1. On funding for the education of children with challenges in egalitarian NZ

Privileged to be published in The Post (online and in-print) yesterday with an article buildng on data I posted on Kiwiblog last week.

The current government has barely challenged few of the underlying issues for education … especially how we address development through pregnancy and the first 5 years of life – that are the absolute foundation to human development and education.

At the high school end of the school system we have curriculum and qualifications being challenged but the Minister, in a cabinet paper, noting that for marginalised young people things may get worse.

In The Post piece I point out that we provide a minimal level of funding for schools/students who face the most challenges … then … as a society, wonder why nothing changes and that we have a huge portion of NEETS and the biggest gaps in the OECD for achievers and non-achievers.

On Linkedin Kiwiblog reader John Gill propopses:

“Lifting Flaxmere’s educational achievement should be a special project for the Minister.

The first two steps should be (a) putting in the best principal that money can buy, and (b)improving the staffing ratio of teaching staff by 25% for five years.

Give it all the attention it needs and see if that makes a measurable difference.

If it is successful, we then know what to do elsewhere.

Based on your analysis of high needs secondary schools that outperform expectations, it should be easy to find suitable principals.”

2. A plug for a Kiwiblig reader.

I have a few peices of limited edition Weta Workship art. To look after, and display them, I get an avid Kiwiblog reader, Blayne Newton, to make fantatsic display cases. Great for items you want to display and preserve.

His web-site is: https://www.acryfab.co.nz/

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has made a secret in principle decision that they have authority over any entity or person that produces audio or video content over the Internet. This is an outrageous power grab that would allow them to censor not just The Platform (which they are claiming jurisdiction over), but anyone who does video or audio content – that is podcasters, YouTubers, live streamers etc.

The Broadcasting Act defines a broadcaster as someone who broadcasts a programme and the defintion of broadcasting is:

means any transmission of programmes, whether or not encrypted, by radio waves or other means of telecommunication for reception by the public by means of broadcasting receiving apparatus

In their secret provisional decision they declare that “other means of telecommunication” means through the Internet and “for reception by the public by means of broadcasting receiving apparatus” means any Internet capable device.

The BSA has powers to fine or even order removal of content they deem in breach of their standards – so this secret decision would introduce a massive censorship regime to the NZ Internet.

If the BSA wants to expand their powers, they should ask Parliament to change the law. As it happens Parliament and Governments have considered this issue in the past, and decided not to change the law to regulate transmissions over the Internet. So the BSA is taking the power for itself.

For many years I have actually advocated that we don’t need two media regulators – the Media Council (print, online, industry appointed) and the BSA (broadcast, powers to censor and fine, Govt appointed). Once upon a time broadcast media was much more powerful than other media, but no longer.

But this is now urgent. The BSA has gone power crazy. A secret decision to expand their powers is repugnant to anyone who believes in transparent law making. So I call upon the Government to introduce a law to abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority, and the Media Council can pick up their role. As an industry body the Media Council would never attempt such an outrageous secret power grab.

The letter from the BSA is below. I am ignoring their Not For Publication stamp on it, because frankly they have no power to keep secret their attempt to massively expand their reach so they can censor the Internet.

I hope the Free Speech Union launches a major campaign to stop this secret attempt to censor the Internet.

I urge readers to e-mail Paul Goldsmith asking him to abolish or at least rein in the BSA.

There is traditionally very little polling data on how people perceive Mayors are doing. So after the 2022 local body elections, Curia asked in the monthly Taxpayers’ Union poll of 1,000 New Zealanders which TLA they lived in, and how they rated the job of their local Mayor. In any one month you only get an average of 20 or so responses per TLA, but over three years it builds up so we could at least 100 responses for 52 of the Mayors. The data is here.

I looked at how their net approval rating correlated to election outcomes. Sometimes you can get re-elected with a poor rating, if voters think the alternatives are not better. And a popular Mayor can be beaten by an even more popular challenger.

• Of the 22 Mayors with a net approval of +12% or higher, we saw 15 re-elected, 3 retirements and 4 defeated.
• Of the 20 Mayors with a net approval of 0% or lower, we saw only 6 re-elected, 6 retired and and 8 defeated.

So, unsurprisingly, the better voters think a Mayor is doing, the more likely they are to get re-elected.

The Mayor with the lowest net approval who got re-elected is Gary Petley (-28%) from South Waikato.

The Mayor with the highest net approval who got defeated is Adrienne Wilcox (30%) from Matamata-Piako.

The latest FTE public service numbers shows a decline in the quarter of 583. This comes after two quarters of small growth, so it is pleasing to see the reduction was not a one off, but is ongoing.

The FTE level of 62,654 is 3,045 below the peak of 65,699 in Dec 23. That is a 4.6% reduction which is not nothing. However the PSA’s media fed campaign has convinced NZers it was far more – around 25%

This shows the change over time.

Equally pleasing is the huge drop off in spending on contractors and consultants. This has dropped from $2.16 billion two years ago to $1.25b last year, which is a huge 42% reduction. That is $1 billion a year freed up for frontline services.

The Herald reports:

Asked about the prospect of working with Te Pāti Māori following the allegations, Labour leader Chris Hipkins said: “at the moment it is not clear how many Māori parties there are at the moment.”

“It seems there are a number of different segments to the Māori Party and it is unclear whether they actually form a cohesive whole at this point.”

So Hipkins is saying they’re a party that is splintering into factions, but hey he’ll still do deals with them all, so long as it gets him back into power.

If this was Life of Brian, Hipkins would be announcing that he is open to a coalition with the People’s Front of Judea, the Judean People’s Front, the Judean People’s Popular Front, the Campaign for a Free Galilee, and the Popular Front of Judea!

Stuff reports:

The Green Party’s been the loudest political voice for Palestine over the last two years. …

But on the peace plan announced last week, the Green Party’s been relatively quiet. There was no press release from them welcoming it on the day it was announced, nor any of the days since – not even when the hostages were released.

Doesn’t that tell you so much. They’ll cosplay solidarity but when actual progress is made, they go silent.

Asked if they were welcoming Trump’s “epic peace plan”, co-leader Marama Davidson was not pleased with the question’s phrasing.

“Excuse me, a US president who could have stopped tens of thousands more killing at least a year ago,” she asked. “A US president who has been funding, aiding, and abetting a genocide for a long time?”

The level of derangement is high with this one. Trump wasn’t President a year ago – Biden was. Greens seem incapable of embarrassment, but they should be.

As for the talk about a possible Nobel Peace Prize for Trump because of the deal, Davidson was emphatic.

“The real peace prize, if any, deserves to the people on the streets around the world every single week asking for the genocide to stop,” she said.

Doesn’t this sum the Greens up beautifully. Those who just mouth a slogan should get the peace prize. Those who actually negotiated the peace should not.

The Science Media Centre has expert reaction to the changes announced by the Government around earthquake building standards. Some extracts:

• “This review of the earthquake prone building system presents a good step forward” – senior lecturer, emergency management
• “The new law introduces a much simpler system to try to identify “the worst of the worst.” It is a compromise that considers economic factors, and uncertainty” – professor of civil engineering
• “The changes to the Earthquake-Prone Building system are a welcome improvement” – senior lecturer in civil engineering
• “The changes now planned in New Zealand move us closer to the international practices” – associate professor of property
• “The new earthquake prone building system significantly advances building resilience by encouraging owners to invest in their properties.” – senior lecturer in built environment engineering
• “The recently reviewed system addresses the challenges of the original framework and appears to be a significant improvement” – associate professor in structural and earthquake engineering
• “the new measures of assessment for EPB make a lot of sense in how they are structured” – professor of future environments

This might be the only announcement ever made by the government that has so many academics agreeing with it!

The e-mail sent out by the TPM leadership alleges the following:

1. Toitū Te Tiriti was set up by Te Pāti Māori  to build support for TPM. It was not independent.
2. Mr. Kapa-Kingi assaulted two security personnel in Parliament in 2024 and was trespassed for it
3. He had a contract with his mother for $120,000 a year, which was terminated for serious misconduct. He then became a contractor through a company to get around this.
4. Mariameno Kapa-Kingi was dumped as Whip to free her up to campaign for Te Tai Tokelau (yeah right!)
5. Mariameno Kapa-Kingi allegedly met with Te Tai Tokerau Iwi Leaders wanting their support to topple the Leadership
6. Mariameno Kapa-Kingi was on track to overspend her budget by $133,000

The War of the Rōhi is just warming up!

The latest health targets data shows that progress ie being made, after the abysmal performance of the health system under Labour.

National got 90% of patients starting cancer treatment within 31 days. It dropped to 83.5% but has increased by 3% in the last year.

The immunisation rate was close to 95%. It dropped to 74% and is now at 82%.

ED were seeing over 90% of patients within six hours. It dropped to just over 70%. Still a long way to go, but now at 74%.

Seeing a specialist within four months was close to 100%. It dropped to 61.5% and has yet to increase.

A small improvement here.

The Herald reports:

Te Pāti Māori has emailed its members a series of documents making serious allegations against one of their own MPs and her son.

The email, sent to members shortly before 10pm, said documentation had been prepared “in direct response” to recent claims made by Eru Kapa-Kingi, son of MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi.

I can’t recall a political party operating like this before. To send documents to every single party member, detailing alleged wrong-doing by one of their MPs.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told the Herald she had learned of the parliamentary report on Friday and the party’s national council, which featured members of each electorate, had met on Sunday and agreed the documents would be shared with the wider membership.

This is not credible. There is no way a parliamentary co-leader would not have been aware of a parliamentary report about a former staffer.

I remind people that all 75 polls since the last election have shown that the only way Labour could form a government is with the support of Te Pati Maori. Looks like it would be very stable, eh.

The Herald reported:

The Reserve Bank has today published an update on its progress in responding to recommendations from its review of monetary policy over the 2017 to 2022 period.

It has also released new work reviewing the MPC’s response to above-target inflation from 2021 to 2024.

“In hindsight, an earlier or more aggressive tightening might have reduced inflation sooner,” Reserve Bank chief economist Paul Conway said.

“But this would have been difficult given the data available at the time and could have conflicted with the MPC’s mandate back then, which included maintaining maximum sustainable employment.”

This is quite telling. The Reserve Bank Chief Economist says that if it were not for Labour’s law change, the Reserve Bank could have acted faster in reducing inflation. So Labour both caused the inflation, and also stopped the Reserve Bank from getting it under control earlier.

The joy of getting a loved one back alive. So emotional.

An interesting analysis by Manning Clifford of the former occupations of politicians in different countries.

• China – the last three presidents have been engineers and for a while all nine politburo members were engineers
• US – 50% of Congress have a law degree, as did half of all recent US Presidents. Every democratic presidential and VP candidate for 36 years had a law degree
• Australia – 40% of MPs were formerly political staffers as were 5 out of 7 recent PMs

This might help explain why China has done so well!

Radio NZ reports:

The open letter sent last week asked the government to exclude the alcohol industry from early stages of policy making and restrict its input to the public consultation process, on the same footing as the general public.

Health Coalition Aotearoa, which was among the signatories, said reducing alcohol harm required lowering consumption.

That was “an outcome directly at odds with the alcohol industry’s core business of maximising sales”, the organisation said.

But the industry hit back at what it said was anti-democratic behaviour.

“We believe that banning any group from engaging on a matter that may impact them goes against the idea of a democratic society, where a range of views are taken into account,” Alcohol Beverages Council deputy chair Dylan Firth said.

The alcohol industry talked with officials on issues affecting its operations, employees and consumers, he said.

Health Coalition Aotearoa also met with officials and ministers, as did other groups who signed the open letter, such as the Council of Trade Unions, Firth added.

“Are they saying that some groups should, and others shouldn’t, be able to engage and they get to decide who those groups are?”

They are saying exactly that. They are demanding that the government exclude companies from consultation, so that they are the only ones who can talk to government. They are basically calling for the government to be authoritarian, and exclude those affected by regulations from being able to talk to government about them.

One example of this new approach was the $7.25m in alcohol levy funds for programmes to combat Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, he said.

But Fitzsimons said reducing alcohol harm reduction staff from 15 to 10 amounted to a “massive cut”.

“We’ve had specialist expertise for alcohol harm reduction in Māori communities and Pasifika communities that have been lost. Decimating this workforce is the wrong thing to do.

“You cannot solve alcohol-related harm by defunding the very people who work to prevent it.”

LOL. Of course you can. Fitzsimons is demanding that money be spent on more bureaucrats rather than on an actual programme to to combat Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Success is not how many staff you employ (well it is for the PSA), it is what they achieve.

At my Patreon, I have done a table showing the 71 mayoral election results, and what the rates increases for each council was (both last year, and last three years).

Of the councils with the ten highest rates increases, only one Mayor was re-elected. This is a good thing. It shows the power of ratepayers who get sick of being ATMs. Hopefully it will also act as an incentive for the new Mayors and Councils to restrain non-core spending.

A former vice-president of your party (and son of one of your MPs) says your party is run like a dictatorship.

When this accusation is put to the co-leaders, the male co-leader refuses to answer and heads off. He sees the female co-leader is not following him and may be about to answer the question, so he grabs her and drags her away with him.

Yes, this will indeed convince people that Te Pati Maori is a democratically run party.

Tim Jago appealed against both his convictions and sentence for indecent assaults. The Court of Appeal has upheld both. He argued that he should have got home detention. I am glad he failed, as serious sexual offending should generally result in prison.

They noted previous offending:

Mr Jago has previous convictions for speeding, drink driving, driving while suspended, and failing to answer bail, so he does not have a clean criminal record to which to point, particularly given some of that prior offending was alcohol-related as was the offending here.

The speeding and even the drink driving is not that relevant. But driving while suspended is a big deal as is not answering bail.

They concluded:

This was serious and repeated sexual offending against a child on one occasion and young persons on two others, that has had significant and long-lasting effects on the complainants. It was open to the Judge to consider that imprisonment was the least restrictive sentence appropriate in these circumstances.

I agree.

A guest post by Mark Adams:

Every Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm Lucy stands in front of Britomart station protesting the Saturday pro-Hamas rally.

Yesterday I went to shake her hand and then stayed with her for over two hours.

She has been protesting for nearly two years, silent and steadfast and usually alone.

Lucy doesn’t fly an Israeli flag, she makes clear her focus is on freeing the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas – and protesting the police who wrongfully arrested her for doing just this, silently standing or sitting in protest.

She arrives and then makes hand-written signs such as “free the hostages”. Lucy does this every time because the pro-Hamas people repeatedly rip her signs away.

They will stand immediately in front of her, pointedly blocking Lucy with their flags and banners, but she doesn’t react.

The pro-Hamas people are there in hundreds. The rally is loud and intimidating to outsiders. But it is well organised and the stewards generally keep the most threatening people a metre or so from Lucy.

Lucy continues to stand or sit quietly resolute, consciously non-aggressive. 

Even when faced with verbal aggression she doesn’t react in kind, she either ignores it, or responds calmly.

Yesterday despite the obvious intimidation, the police weren’t nearby. They stood in a group and watched the protest go by and didn’t follow.

Towards the end of the rally, Lucy approached the three police officers standing by, with video of today’s sign-ripping attack – the same woman has done it several times before.

One said that even though there was wrongdoing, they would not go into the crowd to find the woman. It would soon be five and he wanted to go home to his family.

Lucy does this every Saturday, protesting to free the hostages.

She is nearly always alone.

I found the the pro-Hamas people very angry and deliberately intimidating. 

Confronted with this, Lucy’s combination of courage and calm non-aggressiveness, was truly remarkable.

If you live in Auckland and have a couple of hours free on a Saturday afternoon, perhaps sometimes you might consider standing alongside Lucy.

• Auckland – as expected Wayne Brown was re-elect in a landslide. It also looks like a good result for the centre and centre right with Victoria Short defeating an incumbent in Albany and Matt Winiata replacing retiring Angela Dalton in Manurewa-Papakura
• Wellington – as expected Andrew Little won easily. The Council remains controlled by the left. A couple of useful new Councillors though. Outgoing Mayor Tory Whanau failed to get elected in the Maori Ward.
• Christchurch – Phil Mauger wins easily. However the left do fairly well with some of the ward elections, so could be a more tense term
• Sophie Barker has been elected Mayor, with the incumbent in 4th place
• Selwyn – the LGNZ President Sam Broughton got hammered, getting around 1/4 of the votes of the winner
• Upper Hutt – Eight term Mayor Wayne Guppy loses
• Queenstown – Mayor Glyn Lewers loses after one term
• Rotorua – Tania Tapsell back in a landslide
• Nelson – Nick Smith back easily
• Hutt – Ken Laban wins comfortably
• Gore – Ben Bell re-elected easily
• Hamilton – Tim Macindoe elected Mayor

I’m in a first aid course most of the day, so won’t be able to summarise any significant results until later afternoon. Feel free to use this thread to comment on results as they become known.

What I’m most interested in is:

• The ward results for Wellington City
• The results for Wellington Region
• The ward results for Auckland Council
• The Mayoralty and ward results for Christchurch
• The Mayoralty for Dunedin
• The Mayoralty for Hamilton
• The referenda on Maori Wards