Newshub reports:

Gangs will be targeted in a new ACT Party policy which promises to amend the Criminal Proceeds Act and “hit them where it hurts”.

The policy, released on Saturday, would allow the police to apply to the courts for an order to seize assets if a search finds an illegal operation, unlawful possession of a firearm, and a person who is a gang member or close affiliate.

“ACT will target the gangs by hitting them where it hurts – their pockets,” the party said in a statement.

Party leader David Seymour told Newshub Nation the policy was simple.

“If the police find illegal firearms and illegal activity by a gang, then they can take their assets because, at the moment, gangs are getting around the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Act by having a large number of small operations,” Seymour told host Simon Shepherd. “We’re saying that if you have a firearm and you are dealing drugs and you are a gang, then the Crown can take your assets because, ultimately, these guys don’t care about going to jail.”

Seems a very sensible policy.

Rokzfast reports:

Black Lives Matter-inspired demonstrations against symbols of history, in New Zealand and around the world, have focused on monuments to Europeans, but Ngāpuhi leader David Rankin has called on Tainui to take down Turangawaewae Marae, which he said his iwi had long regarded as a symbol of enslavement and oppression.

The marae, he said, represented a dark period in the iwi’s history, when Tainui slavers abused his people to build their marae and grow crops for them.

“For us in the North, Turangawaewae Marae is a symbol of that slavery, murder and cannibalism, and so needs to be pulled down,” he said.

“The wealth that Tainui generated was made on the backs of Ngāpuhi slaves.”

He had the support of his Te Matarahurahu hapū, whose ancestors were among those captured by Tainui, and used as slaves. Sometimes slaves had become part of the communities of their captors, but in this case they were eventually killed and eaten.

“Tainui famously acquired corn by disembowelling my ancestor and removing the kernels in his stomach for seed,” he said.

“Tainui has a moral obligation to pull down that marae, which for us is a symbol of cultural hatred, and if they don’t pull it down, then we will come down and do the job for them.”

Several Ngāpuhi hapū were preparing a submission to the Hamilton City Council to request the marae be dismantled.

This is I guess where you end up once you start pulling down structures that cause some people distress.

Stuff reports:

he police union says the Government is turning officers into babysitters.

Police Association president Chris Cahill criticised a Government decision to have a permanent police presence at all New Zealand quarantine facilities. The decision was made after a man absconded from isolation at an Auckland hotel and went to the supermarket on Tuesday.

It was a waste of police resources and not policing, Cahill said.

“This is about giving political surety, for the government to cover themselves, rather than actual security. I’m not sure the balance is right.”

We don’t need Police at the facilities. We just need more security guards.

Personally I’d hand the isolation facilities off to the private sector. Pay say $100,000 a day for each facility, but with a $500,000 fine if they allow anyone to leave.

Bryce Edwards writes:

The Green Party of Aotearoa-New Zealand could go from helping Jacinda Ardern run the country, to being turfed out of Parliament altogether in ten weeks.

And that could see the end of Labour in government. Without them, Labour would likely have to do what no party has done since the introduction of the current MMP electoral system: gain an outright majority of seats.

With just ten weeks to go until the election, the Greens have been consistently polling precariously close to the 5 per cent threshold needed by parties who don’t hold an electorate seat.

In fact, since the last election which saw the Greens win 6.3 per cent of the vote and become part of the Labour-led Government, their polling has been stuck below that level.

They have recorded an average of only 5.7 per cent by the country’s two main polling companies. And since the start of the year, this average has been trending downwards to just 5.4 per cent.

Unfortunately for the Greens, they consistently do worse in elections than their polling predicts.

Readers may be interested in what the gap normally is between what the Greens polls and their actual result.

Over the seven elections they have contested, they have on average done 1.3% worse than the polls. By company it is:

• Colmar Brunton 0.8%
• Horizon 1.5%
• Reid Research 2.3%
• Roy Morgan 2.9%

And by year it is:

• 1999: 0.8%
• 2002: 1.7%
• 2005: 0.7%
• 2008: 1.7%
• 2011: 1.1%
• 2014: 1.9%
• 2017: 1.1%

So for the Greens to be totally secure they would want to be polling 6.5% or more.

A guest post by David Garrett:

On 8 June, the Mongrel Mob took over a street in Hamilton in order to hold a tangi for one of their dead members. On 11 June, Stuff reported that residents of the area were “terrified” and that:

“patched gang members and cars were visibly crowding the street, with cars blocking the road and preventing residents from entering”

And disturbingly:

“multiple police cars were in seen in surrounding areas as gang members loitered in the streets [which] caused mayhem for parents trying to pick their children up from nearby Maeroa intermediate”

I made a formal complaint regarding the inaction of the Area Commander of the Waikato Police in response to this incident. In my letter I asked the police to comment on the accuracy of the Stuff report, and if it was inaccurate in any respect(s), to specify those inaccuracies.

On Saturday 4 July, to my utter incredulity, I received the following response to what is termed, in the subject line of the e-mail,  my “enquiry”:

            “Thank you for your email David.

We hope you’ve enjoyed your week thus far.  Your complaint 16/06/2020 was forwarded through to the district however those directly affected by the incident you read in a stuff.co.nz article will be contacted and or updated. We do have to wear many hats and as you stated in the complaint there were a large number of members in attendance likely emotional, grieving, some even angry, we would have to consider whether disrupting this time of mourning or even involving Council in the removal or ticketing of the vehicles parked illegally would potentially put more lives at risk or work to how we plan it.  The wiser choice in this case was unfortunately unfavourable in your eyes.  We do have to take into account incoming emergencies, immediate safety of the public, the safety of our staff members, and availability of our facilities.

Gang Criminal activity are crimes that we take seriously having said that being a part of a gang does not automatically make you a criminal, in fact, there are a number of gang members who are hard working, family orientated, law abiding citizens/permanent residents.  As far as we aware gang patches have been banned from government and public buildings as introduced in 2012 under the Prohibition of Gang Insignia

You do have the freedom to make a complaint irregardless of how separated from the incident you are and below is a link with the correct avenues for you to do so” [emphasis added]

To say I was astounded by this semi-literate poorly punctuated unsigned response to my complaint – it was most definitely not  an “enquiry” – would be an understatement. However its contents – particularly the section in bold (my emphasis) – now confirms my suspicion that the police no longer regard the Mob as primarily a criminal organization.

In  a separate OIA request about possible interactions between Deputy Commissioner Haumaha and gang leader Sonny Fatu,  I asked the following question:

“Is it still the position of the police that the Mongrel Mob is wholly or in part a criminal organization?”

In return, I received a lengthy disquisition on two provisions of the Gang Insignia Act which, read  together, suggest that the simple answer to that straightforward Yes or No question was Yes – unless the police’s view is now different from whoever was the Minister of Police in the National government when the Mob was added to the list of gangs in that Act in 2013.

I thought perhaps I was acting like a typical leftie, and reading more into the answer than was justified, so I have made a follow up request asking for a clear answer to my quite straightforward question.

This latest response to my “enquiry” suggests my suspicions were correct, and that the police no longer regard the members of the Mob as criminals – despite their “code”, and what they need to do to get a patch. I suspect many readers will be astounded to  learn that in the view of the police:

            “…being a part of a gang does not automatically make you a criminal, in fact, there are a number of gang members who are hard working, family orientated, law abiding citizens/permanent residents.”

In my view – and fully appreciating the inherent difficulties created by comparison with the Nazis – this is tantamount to saying “Well, not all the members of the SS were evil, in fact some of them were good family men.” So fucking what? Like the SS, members of the Mob sign up – well, figuratively, most of them are probably illiterate – to a Code that is inherently evil. That Code involves regarding women as “bitches” – their word – whose function is cook clean and fuck, and produce children for which cash can be claimed. They can be abused whenever and however members think fit. It is common knowledge that rape and even murder of women is one sure way to get patched.

As an organization, they reject the societal norms that the rest of us respect, or at least (mostly) abide by – indeed such disdain and disregard is required  of members; it is loosely included in the term “Mongrelish behavior” which all members are expected to exhibit at all times.

It is of course something of a cliché, but if any group of readers – or indeed any group of ordinary citizens – took over a street for three days and behaved as this pack of criminals did, said citizens would be promptly arrested. Such a siege wouldn’t be allowed to last three hours, let alone three days.

So, law abiding citizens, welcome to the Brave New World of policing in 2020, where the law is only strictly applied to members of the middle class, and if there is enough of them in any one place, gang members can pretty much do whatever they like. Have the police been bought off by the gangs? Probably not. Have they being cowed and intimidated into giving them huge amounts of leeway not granted to ordinary citizens? You betcha.

Stuff reports:

Former National Party President Michelle Boag has left the National Party, after being a member for 47 years.

Her resignation comes after revelations she passed on private patient information to National health spokesperson Michael Woodhouse.

Boag had already resigned from several other positions after revelations she passed on private patient information to MP Hamish Walker, who will not stand for re-election this year as a result of the ensuing scandal.

Woodhouse says he deleted the information and did not pass any information on to others. He confirmed the information given to him by Boag was not the source of allegations he made about the lax security measures at the New Zealand border.

It’s wrong to leak private patient information once. It’s even more wrong to leak it multiple times.

Stuff also reports:

A controversial National MP with links to Chinese spy agencies is retiring.

Jian Yang announced on Friday that he would not stand in the 2020 General Election after serving “three rewarding terms” in the National Party caucus.

This is despite announcing in March that he was being reselected as a list-only candidate for the party – in a press release for Chinese-language media only.

“Accordingly, I have informed the Party President that I should not be considered by the regional list ranking committee of the Northern Region in its meeting tomorrow, hence my announcement today.”

Many in National will be relieved at this news. Its not that Dr Yang has even done anything wrong, or been anything other than a loyal MP, but his background has raised issues that frankly are a distraction for National.

So the resignation and the retirement, while messy in themselves, do tidy up some issues that may have caused problems for National in the future.

I’ve published on Patreon on second monthly look at how Governments in Australia, Canada, NZ, the UK and the US are looking in terms of re-election.

The graphical summary is below. The full data and analysis is here.

Not a lot of change in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. A slight deterioration in the UK and a significant slide in the US.

150 prominent authors and journalists and other artists have signed an open letter which is a must read. Signatories include Noam Chomsky.

Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second.

They expand:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

And they conclude:

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. 

Bravo.

The ODT reports:

Andrew Noone has been elected the new chairman of Otago Regional Council against a backdrop of protest.

He is taking over from Marian Hobbs, who was voted out by councillors this morning.

Councillors voted 9-2 in favour of her removal. Ms Hobbs abstained.

Mr Noone, her replacement, was then chosen as chairman. He was the only nominee. Ten councillors supported his appointment and two abstained.

Being a Council Chair is a very different skillset to being a Minister. You need to be able to built trust in a team, and persuade people – not bully them, and go behind their backs to the Minister.

The PM’s Chief Science Advisor has a site on the cannabis referendum. It isn’t an advocacy site, but has lots of useful and interesting info – especially the FAQs.

Stuff reports:

Rio Tinto has said it will close the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter.

The company said in an announcement on Thursday it would start planning for the eventual closure of New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS) following a strategic review which “showed the business is no longer viable given high energy costs and a challenging outlook for the aluminium industry”.

The closure would result in the direct loss of 1000 jobs, with 1600 jobs indirectly connected to the smelter also under threat, the company said.

This is devastating news to the families affected. 1,000 jobs lost is huge anywhere, but especially so in Southland where there are not as many alternative employers. The flow on effects will be significant.

I’m glad the Government didn’t do a subsidy. if a business is unprofitable, a subsidy doesn’t make it profitable. It just transfers wealth from profitable businesses to unprofitable ones.

There is a small silver lining for the rest of NZ, as the surplus of electricity should lead to cheaper power prices.

But that is minor compared to the devastation this causes in Southland. It might have been inevitable, but it doesn’t make it any less painful.

What a pity that the Government has spend such a huge proportion of its $3 billion provincial growth fund in Northland and such a tiny proportion in Southland. Of course NZ First are not trying to win a seat in Southland.

Auckland Council released:

The Colmar Brunton survey was conducted independently to achieve a representative outcome from a cross section of Aucklanders and showed 89 per cent support for a rates increase, with 38 per cent of those surveyed supporting a 3.5 per cent general rates increase and 51 per cent supporting a 2.5 per cent general rates increase.

Any journalist who repeats this claim should be shot. Well not shot, but taught to check the source material.

The respondents in the survey were only given two options:

• 2.5% average general rates increase
• 3.5% average general rates increase

It’s no fucking surprise 89% picked one of the two options. There were no other options!!!

To claim 89% support a rates increase when you only gave them a choice of 2.5% or 3.5% is like claiming 89% of Aucklanders have said they support apartment buildings of at least 25 stories after asking them if they want 25 story apartment buildings or 35 story apartment buildings.

They misrepresentation of the Colmar Brunton research is appalling. It is basically a lie. You can not claim what the Council claimed.

Aucklanders should be angry that their Council lies to them, and treats them as idiots.

Meet Peter Atkinson. Late last year he drove while intoxicated. He drove at high speeds and weaving between lanes. He refused his passenger’s repeated requests to stop. At an intersection he hit a woman on a motor scooter, killing her. She leaves behind a husband of 45 years, three sons and grandchildren. He took off and tried to clean his car of her blood.

Atkinson is aged 42. He has 11 children to five women. He also has 40 convictions including drink driving, child sex offending and family violence. He’s been to prison five times.

He got just 56 months prison for killing someone. The only bright spot is that this be served without parole (otherwise could be out in 19 months) as it is his second strike.

Atkinson is the sort of recidivist that three strikes is aimed at.

Radio NZ reports:

The government has released a major new report which is touting Manukau Harbour as the preferred option for relocating the Port of Auckland. …

The report by economic consultancy Sapere considered five relocation options; Northport, Manukau, the Firth of Thames, the Port of Tauranga and a shared increase in capacity at both Northport and the Port of Tauranga.

Manukau Harbour was the highest ranked option, although consenting could be problematic.

I’d like Ports of Auckland to transition away from the waterfront, as I think the opportunity cost of having that prime land as a port is huge.

But having no Port at all in Auckland is basically bonkers. It’s our largest population centre and the idea that all the cargo should be dropped off two to three hours away is lunacy.

So Manukau Harbour has always seemed to me to be the preferred alternative.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has welcomed the independent Sapere report, published today, which shows that neither Northport nor the Port of Tauranga are viable options for relocating the Ports of Auckland in the long-term.

“The Sapere report completely backs up my concerns and concerns raised by Auckland Council since the start of the Upper North Island port study led by Wayne Brown,” Goff said.

“The Brown report started with a conclusion – wanting to move the Ports of Auckland to Northport – and worked backwards. It failed to engage with stakeholders and was quite frankly a shoddy opinion piece not based on facts,” he said.

Goff is right on this one. The Brown report was a conclusion seeking a justification. The Sapere report is a truly independent analysis.

Hamish Walker has resigned as National’s candidate for Southland. This is the right decision.

It is worth noting how quickly Muller dealt with this, compared to Ardern with her Ministers.

• Walker resigned two days after Muller made aware of what he did
• Meka Whaitiri – sacked 22 days after Ardern aware of assault allegations
• Clare Curran – sacked from Cabinet 150 days after Ardern aware she misled Parliament
• David Clark – resignation accepted 88 days after he breaches his own lockdown rules
• Phil Twyford =- still there!

One focus now will be on who will replace Walker as National’s candidate for Southland. I’ve written on Patreon on who I see as the three leading candidates.

The BBC reports:

Books by pro-democracy figures have been removed from public libraries in Hong Kong in the wake of a controversial new security law.

The works will be reviewed to see if they violate the new law, the authority which runs the libraries said.

The legislation targets secession, subversion and terrorism with punishments of up to life in prison.

Opponents say it erodes the territory’s freedoms as a semi-autonomous region of China. Beijing rejects this.

Hong Kong’s sovereignty was handed back to China by Britain in 1997 and certain rights were supposed to be guaranteed for at least 50 years under the “one country, two systems” agreement.

Since the security law came into effect on Tuesday, several leading pro-democracy activists have stepped down from their roles. One of them – one-time student leader and local legislator Nathan Law – has fled the territory.

At least nine books have become unavailable or marked as “under review”, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper. They include books authored or co-authored by Joshua Wong, a prominent pro-democracy activist, and pro-democracy politician Tanya Chan.

On Saturday, Mr Wong tweeted that the new law “imposes a mainland-style censorship regime” on Hong Kong, calling it “one step away from … actual book banning”.

I thunk this shows how repressive the regime has become. I once had hopes for China moving along the path of greater economic and personal freedom. But they have clearly become more authoritarian in the last few years, and we need to recalibrate our policies towards them.

Newshub reports:

Air New Zealand is going to “put a temporary hold on new bookings” to align with the Government’s managed isolation facilities which are currently housing thousands of people. 

Housing Minister Megan Woods, in charge of managed isolation facilities, said she met with Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran to discuss ways to jointly manage the big growth in Kiwis coming home. 

“Air New Zealand has agreed to put a temporary hold on new bookings in the short term, as well as looking at aligning daily arrivals with the capacity available at managed isolation facilities,” Dr Woods said on Tuesday. 

The Government is choosing to align this the wrong way.

Citizens have a right to return home.

The Government should be ensuring we have enough isolation facilities to match the demand from Kiwis returning home.

Instead they are restricting the right of Kiwis to return home, to match the isolation facilities.

The Herald reports:

The National Party board is meeting today to decide the fate of the MP who leaked Covid-19 patient details and leader Todd Muller wants Hamish Walker out.

Muller has written to the party’s board asking them to remove Walker from the party, RNZ reports.

Mullers says there needed to be consequences for the leak and his advice to Walker was to “think deeply about what the honourable next step is”.

Muller told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Yardley that he was informed Monday lunchtime that Walker was the leaker and after the inquiry was announced, made it clear Walker had to co-operate.

He then sought legal advice and once receiving that, made it public.

Last night, Walker and former National Party president Michelle Boag confessed to being behind the massive privacy breach of Covid-19 patient information.

Muller wrote to the National Party board last night outlining concerns about Walker’s judgment and it was meeting today.

“He’s displayed some serious lack of judgment.”

“I’ve made it very, very clear how unacceptable his behaviour was and there was an expectation that this information was to be made public and that he co-operates with the inquiry,” Muller said.

Walker hasn’t given Muller any indication yet whether he will step aside as National’s Clutha-Southland candidate, he told Newstalk ZB.

Muller said he couldn’t be precise around when the board would release their decision as it was their process.

Muller said he’s lost confidence in Walker.

It’s good to see Muller acting strongly on this. There is huge anger within the party at what Walker did.

Sadly for Walker, I don’t think he can recover from this. All MPs will make mistakes, and we should tolerate human error. For example his release on the potential housing in the South Island of returning NZers was clumsy, but that was clearly recoverable from.

But to leak health details of patients to the media is intolerable. And to also be undertaking such an activity as a lone agent, rather than seeking advice from senior colleagues and staff (who would have told him not to do it), means a fatal loss of confidence.

And allowing the leader and health spokesperson to condemn the leak, without telling them he was the leaker, was beyond the pale.

So Muller is right in seeking the board to consider voiding his candidacy (which the board can do).

The Herald reports:

The Government has promised not to hike ACC levies for businesses and motorists until at least 2022, in a bid to cushion the Covid-19 blow for New Zealanders.

ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said this was a “prudent decision,” given the uncertain nature of New Zealand’s economic outlook.

“It provides some certainty to businesses and other levy payers and gives ACC more time to reliably assess the impact of Covid-19 on its finances.”

Work and earners’ levies will remain at the current levels until March 31, 2022; motor vehicle levies won’t be adjusted until June 30 the same year.

This is a very good decision. It is madness to increase taxes and compulsory levies during a recession. This is why rates and petrol tax shouldn’t increase either.

On the other hand we have the Greens proposing the largest tax hikes in history, during a recession.

Stuff reports:

Under-fire National MP Hamish Walker has admitted to passing on the private details of Covid-19 patients to media, which were leaked to him by former party president Michelle Boag.

Walker said he did this to expose Government shortcomings and he has been advised that what he did was not criminal.

But he has apologised to those involved and National leader Todd Muller has stripped him of his portfolios.

Former National Party president Michelle Boag said in a statement on Tuesday that she had passed the information to Walker, which she had received in her role as the acting chief executive of the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust.

“I very much regret my actions and did not anticipate that Hamish would choose to send it on to some media outlets but I am grateful that the media involved have chosen not to publish the 18 names that were contained within it,” Boag said in a statement.

She has resigned as acting chief executive of the trust as a result.

I’m astonished by the staggeringly bad judgment shown by both Michelle and Hamish.

Under no circumstances should Michelle have sent that spreadsheet to Hamish, and under no circumstances should he have sent it to the media. It has private health information in it, being the names of people with Covid-19.

If the desire was to highlight that this information was being sent around in an insecure manner, then they could have done that without actually passing on the actual spreadsheet. You could take a screenshot of it, and black out any personal details.

Again this is really really bad judgment and reflects very poorly on those involved.