There is absolutely no doubt that a child from a home with – low education outcomes of the parents, only one parent in the home, a family history of welfare dependence, low relative income, exposure to violence and neglect, having very few positive role models or obvious pathways to development … is pushing very loose manure uphill with a very wide rake. This is not excuse making – it simply acknowledges that some young people pull themselves up by their boot-laces – but many do not.

In New Zealand we pretend to address this situation through providing an Equity Index Number (it used to be “deciles”) to our school system. The schools with more “at risk” students through the issues mentioned above are, theoretically, provided with more funding to address that situation and bring about fairness and a ladder to success and social transformation.

I am always prepared to challenge people who I think are doing a poor job but … highlighting Wellington Girls College and Flaxmere College – below – has NONE of that aspect.

Wellington Girls College has an EQI of 374. What that means is that they have few students that the Ministry of Education would consider “at risk”. It also means that they get no marginal funding for that aspect. In terms of academics – WGC is NZ’s top achieving purely State School.

Flaxmere College has an EQI of 564. This is the highest in New Zealand and means that they have the most “at risk” students. They receive $262,720 of marginal funding for that aspect.

If that funding was genuinely effective – in a public school system that aims to lift all students – you would expect to see very similar results between the two schools.

Here is a comparison:

To be clear:

– To overcome situations for their students that are fully acknowledged as being deeply disadvantageous for their future outcomes – Flaxmere College receives a marginal funding boost of $262,720 (confirmed through an OIA).

– This is a 2.14% addition to the funding level any high school in NZ receives. A pittance!

– It works out at less that $5 per student per day.

– Schools such as WGC can ask for donations (e.g. $805) – which completely counters any extra funding for the Flaxmere’s of NZ. Auckland Grammar School has a donation of $1775 per year.

It is no wonder that New Zealand’s gaps for those that achieve and those who do not are the highest in the OECD.

The Minister of Education has no plan on this hugely important aspect of the present and future of our nation.

The Ministry of Education has as their purpose statement:

”To shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners.”

Has there ever been an entity in the Western World further from achieving their purpose? And yet they have – by and large – the same people in leadership as they had under the last government – and the same number of bureaucrats. The Minister has not even brought in a new Secretary of Education despite being 2 years into her term.

Schools are asked to be accountable. Teachers are asked to be accountable. The Minster and the Ministry … not so much.

Do we just sit back and accept this?

Stuff reports:

Pressure is building on Te Pāti Māori, with Toitū Te Tiriti – the activist movement behind last year’s huge Hīkoi Mō Te Tiriti – now speaking out against the party.

Tensions have been bubbling in Te Pāti Māori for some time, with public ructions between the party leadership and their MPs Tākuta Ferris and Mariameno Kapa-Kingi last month.

Now, Eru Kapa-Kingi – a spokesperson for Toitū Te Tiriti, who is also Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s son – has spoken publicly, raising concerns about the leadership of Te Pāti Māori. He described it as a “dictatorship model”.

This seems an accurate assessment. However it is not clear who is the dictator.

If this is correct, it adds to the mystery.

I remind people that there have been 72 polls since the last general election. In all 72 polls the only way Labour can form a Government (if at all) is with the support of Te Pati Maori. Not a single poll has shown that Labour and Greens could govern without them.

The Post reports:

The number of graduate positions across the public sector has dropped significantly over the last few years – by hundreds of roles.

The Greens say it means there are fewer opportunities for young people, while ACT says it’s not the Government’s role to provide jobs for graduates.

ACT are of course right.

Hernandez said the decrease was making finding a job harder for graduates, “particularly people who’ve just finished university and polytech to stay in the country, and it’s making it hard for New Zealand to attract and develop the sort of capability and talent we need to make this economy thriving and productive”.

This is almost hilarious – the notion that MBIE hiring a few more graduate policy analysts is the key to a thriving economy!

I wanted to allow some time to pass since this tragic event to see how things would unfold.

PERSONAL ANECDOTES

Like many people I heard that Charlie Kirk had been shot from a social media alert. Having recently visited Salt Lake City to referee at a rugby 7’s tournament, at the end of my time in Utah, I was asked to ref a Touch Rugby clinic for a team that was the defending US Touch National Men’s Open champions at playing fields at Utah Valley University or UVU. A couple of the Touch players were students there and I was impressed with their facilities. A couple of LDS (Mormon) former players on the High School rugby team I help coach were unable to get a place at the then US college championship Brigham Young University (BYU) rugby team and settled for a place on the UVU team. Since then, probably a dozen of our alumni has gone to UVU since the academic admission criteria to get into the LDS Church owned BYU are now so stringent. When I heard that Charlie Kirk had announced the commencement of his Fall College Campus Tour at UVU I thought two things: first, of the students I knew who are attending UVU who would be excited to go to the rally and second, of the relatively easy run Charlie would get at a place like UVU. Whilst undoubtedly neighbouring BYU would have an even higher percentage of conservative students, nonetheless the cities south of Salt Lake City that comprise Utah County are some of the most conservative in the nation. Salt Lake City itself is quite liberal, as is the campus of the University of Utah located near downtown SLC (anther location I have reffed at a few times), and the Mormon population in the actual City of SLC is now quite low, whereas the towns and cities of Utah County (including Orem where UVU is) are around 90% LDS and Mormons are a group who vote Republican heavily even if there are some who are a little less enthusiastic about Donald Trump.

Charlie still would’ve faced some hostile liberal questioning even at UVU because one of the features of his college tours is he sets up a tent and a table on a square or grassed common (or any large open space) in the middle of campus and after delivering a quick stump speech, he opens the floor for questions about anything and he specifically asks for liberals and Democrat voters to come to the front of the queue. Charlie’s interactions with mostly hostile or anti-conservative students and his sharp, succinct, passionate yet respectful debating has become the stuff of legend, so legendary in fact that many of the viral clips of these interchanges on Instagram, Tik Tok and You Tube have been viewed in aggregate billions of times! There was an additional potential frisson local to Orem – Charlie is an avowed evangelical Christian speaking on a campus with a high number of Mormon students and there are some evangelicals who openly oppose Mormonism and campaign against the religion from pulpits and online. Charlie does not do this and appears respectful of other people’s religions and he has said on his show that half of his inner circle is LDS but commentators were expecting Charlie to get some stick from Mormon questioners tired of evangelical attacks on their church. That said, Charlie ought to have gone to UVU expecting strong local support from a mostly sympathetic audience.

I listen to Charlie’s podcast and when he is touring college campuses, usually once a week he broadcasts the highlights of a particular campus visit. I also follow his Instagram channel where clips of his more intense exchanges are posted. He also gives good summaries of the campus visits on his shows, giving his views of the political temperature on each campus. Always of particular interest is when Charlie visits campuses of state universities in liberal cities and in liberal states because the seeds of the massive rightward shift of 18- to 30-year-old voters in 2024 (especially males) became apparent to Charlie on these particular visits because he has been doing this for a decade and he could sense the trend.

Hearing that he’d been shot at UVU came as a huge shock – my first thought was, of all places ….. Utah County! The first footage was from far back from the tent and it was hard to gauge the seriousness. I began watching cable news for updates and at first there was little of substance about his condition. Then children of friends at the event who happened to be close in and got footage (or received it from others) sent the more shocking close up shots that were so graphic that I had to admit that he was a goner. But then media were reporting that he was in a stable but critical condition. Minutes later my cousin in Salt Lake forwarded me a text from her son who lives in Alpine much closer to Orem. His friend was part of the operating theatre nursing team at Timpanogos Regional Hospital prepped to receive Charlie and they had just been told to stand down because he had died on the way from UVU. In reality, it is clear now that he died instantly. And yet for another staggering 2 hours, the live media footage had no update other than Critical but Stable. This was to allow time for his wife Erika Kirk and his parents to be informed and for her to come to the hospital to do the formal identification. The two students I know who were at the rally, their parents say they are understandably traumatised and the one former player who is at UVU and who was so much of a Charlie Kirk fan that in 2016, he formed the first chapter of Turning Point USA at his local high school, he was at work but he is shattered by the news.

I give this detail to try to personalise what has become an internationally recognised tragedy. I have never met Charlie Kirk and I’ve not been to his conventions or rallies as I’m not the target age but I have been an avid follower and I do know people close to those who move in his inner circle and they have seen Charlie up close and personal and say that he is the same in person as he is in public. What can be said about someone so unique as Charlie Kirk?

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE LIFE OF CHARLIE KIRK

• He only ever attended one semester of university at Harper College, local to his native Chicago and instead he focused on setting up his college outreach operation Turning Point. From this time on, Charlie often spoke negatively of the time and money spent obtaining a degree from liberal state colleges and Ivy League schools, outside of specific profession-based degrees like engineering, law, accounting etc., as being a scam and many of his famous viral videos were of Charlie debating entitled liberal college kids on this topic.
• His early mentors were Rush Limbaugh, Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Beck and James O’Keefe, three of whom he met (plus meeting those in Breitbart’s inner circle) all at a young age. Charlie combined Breitbart’s outspoken clarity of the true nature of the left with Rush’s eloquent media savvy, Beck’s attention to detail and history and O’Keefe’s bulletproof investigative journalist tenacity. All of these men who were his mentors all said they saw greatness in Charlie even as a nerdy teenager.
• Charlie began touring campuses during Obama’s 2^nd term when liberalism was in the ascendency and, as you can imagine, his first forays were poorly attended but he was able to hone and refine his debating skills for years with mostly hostile audiences.
• Charlie was raised Presbyterian but became a born-again evangelical Christian. In addition to his formidable campus visit schedule, he was a powerful advocate in Christian conservative circles hosting numerous Christian outreach events targeting particularly young people.
• Charlie moved from Chicago to Arizona siting Turning Pont USA’s HQ in southeast Phoenix. TPUSA now has 450 employees with revenue of just under $100 million annually and has 1,200 High School and 900 College Chapters.
• Combined views of all media clips of Charlie’s debates during the 2024 campaign were estimated by Tik Tok researchers, looking at total reach as well as views, at a staggering 13 billion!
• He would give out over 35,000 red MAGA or white 47 hats on each campus tour. At the peak, he was giving away 3,000 to 5,000 per visit! The logistics of getting that many hats made and shipped are formidable.
• He met his wife Erika at a TP Conference and she is a strong willed and committed conservative Christian like Charlie. He is survived by a 3-year-old daughter and 1 year old son. She has been appointed as the CEO of Turning Point to carry on his legacy.
• Charlie was the person most instrumental in persuading JD Vance in 2021 to run for the US Senate in Ohio in the 2022 midterm elections and he was also influential in persuading Donald Trump to choose JD as his 2024 Vice Presidential running mate against very strong mainstream Republican advisor opposition.
• Charlie’s podcast and radio show, The Charlie Kirk Show, regularly ranks in the top 5 of political podcasts listened to. When you add the penetration of the various clips of his debates and speeches across social media, his total engagement is the highest of any political commentator.
• Charlie was largely self-taught being a voracious reader and also of being mentored by professors like Dr. Larry Arne (founder of conservative Hillsdale College) and such luminaries as Professor Victor Davis Hansen and Cambridge Professor James Orr who spoke at one of his rallies and who has a photographic memory and has memorised all the major works of English literature. Charlie persuaded him to spend an entire Sunday with him after his rally teaching him a compressed summary of the great literary works.
• Charlie is 6’ 4” tall and was very fit and active fastidiously adhering to eating healthy, not drinking alcohol and being strict about sleep and proper rest. He would have a digital Shabbat by switching off all media and electronics on Saturdays to spend the time with his family away from the limelight.
• He was patient, kind, obliging and accessible. As his fame grew, it became more and more difficult for him to go anywhere without being recognised and so his staff would sometimes try to find remote hole-in-the-wall isolated restaurants to attempt a meal without interruption. One time they did this in a small rural town in Southern California and managed to have a meal with minimal interruptions. However, as they went to leave there were two boys aged about 14 or 15 who were riding past on bikes as the party left the restaurant and they were yelling at Charlie as the car drove off. Charlie asked the driver to turn around and go back just so some random teenagers could have a quick chat and get a selfie.
• In recent years he became internationally famous and was recognisable in all major cities he visited, like a recent trip to the UK he was greeted constantly by well-wishers on the streets of English cities. A measure of his fame was highlighted by a recent meal at a restaurant in liberal New York City with recognisable and also famous Fox News hosts and in the 90 minutes that they were there, 150 people asked the Fox News people to take a selfie with Charlie and he politely obliged everyone who asked.
• He regularly interviewed the most powerful and influential people in the conservative movement including Trump, Vance, senior Senators and Congressman, fellow conservative media stars like Megan Kelly. Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson. He interviewed many up-and-coming new media stars, podcasters, researchers and experts on a variety of fields. He championed the cultural war warriors like Matt Walsh and others and on Sundays, he would interview a range of pastors and Christian commentators.
• Many people are unaware of how adept Charlie was at navigating the complex and vicious swamp that is Washington DC. Charlie’s connections and almost encyclopedic knowledge of the intricate procedures of actual governing meant Charlie’s lobbying on behalf of Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees was seen by White House insiders as crucial to the success of getting his nominees confirmed.
• Charlie was friends with everyone and his amiable good nature meant he was able to bridge the various sometimes contentious factions inside the GOP (e.g. the foreign policy realists vs the war hungry neo-cons). Because he liked and was respected by his ideological opponents and by never making it personal, it meant those inside the party with opposing views were more likely to listen to Charlie. Accordingly, he was instrumental in helping heal rifts that could’ve torn the GOP apart.
• Trump’s victory was not just greatly assisted by the huge swing of Gen Z voters to Trump thanks to the hundreds of campus outreach “Prove Me Wrong” tours but Turning Point’s massive GOTV operation, especially early ballot collecting, across the 7 battleground states. And yet despite this herculean effort, Charlie would deflect the credit to others and to his team and be very reluctant to be seen as the main catalyst that he was.
• Charlie was single-handedly instrumental in brokering the relationship between Trump and RFK Jr thus bringing millions of MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) voters to vote for Trump.
• Most of his college questioners did not become confrontational ideological flashpoints but were from nervous young conservative students seeking help on how to navigate life on largely liberal campuses and young Christians on how best to live their faith. Often young people would ask big stage-of-life questions as they saw Charlie as a successful articulate Christian conservative and happily married family man who could show the way to their own success if life.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT HIS ASSASSIN?

The shooting occurred at 12.23pm Mountain time on Wednesday September 10^th only 3 minutes into his question time after a standard 20-minute stump speech. By the evening of the 10^th, law enforcement (the US accesses multiple layers of law enforcement in large cases like this beginning at the most local jurisdiction so the UVU Campus Police, then the Utah Department of Public Safety which is their State Police then the FBI) released grainy and distant CCTV footage of the shooter. At 10am on the 11^th a closer but still grainy picture of an early 20’s slender male dressed in dark jeans and a T-shirt with a stylised eagle on a US flag wearing sunglasses. By early evening of the 11^th a series of even closer, more defined pictures were released along with surveillance footage of his escape from the campus. These latest photos were detailed enough for the shooter’s family to identify him as 22-year-old student Tyler Robinson from Hurricane, a small town adjacent to St George in southern Utah. Tyler’s father was influential in persuading his son to turn himself in and he did so from where he was hiding in Orem and after surrendering is booked into the Utah County Jail at around 10pm on the 11^th – amazingly a mere 33 hours after the assassination!

It was clear from comments made to media by friends of the family and perusal of their various social media accounts that Tyler grew up in a practicing Mormon home and both parents and family are registered Republicans and Trump supporters and, as is common conservative rural American communities, are gun owners. These early facts gave license to left wing influencers and some in the media to wrongly claim that Robinson was MAGA. But pretty quickly and as the investigation progressed, the profile emerged of a once happy contented teenager from a religious home who became progressively radicalised to hard-core left-wing causes the most prominent being trans activism:

• Since he began a semester at the University of Utah (a typical very liberal state college), his family noticed a distinct sharp leftward turn in his political leanings.
• Investigators have found that Robinson frequented extremist left wing chat rooms and groups on the Dark Web and those on 4 Chan, Discord and Reddit.
• Early clues to his leanings came from what was engraved on the casings of the bullet fired and the bullets recovered when the hunting rifle used to kill Kirk was found in woods near the UVU campus: “hey fascist, catch” – a common meme used by violent Antifa thugs referencing the Helldiver 2 video game and its bomb dropping controller moves , “Oh Bella ciao, bella ciao, Bella ciao ciao ciao.” – this is another commonly used Antifa meme and references the famous Italian song that was popularised by the Italian resistance to Mussolini’s fascist regime, “notices bulge, oWo, what is this” – this is a Gen Z reference to people in the furry community (a bizarre subgroup of the wider trans community) and finally, “if read this you are gay, LMAO” – references a belief widespread amongst extreme anti conservative groups that Trump and his supporters are secretly gay.
• Then it was revealed that his roommate Lance Twiggs was actually his trans transitioning lover, a man trying to become a women, cementing his deep sympathy for the trans community who have proven in recent years to be extremely violent and antagonistic towards a conservative Christian like Kirk.
• The released Discord and text messages between Twigg and Robinson confirmed his involvement in the assassination and give some further light to his motives: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out”.
• As more information comes out, and as the FBI burrow deeper into the networks that radicalised Robinson, it has become clear that a number of people knew in advance of his plan. What law enforcement are currently focusing on is to what extent Robinson was helped in his quest to kill Kirk.
• There is a wider context being the announcements by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel of the Department of Justice beginning a RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) investigation into left wing NGOs such as George Soro’s Open Society Foundation, the donations of radical left billionaire Neville Singham, the Ford Foundation and various others alleged to be the funding masterminds behind Antifa and many other radical organizations driving the attacks on ICE officers and the bombing of Tesla dealerships. Various senior Trump Administration officials have indicated their desire to winkle out those who fund and foment the kind of radical extremist views that was the cesspool of radicalism that Robinson clearly marinated in and this has culminated in Trump declaring Antifa a domestic terrorist organisation.

LIBERAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE REACTIONS

Floyd vs Kirk

The death of George Floyd, who became an icon to the liberal left, gives us a stark contrast with the death of Charlie Kirk who was an icon to the conservative right. Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis in May 2020 led to a veritable orgy of violence, rioting and looting in all the major cities across the US with the rioting in key liberal run cities in blue states that was left only partially checked because the police forces were more defanged from properly dealing to the rioting. This lead to billions of dollars in property damage of shops, businesses and even a police precinct, most particularly in Minneapolis where Floyd died. Even in better policed cities, inner city business owners still had to bear the cost of boarding up their premises.

When the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination spread, there was not a single business in any city, let alone in very conservative Utah County where the killing occurred, that ever even had to contemplate boarding their frontages. Across the nation, angry and hurt conservatives did not take to the streets and riot, they gathered in large respectful vigils where prayers and speeches of patriotism and gratitude for Charlie were given. There was no body count and no need for a protestors bail fund. Cars had processions on roads and freeways with American flags flying and people who had not ever, or rarely, been religious showed up to churches in droves. Despite the provocation of such a heinous act, the right has not sought to retaliate with counter violence nor have any of its prominent leaders called for violent revenge other than to bring to justice the killer and any who may have aided and abetted him. Indeed, at Charlie’s massive Memorial Service in Glendale, Arizona, his grieving and weeping widow Erika dramatically embodied the Christian ideal of turning the other cheek and forgiving your enemies by publicly and emotionally forgiving her husband’s killer. As our esteemed host eloquently stated in his 22 September Post on the Memorial, it was a riveting moment! If ever there was a contrast between how the two main sides of our fractured political divide handle the violent death of someone dear to their cause, this was it.

The MSM lie ….yet again

The legacy media and Democrats predictably lied about the assassination to deflect any blame from their preferred side of the political fence. As soon as word of Robinson’s family background was released, Yahoo News, NBC, Associated Press and others announced breathlessly that Robinson was MAGA. Even a cursory glance of the initial evidence of who Robinson was and what his beliefs and motivations were would inform the average sentient human being that whatever ideology was present in his youthful upbringing, he was now the polar opposite of a conservative Trump lover. Kirk was Trump’s most vocal and public defender and promoter and Tyler vowed to kill him for his “hateful” speech. And sure enough, on social media, lefties and progressives harped on about how the killer was MAGA or “nothing to see here, there was no left leaning indoctrination”. Other reliably left leaning MSM commentators would spew their own version of obfuscation by saying with a straight face that it was not possible to discern any motive of the killer!

Cancel culture in reverse

Cancel culture is the insidious and destructive tactic employed by the left to enforce wokeness, speech codes and their extreme ideology by seizing on the social media comments (some posted decades earlier written in a flush of youthful indiscretion) of conservative leaning people. If a comment opposing the trans madness, or against climate change or in favour of conservative positions was uttered by a high-profile academic, complaints would rain down and people not supporting the new radical orthodoxy were at best publicly humiliated and shouted off the public stage but more often than not, dismissed from jobs, had fellowships withdrawn and banished from polite society. I could write a long Post on all the hundreds of conservatives across the First World who were brutally subjected to the left’s cancel culture.

So, when thousands of Kirk hating liberals took to social media to post their unrestrained glee at his death, some with the most vile and disgusting comments, they ran headlong into a series of conservative influencers sending their Kirk hating posts gloating over his murder (many of them in video form) to their shocked employers many of whom fired them for their bilious nastiness. Suddenly the left are shocked shocked when there are real world consequences for their hateful violence condoning rhetoric and suddenly have all become free speech absolutists. Across America over 1,500 teachers, academics, doctors, nurses and administrators have learned the hard way that rejoicing in the death of a person who holds different political views to you is an awful stark demonstration of a lack of empathy and humanity that some employers cannot tolerate in their workers. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this came from the fate of Jimmy Kimmel, the ABC late night comedian who promulgated the lie that Tyler Robinson was MAGA. Broadcast TV channels in the US who use the public airwaves are subject to stringent FCC regulations that require fairness and that material broadcast is seen as being for the public good. Cable channels and internet-based providers have no such restriction and can legally express more sharp-edged opinions. Two of the largest media companies (Nexstar and Sinclair who between them controlled over 60 ABC affiliate local TV stations) told ABC corporate that unless Kimmel publicly apologised for his blatant insensitivity and lie, they would no longer broadcast his show and that left ABC no choice but to suspend the show indefinitely because Kimmel apparently refused to apologise and doubled down. Kimmel has returned after a massive left wing freak out but it is highly ironic to watch the left screech loudly about one of their own being subject to the same cancel culture they cheered on for a decade AND to react more viscerally about Kimmel’s so-called loss of free speech than they ever did about Charlie Kirk’s death.

WHAT WILL BE THE IMPACT OF THIS AWFUL EVENT?

The outpouring of grief from this assassination was like nothing that anyone could’ve predicted and if those who opposed him, or who are sympathetic to what Robinson did (even in their hearts) thought that silencing Charlie somehow would diminish his impact, the events since his death have gone in the opposite direction to what anti conservatives would have hoped. Here is a summary of the extraordinary events:

• My social media algorithm likely skewers towards pro conservative content but I was stunned by the sheer number of clips of young people talking about the positive impact of Charlie had on their lives, of those who have vowed conservative focused activism in the aftermath of his death and of all the people who told of going to church for the first time ever, or the first time in decades. Then there are the reports of dozens of activists and influencers of a Christian bent who reported a massive influx of new people at their churches after the assassination.
• Within 24 hours of the assassination, Turning Point says they fielded 24,000 new requests for chapters, which is incredible given right now they have 900 college chapters and 1200 high school chapters. This figure has swollen to over 60,000. Now TPUSA acknowledge that young people from multiple schools and colleges are in this total as there are only 23,000 high schools and 6,000 colleges total in the whole country but it is a measure of the massive impact this killing has had.
• TPUSA’s management are veterans of many Trump rallies and were very familiar with the numbers attending, the logistics and the management of the press. They say the total numbers in attendance in and around the September 21^st Memorial service far exceeded the largest Trump rally they’d ever attended (the one at Madison Square Garden in New York City). The State Farm football stadium was filled to its maximum non-game capacity of 75,000 and the neighbouring Desert Diamond ice hockey arena held another 20,000 and TPUSA staff had a device that could detect cell phone pings in the immediate area around the two arenas and said that a total of 270,000 people were there for the live Memorial even if watching on screens. They also said that the media rack (the name given to the dedicated media area at a large event) was the largest they’d ever seen at any event and that space limitations meant some media couldn’t be accommodated in the State Farm Stadium. They were stunned at the huge numbers of foreign media requesting credentials.
• Unique live views of the Memorial across all live media that broadcast or streamed the event were assessed by TPUSA at 100 million and, given the massive reach of Charlie’s social media platform and the amount of views his debates and speeches get when broken into sound bites, they believe that over time, the number of total views of key clips of eulogies posted will mushroom into the billions like Charlie’s biggest most viral clips did.
• The viral highlight of the Kirk Memorial was the brave speech given by his widow Erika who personified the Christian ideal of “turning the other cheek” by publicly forgiving Ryan Robinson for the murder of her husband. It was brave and powerful and has helped set a tone on the right of not trying to seek violent retribution.

Finally, it is hard to find in recent US history an equivalent deliberate murder of a high-profile figure like Kirk that had such an impact. 1960’s civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King is perhaps the closest. He was high profile, spoke eloquently to large crowds and, at the time, his preaching of racial equality was unpopular with Southern whites. Certainly, MLK’s niece was admiring of Kirk and favourably compared him to MLK. Others point to JFK and RFK but, IMO, those assassinations were of a magnitude bigger and more consequential as they were occupiers of, or a candidate for, the highest political office in the land. Furthermore, their assassinations were greeted with ubiquitous shock, horror and sadness whereas Kirk’s has seen a very modern partisan divide of reactions. Regardless, his death is going to have wide ramifications. Electoral numbers ‘nerds’ like Captain Seth Keshel (who has analysed voter registration trends across every US county for decades), has seen a surge in Republican registration above and beyond a trend that was already happening right after Charlie’s death. The repeated nasty hate filled rhetoric of the left can only be hastening this trend as Independents and moderate Democrats have grow tired on the extreme polemics coming from left leaning influencers and even prominent Democrats. There will be somewhat of a litmus test of the partisan political waters in November as two states (Virgina and New Jersey) elect their statewide office holders (Governor and state legislators) off the regular 2- and 4-year US election cycle held in even numbered years. On the religious front, the revival in Christian worship, especially amongst the young, has massively accelerated since Charlie’s death. Turning Point posted a 5-minute video of a montage of dozens of people on social media attesting to greater religiosity since the assassination and anecdotally, this is still borne out in my own social media feeds. Let us hope that the ongoing law enforcement investigation and the trial of the killer will bring some closure. I have friends that live in Orem and Provo and also Salt Lake City who are aghast, embarrassed, saddened and sickened that such an act of political violence could occur in a community that is renown for low crime rates. Let us hope that the angry political rhetoric can cool somewhat so that we can more fully engage in what Charlie openly and enthusiastically stood for, that the respectful and frank verbal debate of our differences is better than resorting to violence.

Radio NZ reports:

A Māori-Pasifika boys’ boarding school says they’ve seen a dramatic improvement in student’s literacy since they opened as a charter school at the beginning of this year.

Tipene St Stephens in Auckland was one of eight charter schools to open this year. …

An example of how students had improved, he said, was with spelling.

He said a student might have gone from attempting less than half of a spelling test, with only about a quarter of words correct at the start of the year to six months later attempting all the words and getting more than 60 percent correct.

He said demand for what they were doing was through the roof.

I remind people that Labour and Greens want to ban charter schools

The Institute of IT Professionals announced:

IT Professionals New Zealand (ITP) has reached a point where the organisation cannot continue. After a full review of our finances, the Board has confirmed that ITP is insolvent. …

The closure of ITP does not change the importance of our values. Professionalism, inclusivity, and alignment with Te Tiriti remain essential to the future of tech in Aotearoa. These values will outlast any one organisation. The Board are in the process of meeting with like-minded organisations to understand if we can find a new home for the membership

When I was active with InternetNZ, IITP was a real powerhouse – very active and influential. It is sad to see to fold.

A member who alerted me to the closure told me that they had lost many long-term members in recent years due to their increasing focus on DEI and the Treaty rather than well Information Technology.

UPDATE: The Herald reports:

Commenting after Griffin’s post, tech industry veteran and former Tuanz CEO Ernie Newman said, “A sad announcement. ITPNZ had its heyday in the days when Paul Matthews led it [Matthews was chief executive between 2008 and 2022]. You knew what it stood for – better careers in IT, better standing for the professionals, more government support (custom, not money) for the sector.

“But since then, it felt like it drifted into non-core ‘woke’ issues and neglected its core ground.”

Ernie is right that under Paul Matthews it was well respected and has clarity.

Stuff reports:

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown says he has not ruled out stepping down towards the end of his second term if re-elected, allowing Desley Simpson to replace him.

Speaking in an interview with Stuff, the 79-year-old confirmed for the first time that he might hand over the mayoralty before the full three years are up, though he insisted he had not discussed the possibility with his deputy, Simpson, and stressed he still has plenty to do if he secures another term.

“I haven’t ruled that out, but next year’s a really important year for Auckland,” Brown said.

In normal circumstances, if the mayor of Auckland resigns, there needs to be a by-election to find a successor. While that process is underway, the deputy mayor fills in.

Legally, elections must be held within 103 days of the election officer receiving notice of a resignation. So if Brown resigned 102 days before the 2028 election, Simpson could remain as mayor and there wouldn’t need to be a by-election.

This is not correct. By-elections for local authorities do not occur if the resignation is within 12 months of the election. This is in S117(5) of the Local Electoral Act 2001. So if Brown resigned anytime after October 2027, the Auckland Council would appoint one of the 20 Councillors to become Mayor (and could also appoint a new Councillor to replace the Councillor who becomes Mayor).

So the Deputy Mayor would not automatically become Mayor. It would be whichever Councillor could gain a majority of the Council to vote for them.

Robert Bartholomew writes:

For millennia, indigenous cultures have accumulated a vast repository of information that has helped them to adapt and survive. 

Prior to European contact, the Quechua of the Andes used quinine from the bark of the cinchona tree to treat fevers. It later proved to be the first effective treatment for malaria. Salicin from the willow tree was used by tribes in the Americas to treat pain, fever, and inflammation and led to the development of aspirin. The active ingredient in snakeroot,  reserpine, was used for centuries by native peoples in India to treat high blood pressure and was adopted by Western physicians as an early treatment for hypertension. 

From stellar navigation to sophisticated construction techniques, agricultural innovations, and hunting strategies, indigenous knowledge has made significant contributions to human progress. 

Yep. I am often amazed by how good indigenous knowledge is. For example in Peru I was stunned that the Incas made their buildings hundreds of years ago earthquake proof, using ancient knowledge.

While these achievements deserve respect, many practices promoted under the banner of indigenous knowledge lack scientific merit and should be approached with caution. 

In Australia, attempts to incorporate the Aboriginal practice of ‘spiritual healing’ into the health system have been met with alarm as it involves a belief in sorcery and supernatural intrusions rather than biological agents. In the United States, alternative treatments include Native American herbal remedies, spiritual ceremonies, and sweat lodges. 

Not all traditional knowledge is good!

There is a long history of once revered European beliefs that have not passed scientific muster from astrology and alchemy. While once held to be legitimate knowledge, each of these practices eventually collapsed under the weight of scientific scrutiny.    

Bad traditional knowledge is not unique to any culture. European or western culture has had no shortage of these over time. However as scientific understanding advances, they get abandoned.

Nowhere has the trend of embracing indigenous knowledge gained more of a foothold in mainstream institutions than in New Zealand where the government has given it equal status with science in the school qualification system. This elevation has resulted in many grandiose claims about the power of the Māori lunar calendar to influence everything from human health and well-being to horticulture and the weather.

In 2023, Māori politician Hana Maipi-Clarke asserted that the calendar could be used to predict floods. There is no evidence to support this claim. Many factors affect rainfall: air and water temperature, atmospheric pressure, cloud formation, wind, humidity, the jet stream, and the burning of fossil fuels. The moon is not one of them.

Another popular claim is that a full moon can affect plant growth by pulling moisture in the soil upward to nourish seedlings. The moon’s gravitational pull on soil moisture is negligible.  

Just last year the government allocated $400,000 to study if lunar phases affect pregnancy activities despite studies consistently showing no correlation between lunar phases with childbirth and health outcomes. Such projects divert important resources from evidence-based maternal care. The relevant factors in birth outcomes are biological, genetic, and medical, not the waxing and waning of the moon.

Let us not forget the taxpayer money that got spent on researching if playing whale songs to trees will cure them!

Indigenous traditions deserve respect but they must be held to the same rigorous standard as other bodies of knowledge. Some ‘ancient wisdom’ is has proved to be genuinely valuable, while other claims lack scientific grounding or have yet to undergo rigorous testing.

For science to survive the culture wars, scientists must be willing to evaluate indigenous knowledge without dismissing it outright or accepting its veracity uncritically, but duly evaluating it on merit, regardless of cultural significance.

This should be a totally uncontroversial statement. Sadly it is not.

A release:

The Local Government Business Forum has today released a report calling for binding referendums on major council spending projects, giving ratepayers a way of saying yes to projects that they support. 
 
“Council rates increased an average of 12% last year and are estimated to rise another 9% this year. It is little wonder there have been loud calls for the government to step in and cap rates increases,” said the Local Government Business Forum’s secretary, and report author, Nick Clark. 
 
The Forum’s report Local Government Spending Referendums recommends requiring councils to hold binding referendums for significant capital projects exceeding $500 per ratepayer or 5% of annual operating expenditure. 

I absolutely support this. Wellington has around 75,000 ratepayers so this means any project over around $40 million would go to referendum. I can guarantee you many of these daft projects would have been killed off. Ratepayers would never vote for a recycling scheme that reduces greenhouse gas emissions at the cost of $19,000 a tonne (the ETS price is $57) as they pay the bills. But Councillors did.

“International experience shows that rates caps can cause problems, including underinvestment in critical infrastructure,” Clark continued. 
 
“Ratepayers deserve a direct say in major spending decisions on non-essential projects. Our proposal offers a democratic ‘third way’ between uncontrolled local government spending and centralised rate capping,” added Dr Eric Crampton, Local Government Business Forum spokesperson. 

I think you do both. You cap rates generally to inflation, but you hold binding referendum on major projects, which if approved can breach the rates cap.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has written to Labour leader Chris Hipkins urging him to commit his party to supporting offshore exploration for natural gas for at least the next 10 years, in an effort to achieve a “credible, bipartisan approach”.

But Hipkins has called it a “political stunt rather than a genuine attempt at building bipartisan consensus”.

It’s a political necessity. No company will want to invest in gas exploration if they think the next Government may ban it in a few years.

Gas reserves have been depleting quicker than predicted, with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) data showing that, as of January 1, 2025, reserves had reduced 27% compared to last year. 

A March briefing to ministers said domestic gas supply “is not adequate to meet demand and reserves are falling faster than anticipated”.

The less gas we have, the more coal we need to import.

Stuff reports:

Embattled internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom’s latest attempt to block his extradition to the United States has failed.

Dotcom challenged the legality of the justice minister’s decision to surrender him to the US through a judicial review heard earlier this year.

He also challenged the police commissioner’s decision not to lay charges against him in New Zealand, arguing it was politically motivated.

In a decision out today, the High Court declined Dotcom’s application for review and found neither of these arguments stood up.

This is no surprise. Dotcom’s conspiracy theories involving Joe Biden and Barack Obama are no substitute for facts.

We are getting close to the end. There is no right of appeal for a judicial review. Dotcom will ask the Court of Appeal to allow an appeal, but they could well decline that. Then he will no doubt ask the Supreme Court to review that decision. But both these hearings will be on whether there are grounds for an appeal, not actually a substantive hearing on the decision. So they can be dealt with relatively quickly.

If I had to guess I’d say a Court of Appeal decision in 2026 and a Supreme Court decision the same year. Then I’d expect a couple more goes at getting the Supreme Court to engage, so probably extradition in 2027.

Lloyd Burr writes:

The first question I asked Brooke van Velden after she unveiled her Holidays Act overhaul on Tuesday was: What’s the catch?

Because what the workplace relations and safety minister had just announced seemed too good to be true from a supposed right-wing, business-loving, worker-hating, union-squashing party politician. …

The mountain that is the overhaul of the Holidays Act is a massive one to climb. While she hasn’t conquered it yet, she’s closer to the top than any previous minister.

And she’s done it by not stomping on political opponents, unions or everyday working Kiwis like many would have expected an ACT MP to do.

This is one of the best reforms I have seen. Liam Hehir made the point that leave should be able to be calculated in an excel spreadsheet, and this new system will be able to do that. The old system was so terrible that multi million payroll systems would still get it wrong.

As Lloyd points out Brooke has been exceptionally fair. There has been numerous improvement for employees, and the few areas where some are slightly worse off are justified on the grounds of fairness or simplicity.

Employers will probably end up paying slightly more than they used to, but the vast majority will happily trade that cost off for the simplicity of the new system.

The plan is here. In summary it is:

1. Gaza will be a deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours.
2. Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza.
3. If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release.
4. Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.
5. Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after October 7th 2023, including all women and children detained in that context. For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.
6. Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.
7. Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip.
8. Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent.
9. Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
10. A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.
11. A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.
12. No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return.
13. Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors.
14. A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbors or its people.
15. The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) to immediately deploy in Gaza.
16. Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. Practically, the [Israeli military] will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.
17. In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above, including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the [Israeli military] to the ISF.
18. An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.
19. While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.
20. The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.

The Israeli Prime Minister has accepted this deal in principle, as has their Opposition Leader. If Hamas agrees, then the terrible war may finally end,

The Herald reports:

Iwi flipped Wellington’s Dixon Street flats for just over $3 million, less than three weeks after buying the block from Kāinga Ora for almost a third of the price.

Good on the iwi – they made $2 million. Bad on Kainga Ora for being stupid.

Both sale prices were significantly below the property’s market value of $4m and the RV of $18.9m.

So they sold other for one quarter of the market value. Why?

He told OneRoof that when Kāinga Ora first offered the Dixon Street Flats to iwi under the Right of First Refusal (RFR) process in their Treaty settlement, Taranaki Whānui Limited had initially offered to pay a lot less.

“The opening offers they made on the property were low. We negotiated with them to bring the price up. While the $1.04m price we settled on was nearly $3m lower than the market valuation we had obtained, there was no guarantee we would get a higher price if we put the property on the open market, given its challenges and the scale of investment needed.”

Of course there is no guarantee. But you don’t need to be Einstein to work out that if the market value is $4 million, there would be no shortage of companies willing to pay much more than $1 million for it.

A right of first refusal is not a commitment to sell at any price regardless.

Chris Penk released:

The earthquake-prone building system will be refocused to reduce repair costs and reinvigorate communities, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. …

“Today, I am announcing a change to a fairer, risk-based system that will bring enormous relief by lowering costs for building owners, while keeping Kiwis safe.

“The Government is removing the New Building Standard (NBS) ratings currently used by engineers to determine whether a property is earthquake-prone.

“The NBS rates how an existing building is expected to perform in an earthquake compared to a new building and has proven too broad and inconsistent.

“A building’s overall risk status is determined by its weakest part, meaning even a small defect can result in an entire building being classified as earthquake-prone.

“The new earthquake-prone building (EPB) system will capture only buildings that pose a genuine risk to human life in medium and high seismic zones.

“This category includes concrete buildings three storeys or higher, and those constructed with unreinforced masonry.

“Auckland, Northland and the Chatham Islands will be removed from the regime entirely to reflect the low seismic risk in those areas.

This is massively good. I read somewhere that the costs of the current regulations exceed the benefits by a ration of 10:1. Martin Lally has calculated that the current regime values each life saved at $70 million, compared to the $12.5 million NZTA uses and $1.3 million Treasury uses.

Stuff reports:

Mayor Tory Whanau said the news was a “huge win” for Wellington.

“Many apartment and business owners simply cannot afford to upgrade their buildings to the current standards; you can see that reality in the empty buildings around town,“ Whanau said.

This is indeed huge for Wellington, but not just Wellington.

Luke Malpass writes:

The Government’s move to change standards around earthquake risk is both unexpectedly bold and long overdue.

It has gone further than most people expected — or wanted, depending on their interests. The previous Government, distracted by Covid and other crises, effectively parked the issue in the “too-hard” basket.

Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk has now scrapped the one-size-fits-all regime created in the legislative aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes. Instead, he has targeted the rules more precisely, focusing on the parts of buildings most likely to pose a risk to life. …

The savings are enormous. As The Post exclusively reported this morning, more than $8 billion in remediation costs will be avoided — over half of that from Auckland’s removal alone.

Not many policy changes result is $8 billion of savings for property owners.

By the next election, these reforms — expected to be law by mid-next year — will stand among the Government’s most consequential achievements of the term.

They will, and surely at the next reshuffle Chris Penk must be moved into Cabinet. He is performing a reform agenda with skill that is the equal of most Cabinet front benchers.

Samira Taghavi writes on why some lawyers are quitting the criminal bar:

After seeing my friend’s LinkedIn post, I rang her. We spoke, we compared notes and we asked the question I always hate: are women less kind than men to other women in the law?

I want the answer to be no. Often it is. But not always – and the “not always” is costing us big time.

It is costing us juniors who are leaving criminal law because they do not want a life built around fear, humiliation and impossible choices. I myself have already lost a junior I will dearly miss. That is a loss for her, for her future clients and for the system.

This is not a “men versus women “issue. Most judges – women and men – are measured, decent and fair. This is about power and culture. As the old line goes, if you want to know someone, give them power. If what follows that gift is interruption, point-scoring or process bent to convenience, that is not firmness: it is misuse.

It is an interesting insight, and one I have experienced also. Now please note the plural of ancedote is anecdotes, not data.

I haven’t had a boss for over 20 years, but before that I had a few. In my experience female bosses were both the best and the worst that I had. The male bosses tended to be more around the median. The bad female bosses seemed to be insecure and thought they had to constantly prove they were the boss by imposing stupid rules etc. The great female bosses were supportive, flexible, clear etc.

She first asked orally and was told to file a formal application closer to sentencing. She did exactly that – using the same standard form that had been accepted elsewhere for months – and a retired female judge (sitting) declined it. With VMR refused and every avenue closed off, she ultimately instructed an agent. Not because she lacked commitment, but because in that moment – with a newborn recently out of NICU – she did not have the reserves to keep fighting a refusal that should never have been necessary.

A separate matter shows the same pattern from another angle. My friend sought an adjournment of a trial date because of her post-birth circumstances. A female Crown prosecutor opposed the application; the adjournment was declined. Only later – when the matter came before a male judge – was the adjournment finally granted, with understanding and sympathy. The contrast speaks for itself.

From both the court and the Crown, too many emails read as if a newborn’s survival and a mother’s recovery were mere diary entries. What should have been hours spent cuddling a fragile baby became hours drafting memoranda, chasing consents and explaining ­– yet again – why counsel of choice and continuity matter in a criminal case.

I suggest those judges and prosecutors take two messages on board: continuity of counsel is not a luxury item and motherhood is not a scheduling inconvenience.

Both messages seem very reasonable.

The NZ Initiative has a research note out on how fiscal policy needs to work with monetary policy. They comment:

This analysis does not dispute that the RBNZ’s high interest rates were the proximate cause of the downturn. However, it argues the Bank had little choice. It was confronted with the insidious threat of inflation expectations breaking free from their anchor, a development that would risk a return to the deficit-spending stagflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. After all, following December 2023 changes, the Monetary Policy Committee’s single operational objective is price stability – 1-3 percent, with a focus on the 2 percent midpoint.

More critically, this note contends that the government’s own fiscal choices – particularly its decision to implement tax cuts without more than offsetting spending reductions while the RBNZ was still fighting inflation – created a policy misalignment. The fiscal policy stance remained stimulatory, begging the question of the political will to sustain a tighter monetary policy. It is a story of two ships passing in the night: monetary policy to raise interest rates to cool an overheated economy while fiscal policy was still pouring fuel on the fire by heavy borrowing. 

I think the tax cuts were the right thing to do – both economically and politically. Families needed tax relief. But I agree with the Initiative that they should have been offset with greater spending reductions.

The left lie and claim this is an austerity government. It is simply and completely wrong. The Government is spending more than Grant Robertson was promising to spend in his last budget.

Cutting spending is politically difficult with such a hostile media. The very modest reduction in public service staff levels was greeted with 100s of negative stories. The misinformation was so great that most of the public think the government cut 15,000 jobs rather than around 1,500.

But by failing to do greater spending cuts in late 2023, early 2024, this has contributed to interest rates not falling as quickly as they might have otherwise.

Stuff reports:

ABC will reinstate Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show in the wake of criticism over his comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, officials with the network said on Monday.

“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday,” said a statement from the network.

ABC suspended Kimmel indefinitely after comments he made about Kirk, who was killed September 10, in a monologue.

Kimmel said “many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk” and that “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

What Kimmel said was wrong and highly offensive. There is zero evidence that the assassin was MAGA. It is a bizarre misinformation campaign that he repeated on a major broadcast channel.

So yes he should suffer consequences for such appalling judgment. But I don’t think those consequences should be his show is cancelled for ever. You shouldn’t lose your career for a mistake. A short suspension seems appropriate.

The Herald reports:

The Green Party’s chief of staff, Eliza Prestidge-Oldfield, has resigned in the latest shake-up for the party in what has been a term of turmoil.

In a statement, Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said Prestidge-Oldfield had “decided to step away from the chief of staff position to focus on her health, wellbeing and her whānau”.

Always a good thing to focus on whanau and health.

Anyway I have a solution for the Greens. They need a new Chief of Staff. Who could be better than someone who has already done the job, has also accomplished great things in (local) government, and has a track record of driving a unified team.

The perfect job for Tory Whanau!

The Herald reports:

He laments the poor relationship the CTU has with the current National-led Government compared to the John Key-led National Government.

The CTU used to meet regularly with Key, Finance Minister Bill English and Workplace Minister Michael Woodhouse. …

“We never meet with the Prime Minister. We’ve asked to. We’ve never met with the Minister of Finance. We’ve asked to.”

There is a reason for that – and it is all their own fault.

Of course, the frosty relationship might have something to do with the position the CTU took at the last election.

It didn’t exactly tell its members to vote for Labour, the Greens or Te Pāti Māori, but it campaigned against National in a very public way.

It placed a sinister-looking front-page attack ad in the New Zealand Herald, and on billboards targeting leader Christopher Luxon.

They ran a personal smear campaign against Luxon, and then cry that he won’;’t meet with them. Why would he?

There is a difference between advocating on policies, and personally denigrating a party leader.

Take Business NZ. Of course they much prefer the policies of a National-Led Government to a Labour-led one. And they will campaign assertively on issues that affect them such as Fair Pay Agreements and Capital Gains Tax.

But never do you see Business NZ run campaigns such as the CTU did. In fact Business NZ generally spends almost nothing during an election campaign, while the CTU goes all in.

This is why Business NZ does not get shut out. When the CTU runs a smear campaign against the opposition leader, of course it will affect your relationship in government.