Pati Maori 55%
4. TOP 52%
5. National 43%
6. Labour 36%

It is worth reflecting that the average large donor to National gives $18,500. This is 0.3% of their total donation revenue. Anyone who thinks that a donation of that size can influence policy is being ridicolous.

The Herald reports:

New Zealanders don’t “really care” about the details of one of the Labour Party’s key election policies, leader Chris Hipkins claims. 

The New Zealand Future Fund, which Labour unveiled last October with little detail attached to it, is intended to take the dividends of some Crown assets and redistribute them into New Zealand businesses, with the aim to incentivise job creation. 

The party has not said what assets may have their dividends redirected into this fund as it has said it won’t decide this until after the election, once it receives advice from officials.

This is from the party that came up with a plan to build 100,000 houses on the back of a napkin. They think details don’t matter. They do.

There is a lot going on in education.

Significant reports that the changes in curriculum and method at a junior level are not having the desired effect.

New English, maths primary curriculums had little effect on achievement, first results show.

Curriculum changes are being delayed.

New timeframe for years 0-8 curriculum rollout clarified, union claims win.

Qualifications changes are far from straight forward. I began teaching in 1991 and heard all of the timeline promises, the theoretical underpinning, and educational enhancement promises for NCEA. My, well thought through, expectation for the secondary school curriculum/qualifications is that the education sector has 12 years of chaos ahead. This is a combination of the Minister of Education having been captured by a very narrow range of ideologues and advisers, the deep incompetence of the Ministry of Education, the entrenched opposition of the teacher unions, and poor design from the outset.

NCEA replacement ‘not going to suit our young people’ says teachers’ union.

I am no fan – in any way shape or form – of the teacher’s union – but, like a broken analogue clock – they are right twice a day.

This is serious, but I was a little stunned by Ryan Bridge saying that “Old School is the Best School.”

I went through high school at Wanganui Boys College from 1980 to 1984. I then taught at Tauranga Boys’ College (1991 – 96), Hamilton Boys’ (1997-98) and St Cuthbert’s College (1998 – 2001). That time spanned the transition to NCEA that was supposed to be fully in place by 1996, but took until 2002.

What we had before that was a disaster. School Certificate results were determined around a 50% pass rate in English – destining approx. half of the students to fail – no matter how good teachers were. I remember one student at school asking a future All Black … “What were your best three years at school – 5^th form?”

Sixth Form certificate for schools was based on their School Certificate results (e.g. I got a “1” in economics because I had earned it in the previous year with my School Certificate result in that subject). Because I was “Accredited” UE and, knew that I would be from the beginning of the year, I did very little in the 6^th form, except practice my goalkicking and perfect my Euchre playing in an accounting class. University Bursary earned you diddly squat but you went through the charade.

“Old School is the Best School” Ryan?

I am deeply unsure why – given the choices the Minister is making – why she did not simply mandate Cambridge exams as the NZ qualification. It would be MUCH cheaper and also likely to be of much higher quality that the Ministry/NZQA combination will come up with.

I have to bring a lighter note. A couple of posts back a commenter doubted my assertions about caning in the 1980s. I raised the situation where two of us in my class lapped the other 28 in a PE run and all of those slow-pokes were caned. I mentioned that my co-conspirator in that crime was also caned 27 times by one teacher for not doing his homework. I should have mentioned that he was also caned by a teacher affectionately know as “Nude Nut” for the sin of blowing his nose.

I contacted the gentleman who had been thrown into doubt. Here are his responses:

“I remember both occasions vividly, especially being padded in advance for submitting the set 1000 lines as actual lines on a page instead of the required phrase. Poor Mr Ton, it sounded like he was caning a bouncy castle. A bean bag would’ve felt more.”

 “I also remembered the PE teachers reclining on chairs and rising only to rethreaten those running to lap those that could be lapped or deserving to get caned as well. The same teachers I remembered with one of them shoving you into the school pool after swimming, i.e., you were in your uniform and wearing your school bag. Brilliant educational facility.”

“I’d forgotten about being caned for blowing my nose, but there can’t be too many people punished that way for such a heinous crime. I mean what was the intended corrective behaviour that intervention was seeking to achieve?”

“Nude also had that affectation of cradling the back of his hand on his forehead and for someone teaching English, could barely speak it coherently. No wonder we were bored to distraction. He’d mumble some loose connection to the reading matter he’d then repeat it as scribble on the board until the bell saved us all. He couldn’t run a bath, let alone a class.”

“Or – if you walked into the classroom with a jacket on, he would yell “jacket off” – which was hilarious to 14 year olds. On some occasions we would all walk in with a jacket on and then pile them on one desk. Many times when he turned his back to write on the board someone would say “NUDE”.”

Maybe a good vent would be for people to tell their “old school” stories of what education was really like. I got freaked out at primary school by a teacher who seemed to love smacking bottoms and ended up being banned from teaching as he took his behaviour further with a selected few.

Please tell your stories!

[email protected]

Paul Goldsmith announced:

The Government has agreed to amend 19 pieces of legislation to ensure references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are clear and consistent, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says.

“Over the last 30 or 40 years, Parliament has made all sorts of references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Sometimes it’s ‘honour’, or ‘have regard to’, or ‘give effect to’, or ‘take into account’. We need to create some consistency here, in the interests of increasing certainty and supporting compliance. A core foundation of our success as a nation is predictability in the law. …

“The Government has agreed to amend two references to be more specific, repeal seven references, and specify no higher standard than to ‘take into account’ should be used in provisions to the Treaty of Waitangi across ten acts.

“The Government has also agreed a reference to both the Treaty of Waitangi and te Tiriti o Waitangi is preferable and should be used in all relevant provisions going forward.

“These decisions have been made as a first step. Conversations will continue around how this review could go further in the future.

This is all good and sensible stuff. My only criticism is it comes two and a half years in. This should have been a priority for the first 12 months.

Erica Stanford has confirmed the new secondary school qualifications. The key details are:

• Foundational Award for literacy and numeracy benchmarked at Year 11
• New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) in Year 12 (from 2029) 
• New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE) in Year 13 (from 2030) 
• To gain NZCE or NZACE students must gain the Foundational Award and pass at least three subjects
• All subjects will be assessed with a mixture of coursework and at least one exam
• Six grades will be available – A+, A, B, C, D, E – C or higher passes
• In Year 11, maths, English and science will be mandatory

So long as the Government is re-elected, we will have a secondary qualifications system that students, parents and employers will all actually understand.

The Herald reports:

Labour has admitted key details about its Future Fund, including the cost to the Crown and which state assets will be rolled into it, will not be released until after voters have gone to the polls. 

On Tuesday, Labour’s finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds admitted the party doesn’t itself know which public assets will go in the fund, and won’t know until it gets advice from officials after the election. 

Explaining why this was necessary, Edmonds said some state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may have Treaty of Waitangi obligations attached to them.

The Government would need advice on these obligations, which could only come after an election, meaning Labour will not decide on which assets go into the fund before Kiwis go to the polls.

This is really treating the voters as gullible idiots. They are claiming they can’t give details because of Treaty obligations.

The real answer is that they know their numbers don’t add up. They think if they give no details before the election, then they can’t be scrutinised on their credibility.

The Post reports:

Police Minister Mark Mitchell says he “wants to understand” why police contacted a New Zealand woman over a Facebook post and has asked them about it.

His comments come as both ACT and NZ First have weighed into the debate over the visit and argued police should not have been involved.

The post from Renee-Rose Schwenke featured herself with two men of South Asian appearance in what appears to be a public place, alongside the caption “Welcome to New India thanks to Luxsingh” – seemingly a reference to the India Free Trade Agreement, recently signed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

“No to mass immigration invasion!” she wrote alongside the post.

Schwenke told The Post police rang her household and sought to visit her there. She was not keen for this so organised to meet the police at a local station instead.

What she wrote is political speech. It is dumb and stupid political speech, but it is a million miles from being criminal.

The Police should not be contacting her in any way over what she wrote. Good to see the Minister agrees, and the Police have said they shouldn’t have contacted her.

Nicola Willis and Paul Goldsmith have announced the following:

• A target to return the ratio of public servants to the population of 1.0%, meaning a target of 55,000 by 2029
• A sinking lid on operating budgets for agencies that will save $2.4 billion with greater use of AI
• A reduction in the number of core department and ministries from 39 (Australia has 16)

The 55,000 figure will still be higher than what we had in 2019.

The ratio of public servants to the population was 1.00% back in 1993. It dropped to 0.75% in 2000. Under Clark it increased to 1.04% in 2009. It was basically stable from 2019 to 2018 at 0.97% to 1.01%. Then Jacinda, Hipkins and Grant went crazy and increased it to 1.21%.

This is a very significant reduction, and will be painful for those affected. But the country has to live within its means.

The Post reports:

News the Israeli embassy is moving to a new Wellington location, with some tenants currently unaware, is drawing parallels to “human shield” allegations made against Hamas.

The Israeli Embassy is on the 13th floor of a Brandon St office block but is soon moving to Ballance St, in a building shared by a number of other organisations, including the French Embassy. …

Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said questions needed to be asked about why the embassy chose a multi-storey building shared by non-embassy New Zealanders.

It seemed “’close to the ‘human shield’ issue Israel is accusing Hamas of doing”, he believed.

What a disgusting comment to make. The Greens are basically saying that they think the Israeli Embassy should be a standalone building, so that it can be blown up, with only the Jews in it killed.

An Embassy is not a military installation. To compare the placement of an Embassy to the Hamas practice of placing terrorist bases below hospitals is grotesque.

The PM gave a very significant speech recently. Matthew Hooton who is often fiercely critical of Luxon said it was “the most honest, realistic and substantive prime ministerial statement since the era of sloganeering began 20 years ago”.

I urge people to read it themselves. Parts that stood out for me were:

For too long, we’ve assumed our location protects us, that an ocean and a quiet reputation are enough. They aren’t. Geography gives us time, but it doesn’t give us immunity.

We have assumed our international relationships would carry us. They matter enormously, but we must invest in them. They are not unconditional; they are sustained by contribution. Partners support those who show they’re willing to help themselves.

We have assumed large investments in renewable energy would insulate ourselves from energy shocks offshore.

This is the opposite of Helen Clark’s benign strategic environment.

Secure and affordable energy matters just as much for manufacturers here in Auckland, as it does for mums and dads battling to keep up with the cost of living.

Secure access to global markets matters just as much at the milking shed, as it does for cutting edge companies like Halter and Rocket Lab, competing for capital and talent on the world stage.

And financial security matters just as much for Kiwis meeting the cost of a mortgage, as it does for governments worldwide grappling with the cost of borrowing.

The bottom line is we can’t have prosperity – more jobs, more exports, and higher wages – without security.

Luxon is basically making the case for how vital national security is, but that it is more than military. It is energy security, market access and financial security also.

New Zealand’s energy vulnerability is no longer a theoretical risk; it is a live crisis on full display in the Strait of Hormuz every single day.

Every week I speak to farmers, growers, manufacturers, truck drivers and tradies whose lives and businesses have been affected by events half a world away.

And that’s not just the rough and tumble impact of globalisation.

On too many occasions, private capital, eager to bolster domestic energy production, has been pushed to the sidelines by overzealous planners and politicians in recent years.

Several high-profile projects are now getting underway, thanks to our reforms like Fast Track, which I expect will continue to grow in popularity by leaps and bounds.

The reality is that when faced with energy shock after energy shock, it’s very hard to justify backing the skink over the solar farm.

Our lack of domestic supply is now an issue of national security. We must be less dependent on importing energy. That means producing more energy in NZ, and we can’t afford to be picky over what type of energy it is. We just want energy that can’t be blocked by a few guys with rocket launchers.

Energy independence must be treated as an immediate national security interest, instead of a contributing factor to a long-term climate strategy.

I’ve been anti-coal for a fair while, based on its greenhouse gas emissions. But you know what, having a huge warehouse of coal somewhere in case we need it isn’t a bad idea – especially as under Labour we had to import coal from Indonesia.

t’s worth acknowledging that at least some of the political fracturing evident in Europe in recent years is the result of politicians refusing to implement the preference of their voters on immigration.

Earlier this year, Erica Stanford spoke on many of the recent changes we’ve made to strengthen our immigration system, designed to prioritise skilled, not unskilled, migrants – through higher English language requirements, more enforcement and tougher penalties.

The temporary work visas granted under the India FTA are anchored in that approach, with visas available for specific occupations, where we have workforce shortages.

It’s an issue we’ll watch closely, and you should expect to see careful policy on immigration from National as we get closer to the election.

And my message to the business community is that when it comes to immigration, when faced with a choice between social stability and your bottom line, I will choose the former every single time.

Immigration done well is beneficial to NZ – economically and socially. But too much immigration too quickly can cause infrastructure challenges, and can raise issues with integration. I’m going to do a more detail post on the pros and cons and complexities of getting immigration right. Europe is a case of getting it wrong.

Finally, our financial security.

The truth is that small countries which borrow money from offshore can only live on credit for so long. Eventually, the bill must be paid.

Spending and borrowing too much can be just as big a threat to our national security as not spending enough of the NZ Defence Force.

I agree with Matthew Hooton, that it was an excellent speech.

Radio NZ reports:

The Green Party wants the government to force power companies to cap power bill increases at the the rate of inflation.

Power prices are going up because we have a shortage of supply. So the geniuses think the solution is to impose price caps, which would lead to less investment in supply – and even more shortages.

Sir Kenneth Keith has died aged 88. He was one of the great NZ jurists – the NZ Supreme Court, the International Court of Justice, the Privy Council.

I got to know him slightly when I worked at the NZ Red Cross in the early 90s. He was the international humanitarian law advisor to NZ Red Cross, and even back then he was held in huge regard internationally. He was so generous with his time, and very approachable. Some of his legal involvement was:

• member of the New Zealand legal team in the Nuclear Test cases before the International Court of Justice 
• leader of the New Zealand delegation on the additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions 
• member of the Settlement of Investment Disputes
• president of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission 
• An architect of architects the Official Information Act 1982, the Constitution Act 1986 and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990
• member of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System
• Judge of the New Zealand Court of Appeal 
• Judge of the Supreme Court of NZ
• Final appellate judge for Samoa, Cooks, Niue and Fiji
• member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 
• member of the International Court of Justice 

A truly remarkable career.