The End of Life Choice Bill has passed its 2nd reading by 70 votes to 50, which is a healthy margin. I’m very pleased to see it progress. The debate was excellent, as conscience issues often are.

Some of the key speeches. David Seymour:

Finally, I ask what does this House say to the small minority of people who find themselves suffering at the end of their life? Do we require them to suffer on for the morality of others, or do we give them compassion and choice?

Amy Adams:

All of us are affected by our own experiences in this issue. For me, it was watching my mother die a gruesome, painful, and dehumanising death, and it wasn’t because there was a lack of palliative care. It wasn’t because there wasn’t every opportunity and every drug available, and if she’d wanted to spend her last days drugged to the eyeballs, feeling nothing, I’m sure that was possible, but that isn’t what she wanted. What she wanted was to be able to choose exactly when that end would come in the last few days, and that’s really all we were talking about. This was a woman who was proud, independent, intelligent, who knew what she wanted, and the last thing she wanted was to be able to have the ability to choose the time of her death. Instead, we watched her literally get eaten alive from a vicious melanoma and suffer, as I say, in immeasurable ways. There should be the opportunity to work out if we can devise a scheme in which that sort of suffering doesn’t need to happen.

Gerry Brownlee:

I can only think about my own mother, who died a difficult death with her brain cancer. I had to go and tell her what the specialist had discovered when she had the scan, and her options were at that stage no treatment and death perhaps within a month, or to undergo some treatment and life could be extended perhaps as far as 18 months. There was no in-between. It was: choose to live on or choose to go very, very quickly. When I told her that, it was very distressing for me, I have to say, but she just sort of sat up and said, “What, a month?”, and I said “Yep, Mum, it could be a month.” And she said, “Well, bugger that. I’ll have the treatment.” It wasn’t easy; it was awful. But she did it as much from her desire for us to have a farewell, if you like—the last time that we would have with her, the last weeks or months or whatever it was. The treatment that she got, I think, didn’t alleviate all of her pain by any manner or means, but it did give her a degree of comfort, and in the last hours of her life she was not able to experience or was not experiencing that particular pain. I only say that because it is in itself the start of a confusion, because that was her choice.
In this case I don’t think we should have a bill passed into an Act that makes that choice to end a life so much easier than it is at the moment.

Judith Collins:

I’ve talked to many people about this issue. It’s troubled me for a long time, and this year I have been very troubled by it because I’ve felt that, having been opposed to it, I was on the wrong side. I am on the wrong side of it in opposing it. I’m on the right side now, saying that everybody deserves some dignity in their lives.
And I talked to Amy Adams about her mother dying—it is awful to think that people are eaten away by something, losing their face, told that one day they could die when the cancer breaks through to their brain. What a dreadful thing to do, and there are options. Somebody shouldn’t have to say, like my dad did, “I have so much pain, I need morphine.” and to have his children saying, “Please give my father more morphine.” because that’s what he wanted. I would do it again. It’s the right thing to do, and it preserved his dignity, and I am very shocked and saddened to hear that so many people don’t have that.

Greg O’Connor:

Now, we all will have an incredible number of pressures on us. I myself am a practising Catholic. You don’t think I get a bit of pressure from my mother when I go home? My father spent six years in the seminary. You don’t think that memory doesn’t fit long? However, what I have been elected to do here is to do the absolute right thing. So, in sitting through the submissions that we did—the thousands of them—as we went around the country, we had everyone who stood before us, who spoke before us, came from a very considered position. They all came from an emotional position. But what they all didn’t have the advantage of is doing what we as a select committee did: to hear the different sides.
I have spent my life before this place as a detective, and one thing you learn as a police officer and as a detective is that there are always two sides. And I implore those who have made up their mind to actually have a look at the other side of the argument, because there has been much disinformation about this out there

Chris Bishop:

I believe the law should allow for a dignified death. I believe palliative care is a wonderful thing, but it cannot end all pain and suffering. The status quo actively denies terminally ill people the choice of dying at a time of their choosing with their autonomy recognised and dignity affirmed, and instead gives them an invidious choice: take their own life—often dangerously—or suffer needlessly. I believe we can and must do better.

Andrew Little:

This debate about this bill is not about alternatives to or substitutes for palliative care. I think we have to be very careful in this debate that we don’t set up these false alternatives. Of course palliative care has a place and will continue to have a place in the healthcare of those who are suffering and dying in this country. So it is not about an alternative to or a substitute for palliative care. This is not a debate about suicide, in the sense that we understand that those who are in a state of despair or depression or who have just given up because of circumstances of their life and who can see no further way forward—that is not what this bill is about. This bill is about those people whose health condition is such that they have no future. They are terminal, but, more than that, the quality of their life has gone. They have their faculties, they are capable of making up their mind, they are capable of making a decision, and the question is whether we should allow the law as it is at the moment to stand in their way to make a decision of their choice about how they wish to meet their inevitable end.

Nikki Kaye:

But the fundamental reasons why I support this bill are around compassion. Ultimately, what this is about is that the overwhelming evidence shows there are a group of people who suffer. There are, fundamentally, a group of people for which they suffer, they’re in pain. The overwhelming evidence shows there are also a group of people who commit suicide in a very violent way because they do not believe in the current law and the process that is in front of them.

David Clark:

My personal experiences, like I think everyone in this House, have shaped my view. During my childhood, my grandmother attempted to take her own life many times because she felt a burden on society as someone who struggled at times with a mental illness. My most fundamental concern with this legislation is that sanctioning euthanasia makes it easier for vulnerable people to feel that the most appropriate option is to take their own life, and that it is very difficult to ensure protection sufficient to preclude this ever happening. 

I’ve included speeches for and against to show what the debate was like. Again it was one of the better debates you get in the House.

The vote was a conscience vote, but the split by party was:

• National 18 for, 37 against
• Labour 33 for, 13 against
• NZ First 9 for
• Greens 8 for
• ACT 1 for

The committee stage will commence on Wednesday 31 July. I suspect it will take two sitting days so continue on Wednesday 21 August. They key challenge will be considering amendments which will see a final law which will get at least 61 votes at third reading. This will mean including a referendum and narrowing eligibility to those with a terminal illness.

News.com.au reports:

Israel Folau says he has no ill will towards his critics, who have “every right” to express their own beliefs and opinions.
Folau’s new fundraiser has raised more than $1.7 million, putting him more than halfway to his goal to build a multi-million war chest to fund his unfair dismissal case.
The appeal hosted by the Australian Christian Lobby has now amassed more than Folau’s successful GoFundMe campaign raised in four days, before the fundraising website shut it down on Monday.

I’m not surprised.

Folau’s social media post was stupid, but the reaction has been excessive. Even his poor wife has been hounded for daring to support her husband.

Stuff reports:

The mothers of the victims of double murderer Paul Tainui are pleading with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for an independent review into the handling of the cases. 
Tainui, born Paul Russell Wilson, was on parole for the 1994 murder of his girlfriend, 21-year-old Kimberley Schroder, when he raped and killed 27-year-old Nicole Tuxford in her Christchurch home on April 7, 2018.

As I’ve blogged before there were multiple failings in multiple agencies. There should be an inquiry into this.

A guest post by Richard Prosser:

So the great gun buy-back is underway. It isn’t going to work. Let me tell you why.
 
To make it easier for some people to understand, I will attempt to use words to paint a picture. I know that many anti-gun types are probably more au fait with crayons, but bear with me.
 
Let’s pretend for a moment that we’re not talking about firearms.
 
Let’s imagine that some deranged individual in a non-specified country commits a heinous crime using a bicycle. And let’s imagine that the bicycle is a cross bike.
 
In response, the country’s outraged Government decides that such bicycles are unsafe in the hands of the general public, and announces that they are going to ban most of them.
 
Mountain bikes draw particular ire, because they look a lot like cross bikes. Black mountain bikes with big knobbly tyres are especially demonised, because they look aggressive and scary. Also, they have lots of gears, just like cross bikes.
 
Seriously, some of these machines have as many as 27 gears! Outrageous.
 
There’s no need for such bicycles in society. No-one needs to have more than, say, three speeds on their bike. Why, in the old days, bikes only had one speed, and that worked perfectly well. Our fathers and grandfathers grew up with single speed bikes. And solid tyres, come to that. They knew how to ride properly, of course. Too many modern bike owners are just wanna-be terrorists. The only reason for wanting to own a bike with more than three gears is to commit crime, or for some reason to do with compensating for having a small penis. If you need more than three gears you shouldn’t be riding. 
 
There is lots more dumb banal commentary along the same lines from the uniformed and the self-righteous, but you get what I mean.
 
Furthermore, it’s too difficult to keep them safe. Most bicycles in the hands of criminals have been sourced by way of thefts from law-abiding bike owners. In fact they’re not, but that’s according to the President of the Police Association of the country in question.
 
They must be banned.
 
So the Government announces that all bikes with more than three gears are now illegal. 250,000 law-abiding bike owners, people who have always kept their bicycles safe, and never used them to break the law, are now effectively criminals. 
 
The Government will therefore “buy-back” specified bicycles from their current owners. It isn’t a buy-back, of course, because the Government never owned them in the first place, but this Government has neither the wit nor the honesty to be able to either acknowledge or admit that. It is a confiscation. A Government with even a shred of moral decency would simply own up to that.
 
Compensation will be paid. How this will be calculated, and what level it will be set at, are yet to be decided. In the meantime, bike owners are instructed to keep their bikes locked up safely, not to use them, and to register their bikes with the Police, ahead of further instructions on how they are to be handed in.
 
In the future, it is advised, all bicycles will need to be registered. This is because Government insists that registering bikes will somehow magically prevent them from falling into the hands of criminals.
 
Government insists that this is so in spite of all the experience from overseas showing very clearly that such registers simply don’t work. Indeed, the country where the crime happened used to have such a register, which was done away with some thirty years ago, entirely because the Police at the time recognised its ineffectiveness in terms of solving or preventing bicycle crimes, and because the time and resources it tied up were hampering the Police in carrying out their other duties.
 
All this is decided and enacted in less than a week, because the Government in question is very keen to signal virtue to other progressive Governments around the world, and most importantly, to get it done quicker than the Australians did.
 
There is no due process or proper consultation, and the advice of actually knowledgeable people from respectable bicycle owners’ groups is completely ignored. This Government is on a crusade. Facts and logic are not going to be allowed to get in the way of virtue signalling.
 
It is announced that the Police will be tasked with coordinating the hand-in scheme. Police of course have nowhere near the time, personnel, or resources needed to carry out this undertaking, but the Government boxes on regardless. Police simply do not have the people or facilities needed to accept, safely store, or dispose of an influx of a million or so bicycles from 250,000 owners, in six years, never mind the six months slated for the operation.
 
Government says that the Defence Force will be available to assist Police. It appears to not matter at all to the Government, that decades of running the military down means that they are in precisely the same boat.
 
After a few weeks, Government announces it’s preferred option for the process of handing in now-illegal bicycles.
 
A series of “swap meet” type events will be held at various venues around the country, at places such as local halls, schools, and the like. Bicycle-riding Police will guard these venues while the process of bicycle surrender is carried out.
 
At the swap meets, unqualified contractors who have received a week’s training from the Police will assess each bicycle as it comes in, and determine a value for it. The determined value will start at somewhere between 70% and 95% of the bicycle’s actual market value. Why those numbers? Apparently, just because. However, it will automatically go down from there, because of course all the bicycles will have been ridden.
 
Once handed over, the bicycles will be disassembled, and the parts placed in a suitable container. Only then will the owner be given a chit confirming the determined value for compensation. It may well be as low as 25% of the investment that the owner has tied up in his or her bicycle. By then it will be too late to protest, of course, because the bike is now in bits in a container, and in any case, it has become illegal for the surrendering owner to possess it anymore.
 
Dissatisfied owners can appeal; but the appeal process will cost anything up to half the value of the bike in question, and if the appeal is not upheld, the compensation offer will be forfeited.
 
Furthermore, costly accessories that the owner has purchased for his or her bike, which are now not of use and thus cannot be sold to anyone else, such as lights, up-rated tyres, shock absorbers, speedometers, padded seats, etc, are not covered by the compensation scheme at all.
 
Neither are stocks held by businesses. Bike shops are closing, staff are being made redundant, business owners are going broke; but this is apparently just tough.
 
Businesses are told they can simply return their stocks to their overseas suppliers. The Government seems to genuinely not be aware that globally, commerce doesn’t work that way. You buy something, it’s yours. Change your mind? No, they don’t want it back, and no, they’re not refunding the money you’ve paid for it. This is perhaps not surprising given that not one member of the Cabinet of this non-specified country has any experience in business, or, indeed, in the real world of real work or real life.
 
Back at the swap meet, a trickle of people are arriving to hand in their bicycles. The Bike-equipped Police guarding the venues are all looking very smart with their neatly pressed uniforms and lots of shiny equipment. All of them are riding brand-new bicycles that have lots of gears, big chunky tyres, and plenty of menacing-looking sticky-outy accessory bits and pieces on them.
 
The swap meets naturally require lots of Police to be present. This is only sensible. However, it means that Police resources elsewhere in the town in question, for any given swap meet, are rather thin.
 
On the other side of town, a naughty but clever group of criminals have decided to stage a diversion. A few of them get on their bikes, which are black mountain bikes with knobbly tyres and really loud bells, and ride right into a Bank. A few more of them start pulling wheelies in the car park, and running into pedestrians.
 
In response, Police are forced to divert some of their people away from the swap meet and send them to the Bank.
 
As soon as they have gone, the majority of the naughty-but-clever criminal group duck out of hiding, and sneak into the swap meet venue through the back door. This is easy for them, because Police incompetence means the door has been left wide open. They clean out the containers of bike parts, and disappear into the back streets.
 
Why do I think the above will happen? Because if I can think of it I’m damned sure the Hell’s Angels can too, and the rest is merely a product of the facts and numbers of Police resources. Oh, and the example of their level of competence that they’ve already shown us, of course.
 
Most bike owners choose not to attend the swap meets. Instead, they decide to bury their bikes in moisture-proof containers behind the shed, or wall them up inside the gib in the garage. The bikes won’t pose a risk to the general public when so concealed, but then they never did when they were locked up in the bike safe of a law-abiding, Police-vetted, licence-holding bike owner either. They are however more likely to be accessible to the naughty-but-clever criminals, because if Fred the Baddie knows that Joe the Good Guy Bike Rider had a bike that is now illegal, all he has to do is go digging behind Joe’s shed when Joe is out, and there’s a good chance he’ll find it. It would have been much safer if it stayed locked up in Joe’s steel bike safe. Joe had never committed a crime with his bike and was never going to.
 
You might suggest that Joe should have handed his bike in as required by the new law. Maybe he should; but knowing he’s only going to receive a fraction of what it’s worth, do you really expect him to? To be effective, laws have to take account of human nature and national character. If they don’t, then people will simply ignore them.
 
The lack of ability to comprehend the above blunt reality is a defining feature of idealists. There’s so much air in their heads that there’s no room for facts. Sadly our current political leaders appear to fall entirely into this category.
 
Some people will be allowed to continue owning bikes with more than three gears. Professional riders will be able to apply for a licence to own a 10-speed. The licence will cost them, of course. It will be a fee to continue owning and riding a bike that they already own and have already been approved for. 18, 21, and 27-speed bikes will be completely illegal for anyone to own – apart from the Police themselves.
 
Seriously, you couldn’t make this shit up. Unfortunately I didn’t have to. What I have just described is exactly and precisely the situation that is being applied to licensed owners of lawfully-held firearms in New Zealand. All I have done is change firearms for bicycles. The rest is the same, down to the letter.
 
See this is what I think the crayon-eaters don’t get.
 
What if we weren’t talking about firearms – what if we really were talking about bicycles? Would that make it different? If so, how, and more importantly, why?
 
The issue here isn’t about firearms or bikes. It’s about Government confiscation of private property without adequate compensation. It’s about a complete disregard for due process and respect for democracy. If this really was about bicycles, the crayon-eaters of the anti-gun lobby probably would understand it. The crayon-eaters of the media might even get it. I don’t actually hold any real expectation that the crayon-eating Ministers of the New Zealand Government Cabinet would get it; but I live in hope.
 
But it is what’s pissing off a quarter of a million law-abiding firearms licence holders.
 
We don’t like it. That much is a given. We can’t see the justification for it. In truth there isn’t any. I’m not about to argue that point any further, however. It’s done and it will stay done until we have a change of Government.
 
I personally have no time whatsoever for the current Government. In fairness I didn’t have much for the last one either, or the one before that; but I accept, as I have to, that it is a product of the democratic choice of a majority of New Zealanders. That’s the thing about democracy – if you embrace it, you have to accept what it delivers, even if you don’t like it.
 
I don’t know who or what that changed Government might be, or when it might come about; National are completely on board with Labour, the Greens, and Winston First on this. None of them would do anything differently in Government.
 
What pisses us off most of all is the lack of adequate compensation. As a comparison, when land is compulsorily acquired under the Public Works Act, the baseline for compo is set at twice the market value.
 
So it should be for any Governmental confiscation. You don’t agree? Why not? Would you feel differently if this was something that affected you personally? If so, bloody shame on you. That’s a disgusting attitude to hold. It’s the kind of attitude that engenders a ‘f**k you’ response in those who are affected.
 
It is actually encumbent upon you, crayon-eaters, to recognise right from wrong here. That is your duty as citizens. Everyone must be equal before the law. That is what sets us apart from less advanced societies.
 
There is a very thin boundary between civilisation and anarchy. It rests on people acknowledging the rights of their fellow citizens. People who have lawfully owned firearms are entitled to such recognition, even if you yourselves don’t have any interest in shooting sports. If you don’t feel the need to respect our rights, why on earth would you expect us to respect yours? My property is mine, you know; I have obtained it legally, and paid good money for it.
 
Ponder this – if the Government decided to ban microwave ovens, would it be OK, in your mind, for them to come and take your own nearly new one away, giving you half what you paid for it in return, with no effective right of appeal? What about if they’re building a new motorway, and they come and take half your house and section? Would it be OK for that to be confiscated, against your will, and for them to give you 25% of the value of it, and threaten to lock you up if you didn’t like that?
 
You might be a member of, say, an outdoor group. You might own an expensive backpack, tent, alpine parka, and binoculars. The whole rig might be worth $1,000. If I’m the Government, and I come along and ban them, and confiscate them, and give you $250 and tell you to bugger off, would you expect me to share your outrage? If so, why are you not prepared to share mine?
 
What needs to happen, if this thing is going to work, is this. 
 
Compensation needs to be set at twice market value, as determined by the experienced people in the trade. No quibbling. Just pay it.
 
That includes accessories like telescopic sights. Some advanced optics can run to $10,000. Did you know that? If not, why not? Surely you’re not making something your business without understanding it first?
 
Reloading supplies. Gun safes. Carry cases. Ammo boxes, range finders, laser sights, cleaning kits, etc ad infinitum. All of them expensive and none of them any use any longer. Pay them out. All of them, at twice the market value. Don’t question, don’t argue, just hand over the money.
 
Compensation also needs to include businesses and all their costs. That means stock on hand and in transit. It includes freight costs. It includes compensation for loss of earnings on business that cannot now be conducted.
 
You will probably need to set a special levy on all taxpayers. That’s what Australia did. It took them 12 years to pay for the Port Arthur confiscations. 
 
It is going to be expensive. Very expensive. No one knows exactly how many firearms are involved; but in my very well informed opinion the oft-quoted guestimate of 1.2 million long guns in private hands, of which maybe 500,000 are now illegal, is woefully off the mark.
 
In truth the number is probably closer to 2.5 million with at least a million now being persona non grata. At an average $2,000 a pop, that’s $2 billion straight off the bat.
 
Add in trade losses and you can stick another billion on that. Then there’s the cost of setting up a register, which stung Canada $2 billion in NZ dollars before they abandoned it. I’ll be generous and say, because of relative population size, that’s another $500 million down the pipes. Make no mistake – gun registers don’t work. They have never worked, anywhere. New Zealand will not be the first to make one work. We had one, and it didn’t work. It won’t work again. It will fail. I know I’m hammering this point, but that’s so you’ll take notice. You have been told, over and over, by people who know what they’re talking about, that a gun register is doomed to fail before it even starts. Even the Police agree. So you’ve been told, OK?
 
This. Is. Because. Only. The. Law. Abiding. Will. Register. Their. Guns.
 
Criminals. Won’t.
 
And yes, all taxpayers will have to put their hands in their pockets. Why?
 
Because, my dear crayon eaters, this is an action initiated by the Government that you support, and it is an action that you condone. As such you do have to take responsibility for paying for it. If you’re not prepared to pay for it, what makes you think you have any kind of right to insist that it happens? Who do you think should be paying for your personal preferences and choices? The example of the proposed register above is a case in point. You have been told it isn’t going to work. If you insist on pursuing it, that cost is on you.
 
So prepare yourselves for a final bill somewhere north of three-and-a-half-billion dollars. And while you’re at it, prepare yourselves for the reality that it will achieve absolutely nothing at all in terms of preventing crime or increasing public safety or stopping another massacre. You’re about to flush $3.5 billion down the dunny just so Jacinda Ardern can look good to the progressive lefty twats of the UN. And don’t smirk about that, National, because you have been 100% complicit.
 
Three and a half billion is a lot of pay rises for nurses. It’s a lot of special needs teachers. It’s a lot of hip operations. It’s a good few kilometres of new roading.
 
So know, those of you who support the Government’s changes to the gun laws, know that you also support these changes in funding priorities. Know that and accept responsibility for them. Know at the same time that all these changes will have no effect whatsoever on crime or public safety. You are agreeing to spending this money in this way, knowing that it is destined to achieve nothing at all.
 
And we all know that the Government doesn’t have three and a half billion in spare cash sitting a piggy bank, so sorry, but more tax it is, for everyone.
 
See this is all part of growing up. Getting all petulant and saying things like “why should I pay for the shooters’ choices” and “well they’re illegal now so they just need to do as they’re told and if they lose out financially then that’s just hard cheese” is fairly primary school stuff. Because you see it isn’t the shooters’ choices that have led to this – it’s yours, you the anti-gun folk. Your choices – your political choices, I mean by that – have brought this situation about. 
 
If of course you’re part of the MSM or social media commentariat that’s maybe understandable, because you’re probably not long out of primary school, or perhaps even still there. But in the adult world, taking responsibility for the costs and consequences of your choices is something that’s required. It’s what we teach our kids. You’re not special or different in that regard.
 
 
Let me recap. The changes to New Zealand’s gun laws following the Christchurch massacre are pissing off a great many law-abiding New Zealand gun owners.
 
We’re pissed off because we are being penalised for something we didn’t do.
 
We’re pissed off because we are being blamed and demonised for something for which we’re not responsible.
 
We’re pissed off because the approach being taken by the Government does not and will not address the problem, nor will it do anything to improve public safety or prevent a repeat of the Christchurch massacre. The problem is criminals. We are not criminals. Criminals are not addressed by these changes. These changes only affect people who have not and will not ever commit crime in the first place.
 
We’re pissed off because both the Government and the media continue to believe the statements being told by the President of the Police Association.
 
We’re pissed off because the only reason Brendan Tarrant (and yes, I am going to speak his name) was able to get a firearms licence in the first place was because Jacinda Ardern signed off on changes to the law that allowed him to slip through the cracks, and because Police incompetence didn’t pick him up on the other side of those cracks.
 
We’re pissed off because democracy and due process have been sidelined. This is what we expect from the likes of North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, China, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, and other totalitarian states. It is not what we expect from New Zealand.
 
But most of all we’re pissed off because you are confiscating our expensive and legally owned property and not paying us what it is worth. That is called stealing.
 
So you have 250,000 pissed off people, who are not going to hand in their guns unless and until you pay a fair price for them. One way or another you are going to have to grow up and realise that – either before the fact, or because of it.
 
Either way, respect for the Police has been irrevocably damaged and greatly diminished in the eyes of a quarter of a million law-abiding New Zealanders. And they’re the ones with the guns.
 
You could choose to just dismiss this as yet other rednecked rant from Prosser, who is pissed off because he’s had his precious guns taken away. Well, yes, I am pissed off, and yes, I have had to hand in one of my guns. The rest of the affected ones can all be made legal.
 
The one rifle that can’t be made legal, cost me about $2,200 in today’s dollars. It’s probably still worth about $1,700. I’ve taken the scope off it, bringing it down to about $1,400, and handed it in. The list published by the Police indicates that I will get $1,050 back for it. Maybe. Sometime.
 
But beyond that, no, it doesn’t affect me. I’m living in Britain now, and don’t currently have any plans to come back. New Zealand has changed for the worse, and I can’t see it getting better anytime soon. I do wish you all the best, but I’ve given it my best shot (no pun intended) and my days of trying to improve things via political means are over.
 
I might humbly suggest you take the things I’ve said on board, because I’m right about them. Being right is what I do.
 
Or you could just go back to eating crayons, which seems to be about the limit of your intellectual capacity.
 
Richard Prosser
 
As a footnote; I’m asking DPF to post this here under my own name, because in fact I think it’s about time that Boris Piscina retired.
 
I created him as a character to spy on the Nats, back when I was a NZ First MP, before it began to properly dawn on me that I was probably more like them than not.
 
I’ve actually grown to quite like the grumpy old prick over the years, but keeping him consistent has become difficult, and nowadays he still says a few things that I don’t really think anymore.
 
So it’s RIP Boris Piscina……which is kind of funny in itself in 
a way, because those are my initials 🙂

Matt Vickers statement:

Mr Vickers said: “Over the past eighteen months there has been a lot of discussion on the End of Life Choice Bill, but we still have more to discuss. With several amendments suggested for the End of Life Choice Bill, including a possible referendum, it is important that the bill passes to the next stage so that we can actually see the final shape of the legislation. Then we can debate the efficacy of that wording and all the safeguards present in the final draft.”
 
“Too many people have worked too hard, and given too much, for the chance to have further debate taken away. On a conscience issue like this, the like of which crops up once in a generation, our politicians have a duty to give this bill the best chance they can. Whatever happens at the final stage later this year, at least we will know that the bill was given full consideration and that we have had a chance debate the issue with all the facts. But that won’t happen unless politicians vote yes tomorrow.”
 
Since December 2017, a further three US states (Hawaii, New Jersey, and Maine) have legislated for assisted dying laws, with nine state medical associations dropping opposition, while the assisted dying laws came into effect in Victoria, Australia just this week.
 
Vickers has been campaigning for a law change since his wife’s death in 2015, after she attempted to win a court ruling that she had the right to be assisted to die if she chose. Vickers is the author of the book Lecretia’s Choice.

For those who wish to listen to the debate, this is the likely schedule today:

• 2 pm Question Time
• 3 pm General Debate
• 4 pm Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill
• 6 pm dinner
• 7.30 pm KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill
• 8.20 pm End of Life Choice Bill

There are two hours and 20 minutes set down for the EOLC Bill so unless it starts by 7.40 pm (which would require shorter speeches on the earlier bills) it won’t get voted on tonight.

UPDATE: I am told a number of MPs will be doing shorter speeches on the earlier bills so the End of Life Choice Bill should start before 8.20 pm, maybe as early as 7.30 pm.

Politico reports:

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday proposed eliminating all of the nearly $1.6 trillion in outstanding student loan debt owed by Americans, raising the stakes on an issue that has increasingly animated the progressive base of the Democratic party.
Sanders is the latest 2020 presidential contender to propose a one-time cancellation program that would forgive large portions of student loan debt, which is owed by some 45 million Americans.

Donald Trump must be hoping Sanders wins the Democratic nomination.

Newshub reports:

National MP Amy Adams has announced she will retire from politics at the 2020 election.
“I have been incredibly privileged to serve as the MP for Selwyn and a member of the National Party Caucus for almost 12 years,” she says.
“Making the decision to step away from politics has not been an easy one but it is the right time for me and my family and I’m looking forward to whatever the future holds.”

That’s a big loss for National. Good to see Amy decide to focus on what is right for her though.

Also today Alastair Scott announced he will also be retiring as MP for Wairarapa in 2020.

As a result of this Simon Bridges has done a reshuffle. The key changes are:

• Paul Goldsmith picks up Finance from Amy Adams
• Todd McClay gets Economic Development from Paul Goldsmith
• Chris Bishop gets Regional Development and Transport from Paul Goldsmith
• Jo Hayes gets Maori Development and Treaty from Nuk Korako
• Gerry Brownlee gets Foreign Affairs from Todd McClay
• Brett Hudson gets Police from Chris Bishop
• Tim Macindoe gets Attorney-General from Amy Adams
• Michael Woodhouse gets Associate Finance
• Maggie Barry gets Disability Issues
• Stuart Smith gets Immigration
• Todd Muller gets Forestry
• Nicola Willis gets Youth
• Paulo Garcia gets Associate Foreign Affairs

Barry Soper writes:

The reshuffle will be minor because most of those who should be in Cabinet are already there.

That’s a polite way of saying there are few talented MPs.

Her kitchen Cabinet cobber Phil Twyford’s feet wouldn’t have touched the ground if a more experienced leader was wielding the machete with the KiwiBuild cock-ups and the trouble in transport.
But she likes him around so he’s likely to be left sitting at the table, but surely with a portfolio change.

Clark would have gelded Twyford by now.

And who could forget the Inspector Clouseau bumbling over the case involving drug runner Karel Sroubek? He didn’t know whether he was coming or going, and neither it seems did Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway, telling him he could stay before deciding he had to go. Sroubek’s still here fighting his case and Lees-Galloway should be doing to same on Thursday.

It would be inexplicable if he were to keep Immigration.

Speaking of ‘fighting’, Meka Whaitiri’s done her time and at the very least should be restored to a Minister-in-Waiting outside of Cabinet. And the man who was doing her job and Clare Curran’s, Kris Faafoi, will almost certainly get the call into the inner sanctum.
Faafoi’s the rare exception of successfully making the transition from journalism, telling them how they should do it, to actually doing it.

Faafoi is a no brainer for Cabinet. Promoting Whaitiri when she still denies she assaulted a staffer would be a very bad look.

The SSC announced:

State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes has today announced Dr Caralee McLiesh, PSM, to the position of Secretary to the Treasury and Chief Executive, the Treasury.
 
The Secretary to the Treasury, the largest of the public service chief executive roles, leads and oversees New Zealand’s public finance system, and is the principal economic advisor to the Minister of Finance and the Government.
 
“This is a big and important role for New Zealand and the Public Service,” Mr Hughes said.
 
“I am delighted to appoint Dr McLiesh. She is a highly respected, world-class economist with very strong fiscal, economic policy and financial management credentials.”
 
Dr McLiesh is currently Managing Director at Technical and Further Education (TAFE) New South Wales (NSW), Australia, where she leads an organisation of about 17,000 people with a budget of AUD$1.8 billion. She has been in that role since September 2018, leading the transformation of TAFE NSW to become a more modern, competitive and sustainable organisation.
 
Prior to this, Dr McLiesh was employed at the NSW Treasury in several Deputy Secretary roles from 2008-2018. During her time at the NSW Treasury Dr McLiesh led the development of State Budgets, covering AUS$80 billion operating expenditure and AUS$350 billion in assets. In her most recent role at NSW Treasury (Deputy Secretary for the Fiscal and Economic Group), Dr McLiesh advised the Treasurer (NSW’s equivalent of the Minister of Finance) and government agencies on fiscal and economic policy, coordination of the Budget and state sector accounts, taxation, intergovernmental relations and balance sheet management.
 
One of her most notable achievements was the development of Australia’s first Social Impact Bond, to deliver better services and results for families at risk. This work earned Dr McLiesh the Public Service Medal of Australia (2017) for outstanding public service to social impact investment policy and reform in NSW.
 
Mr Hughes said Dr McLiesh has a decade of executive leadership experience and a track record of delivering in complex economic, political and organisational environments, including advising governments on regulatory reforms in more than 30 OECD and developing countries. Her work for the World Bank has given her a strong background of delivering reform in partnership with a range of stakeholders. Her work as a principal author on the World Development Report 2002, and as a co-founder of the Doing Business project, helped with regulatory reform in hundreds of countries.

Sounds like an excellent appointment.

Especially pleasing is her background with social impact bonds and social investment. Hopefully she can drive these here also.

Newshub reports:

Wade Hargreaves, who works in the sector, called KiwiBuild an “unqualified failure” and says it’s actually prevented people from getting into a home.
“It’s not a solution to the housing crisis in New Zealand,” he told Newshub.
And in a poll of those attending, more than 50 percent said they had no confidence the building industry could deliver the number of homes in time.
“From a public perception it’s just confusion,” Home Ownership Pathway founder Andrew LavuLavu told Newshub.
Many at the summit believe the main issue has been Twyford being too ambitious. They say the targets were simply too big and it’s ended up putting him squarely in the crosshairs.
For now though the Prime Minister is standing by her man, saying Twyford has done an “incredible job”.

He’s undershot his target by 85% and the PM thinks that is doing an incredible job.

No doubt she also thinks Milan Brych was an incredible doctor.

Stuff reports:

A committee tasked with developing a plan for New Zealand’s electricity generation to be from 100 per cent renewable sources has delivered confronting advice.
While it can be done, it will be very expensive and will undermine New Zealand’s efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions overall.
A draft copy of the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) report, obtained by Stuff, warns that while eradicating fossil fuels entirely was “technically feasible” it was also “very costly”, with the final few per cent of the target coming at enormous cost with little carbon saving.
Household prices were estimated to be 14 per cent higher in current terms under the plan, while the price to industrial users would be 39 per cent higher.

So the Government’s plan would see electricity prices increase 14%, and for what?

High electricity prices would slow the decarbonisation of the wider economy, making it more difficult for New Zealand to meet its target under the Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse emissions, the ICCC argues.

As it would make electric vehicles etc less affordable. So the Government’s plan would cost households and be worse for the Environment.

Duncan Garner writes:

At nine o’clock this morning, the Build NZ conference and trade show kicks off at the ASB Showgrounds in Auckland.
It’s all about KiwiBuild – the who, what, where, when, why and how of KiwiBuild. …

It was to kick off with the man in the middle – KiwiBuild Minister Phil Twyford – but he has, astonishingly, pulled the middle finger to the entire industry and pulled out at the last minute.
The industry wants to know, deserves to know, what, how and when his shambles of a policy will be euthanized or scaled back.
But they want the truth.
They don’t want your messenger, junior minister Jenny Salesa – they want you, Phil.
But Phil has decided to stay in Wellington and do a housing announcement on Housing First. What an insult to this industry. KiwiBuild not in the race anymore.

The Government has to deliver 859 more affordable houses in the next six days. That is 143 a day or one every ten minutes.

The Herald reports:

Infamous child killer Jon Venables, the murderer of 2-year-old James Bulger, could be shipped from the United Kingdom to New Zealand to start a new life. …

Venables, now 36, has been convicted twice since his release, once in 2010 and again in February 2018 after admitting to possessing “sickening” child porn images and a paedophile manual.

Well this will be a tough decision for Immigration Minister Iain-Lees Galloway.

If we can give drug dealers a second chance, then surely the policy of kindness means that Venables should be allowed to emigrate to New Zealand.

Or will the Minister decide that a child killer with an interest in child porn and paedophilia should not be allowed into New Zealand?

Newshub reports:

A Christchurch man who spent tens of thousands of dollars on a newspaper ad calling for Christopher Luxon to lead the National Party may find himself on the wrong side of electoral law.
The half-page ad appeared in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday, suggesting the outgoing Air New Zealand CEO should run for the National Party leadership for next year’s election.
It plays on Dick Frizzell’s well-known 1997 artwork Mickey to Tiki but shows John Key’s face transforming into Luxon’s.

So who was behind this?

Neither Luxon nor the National Party know anything about it, but the ad has an authorisation statement from S Brooks of Christchurch.
Newshub tried to make contact with a ‘Steve Brooks’, an entrepreneur and businessman who was a self-made millionaire by 19 – but Brooks was nowhere to be found.
His Facebook page was emblazoned with support for Luxon to run for the National Party this morning. But by the afternoon, it was all taken down.

Brooks doesn’t appear to be politically aligned.

Political commentator Bryce Edwards believes the ad is illegal and a breach of the electoral act.
“Because you do actually have to get sign off from the National Party if you’re going to promote a National Party advertisement and that’s what this is, this is clearly promoting the National Party in terms of the 2020 election, it has the hashtag on it,” he told Newshub.
The Electoral Commission confirmed today its legal team will be investigating – particularly the authorisation issue.

I don’t think there is any doubt the advertisement breaches the Electoral Act.

Stacey Kirk writes:

About the Beehive, the swagger of some Government MPs has shifted. 
Under-siege Housing Minister Phil Twyford has retreated from public interviews on the policy quickly becoming his Waterloo.
Happy to talk about transport, his shoulders hunch and his chin drops a few degrees to cut a visibly downcast figure whenever the K-word is brought up. 

Krunch? Kansas? Kazoo?

Nothing like the threat of a reshuffle to make ministers question their performance. 
Some of them well might. Although the increasing trend to duck for cover behind the human cannon fodder officials are providing as an added service might have lulled a few into a false sense of security. 

Much has been made about the level of competence Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has to work with in the Cabinet ranks. 

Shouldn’t that be level of incompetence?

So here’s a basic lesson on the mechanics of government. 
Government sets the policy, and government departments enact the policy. 
But it’s the Government’s political policy.
Ministers have to do their homework first because some officials may be boffins, but they’re not miracle workers. 

Kiwibuild being a disaster has nothing to do with officials.

KiwiBuild is an unmitigated disaster. Dreamed up by Annette King in the back seat of a car, she latched on to it and set the original target of 50,000 houses because it sounded good in her head. A wish-list, not a policy.
Legend has it the close breathing of David Cunliffe down David Shearer’s neck was precisely what prompted the last-minute decision to blurt out 100,000 homes on the day of the announcement. 
And here sits Twyford. He is the man responsible, because if officials start telling him he’ll need to build the equivalent of two Hamiltons, the red flag should have been raised and the question asked: Is this actually possible? 

I think Labour knew deep down it wasn’t possible. They just decided to run with a fraudulent policy they knew they couldn’t deliver on, as they never thought they would actually win.

Sir John Key made a rare return to news headlines this week, sacking his ANZ chief executive David Hisco for his mischaracterisation of spending company funds.
It was a reminder of his complete zero tolerance approach of anyone who made him look bad. He knew he had a finite amount of political capital and he wasn’t prepared to spend any on anyone who wasn’t worth it.

Compare that to the current Government.

The Herald reports:

The University of Otago has apologised after asking its law students an exam question about the ethics of representing a terrorist.
The question led some students to breakdown and cry during the exam last week after it brought back painful memories of the recent Christchurch mosque attacks in which a gunman killed 51 people.
One of those sitting the exam had a cousin killed in the attacks, a student told the Herald.
The question asked whether lawyers should be obliged to represent someone who attacked their place of religion, the Herald understands. …

Palmer also sent an apology on behalf of the lecturer who set the exam question.
“My intent was to come up with a situation where the cab rank rule would impose a truly horrific burden on a lawyer, leading to a discussion about good cause and whether the rule should be retained,” the examiner said. 
“I should have realised that the scenario I presented was likely to cause distress, and I am deeply sorry.”

I don’t understand why the University is apologising. If the students want to become criminal lawyers they will face potentially horrific burdens such as representing despicable people. It will be distressing.

Stuff reports:

As her family steels themselves for the upcoming first anniversary of a horror road crash which took the lives of three of their own, Shelley Porteous has become increasingly frustrated by the silence she has faced from Government.
She has spent hours of her time investigating and advocating for the urgent introduction of random roadside drug testing in New Zealand but her attempts to seek answers and support from Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter and Justice Minister Andrew Little have seemingly fallen on deaf ears.
​”It’s just really, really frustrating but you’ve got to keep fighting.”
In June 27, 2018, three of Shelley’s family – Ian and Rosalie Porteous and Ora Keene – died on State Highway 3 near Waverley, along with Brenda Williams, Jeremy Thompson, Shady Thompson and Nivek Madams, in what is the worst road crash on record in Taranaki.

The use of synthetic drugs by Thompson, who was one of the drivers, was highlighted as a factor in the deaths during the May 10 coronial inquest, where it was established the 28-year-old’s car had crossed the centreline and crashed head-on into the vehicle driven by Rosalie.

So why is the Government doing so little?

She and husband Len met with Little on May 17, who told them he would speak to his colleagues to see what could be done to speed up the process to introduce roadside drug testing and get back to them with a reply.
The couple have not heard back from Little or had any response to emails sent to Genter, which sought her views on the issue and why it was not being considered with any urgency.

The Government says it wants to reduce the road toll, but seems to have a blind spot on drug driving.

Stuff reports:

A high-profile gang member has been stood down from his role within the Royal Commission of Inquiry into historic state abuse months after multiple allegations of domestic violence were raised. 
Harry Tam, a long-time member of the Mongrel Mob, was the facilitator of the inquiry’s Survivors Advisory Group, a position that gave him the authority to appoint gang-affiliated men and women to the group, and access survivors’ personal information. 

They appointed a gang member as the facilitator for the Survivors Advisory Group? What were they thinking.

She said when she met with commissioners in February she was under the impression the commissioners would choose the 20 advisors, not hand the responsibility over to the director of research and policy, Harry Tam. 
Tam subsequently appointed Rangi Wickliffe who was convicted in 2015 for falsely claiming he shot dead Douglas Witere in April 2014 in the hope he would receive $100,000 from the actual perpetrator, Troy McHugh, and former Papamoa community patrol volunteer, Gregory Molony, who in 2013 was convicted for impersonating a police officer while trying to find a female escort.

And so the gang member appointed fellow criminals as the advisors.

My God, what a mess.