A Canterbury man was five times over the drink driving limit travelling about 200km/h in a suburban street when a fiery car smash killed him, a coroner has found.

Timothy Joshua (TJ) Walker died at the scene after his Ford Falcon car failed to take a slight bend, flipped, smashed into a brick wall and caught fire in Hampstead, Ashburton, at 3am on May 19, 2018.

The 24-year-old electrician was not wearing a seatbelt. 

He was five times over the legal limit. He was driving at four times the speed limit, and he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.

If it weren’t for the fact he killed himself, he would have been eligible for being charged with vehicular homicide. His actions were almost guaranteed to kill.

Steven Joyce writes:

The Government’s half-yearly update this week shows that by 2022 they’ll have collected at least $10 billion more tax than was predicted by Treasury before the last election.

Unfortunately, they are spending it even faster. The amount they are going to spend across the four years to 2022, according to official government numbers, is now $19b more than was in their own fiscal plan prior to the election. Alert readers will recall much wailing and gnashing of teeth when someone had the temerity to suggest they would spend $11b more than their own plan. We are now well past that point.  

Yep Labour have blown out their own fiscal plan by $19 billion – twice what Joyce pointed out was the likely hole.

Debt is now predicted to top out at $78b, as against the $68b they predicted at election time two years ago, and an expected surplus of $6b for the current year is now projected to be a deficit.

And this deficit isn’t due to the extra infrastructure spending announced a few weeks ago – that won’t impact the surplus for years. The deficit is purely runaway expenditure.

All the key performance indicators that measure the effectiveness of government spending are currently going backwards. State Housing wait lists, poverty numbers and numbers on welfare are all growing. The big hospital metrics like emergency wait times and elective surgery numbers are deteriorating. The performance of our kids in school relative to the rest of the world is continuing to decline, and tertiary enrolments are down despite a year’s free tuition. There has also been no discernible economic uplift in regional New Zealand to match the government’s fine rhetoric, beyond what was already occurring.

Poverty up. Homelessness up. Welfare up. Emissions up. Hospital waiting times up.

Let’s be under no illusion as to how quickly the infrastructure pipeline has been run down. There are currently eleven major roading projects, all started before 2017, that are building 120km of new and upgraded four lane highways around this country. Nine of them are due to finish before the end of next year.  

From that point in time there is literally nothing, no large new road projects, rail projects, or anything else to replace them.

Hence the panicked announcement.

Here’s how Duncan Garner grades the Ministers for 2019:

• B+: Jacinda Ardern, Winston Peters
• B: Grant Robertson, David Parker, Megan Woods, Chris Hipkins, Kris Faafoi, Kelvin Davis
• B-: Shane Jones
• D: Iain Lees-Galloway
• E: Phil Twyford

Steve Elers writes at Stuff:

The Māori Council claim acknowledged that “existence of radio waves was discovered by Heinrich Hertz [a German physicist] in about 1886”, but “whether discovered or not, the [Māori] chiefs and tribes had absolute chieftainship over all resources, discovered and undiscovered, in New Zealand in 1840”.

So, a German physicist discovered radio waves, in Germany, about 1886, so therefore Māori should own 5G mobile technology today because the spectrum was a resource, albeit undiscovered, before or at the signing of the treaty? That’s just as nonsensical as the Waitangi Tribunal’s report that found: “The spectrum is a taonga to be shared by the tribes and by all mankind.” A taonga. Really?

Being Māori, of course I’d like to see Māori up and down the country reap the benefits of ownership, for example, home ownership and business ownership. But, no matter how I look at it, I cannot see a logical, rational argument for the Government to give “Māori” a slice of 5G spectrum. Moreover, government actions such as this feed into the hysteria that Māori are given preferential treatment and handouts when in fact your Māori neighbours and work-mates won’t see a cent. Who then benefits?

To suggest that the meaning of taonga in 1840 included the then undiscovered radio spectrum is farcical.

Stuff reports:

Large government departments have reported increased spending on consultants and contractors, a year after the government promised to reduce it.

State Services Minister Chris Hipkins promised in mid-2018 the government would “reduce the reliance on expensive consultants and contractors, saving taxpayers many millions of dollars a year”.

At that time, the total spend reported by 22 departments was about $550m.

Now, annual reviews at 13 of the 16  largest departments and agencies show spending on contractors and consultants increased a total 14 percent in a single year to $720m.

The year of delivery keeps on delivering.

The Herald reports:

Deputy Speaker and National MP Anne Tolley has announced she won’t be running for her long-held East Coast electorate next year and will instead rely on coming into Parliament the party’s list.

This, according to Tolley, is because she wants to be the Speaker of the House if National wins next year’s election.

“The role of Speaker would require full-time attention. Given that, it wouldn’t be fair to continue to be an electorate MP.”

Anne would be a great Speaker, so this decision makes sense for her.

She has an 4,807 majority in East Coast. Labour’s Kiri Allan has a lot of profile so National will need to select a good candidate to be confident of retaining the seat with Anne going list-only.

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal by Mark Lundy for his murder of his wife and daughter. Some extracts:

• the location of the central nervous system tissue and large quantities of Mrs Lundy’s DNA in precisely the same places on the shirt is very strong evidence that the tissue came from Mrs Lundy’s brain
• we think it very unlikely that Mrs Lundy sneezed mucus onto the shirt at precisely the same two places as the central nervous system tissue and the blood were found
• Amber’s body was found in the doorway of the bedroom in which Christine was murdered. It seems likely that she had entered the room and was attacked as she fled. Very small particles of her blood were found when the ESR took tape lifts from the shirt
• We consider that the paint fragments support the Crown case that the murder weapon was a tool bearing blue and orange paint, a hallmark of Mr Lundy’s.

And in summary:

We find that the central nervous system tissue on the shirt came from Mrs Lundy’s brain and its presence there is not explained by contamination in police or ProPath custody. The evidence establishes these facts beyond reasonable doubt. It offers no alternative explanation consistent with innocence.

Game over.

Lundy’s non-parole period has now expired, but as he continues to deny responsibility I doubt he will get parole anytime soon.

Josie Pagani writes in the Herald:

Jeremy Corbyn promised the skies. Free tertiary fees, nationalised railways, free money, free broadband and a four-day week. Who wouldn’t vote for that?

At some point, the popular components of this manifesto lost as awareness grew that he couldn’t remotely deliver it all. Labour’s inability to prioritise and make tough calls, or voice a coherent message on anything, let alone Brexit, showed Corbyn to be weak and unable to lead.

Pagani gets a key point. Some policies individually may poll as popular (who wouldn’t want free broadband) but collectively voters are not stupid and know that promises have to be funded.

But more than anything else, it’s a culture war. Working people in working towns and cities knew exactly what side Corbyn’s Labour Party was on: Palestine was more important than Preston.

And in NZ it is applause at international conferences rather than our towns and provincial cities.

It used to be that people joined the Labour Party to make their lives better off. Now they join to make someone else’s life better off.

What a great analysis. So true.

NZ Labour’s red wall has already crumbled in the provinces. Otaki, New Plymouth, Gisborne, Taupō should all be Labour-held seats. We need to look at the corrosive effects of a culture war. Environmentalism over equality. A sugar tax over a capital gains tax. Climate change over child poverty. Keep cups over mugs.

Corbyn is a warning about building support in liberal urban centres, but losing it in poorer regions.

Labour in the past has held the provincial seats of Rotorua, New Plymouth, Gisborne, Taupo, Whanganui, Wairarapa, Tukituki, Nelson and Invercargill.

Trevor Mallard had a bit of a lash at the Government in the adjournment debate over its use of urgency. He noted:

There’s been very nearly 30 hours of urgency and I want to make the point that probably having 28 hours of urgency was unnecessary if proper organisation and planning had occurred.

So the Speaker is saying 90% of the use of urgency was unnecessary if the Government had been more competent and planned ahead.

I want to say that there were only four hours of extended sittings, which, in my view, is a wasted opportunity to give better consideration of bills.

That’s also a damning stat. The Government can automatically take four hours of extended sitting a week, so could do 120 hours. And they only took four. National did masses of extended sittings to progress Treaty bills and other non controversial bills.

The almost total lack of extended sittings (which were meant to replace urgency) again shows how hopeless the Government has been in having a legislative programme. On several occasions they’ve had to filibuster their own bills as they weren’t ready for the next bil!

Newsroom reports:

Light rail along Auckland’s Dominion Rd is further behind than many might have thought, Dileepa Fonseka reports

Bids currently being considered for Auckland’s light rail project aren’t for a “specific solution” the Ministry of Transport’s CEO has said.

The CDPQ/NZ Infra consortium and NZTA submitted their competing bids for Auckland Light Rail last week but Ministry of Transport CEO Peter Mersi told a Transport and Infrastructure select committee on Thursday that the bids weren’t about routes or modes but the way the project would be administered.

“At this stage this process is about deciding who the preferred delivery partner will be not the specific solution.”

The revelation has taken commentators who have been watching the light rail saga by surprise. Greater Auckland editor Matt Lowrie said it was a “bizarre process”, urban geographer Ben Ross said “it seems the project is going in reverse”, while National Party Transport spokesman Chris Bishop said it was an indication that “we’re well away from actually building anything”. 

This is so Mickey Mouse.

Normally what you do is work out what you want, and then go out to tender to select a partner to build it.

This Government is selecting a partner to build something, and then once they selected them, will decide what that something is.

Almost 2,000 people have voted in the 2019 Kiwiblog Awards. The winners are:

• National MP of the year – Chris Bishop wins with 39% followed by Simon Bridges on 31%, Judith Collins 22% and Paul Goldsmith on 8%
• Labour MP of the Year – Kris Faafoi wins again with 39% followed by Phil Twyford 24%, Trevor Mallard 20% and Jacinda Ardern 17%
• Minor Party MP of the Year – David Seymour gets a landslide majority of 86% followed by 8% for Shane Jones and 6% for Winston Peters
• MP of the Year is no contest with David Seymour on 90% and Jacinda Ardern 10%.

Congratulations to the winners, and the runners up.

Radio NZ reports:

Sir Ron Brierley’s former deputy is staggered the New Zealand business tycoon has been arrested and charged in Australia for possessing child abuse material, he says.

Sir Ron, 82, was stopped at Sydney International Airport on Tuesday morning ahead of a flight to Fiji.

Border officials found child pornography on his laptop and electronic storage devices, leading police to lay six charges of possessing child abuse material.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, they had been acting on an anonymous tip and found more than 200,000 images and 512 videos.

That’s shocking and disgusting. If correct, that level of material suggests a very strong addiction.

Like most I was staggered when I heard the news. But maybe I shouldn’t have been:

In her 1990 biography Brierley, the Man Behind the Corporate Legend, Yvonne van Dongen wrote that he frequently travelled to Asia – mostly to Thailand – where he enjoyed encounters with young women – often teenage prostitutes.

“Brierley seems completely comfortable with this aspect of his life and showed no signs of embarrassment when teased about his frequent trips to Thailand,” the book says.

Teenage can mean anything from 13 to 19, which is a big difference. But as it is Thailand, I suspect it may have been towards the younger and illegal end.

Stuff reports:

Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel says she regrets not taking independent advice on her election return, but laughed off suggestions of an inquiry. 

Dalziel updated her election return on Wednesday with the names of six donors who made contributions over $1500 at a dinner and auction event in July.

She said on Thursday she took husband Rob Davidson’s advice on what she was required to declare.

The candidate is responsible for understanding the law, and signing off their declaration. Blaming it on your husband’s advice is naff.

Would a male politician get away with blaming an incorrect donation declaration on their wife?

Dalziel has been a candidate in eight parliamentary elections and two mayoral elections. One can’t claim ignorance of the rules.

And this is not a minor breach. One donation was for $17,000 – which is more than ten times the disclosure limit of $1,500.

The US House of Representatives has voted to impeach Donald Trump by 230 to 197 on the 1st count of Abuse of Power and 229 to 198 on Obstruction of Power.

The only two other President to be impeached were Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Also Richard Nixon was about to be impeached before he resigned.

How justified has each impeachment been? Here’s my scoring:

• Andrew Johnson 2/10. All he did was ignore a clearly unconstitutional law saying he couldn’t fire a Cabinet Secretary. It should have been resolved in the Courts. Other charges were making speeches inciting hostility to Congress. Ridicolous.
• Richard Nixon 8/10. He covered up a criminal break in designed to help him politically, and used his office to try and do so.
• Bill Clinton 6/10. He lied under oath. That is a serious offence. However it was about something basically unrelated to his office – a sexual affair. So a line call, but on balance a reasonable impeachment.
• Donald Trump 9/10. Using your office to suspend congressionally approved military aid to a valuable US ally to pressure them to smear your domestic opponent is as close to a 10/10 as you can get. Worse unlike Clinton and Nixon who admit wrongdoing, Trump thinks it was fine.

Sadly the partisan nature of US politics today means the trial in the Senate is a formality. I supported Clinton’s impeachment not because he was a Democrat but because he lied under oath. Trump’s actions are so much worse I don’t see how anyone can support the Clinton impeachment but not Trump’s. Sure you can oppose both or support both, but you’d have to be wildly partisan to support Clinton’s and oppose Trump’s.

Feel free to give your own scores in the comments as to how you would score out of 10 the validity of the four “impeachments”.

TVNZ report:

Middlemore Foundation chief executive Sandra Geange said the National Burn Centre team, which is currently caring for eight of the 14 patients, has been stretched.

She made an appeal for donations to help “ease the immense pressure” while victims are undergoing lengthy and painful treatments, with many of them having to endure long periods in isolation due to a very high risk of infection.

“Middlemore Foundation are asking for money over goods to support this appeal, due to time and resource constraints. This is to speed up the process and provide support as fast as possible where needed.”

Unbelievable. The Government says it has spent far more on health, yet a public hospital has to call for donations to cover a core service of emergency treatment.

Only this Government could increase funding yet deliver worse outcomes – we have seen cancer waiting times increase, ED waiting times increase and vaccination rates drop.

It is not unusual for hospitals to ask for donations for new facilities such as a new children’s hospital. But I can’t recall before a hospital having to ask for donations to fund an emergency treatment service.

There is something wrong if the Government bureaucracy is so hidebound that Middlemore has to do this.

TVNZ report:

Police have now charged Thomas, 81, with sex offences including rape and indecent assault.

He has entered pleas of not guilty to the charges, which are historic, and has elected for trial by jury.

Presumably this has nothing to do with the Crewe murders, yet nevertheless this may make some people wonder about these still unsolved murders.

The maximum penalty for rape is life imprisonment. 

No it isn’t. Rape is a sub-set of sexual violation and S128B(1) of the Crimes Act 1962 states:

Every one who commits sexual violation is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 20 years.

Mind you at 82 years of age, it may be the same thing – if convicted.

Note this is a jury trial, so don’t speculate about guilt or innocence around this particular case.

An excellent article at the Sydney Morning Herald about Topham Guerin and their role in Boris Johnson’s election victory. They managed to produce the Love Actually take off in under 24 hours which is impressive, especially as even Hugh Grant commented it had high production values.

Also interesting tactics such as deliberate spelling mistakes or using Comic Sans font purely so morons on Twitter would jump on them and highlight them, this spreading their underlying message virally.

Stuff reports:

The Labour Party inquiry into a former staffer’s alleged sexual assault found the allegation could not be substantiated.

The report, released on Wednesday, found inconsistencies in the alleged victim’s versions of events – particularly with regards to an email sent to the party.

It could not establish other allegations of sexual assault against the staffer but could substantiate complaints about “aggressive and overbearing” conduct, but this did not meet a criminal standard of bullying.

What a surprise.

Stuff understands a sexual assault counsellor told the prime minister’s office on Wednesday that at least two of the young people who participated in the review were at risk of harming themselves, and should be given more time to look at the report before it was released publicly.

The complainant said she was first alerted to the report’s imminent release in an email from a solicitor at 7.30pm on Tuesday. 

She said she and others in the survivor group asked the solicitor to go back to Labour and plead for more time. 

“We didn’t have enough notice,” the woman told Stuff.

Through tears, the woman said she was frantically worried about one of the other complainants, who had “gone AWOL” and had not been in contact with anyone since reading the report.

The woman said she had been told that any release process would be done with full collaboration with the complainant group.

“They haven’t done that. They have said this is what we are going to say, and they’ve gone ahead and done it anyway.”

Labour – the party that cares.

It was total coincidence of course they released it the day of the press gallery party.

Voting is now open for the 2019 Kiwiblog Awards.

The contest for National MP of the Year is between

• Chris Bishop for scoring rungs against the government no matter what portfolio he has
• Simon Bridges for leading National to be on the verge of making Labour a one term Government
• Judith Collins for exposing the Kiwibuild disaster and forcing Twyford out
• Paul Goldsmith for highlighting the Government’s wasteful spending

The contest for Labour MP of the Year is between

• Jacinda Ardern for her leadership in times of disaster and keeping the Government popular
• Kris Faafoi for all round competence
• Trevor Mallard for protection services
• Phil Twyford for services to the 2020 campaign

The contest for Minor Party MP of the Year is between:

• Shane Jones for constantly displaying he is unsackable
• Winston Peters for constantly showing where the power lies
• David Seymour for making ACT relevant again

Finally for overall 2019 MP of the Year, it is between:

• Jacinda Ardern for her leadership and international profile
• David Seymour for services to the terminally ill, free speech and gun owners

You can vote at this link, or embedded below.

A guest post by Wellington City East Ward Councillor, Sean Rush:

During the Wellington City Council election campaign it became very clear to me that the number one priority for the Eastern Ward was for Mt Vic to be de-congested.  So I did quite a bit of research on the Duplicate Mt. Vic tunnel project in preparation for the Wellington City Council meet held last week.  There we approved funding of the indicative business cases which will report back to us the optimal sequencing of the projects.  The National party petition was launched a day or so before this meeting and is a simplified call to get on with it and extend the motorway to the airport. 

But the project is more than roading.  It will also include enhanced walking and cycling paths, consistent with our objectives to make our city ‘walkable’ and deliver options for ‘mode shift.’  The evening traffic bottleneck would be pushed back to the Miramar cutting but will be significantly reduced by the traffic exiting to the airport, the businesses in Rongotai/Lyall Bay and residents in Kilbirnie and Strathmore.  The waterfront traffic along Aotea Quay and all around to Evans Bay  will also be thinned as will the morning traffic that is now coming over Roseneath.  The morning bottleneck might disappear, and permanently once the proposed mass rapid transit system is up and running.

So it is hard to fathom why extending the motorway further is such an emotive subject – motorways the world over go to the airport, why not in New Zealand?  The airport opened in 1959 and an extension was first mooted in the 1960s when consultants, De Leuw Cather from San Francisco, recommended extending the motorway via a second Mt Victoria tunnel.  De Leuw Cather also recommended a rail option from the Ferry Terminal through the city and out to Newtown, noting that the cost would be mitigated by the uplift in land value expected along the proposed route.  So the issues and themes are not new, but have been exacerbated by the increase in population since the 1960s and that is going to get worse as the airport’s business expands and we find homes for 80,000 more residents.  We can no longer dither.

Over the decades, NZTA has quietly acquired properties all along the proposed route.  Parents of kids at the Hataitai kindergarten by the tunnel were told in 1971 that construction might mean they would have to move.  The Basin Bridge decision set the project back.  In the meantime roading became political as a consequence of the left leaning Coalition Government’s new focus on trains and budget cuts for the roads that the previous, right leaning, Government had planned.  This politicisation is apparent now at the local body level.  I called for a resolution that officials communicate early opportunities by which we could consider expediting the Mt Vic work, a fairly innocuous plea for my constituents in the East.  But I was voted down by what is regarded as the ‘left leaning’ block.  A subsequent motion similarly called on officials to signal opportunities for early action on bus priorities passed unanimously.

The petition is not calling for a binary outcome – a road or a train, just that the road be prioritised.   LGWM includes mass rapid transit, ultimately to Miramar.  The question is what comes first?  The Treasury and MoT both point out that addressing congestion first at Mt Vic and the Basin will relieve the disruption caused when the train/tram is rolled out – I can’t fault the common sense there.  Already the limited capacity of the Terrace Tunnel increases the traffic volumes along the waterfront. Are we seriously going to leave the current congestion, and close off lanes along the waterfront and along Adelaide Road?  We will be queuing back to Petone. 

Ultimately we will get the indicative business cases back in 2021 but my fear (and expectation) is that the politics will rule in which sequence these projects are undertaken, not common sense. Whoever holds the Treasury benches in early 2021 will determine what happens.  If National, the tunnel goes first, then mass rapid transit; if the Coalition Government, then mass rapid transit goes first and I expect the second tunnel will likely be shelved past 2030 and possibly indefinitely.

It presents very clear options for voters in the Eastern Ward and for Wellingtonians.

As Sean says, having the motorway extend all the way to the airport is hardly revolutionary. It’s common sense, and is what almost every other capital city in the world has.

The other key point is that if you try and build mass transit out East before you extend or double the Mt Vic tunnel, then construction works will grind the eastern suburbs to a halt. By doing the Mt Vic tunnel first, you make it easier to build the mass transit.

Stuff reports:

Cigarette smuggling is booming, with Customs warning that organised crime syndicates are now muscling in because of the huge profits to be made.

The high cost of a packet of cigarettes here, and the relatively low cost in nearby Asian countries makes New Zealand a prime target.

While ethnic Chinese and Korean groups have driven the trade, Customs’ lead investigator says trans-national crime gangs and local gangs are now running cigarette smuggling in parallel with their usual drug operations.

NZ should become a global case study in the perils of hiking excise tax too far. It first led to a massive increase in dairy robberies as cigarettes became so valuable they were worth stealing, and then led to organised crime moving into tobacco smuggling.

When we confronted the man as he prepared to complete the transaction, he said he was paying cash for the cigarettes from another Korean he contacted via Kakao Talk, and insisted he would pay GST on the transactions. He said he was paying less than $175 a carton for his supply, but wouldn’t say how much, or give his own name or the name of his supplier. He said it was his 34th such street sale and he was a New Zealand citizen on a sickness benefit.

On a benefit and selling smuggled tobacco.

Bruce Berry, Customs’ national investigations manager, wasn’t surprised. He said Chinese and Korean communities were the main source of the illicit trade, and much of it was conducted almost openly on social media. Customs were battling against a community belief that cigarette smuggling was not a serious offence.

Berry said the price of cigarettes was now high enough that the profit margin for smugglers was appealing enough to attract organised crime.

“It’s been a consistent message from Customs for a while now that we’ll see an increase in this [smuggling] as we reach that tipping point,” he said. “We are well past it now, and it [tobacco] is a viable commodity in its own right.

The lesson is if tax increases become too punitive, you set off the black market.

Customs seized 1.8m cigarettes and around $2m cash and also restrained multiple properties, luxury cars and bank accounts.

Berry says a conservative estimate of the amount of tax and duty avoided by those involved in Whitethorn would be $16-20m.

This is big business now.

A ten per cent increase in excise duty every year since 2011 has driven New Zealand prices to the second-highest in the South-east Asia/Pacific region, behind only Australia. An average pack might cost $31 in New Zealand, but just $1.62 in Vietnam, $5.29 in China and $6.07 in Korea.

A tobacco industry source said the major companies typically made just a few per cent profit on each cigarette, with three-quarters of the sale price going to the government: “So if you can cut 75 per cent out of your costs, then it can become very lucrative.” Each individual cigarette is worth about $1 to the government.

$1 per cigarette tax!