Stuff reports:

Police are reviewing the security of their stations nationwide following the theft of unlawful weapons from a supposedly secure room at Palmerston North Police Station.
Police were left red-faced when firearms were stolen early on Anzac Day, sparking a manhunt for the alleged offender.
Various properties have since been searched by the armed offenders squad to find the 11 unaccounted-for guns.
The burglary happened when the offender was disturbed in the station yard at 7.40am. He left the scene in a vehicle, which has since been recovered.

What a clusterfrack.

How can someone break into a police station, let alone a so called secure room?

Newshub reports:

Embattled Labour MP Meka Whaitiri has opened up about being removed as a minister in a candid interview with Turanga FM. 
Whaitiri, MP for Ikaroa Rāwhiti, was removed as a minister by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in September over allegations of a physical incident with a staff member in her office. 
She denied the allegations at the time and reiterated her stance in an interview with Matai Rangi Smith, telling him: “From the time that the allegations were made, up until today, I’ve always refuted them.”

So she’s saying her brand new Press Secretary just made it up?

Whaitiri said: “There was no altercation, there was no assault. I did not touch my staff member – I growled her for not doing her job – but I didn’t touch her.”

If we are to believe Meka, then how did her press secretary’s arm get so bruised? If she implying her press secretary deliberately bruised her own arm, to get her Minister in trouble?

The bruising is what one calls evidence. The former Minister’s denial is well not evidence.

The Labour MP said she took her staff member outside to “show her the lost opportunity and to express to her as I did that this was her job ad I was disappointed”.
But she insisted she never raised her voice because she was in a public space

So is she saying she would have shouted at her if it was in private?

Whaitiri said there have been “mistruths” about the incident and she said the Prime Minister has been “an absolute supporter” of hers even since the accusations came to light.
The Prime Minister was joined by Whaitiri earlier this month in Hastings at the Waitapu Marae where Ardern said the former minister had been doing excellent work. 
“Meka is an incredibly strong advocate for this region,” Ardern said, not ruling out whether Whaitiri could become a minister again. 

Prisoners only get parole once they admit they actually did it. Surely the same concept should apply to sacked Ministers? If she continues to deny she did it, then how could the Prime Minister possibly reinstate her?

The Herald reports:

The New Zealand Herald will next week launch digital subscriptions, showcasing New Zealand’s best journalism and commentary.
NZME will become the first major New Zealand media business to unveil digital subscriptions – costing $5 a week, with a special introductory offer to be announced next week.
While much of the content on nzherald.co.nz will remain free, digital subscribers will access a range of premium content across business, politics, news, sport, lifestyle and entertainment including indepth investigations, exclusive reports, columns and analysis. There will also be more foreign, premium content from a range of internationally renowned mastheads.

Will be interesting to see how this goes. Also whether Stuff gains traffic as a result of this.

Stuff reports:

Members of Destiny Church affiliated groups have met opposite the Al Noor Masjid to proclaim Christchurch a Christian city.
Destiny Church Christchurch senior pastor Derek Marina Tait said the affiliated groups, Man Up and Legacy, opposed the national broadcast of the first Muslim call to prayer by the mosque following the March 15 terror attack. 
“The purpose was to stand out in the open and to declare that Christchurch and New Zealand belongs to Jesus Christ who is the one true god.”

Oh eff off. Christchurch doesn’t belong to Brian Tamaki or any God.

Afterwards people inside the mosque came out and invited them in, Healey said. 

Classy. Well done Al Noor Masjid mosque.

It was “appropriate” for the church groups to return to the same place.
“Because in that very same place the decree was put out by our prime minister and the Muslim community to declare that Allah is the one true God, which I emphatically disagree with.”

And the first commandment in Christianity is “You shall have no other Gods but me”. Most religions claim to be the one true religion, and I take no more offence at the Muslim prayer than I do the ten commandments.

Also in theory all the Abrahamic religions do worship the same God. That’s not my view, but the view of Pope Francis. Where the religions diverge is on who is a prophet and the role of Jesus etc.

Islam actually teaches that Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon etc are all prophets of God. They just also believe Muhammad was the final prophet.

Anyway the decision to broadcast a Muslim prayer on the day of remembrance was a sign of empathy and tolerance, not of the supremacy of any religion. If your religion can’t tolerate two minutes of airtime to another religion, you have big problems.

The Herald reports:

Some 39 days after the Christchurch mosque massacres, social media sites are still struggling to stamp out copies of the gunman’s video.
New York-based researcher Eric Feinberg reported he had found another 12 copies across Facebook (which was hosting five copies), Facebook-owned Instagram (six) and Google-owned YouTube (four). All were live as of Monday NZT.

This is not surprising. Social media works by allowing people to upload content without pre-approval. If a moderator had to pre-approve every post on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, they would die off.

Presented with earlier links uncovered by Feinberg, a Facebook spokesman said there was an ongoing effort to eliminate all copies of the alleged gunman’s video.

On April 11, a US Congressional hearing was told the clip was not gory enough to trigger Facebook’s automated filters.

“You can train AI [artificial intelligence] to effectively look for things like nudity using data like skin tone – i.e. a high level of skin tone in a particular piece of content make flag it for human review and actioning,” a Facebook insider said.
“[But] in graphic violence content, we do use data around things like tones and colours that may identify or imply violent content, however, the AI did not identify this in the Christchurch video.”
Facebook has turned its attention to audio – and specifically, sounds that could be gunshots – in its ongoing attempts to recognise terror content in its realtime
videostreaming service Facebook Live

There is a limit to what AI can do. I’m sure Facebook would love to have a tool that could identify segments of the video and delete it automatically with no false positives.

Council for Civil Liberties chairman and Tech Liberty founder Thomas Beagle has long been wary of the potential of “protective” laws to be used for political censorship or to otherwise undermine free speech.
Beagle says that fringe sites, usually hosted offshore, will ignore any social media crackdown law, while the answer for Facebook and other platforms is for them to develop better systems to filter or block content that violates their terms.

I’m very wary of any change to our domestic laws. The solutions are better technology but we need to realise there is still a limit to what can be done if people are determined to share something.

The original livestream video was seen by under 200 people and deleted quickly by Facebook. Google removed a youtube version within minutes also. They actually did response quickly.

But the problem is users kept uploading versions of it. This was a human problem. It wasn’t Facebook and Google uploading them.

The videos were in breach of terms and conditions of all major social media companies. So there is no dispute they shouldn’t be on the Internet. But again the issue is how do you stop users uploading content when there are billions of uploads a day?

The latest MSD data shows the number of people receiving a jobseeker benefit has increased by 13,000 or 10.9% in the last year.

And it isn’t evenly spread. The increase by key demographics is:

• Maori +14.6%
• Pasifika +15.9%
• Under 25s +13.7%
• 25 – 40 year olds +16.7%

And even bigger growth with hardship assistance. The special needs grants are up 45% and advances up 53%. The Government is doing a great job isn’t it.

CNBC reports:

Former Vice President Joe Biden formally joined the crowded Democratic presidential contest on Thursday, betting that his working-class appeal and ties to Barack Obama’s presidency will help him overcome questions about his place in today’s increasingly liberal Democratic Party.

“Everything that has made America America is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Biden said in a three-and-a-half-minute video posted Thursday morning.

This brings the field to 19, which is huge.

I hope they select someone sane and electable. I won’t agree with many of their policies, but it would be good to have a US President who is not pathologically disturbed.

A President Biden wouldn’t bother me at all.

Sanders and Warren would be terrible, policy wise.

But will Biden survive the very energised far left base who see him as a relic and far too moderate? I suspect not, sadly.

Labour MP Louisa Wall states that due to the power of the media, they need to be recognised as part of a political system and have a duty of care imposed on them.

This duty of care can of course only be imposed by legislation, so effectively a Labour MP is calling for the Government or Parliament to legislate to regulate the media.

A number of journalists are fairly alarmed by this.

In a thread on Facebook Wall cites her unsuccessful judicial review of her complaint to the Human Rights Review Tribunal about an Al Nisbet cartoon. Having lost in court, she is saying she wants a law change so that such cartoons can be stopped in future.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Today we remember the 28.645 New Zealanders who died overseas serving their country.

We also remember the millions of others who have died in conflicts. Since 1990 the most lethal conflicts have been:

1. 1939 – 1945 WWII – 60 million killed
2. 1914 – 1918 WWI – 17 million killed
3. 1927 – 1949 Chinese Civil War – 8 million killed
4. 1917 – 1921 Russian Civil War – 6.7 million killed
5. 1998 – 2003 Second Congo War – 3.6 million killed
6. 1979 – 2000 Afghanistan War – 2.6 million killed

If we go further back the most lethal conflict as a proportion of population would be the Three Kingdoms War between 220 and 280 AD. This reduced the population from around 56 million to 16 million so over two thirds killed.

The Herald reports:

The UK has followed Germany in defying the US push to ban telecommunications giant Huawei – which the White House has accused of espionage and sanctions-busting – according to a media report.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has given the go-ahead to the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei to help build the UK’s new 5G network, despite warnings of the potential threat to national security, the Daily Telegraph says.

The UK paper said the National Security Council (NSC), which is chaired by May, agreed on Tuesday to allow the firm limited access to build “non-core” infrastructure such as celltower antennas.
Huawei NZ deputy chief executive Andrew Bowater has told the Herald his company is willing to make the same concession here – and even have its staff barred from access to Spark’s planned 5G mobile network.

So will the New Zealand Government decide to placate the Trump administration or do the right thing?

Just noticed this story from October where The Spinoff reports:

Jacinda Ardern says she has “upgraded my position” on her characterisation of climate change as her generation’s “nuclear-free moment”.
As part of a wide-ranging interview with the Spinoff, the prime minister said the challenge of climate change had one critical difference to the nuclear-movement. Then, “we were unified”, she said.

Well that’s wrong for a start. The decision to ban US ships from visiting was not a unifying issue at the time. Around 30% opposed the ban and 60% supported it. A later poll in 1989 found only 52% in favour if it meant breaking defence ties.

So quite wrong to claim NZ was unified behind the nuclear ban, at the time it happened. To be fair to the PM she was only four years old then, so has no idea how controversial it was.

“I feel at least positive that we’ve moved significantly from a debate that 10 years ago was whether or not climate change was real, now to a debate about how much we need to do and how quickly. Ten years ago I got booed at a public meeting for talking about climate change. When I first came in to parliament, a select committee was established to look at the science of climate change.

The part bolded is a lie. It is a lie she has repeated before.

Dunne was the Chair of the Select Committee and would know.

Eric Crampton writes:

On 5 February, MBIE’s head of the Provincial Development Unit, Robert Pigou, was reported claiming that the Provincial Growth Fund “was on track to create 10,000 jobs” – in contrast to National’s claims that the fund had created only a handful of jobs to that point. I assumed that MBIE had run an economic forecasting exercise to estimate the effects of their various initiatives, and I wanted to know whether their assumptions had stacked up. So I made a simple request:
“Please provide the workings underlying the job creation claims, along with any correspondence with Treasury relating to that modelling.”

A reasonable request. A Government agency claimed 10,000 jobs would be created due to Shane Jones handing out money. So what was the basis for the claim?

On 26 February, Treasury advised me they had no information to provide as they had not provided any advice to MBIE. On 6 March, MBIE advised that they had extended the OIA deadline to 22 March. Why? Because “consultations necessary to make a decision on the request are such that a proper response to the request cannot be made within the original time limit.”
Trying to parse bureaucratese is never easy. I assumed that MBIE’s answer meant the modelling might have drawn on commercially sensitive material provided confidentially by applicants.

It took around eight weeks to finally get an answer. So you would expect that the modelling would be something extremely complex.

And then the truth came out:

Here is what MBIE did to produce the 10,000 jobs figure.
They took the number of jobs that every Provincial Growth Fund applicant promised in their grant application. They added those numbers. Then they added one job for every feasibility study the Provincial Growth Fund was undertaking – that’s because you have to hire somebody to do a feasibility study.
That’s it.

My God. The so called 10,000 jobs is based on what the scavengers with their hand out for the free money claimed. It was not based on even a millimeter of analysis as to rigor or feasibility or probability.

Yes the Government claimed 10,000 jobs will be created, because that is what the people receiving the free money said would happen.

Now you might think people making applications for grants through the Provincial Growth Fund might not be the most unbiased assessors of the number of jobs the grants might support. Perhaps, and hear me out here – maybe, just maybe, the grant applicants might have thought they would be more likely to receive a grant if they put a bigger number on the form. It isn’t like the money would be taken away if job creation figures wound up being less than advertised.

No shit Sherlock.

The Guardian reports:

There are also questions over how Crosby’s firm uses arm’s-length companies to run its digital campaigns. Since 2016 it has outsourced work to two rightwing New Zealand political activists called Ben Guerin and Sean Topham through their Auckland-based consultancy Topham Guerin, which bills CTF Partners for the work they do on behalf of Crosby’s company.
Guerin and Topham, both in their mid-20s, are regularly based in CTF’s Mayfair office. They also ran the digital campaign for New Zealand’s National party in the country’s 2017 general election, ultimately failing to stop the Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern, becoming prime minister.
Documents seen by the Guardian suggest Topham Guerin was also involved in running online pro-coal campaigns on behalf of mining giant Glencore to encourage the construction of coal-fired power stations, in addition to working in India and Malaysia.
Topham was previously the chair of the National party’s youth wing, while Guerin was a digital adviser to the office of the former New Zealand prime minister Bill English.

Russell Brown is alarmed:

Topham and Guerin, both young men making their way in the booming industry of digital persuasion, may not feel that they’re doing anything wrong here; that it’s all in the game, that working on contract for Darth Vader is just a hell of a career opportunity. But the rest of us might feel that the material involvement of politically-connected New Zealanders in such a deceptive and deeply cynical covert politics project brings things a little too close for comfort.

I have a very different view. I think we should celebrate the success story of two young Kiwis.

I of course know Sean and Ben. Sean was Chair of the Young Nationals. Like many Young Nats he volunteered a few years ago to help out on a UK election campaign with our sister party. He came back with lots of ideas and information about online campaigning he picked up there, and impressed Steven Joyce enough (a difficult thing to do) that Steven involved him in some of the 2014 campaign.

A few years ago when Sean was finishing law school I asked him what he was going to do for a job. I expected it would be the traditional role in a major law firm. Sean replied he didn’t want to work for someone else and that he and Ben were going to set up a company in their early 20s, based on what they had learnt. I was hugely impressed that you had a couple of guys in their 20s who were willing to take the risk of going into business for themselves.

So they set up Topham Guerin. And you know what – they were bloody good at what they did. They gained National as a client. They did work for the UK Conservative Party. We’ve used them at the Taxpayers Union because they’re bloody good (they were involved in the very successful anti-CGT campaign) and Crosby Textor uses them, because again these two guys in their 20s have established themselves as really smart and effective online campaigners. They’re a huge success story that we should be proud of. There is a huge number of firms and people claiming to be experts at online political campaigning and Sean and Ben have carved out a significant reputation for excellence and have picked up a lot of work due to it.

If they were on the left of politics, they would probably be feted for what they do. But if you’re on the right, anything you do is seen as suspect.

What they do (at least for NZTU) is not dark arts. It is simply science. They help test different messages to see which ones get the best response rates. They are skilled at knowing what gets people to click on links and donate. They understand how you can target ads on Facebook etc etc.

So well done Ben and Sean. To get your own hit piece in The Guardian shows you have come of age.

UPDATE: Also worth highlighting that The Guardian has done a classic 2+2=5. They have said Crosby Textor worked on Brexit campaigns and that Crosby Textor sometimes use Topham Guerin and have assumed this means Topham Guerin worked on Brexit campaigns. As with many assumptions it is a wrong assumption.

Also Ben never worked for Bill English. He had left Parliament before Bill became Prime Minister.

Heather Roy writes:

It is distressing and abhorrent that community ANZAC Day commemorations are being cancelled, traditional marches to cenotaphs being halted by police and the traditional volleys fired by NZDF personnel stopped. As a former soldier and former Associate Minister of Defence I have participated in all of these aspects of ANZAC Day and find it offensive that “security concerns” can dictate the way in which we honour and remember the fallen.
Those we remember on ANZAC Day fought for our freedoms, too many of them paid with their lives. Thanks to their sacrifices we live in a free society. We’re free to go where we please, free to gather with others, enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of association. Yet this ANZAC Day the Police have told us we’re not free to gather with our local communities because they can’t protect us. They blame the government imposed heightened security threat. The government says it’s up to Police to sort this out. The Police have caused cancellation of two thirds of Auckland ANZAC Day gatherings to date.
The events of 15 March were horrific – the sort of tragedy we never thought we’d see in our peaceful nation. The government and security agencies take the lead in such circumstances. But the lasting effects of such tragedies rest with the public. We can wait to be protected, live in fear and allow our movements to be curtailed, or we can get on with our lives. The Prime Minister has been praised both at home and around the world for her handling of the terror attack on the Christchurch Mosques. Now it’s time for her to complete the job by encouraging kiwis not to be fearful, to continue going about their normal routines, to continue with traditions like attending ANZAC Day services in our communities.  Anything less means we allow the terrorist to win.
ANZAC Day is a national day of remembrance. The way in which we remember must not be about the convenience for Police, but about New Zealanders being free to attend services and to march in respect of those who fought in global conflicts. I don’t believe any curtailing of ANZAC Day commemorations is founded. It merely builds fear when public unity is called for. For this reason, I have launched a petition today: Resist ANZAC Day Restrictions. Attend and March. You can find more information on the facebook page.

Almost 2,000 have signed already. I have.

Sir Michael Cullen writes:

The fact is that the vested interests opposed to any change were well organised, funded, not too careful with the truth at times and, of course, fully supported by that awful tribe of right-wing shock jocks on private radio who dominate our airwaves during the day.

The best response to this came from Simon Bridges:

A superb sledge.

As for interests opposed to the change being well funded, well if that is true we have Dr Cullen to thank for that. I can’t give details away but I was staggered at how much more money people would donate to an e-mail appeal against CGT, if we mentioned Dr Cullen in the e-mail. He was the best fundraising tool the opponents had.

The real failure in the debate was the absence from it of all the groups who might be expected to support a fairer tax system. Only near the end did a group emerge, but it muddied the picture by throwing into the debate a whole set of other proposals as well.
Where were the social justice groups, the Salvation Army and the churches, the public sector unions clamouring for large wage increases, indeed all those who keep discovering new social crises in the social services left by the previous National government?
The fact is they largely only rode on to the scene after the battle was lost, while blaming the Government for losing it.

The biggest group missing was of course the Labour caucus. As others have pointed out the PM never once fought for it, so no surprise.

And all the unions and social justice groups would have fought for it, if Labour had asked them to. They didn’t turn up, because Labour didn’t. And Labour had a year to work with them and prepare them.

A better analysis of why Labour lost the CGT debate comes from Troy Bowker:

He cites four main reasons:

1. Appointing Dr Cullen as Chair. As I said above, this was mana from heaven for opponents. It made the TWG look like a partisan group, and immediately got the donations flowing in. And keeping him on the payroll after the report was done just added fuel to the fire.
2. Silence from the PM and Finance Minister. They didn’t fight for it once in public.
3. NZ First. Labour should have got some commitment up front rather than pray and hope they might agree.
4. Underestimating the public. They argued only a small percentage of NZers would pay CGT but the reality is it would impact “600,000 small and medium-size businesses, 200,000 lifestyle block owners, 250,000 Bach owners and 1.2 million kiwi savers in New Zealand”

Anyway the CGT is dead and buried for the next 20 years or so. The appropriate quote would be one Dr Cullen himself used “We won, you lost, eat that!”

I don’t think the PM is worried about being attacked by Katie Hopkins, but I figured I;d state the obvious for her. The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is ignoring a swipe by a British columnist over yesterday’s attacks in Sri Lanka which have left hundreds dead.
Katie Hopkins, a columnist and former contestant in the 2007 The Apprentice TV show, has hit out at Ardern, saying she now expects her to be “dressed as the pope, ringing church bells across #NZ and praying in Latin in Parliament by noon”.

Jacinda Ardern is not the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. She is the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Why on earth would she do anything in response to an attack in another country, except the normal expressions of sympathy?

I still don’t get how people get so worked up over a display of empathy to the Muslim community in New Zealand. It was genuine and a great idea.

The sensible comparison is would she have done the same if another religious minority was slaughtered in New Zealand, and I am sure the answer would be yes. If 50 Jews had been killed while praying at a synagogue in New Zealand, then Ardern would probably have worn a kippah or yarmulke as a sign of respect and empathy.

There’s so much legitimate stuff to criticise Ardern on, that it drives me crazy that people get worked up on this.

Of course being attacked by Katie Hopkins is akin to being savaged by Chloe of Wainuiomata.

Very much a getting ready for the big battle episode. A lot of people are going to die next week I’d say. Key points are:

A guest post from a reader:

The Prime Minister should reflect very carefully on her big policy losses of Three Strikes and Capital Gains Tax, courtesy of Winston Peters and NZ First – and thanks to them on both.  They understood the NZ psyche and political implications on these two important policy issues.
 
The next test will be even more important – both for New Zealanders and for the Prime Minister.  Will she pull Justice Minister Andrew Little in line and tell him to drop any attempt to limit freedom of speech/introduce a hate speech law?
 
Any attempt in this area is destined to fail, even more so than they did with Three Strikes and CGT.  The Christchurch Mosque massacre raises important questions in a range of areas that need to be addressed.  But using it as a trojan horse to limit free speech through the power of Government will be met with a massive public backlash. 
 
The public debate would also prove divisive, both racially and religiously.  That would be very unfortunate when New Zealanders have overwhelmingly banded together and unified to grieve with and support our Muslim friends.  We all empathise with them and reject the vile, hate-filled extremist who committed the mass murder. But that does not translate into supporting the curtailing of our ability, and rights, to express our views, our thoughts, our genuinely held opinions.  It would be the worst judgment call of any Government to attempt to do that.
 
Will Jacinda Ardern read the tea-leaves on this one?  Or will Winston and the NZ First caucus read them to her, for a third time?

This will be an interesting space to watch. To be fair to the PM, she has not jumped onto the we must change the law bandwagon. But her Justice Minister and the Greens seem very keen.

As much as I would like to see them try and fail (as they did with three strikes and CGT), I’d rather they didn’t try at all.