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.

Stuff reports:

The United States made preparations for a military strike against Iran in retaliation for the downing of a US surveillance drone, but the operation was abruptly called off with just hours to go, a US official said.
The official, who was not authorised to discuss the operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the targets would have included radars and missile batteries. The New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump had approved the strikes on Thursday night, but then called them off.

It’s reasonable to strike or not to strike, but what is not reasonable is ordering a strike and then changing your mind. It makes Jimmy Carter look decisive.

God forbid what would happen in an actual major conflict.

From the ABC:

So the ODT has the smallest drop in the last year and the Sunday News the largest. The Press has the biggest fall of the daily newspapers.

Since 2008 the Press and Dom Post have had their circulation drop by over half and the Herald by over 40%.

On the 5th ballot Jeremy Hunt beat Michael Gove by just two votes to make the membership vote vs Boris Johnson.

In the 4th ballot, the 27 votes from Stewart went 14 to Boris, five to Hunt, 10 to Gove and Javid lost four.

In the 5th ballot the 34 votes from Javid went three to Boris, 18 to Hunt and 14 to Gove.

It is possible some Boris voters voted for Hunt so he would make the final two instead of Gove.

Hunt voted for Remain and Camp Boris have nicknamed him “Theresa in trousers” or “Tit”. Hard to see the members voting for him.

The Herald reports:

National has committed to starting construction on the Melling Interchange roading project in its first term, if elected to power.
However, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said the Melling interchange still needs to go through a consent and designation process.
Opposition leader Simon Bridges made the announcement today alongside Hutt Valley mayors and MPs.
He said the project’s delay had been a sorry saga from the Government and the interchange needs to be prioritised.

“In our first term we’re committed to starting construction of this vital project in this area because we know that New Zealand shouldn’t be slowed down, it needs to get going.”
In April the NZTA announced the $140 million transport project, that would greatly ease congestion on State Highway 2, won’t be considered for funding until 2028.

This is a great project that will benefits motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. It means traffic across Melling won’t intersect SH2 traffic and will give pedestrians and cyclists separate lanes.

A great article by Henry Cooke on the rise and fall of Kiwibuild. Great long firm journalism.

A few things stood out to me that showed how from the very beginning it was really a policy based on how it sounds, rather than any serious policy work to see if it could work.

King, who declined to comment for this story, had been in a car on the way to an event with Salvation Army head Campbell Roberts and Housing Foundation head Brian Donnelly in the months before the conference, chatting about the emerging problems in housing. Donnelly’s agency had a scheme where affordable homes were built and sold, and the capital immediately recycled to build more. King liked the idea.
“We said there was a supply problem, and there was a need for there to be an increase of supply of affordable entry-level housing. But the emphasis was on the affordable,” Roberts told Stuff.
“To tell you the truth, I was a bit concerned with the speed at which they grabbed it. I don’t think there was pretty much more than our conversation – which was in the car going to something – it was a not a sitdown meeting, and the next thing they were introducing it,” Roberts said.

So the policy was based on a conversation in a car. This is how Labour makes policy!

King told a recent biography the original policy had been for 50,000 homes, but after taking a look at the huge amount of homes built in the 1970s it was decided it could be “cranked up” to 100,000  instead – in fact they even considered going higher. When the party was finally elected five years later, it would be happy it hadn’t.
Roberts said the 100,000 number immediately raised warning signs and he told Labour about it.

So they doubled the number on a whim because it sounded better.

Twyford says he will deliver a paper to Cabinet in “a few weeks” recalibrating the policy. It doesn’t appear that this has happened yet, almost six months later.

They really don’t know what to do.