Chris Hipkins released:

Education Minister Chris Hipkins has declined Victoria University of Wellington Council’s application for a legal name change. …

“While Victoria University of Wellington, like other universities, has significant autonomy in making academic, operational and management decisions, it is accountable to its community and the groups that make up the University.
“I am not convinced that the University engaged sufficiently with the views of those stakeholders who should have their views considered. Given the level of opposition to the University’s recommendation, including by its own staff, students and alumni, I am not persuaded that the recommendation is consistent with the demands of accountability and the national interest. 

Very very pleased with this decision. There was huge opposition to this name change from alumni and students.  I suspect it helped that Chris and Grant Robertson are both Wellington based (and former VUWSA Presidents) and would have been made personally aware on multiple occasions how strongly locals were against a name change.

I hope the Victoria VC accepts the decision, and they now focus on building Vic up to be an even greater university. They can in fact acheieve a lot of what they want to do by just changing their marketing in overseas markets by placing more emphasis on New Zealand and Wellington.

Well done to all those graduates who spent scores and scores of hours mobilising opposition, writing submissions etc.

Politik reports:

The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, confirmed yesterday that she did not see Winston Peters’ major speech on NZ-US relations before he delivered it in Washington, DC, on Saturday.
The speech has raised questions about whether New Zealand is moving its foreign policy closer to the Trump administration and away from the independent stance it has pursued since the ANZUS breakdown in 1985.
It has surprised observers in Wellington that such a major speech could be delivered without at least the Prime Minister’s prior approval and probably that of the Cabinet as a whole as well.

Once again the PM is out of the loop. She finds out about major changes to housing policy through the TV news and didn’t even see an advance copy of a speech signalling a significant change in foreign policy.

New Zealand likes to claims we have an independent foreign policy. This Government has taken that to a new extreme – the foreign policy is independent of the Cabinet also!

Personally I support Peters in allying ourselves more closely with the United States. I’m somewhat surprised the Greens do though.

The Herald reports:

Justice Helen Winkelmann will be the new Supreme Court Chief Justice, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced at her post-Cabinet press conference today.
Justice Winkelmann will replace retiring Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias, who is leaving the role in March next year, having reached the compulsory retirement age of 70 for judges. …

Winkelmann graduated with a law degree from the University of Auckland and was admitted to the Bar in 1985, when she was also awarded the Auckland District Law Society Centenary Prize for Best Graduate.
She was a partner at Phillips Fox (now DLA Piper) from 1988 until she became a barrister sole in May 2001, specialising in insolvency and commercial litigation.
She was appointed a High Court Judge in July 2004 and appointed as Chief High Court Judge in February 2010.
She joined the Court of Appeal bench in June 2015.

I blogged last month that Justice Winkelmann was one of the leading contenders. I said:

A judge for 14 years including three years on the Court of Appeal. Was Chief High Court Judge for five years. A very popular Judge with her colleagues. However has had a lot of decisions over-turned on appeal, especially in the Kim Dotcom cases.

Kim Dotcom has tweeted his approval of the appointment, but I don’t think one should let that colour what is a very sound decision.

In fact I suspect Chief Justice Winkelmann will be in the minority far less than Chief Justice Elias who just this week used tortured reasoning to conclude that far far more of the Electoral Act is entrenched, despite the fact all the legislative history was clearly saying the opposite. It screamed of trying to find a legal basis for a personal preference against a law change enacted by Parliament. None of her colleagues thought the appeal had any merit.

Winkelmann is aged 56, so will be the 13th Chief Justice until around 2032.

Tova O’Brien writes:

Just as Jami-Lee Ross was the most damaging political scandal of the year for National, Karel Sroubek has been the most piercing dagger in Labour’s side.
And just as Mr Ross tainted Simon Bridges and his leadership so too does Sroubek damage the Prime Minister. …

Which is why her failure to disclose a text she got from her buddy – and Sroubek’s good mate – Richie Hardcore is so problematic.
It’s extremely unlikely there’s any great conspiracy here – no Ardern/Hardcore/Sroubek alliance – but this is a perception issue and it looks dodgy.
We don’t know what’s in that text. She tells us it’s innocuous, a congratulatory note sent after Sroubek was granted residency by her immigration minister.
There’s an element of the Hillary Clinton private email scandal in all this, the Prime Minister’s been in deep water for using personal channels for official communications before.
Derek Handley was messaging and emailing the Prime Minister on her private number and her personal email about the high-profile, freshly minted government role he was going for.
It felt like it took an eon to pry details from the Prime Minister about her relationship with Handley, let alone force her to disclose the messages.

At the time Ms Ardern stood up in front of the Parliament and told us all not to worry about her using personal platforms for official communications. She told us it was all above board because we could access it through official channels like the Official Information Act (OIA).
That was entirely disingenuous and simply not the case. Newshub has made multiple requests of the Prime Minister’s Office under the OIA for details of official communications she’s had using personal email or messaging platforms. We have been stonewalled and refused every time.

Remember the most open and transparent government ever!

Stuff reports:

The Government won’t “rush” to change the law around riding e-scooters drunk, despite an intoxicated rider receiving serious injuries after falling from one.
Aucklander Amy Gianfrancesco fractured her neck, chipped her tooth and was left with serious bruising after falling off a Lime e-scooter. She had been drinking alcohol prior to the incident.
She is now calling for better regulations and suggested e-scooters should be “locked” at night so people who have been drinking couldn’t use them.

Or you know perhaps you just shouldn’t use an e-scooter if you’re drunk. Don’t blame the law for you making a stupid choice.

But Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter said e-scooters offered real benefits and she wanted to wait until the Lime scooter trial was complete before seeing if further regulation was required.

Good.

Stuff reports:

The Government is secretly grappling with the dilemma of paying out climate change compensation to beachfront property owners.

And one of the options on the table is buying up homes that are at risk of being swamped by sea level rises.

No homes are at risk of being “swamped”, at least not in the next couple of decades.

“We’re going to start talking to the country about sea level rise and risk next year,” a government source told Stuff, on condition of anonymity. “The first thing that people ask is: ‘well, who pays.’
“If we don’t have any kind of answer to the compensation question, it just creates panic.”
The Government is “hyper-aware” of the implications of such a discussion, the source said.
“If [we say] people’s houses are going to go underwater…people’s property prices will tank …they would stop shopping – and the economy will tank.

This is hysterical nonsense. There will be no panic as the rise in sea levels (which is real) is not at this stage at a fast pace. And yes it is projected that pace will increase, but not for some time.

“If [the Government indicates] there is compensation, people will keep doing what they are already doing. If there won’t be compensation, there’ll be riots in the streets and people wearing yellow vests. None of these scenarios is a good one.”

None of these scenarios are good because they are nonsense.

One option tentatively under discussion is buying up coastal homes that will eventually become uninsurable and allowing the owners to continue to live there, at their own risk.
“People could live in those properties for a couple of decades. They may not be able to be privately insured, but [the owner] takes an element of risk and and lives there…but knows that at some point the house will basically become unusable,” the source said.

Here’s some facts.

The average sea level rise in New Zealand is currently 3.4 mm a year. So at the current rate you would expect sea levels to be 6.8 cm higher in 20 years time. That is not going to be swamping or drowning any residence unless it is literally on the beach at the high tide mark.

Very very few houses stay with the same owner for even 20 years. In fact recent data on house sales show the last time the house sold was seven years before that. 

Almost every coastal property will be sold multiple times before sea level rise has a serious impact on it. And buyers will take into account projected rise when they buy. 

Even if a coastal home owner keeps their home all their life, the chances are they will die long before sea level rise affects their property.

In the long term, sea level rise will affect many coastal properties. But the current IPCC data does not suggest a huge increase in the next few decades.

Stuff reports:

A mother, whose teenage son was killed in a hit and run believes New Zealand’s justice system is broken.
Charlene Kraatskow wants a complete review of the system, and to appeal the sentence 19-year-old Rouxle Le Roux received.
Le Roux had drunk alcohol and smoked marijuana on the night she hit and killed 15-year-old Nathan Kraatskow on an Auckland motorway. She was sentenced to 11 months home detention, 250 hours community work and disqualified from driving for two-and-a-half years.

I wouldn’t say that all deaths from careless driving should get a jail sentence for the at fault driver. But when the driver was both pissed and stoned, I’d expect them to serve some jail time to recognise the loss of life that was easily avoidable.

Also she fled the scene of the crime and was on a learners licence.

Nathan’s mother Charlene Kraatskow has since launched a petition to the Crown to appeal the sentence. At 10pm on Saturday more than 50,000 people had signed the petition.

Sign up.

The judge, Nicola Mathers, took into account when sentencing La Roux an early guilty plea, because she believed the young woman was remorseful.
However, the Kraatskows disagreed.
While on bail Le Roux posted a photo to Instagram of her wearing an orange jumpsuit. She captioned the image “hide your children”.

This is the appalling part. How could she get leniency after that?

And this wasn’t a one off. She did several posts making light of it all

Peter Williams writes:

Then there’s the matter of the Prime Minister’s comments.
Has a New Zealand political leader ever made such an emotional comment about a homicide victim before? More pertinently, why would the Prime Minister think it appropriate to comment on one homicide victim in a week when there were at least three other homicides in the country?
Yes, the death of Grace Millane is truly shocking. We have a young woman, in the year of the MeToo movement, being killed. But why the outpouring of grief for her and not for Rima Sikei, a 21-year-old who died in Mt Albert on Friday night. Where was the Prime Minister’s sympathy for him?
Or for Frank Tyson, whose decapitated body had been found in Lower Hutt the same weekend that Grace went missing?
Politicising a homicide case is not appropriate. Do it for one, and you really should do it for all.

The PM was reacting, as many have – from a place of horror and sorrow. It was a genuine emotional response.

But when you are PM, you do have to be careful. As Williams says, the same weekend a Petone man was decapitated.

Amidst some way-too-emotional comments by people who should know better, the most principled stance has been taken by Kelvin Davis, the often embattled Labour deputy leader.
In his role as Minister of Tourism, he said he would not comment because the case was an ongoing police investigation.
Thank you for your sanity, Kelvin. We needed more of it this week.

That is the best response from a Minister. 

Stuff has done their year end ratings for Ministers and front benchers. Here’s the full list from top to bottom:

1. 9.5/10 – Jacinda Ardern
2. 8.5/10 – Winston Peters, Grant Robertson
3. 8.0/10 – David Parker, Judith Collins, Mark Mitchell, Michael Woodhouse
4. 7.5/10 – Paul Goldsmith, overall National frontbench
5. 7.0/10 – Andrew Little, James Shaw, Paula Bennett
6. 6.5/10 – Phil Twyford, Simon Bridges
7. 6.0/10 – Amy Adams, overall Labour frontbench
8. 5.0/10 – Kelvin Davis
9. 1.0/10 – Jami-Lee Ross

They note:

Too many of Labour’s front bench are yet to shine and they are leaning heavily on Ardern, Peters and Robertson. National’s front bench, in contrast, has been a machine, picking up in Opposition where they left off in government. They have consistently scored hits against the Government, have run hard on issues and scandals, and have made question time a ‘must watch’ again after years of irrelevance.
In short, National is fielding the best Opposition front bench we have seen in years and if it wasn’t for the Jami-Lee Ross train wreck, would get a near perfect score. But it’s hard to look past the fact that Ross was a key member of the front bench. The only reason National hasn’t been docked more points is because of the speed with which the caucus has recovered and moved on.

I’ve bolded the key points. National has been highly successful at holding the Government to account.

NewstalkZB reports:

Police officers are worried the Government is asking them to essentially spearhead drug decriminalisation, saying its announcement on synthetic drugs has an air of “drug reform on the fly”.
Police Association president Chris Cahill said while he was pleased two synthetic drugs would be reclassified as Class A and a new drug classification would be created giving police greater powers, there was concern over some aspects of the Government’s announcement.
Health Minister David Clark and Police Minister Stuart Nash today said there would be a crackdown on people who made and supplied the deadly drugs but police would be told to use more discretion when deciding to prosecute people using any illegal drugs, not just synthetics.
“The association supports a greater focus on treatment of drug addiction rather than prosecution. However, there is concern about some aspects of the government announcement,” Cahill said.
“It has an air of drug reform on the fly, rather than a more considered debate and informed legislation. I am worried that by codifying police discretion the Government is potentially asking officers to be the spearhead of decriminalisation. If decriminalisation is what Parliament wants, then that’s what the law should say,” he said in a statement.

The Police Association is quite correct. The Government is trying to shift responsibility for drug law to The Police. This is so they can avoid any accountability as they can see it is all about how Police use their discretion.

Once again we see lazy law making from Labour. What they should so is either pass a law decriminalising or legalising cannabis (as in several US states) or at least have a clear framework for criminalisation such as you only get a criminal record on your third offence, and the first two offences just result in drug counselling.

But just saying “we’ll leave it to Police to decide” is a cop out.

Stuff reports:

The continued threat of incomplete data has Statistics New Zealand again pushing the deadline for Census 2018 results.
Documents released under the Official Information Act show the department is planning for an August 2019 deadline, and continues to stare down a high risk it may not produce viable results.
A low turnout during Census 2018 has caused considerable pain for Stats NZ, which last week announced it would not make the third deadline it set – July 2019 – and promised to announce a release date in April.
Experts are concerned the repeatedly slipping deadlines will have a detrimental impact on planning and funding decisions to come in 2019, and the data might already be “stale”. 

The data will be somewhat stale by then and we are told what they do release my not even be viable.

I can’t work out why Stats NZ didn’t just hire a thousand students and get them to door knock the addresses with low or nil response rates. They’ll know who they are from existing data, NZ Post, Electoral roll etc.

Stuff reports:

A judge has asked for an “informal undertaking” that a councillor convicted of indecent assault will not contact his victim or her family.
It comes as it is revealed five other staff complained about Kāpiti Coast councillor David Scott’s behaviour before he indecently assaulted his victim.

Most people would not need to be told by a judge to stop doing this.

Last month Scott denied having a Facebook page, access to a computer, messaging the victim’s son and said he did not contact her ex-husband.
However, in the affidavit opposing his victim’s application, he said he did send a Facebook message to the son and approached the ex-husband.

So he lied about the Facebook page, messaging the son and contacting the ex-husband. That’s three proven lies.

He denied the original crime and claimed he was no longer a councillor.
On Thursday, he claimed he was no longer paid a council salary. Kāpiti Coast District Council confirmed he was still receiving his annual $35,342 salary.

And that’s two more lies.

He should stop lying and resign.

The Herald reports:

It wasn’t the cheeriest of pre-Christmas speeches but David Lipton, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was clearly not in a festive mood.
His message was clear.
History suggests we are due for another financial crisis and right now the world is no shape to cope with one.

We have had a global crisis in 1973, 1987, 1998 and 2008 so there is a fair chance of one before 2021.

With interest rates still low, central banks simply don’t have the firepower they did in 2008 to deal with a deep recession, he argued.
Trillions of dollars worth of quantitative easing cash (which central banks effectively printed to get though the GFC) has yet to be reabsorbed – limiting that option as an emergency response.
Meanwhile, public debt has been building in many countries – including the US – seriously limiting the option of using fiscal stimulus to deal with a crisis.

John Key has made this point also. Most economies have near zero cash rates and much higher public debt. This is one reason it is important NZ protects itself by keeping debt lower.

Lipton criticised China, the US and Europe for economic policies and politics that were not addressing risk.
The US was running up debt to stimulate its economy at a time when it did not need it

China’s household debt is 900% higher than in 2008. If there is a global correction, it is likely to be far more damaging that the GFC.

Andrew Little announced:

The SOP proposes two new offences to be added to the Crimes Act. The offences are:
* theft of livestock or other animal, carrying a maximum penalty of 7 years imprisonment.
* unlawful entry to land used for agricultural purposes, where the offender intends to steal livestock or act unlawfully against specified things, such as buildings or machinery, on that land. That offence carries up to 10 years imprisonment.
“This particular SOP requires agreement of every MP to be considered at Committee Stage. I am grateful that every party has indicated they will support that procedural motion.
“I also want to acknowledge and thank the Primary Production Committee – and particularly National’s Ian McKelvie and Labour’s Kieran McAnulty – for their bipartisan assistance to the Government in addressing the issue of livestock rustling,” said Andrew Little.

Rather unusual to have this added in at the last minute. I presume they need unanimous consent as it is outside the purpose of the current bill (which is dealing with spousal immunity).

The proposed offences look fine to me, but I do worry about making changes to the criminal code that have not been the subject of select committee deliberations.

However there is a members’ bill on a similar issue, so I presume that bill will now be dropped, in exchange for the changes to this bill.

Newshub reports:

An autopsy of the dead birds dumped at Parliament by 1080 protesters in September shows that one was shot, likely with a rifle.
The cause of death of the adult male weka is ruled to be “trauma consistent with ballistic injury”.
“Entry wound would indicate a ballistic calibre of .22 should be considered.”
Weka are a protected species. 
Under the Wildlife Act, it is a crime to shoot a protected species.
Forest and Bird is calling for the 1080 protesters who dumped the birds on the steps of Parliament to tell the truth about how the bird died.

So they claim to be against 1080 because it kills birds (in fact it saves millions of birds by killing their predators) and it turns out one of the birds they claimed was killed by 1080 was actually shot.

The Herald reports:

British Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to “listen” and work across parties to deliver Brexit after dramatically surviving a no-confidence vote.
The Prime Minister admitted that she had suffered a “significant” rebellion after being backed by a margin of 200 to 117 in a no-confidence ballot
The win staved off what would have been an ignominious end to her time as leader – and means she cannot be challenged by her own party again for 12 months.
But with more than a third of Conservative MPs refusing to support her and a civil war raging over Brexit, the outcome still underlines the scale of the problems she faces.

Speaking at Downing Street after the vote result, a clearly shaken May admitted that she must get an improved deal from the EU.

The issue seems to be the customs backstop. If she can get some sort of limitation to the possibility it could carry on indefinitely, she might be able to win the vote in Parliament.

That would be the ideal, so she gets the UK through Brexit and then the Conservatives elect someone who can beat Jeremy Corbyn in 2020.

Skybet has the odds for the next leader as:

1. Boris Johnson 4/1
2. Dominic Raab 5/1
3. Sajid Jacid 11/2
4. Michael Gove 7/1
5. Jeremy Hunt 8/1
6. David Davis 12/1
7. Jacob Rees-Mogg 14/1
8. Amber Rudd 16/1

The fact that no one has better than 4/1 odds shows that there is no clear successor.

Stuff reports:

The Government has knocked back a proposed increase in ACC motoring levies.
It has also decided to do away with the current rules that mean it is cheaper to register cars that have a higher safety rating, and more expensive to register cars that are deemed less safe.

So if you have a more modern safer car, your levies will go up and if you have an older more dangerous car, your levies will go down!!!

Rachel Stewart writes:

The biggest cultural shift this year is around free speech and tribalism. The never-ending stories about the no-platforming of speakers has been quite something to watch.
Universities – those last bastions of ideas and intellectual rigour – have swallowed the rat poison of the easily triggered and led the way in anti-democratic moves to “protect” their students from “emotional harm”.
Who gets to decide hate speech versus alternative views? Isn’t it just another version of authoritarianism for the purposes of limiting free speech? Are we now so fragile that even hearing mere words can send us into a tailspin?
My view? It’s far more dangerous to suppress free speech than it is to hear what people are thinking – unpalatable as it may, or may not, be. That place of censorship is where festering political movements are born. I prefer to know roughly what’s coming down the pipe.
Tribalism and intersectionality are the new black. Following the herd appears to be de rigueur once again but, to my eye, it’s just another form of hell. It usually goes from healthy to unhealthy in times of societal breakdown. It’s the human default position when we’re feeling threatened.
By God, it’s boring, annoying and ultimately stupid. Why? Because you don’t have to think too much. Plus, there’s the added bonus of feeling so sure of your position you can be as hateful as possible to anyone who dares to think outside the prescribed mob box.

A great summary of the threat posed by the “offence brigade”

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was sent a text message commending the decision to grant Karel Sroubek residency by someone who is both a friend of the Czech drug-smuggler and an acquaintance of hers.
That man was Richie Hardcore, whose Instagram’s account shows him posing with Ardern in multiple photos and referring to her as “a friend” and “the people’s champ”.
National has slammed the Prime Minister after the revelation, with leader Simon Bridges saying Ardern had not been upfront about the message from Hardcore and it was time she told the whole story.
“She’s only told us this much because of our relentless questioning. It beggars belief to say that this would be the first contact that she has had with Richie Hardcore about this case.”

Hardcore is a mate of the PM, like Derek Handley was also. He has her personal phone number.

He texted her commending the decision to give Sroubek residency.

Why would he text her, unless he had already communicated with her about Sroubek?

Why has the PM evaded disclosure of this text for over a month? why did she not reveal it when questioned on it early on?

It will be interesting to see exactly what the text said. Does it refer to other communications?