The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she’s “angry” with the Warehouse Group after it announced at least 1000 jobs will be axed.

The country’s largest retailer, which took almost $52 million from the wage subsidy to cover about 8500 workers, yesterday said it would be closing six more stores and cutting 130 people from its headquarters.

The wage subsidy scheme is due to end tomorrow.

Ardern told RNZ this morning the Warehouse had promoted itself as being “in the community and for the community”.

“I’m angry. If I’m speaking frankly.”

What an appalling thing to say.

The PM personally intervened to ensure The Warehouse was not classified as an essential business and had to stay closed during Level 4.

Almost all retailers have had a huge drop in revenue. If you have less revenue, you can’t afford to employ as many people. This is pretty basic stuff, but I guess the PM knows better.

Herald business editor Hamish Rutherford notes:

Maybe raising the minimum wage in the middle of a pandemic and recession turned out to be a stupid idea after all. Maybe the PM should be angry at herself, not at the businesses who are victims of the recession.

We’re giving taxpayers the opportunity to get to know their MPs beyond photo-ops and party-line speeches. In this episode, Islay Aitchison interviews Melissa Lee MP. 

The Herald reports:

Trade Minister David Parker is accusing the European Union of agricultural protectionism and questioning whether the trading bloc is committed to completing a free-trade deal.

Over the weekend European trade publications revealed details of what they said were being offered by European Union trade negotiators to New Zealand officials for dairy quotas under a possible free-trade agreement.

Although details of the offer are unclear, one commentator said it included tariff rate quotas for 15,000 tonnes of cheese over a decade.

Parker, speaking at a trade event in Wellington on Monday, was scathing, describing the offer as “paltry”. …

Parker said in 2019 the EU exported the equivalent of just under 1kg of cheese to New Zealand for every New Zealander, tariff free.

In contrast, the offer the EU had put on the table would allow New Zealand to export the equivalent of about three grams of cheese for every European Union citizen annually and “even then it’s subject to volume restrictions and highly prohibitive tariffs,” Parker said.

I never expected the EU to offer us anything near a decent agreement. They are hugely protectionistic.

Newshub reports:

Police Minister Stuart Nash took many by surprise this week, stating it was his personal belief that there is no systemic racism in New Zealand Police.

Nash’s statement appears to fly in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, including a recent study which found police are almost twice as likely to send a first-time Māori offender to court than they are a Pākehā offender. 

That study is not evidence of anything. It possibly could be, but it is so general as to be useless.

You see what the study doesn’t compare is first-time offenders by the severity of their offence.

If the study was of (for example) first time burglars and found Maori offenders were 1.8 times to go to court than Pakeha offenders, then that would definitely be strong evidence of bias.

But this study looks at all first time offenders and we do not know if the sort of offences that first time Maori offenders have typically committed are the same sort as first time Pakeha offenders.

If for example 50% of first time Maori offenders have committed a serious violence offence and only 25% of first time Pakeha offenders have done so, that might explain the difference.

Now it is possible there is systematic bias in New Zealand. I’m not denying that possibility. But the study quoted is not evidence of that. What would be useful is a breakdown of the overall prosecution referral rate by type of first offence and ethnicity. That would be useful.

The Government has announced we will move to Covid Level 1 at midnight tonight.

This should mean all restrictions are lifted except around international travel.

It is very pleasing that New Zealand has got through Covid-19 with relatively few cases and lives, and can now concentrate on rebuilding the economy and creating new jobs for those who have lost them.

The Herald reports:

Tamati Coffey has been called out after telling fellow MP Melissa Lee to “stick to your job, love”.

The two television personalities-turned MPs traded barbs at the end of a select committee hearing at Parliament today.

In an exchange captured on audio, National MP Lee suggests to a staffer there should be two microphones when two Ministers appear in front of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

But things get a little heated when Labour’s Coffey weighs in.

“Hey, hey, stick to your job love,” he says. “Ordering around the microphones.”

Lee objects saying “I’m not ordering her, I’m just suggesting.”

“That’s why you work in TV don’t you,” Coffey replies.

“Excuse me, I do have a name, my name is not ‘eh eh eh'” she retorts.

National’s Judith Collins later tweeted about the exchange saying she had to tell Coffey that calling a senior female MP ‘love’ was completely inappropriate.

The usual double standards. If a National MP had said that about a Labour MP, there would have been statements denouncing them from a dozen different groups.

Shane Jones has confirmed he is standing for Northland. No one is surprised by this. He has spent billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money trying to buy the seat.

His electoral record to date is below:

• 2005 – got 24% of the electorate vote in Northland
• 2008 – got 29% of the electorate vote in Northland
• 2011 – got 34% of the electorate vote in Tamaki Makarau
• 2017 – got 19% of the electorate vote in Whangarei

His record to date makes Sue Moroney look like an electoral superstar.

The Herald reports:

Rotorua Lakes councillor Tania Tapsell has today been selected to be the new National Party candidate for the East Coast electorate.

Both former National Party leader Simon Bridges and Rotorua MP Todd McClay made the announcement on their Facebook pages.

Bridges said Tapsell would make “an awesome Member of Parliament”.

McClay offered his “huge congratulations” to Tapsell in his Facebook message.

“Tania is a successful campaigner, hard-working and deeply passionate about the East Coast. She will be a very successful MP for National,” McClay said in his post.

Tapsell is a Rotorua District Councillor and former Labour MP and Mayor Steve Chadwick said:

Chadwick, who has mentored Tapsell since she became a councillor, said she was disappointed she could be losing her on the council.

“I saw her as a future leader for Rotorua and council and I am disappointed but I understand her political ambition and aspirations and we’ve discussed it.”

And a good electoral record:

Tapsell has been the highest-polling candidate on the Rotorua Lakes Council for the past two elections and surpassed even the mayor in vote numbers in 2019.

Tania has worked in tourism, and been employed by BNZ and Deloitte. She is completing a Masters of Management.

Her great uncle was the first Maori Speaker of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell.

National holds East Coast by 4,807 but local Labour List MP Kiri Allan has a high profile and will be a substantive challenger. National needed a great candidate to retain the seat, and it looks like they have found one.

Over 2,500 responses to my survey on how people see major NZ media outlets in terms of political leanings. People could assess them as strongly left leaning, somewhat left leaning, neutral, somewhat right leaning or strongly right leaning. I’ve attributed a score of -100 for strongly left, -50 for somewhat left, 0 for neutral, +50 for somewhat right and +100 for strongly right.

The weighted average for each media outlet, in order from most left to most right is:

1. The Guardian -82
2. Radio New Zealand -80
3. The Spinoff -78
4. Stuff -72
5. One News -62
6. NZ Herald – 59
7. Newshub -51
8. Scoop -46
9. Newsroom -46
10. Interest.co.nz -9
11. NewstalkZB +16
12. NBR +31

The Guardian is known as a explicitly left-wing newspaper. It is shocking (but maybe not surprising) that Radio New Zealand is seem as just as left leaning, making a mockery of the claim of impartiality.

Stuff is seen as more left leaning than the Herald. One News as more left leaning than Newshub.

Interest.co,nz comes closest to neutrality.

NewstalkZB and NBR both seen as right leaning.

Now some may say this means nothing, as the respondents to the survey are not representative of all media consumers. This is correct in terms of the absolute scores, but still tells a story in terms of variation between different outlets.

But we also asked them for their voting history so let’s break it down by that.

Those who say they always vote left say Radio NZ is left leaning, as is the Guardian, The Spinoff and Scoop. They see One News, Stuff and Newshub as fairly neutral. They think the Herald is right leaning.

Those who normally vote left also see Radio NZ as left leaning, along with Stuff.

Those who swing between voting left and right rate the media as follows:

1. The Spinoff -79
2. The Guardian -77
3. Radio NZ -73
4. Stuff -64
5. One News -57
6. NZ Herald -46
7. Newshub -44
8. Newsroom -43
9. Scoop -43
10. Interest.co.nz -8
11. NewstalkZB +23
12. NBR +30

So we do have a problem with media diversity in New Zealand, but not in the way the Government claims.

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.