The Herald reports:

A Whanganui High School event solely for Māori and Pasifika boys with boxing champ Joseph Parker has left parents outraged because of its alleged racial exclusion.

And Parker himself is considering pulling the plug.

The flier for the event stated Parker was coming to give a “closed motivational session for Māori and Pasifika boys” and their dads.

However, Parker said he had “absolutely no idea at any stage” the school planned to limit his visit on the basis of students’ race or gender.

Yet the school lied and tried to blame him.

McAllen and board of trustees chairman Randal Southee said the request had come from Parker for the talk to be closed and they were happy to oblige.

McAllen said he’d had only a few concerns raised about the talk being for just Māori and Pasifika boys.

“I don’t understand why there would be any concern with it … because so many initiatives within schools are focusing in on Māori and Pasifika students.

“This is a real case of rather than just talking about it, actually walking it in terms of appreciating the opportunity we’ve been given and then being able to facilitate that.”
However, board of trustees member Piri Cribb said the request for a closed session had not come from Parker’s camp.

When asked why the school had said that, she replied: “Probably because that’s the easiest way to combat some of the horrible feedback and flak that they’re getting about the closed session.

New board chair needed – one that does not lie.

I understand the decision has been reversed.

Patrick Gower writes:

Now the teachers union and the Government are at war – we haven’t had a strike for 25 years.

I don’t blame the teachers here. They are a taonga and every one of them deserves more.

But I do blame the teachers’ unions and repetitive Governments for not having the courage or the imagination to introduce a teachers’ pay system fit for New Zealand in 2018.

A modern New Zealand needs a much more modern way to incentivise teachers to come in and stay in the job.

“Performance pay” is a dirty word and people seem to want to make it some sort of alt-right assault.

That seems like a lazy argument to me. This is not about politics anymore – it is about attracting and keeping good teachers.

People just don’t want to go into jobs where they get paid pretty much the same their entire lives and have to fight the Government every few years to get a halfway decent rise.

Dave Armstrong writes:

J’accuse! I do not wake up in the morning wanting to write about buses. Frankly, there are more interesting things in life. Like most Wellingtonians, I just want to get a bus if I need to without any drama. But it’s nearly a month now, guys, and your service is shocking.

If you were a bank I would be changing, if you were a tradesperson I’d be warning people not to use you, if you were on a 90-day contract I would fire you. But I can’t because you are the bustastrophe, the balls-up, the clusterbus known as the New Wellington Bus System.

Tell us what you think Dave.

We are now in our fourth week of “Not in Service”. The buses have not “settled in”, if the tidal wave of complaints on social media are anything to go by. These are, according to Wellington city councillor Dianne Calvert, “systemic not ‘teething’ issues”.

It seems we have a structural problem based on badly planned routes, badly written contracts and ridiculous timetables that make passengers feel as though services have been slashed. At the hub of the problem are hubs, which, while great in theory (try the London Tube or Paris Metro if you don’t believe me), need a critical mass of buses to work, and that mass isn’t there.

A good change programme would have included market research of customers and potential customers about what they want.

Chris Bishop writes:

I am due to speak to the Massey University Politics Club next Wednesday. I have today written this letter to the Massey Vice-Chancellor. Her decision to ban Don Brash from speaking on campus is highly likely to be unlawful and absolutely outrageous. Below is my full letter.

Dear Professor Thomas

I am writing to you about your recent decision to ban former National Party Leader and Reserve Bank Governor Dr Don Brash from speaking at Massey University’s Palmerston North campus at an event arranged by the University’s Politics Club.

I have also been invited to speak to the club and my talk has been arranged for next Wednesday 15 August.

Freedom of expression in New Zealand is protected in law by section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act. As Justice Anderson, as he then was, famously put it in Hosking v Runting, “Freedom of expression is the first and last trench in the protection of liberty”. The right has been described by the New Zealand Court of Appeal as being “as wide as human thought and imagination.” These quotes encapsulate the protections long given by the common law to free speech, also now protected in international and domestic human rights instruments.

Universities have traditionally been regarded as bastions of free speech and critical thought. In particular, section 162 of the Education Act 1989 recognises the special role of universities as “critic(s) and conscience(s) of society”, while section 161 specifically protects:
the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions.

With this background, your reported comments outlining your rationale for stopping Dr Brash from speaking give me extreme cause for concern and I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision.
Let me take each of your reported statements in turn.

First, you have stated that “you support free speech on campus” but “the views expressed by members of Hobson’s Pledge, which Dr Brash supports, came dangerously close to hate speech.”

It is hard to know where to start on this somewhat nonsensical statement. Hate speech in New Zealand is traditionally regarded as being prohibited by sections 61 and 63 of the Human Rights Act 1993. If Dr Brash breaches those sections presumably he will be prosecuted under those sections. You essentially have chosen to appoint yourself as the arbiter of what speech qualifies as “hate speech” and what speech does not; replacing a careful objective judgment by a court with a subjective judgment by yourself.

In any event, even by your own admission you accept that Dr Brash only comes “close” to hate speech. If Dr Brash is not expressing “hate speech” (and absent a court order to that effect you have no way of knowing), then what is the rationale for his ban?

The views of the Hobson’s Pledge group, which you assert Dr Brash supports, are admittedly controversial but no more controversial than many other contentious issues of debate in New Zealand society. I put it to you that they no more qualify as hate speech any more than comments by prominent politicians like “two wongs don’t make a white” and well-publicised remarks that blame high house prices on people with “Chinese-sounding names.”

Secondly, you have also said that “whether those views [Hobson’s Pledge] would have been repeated to students in the context of a discussion about the National Party may seem unlikely, but I have no way of knowing.”

Extraordinarily, by your own admission you actually have no idea what Dr Brash actually proposed to say at his address (and even admitted Hobson’s Pledge-esque views “seem[ed] unlikely”, but have gone ahead and cancelled the speech anyway. This is akin to prior restraint on speech which liberal democracies have rightly viewed with considerable distaste. While this is not totally analogous; the courts have traditionally been extremely reluctant to restrain speech prior to publication; for the very good reason that it “is a drastic interference with freedom of speech and should only be ordered where there is a substantial risk of grave injustice.”

Third, you comment that Hobson’s Pledge views are “certainly not conducive with the University’ strategy of recognising the values of a Tiriti o Waitangi-led organisation.” That view is certainly arguable, but most importantly I note you have made no attempt to balance the university’s commitment to the values of the Treaty of Waitangi with your obligations to protect freedom of expression under the Bill of Rights Act and your obligations under the Education Act 1989. No alleged commitment to “values” or cant about health and safety can trump statutory obligations.

Fourth, you claim that “Mr Brash’s leadership of Hobson’s Pledge and views he and its supporters espoused in relation to Māori wards on councils was clearly of concern to many staff, particularly Māori staff”. I appreciate and acknowledge that that is likely to be the case; but there are many instances in life in which people see and hear expression they disagree with. That is part and parcel of living in a liberal democracy. It is also worth noting that a great many New Zealanders also share Dr Brash’s views around Māori wards on Councils. New Zealanders are entitled to hold those views, in the same way that Dr Brash is entitled to express them.

Fifth, you appear to have banned Dr Brash on the basis that protests against him could have led to violence. In some ways this is the most outrageous comment you have made on behalf of the university, essentially applying a thugs’ veto to free speech. If speeches are to be cancelled after the threat of illegal violence by protestors against that speech; then surely you must see that the incentive is for violence to be threatened in order to for speech to be banned. The right response surely from public institutions, particularly universities, in circumstances like that is not to cowardly cancel speech on the grounds of “public safety” but stand firm in favour of the values of pluralistic democracy and diversity of opinion. Few things, if any, are more important than those values.

Finally, your actions are highly likely to be in breach of your statutory obligations. I have already mentioned the Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Education Act 1989. Section 57, reproduced below, of the Human Rights Act 1993 is also relevant (emphasis mine).

57 Educational establishments
(1) It shall be unlawful for an educational establishment, or the authority responsible for the control of an educational establishment, or any person concerned in the management of an educational establishment or in teaching at an educational establishment,—
(a) to refuse or fail to admit a person as a pupil or student; or
(b) to admit a person as a pupil or a student on less favourable terms and conditions than would otherwise be made available; or
(c) to deny or restrict access to any benefits or services provided by the establishment; or
(d) to exclude a person as a pupil or a student or subject him or her to any other detriment,—
by reason of any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination.
(2) In this section, educational establishment includes an establishment offering any form of training or instruction and an educational establishment under the control of an organisation or association referred to in section 40.
21 Prohibited grounds of discrimination
(1) For the purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are:

The precedent you have set with your decision is extremely worrying and I urge you to reconsider it. The widespread outrage your decision has created should give you pause for thought.

I am due to speak at the university next Wednesday. It would seem hypocritical for me to cancel a speech in protest at your university’s seeming lack of commitment to free speech, and I am loathe to do so. However I have no real desire to speak at a university that prefers to preference the views of a tiny, angry minority who wish to shut down speech they disagree with rather than stand-up for academic freedom, critical thought, and the values of pluralism and liberal democracy.
I look forward to your reply.

Chris Bishop
MP for Hutt South

An excellent letter.

The Herald reports:

Hundreds of Kiwis are backing young woman’s petition to make organ donation mandatory in New Zealand as she desperately waits for a call telling her there is a match for the organs she needs.

Jessica Manning, 25, who has been has been told she will die within two years if she does not have a double organ transplant, is hoping the petition will start families talking about whether or not they want to be organ donors. More than 700 people had already signed it.

I don’t support it being mandatory, but I do support the wishes of the deceased being respected.

In New Zealand, even if someone indicated on their drivers licence they wanted to be a donor, their family could over-ride the decision.

Manning was pushing for a model which meant people would be presumed to be donors unless they opted out. But even if that did not go ahead, Manning urged the government to invest in more education about being organ donation.

However, Health Minister David Clark said premium consent was not a model he would be pushing and instead supported the Deceased Organ Donation and Transplantation National strategy that focused on the wishes of the donor’s family.

“Even if an individual makes it clear before their death that they wish to donate their organs, in New Zealand that person’s family/whānau have the absolute right to decline donation of their deceased loved one’s organs, and their decision must be respected.”

No they must not be respected. They don’t own the body of the deceased. The wishes of the deceased are what should be respected.

I’d love a law change to reflect this. Maybe something National could do now they are in opposition, and not so captured by the health bureaucracy.

Over the last five years deceased organ donations had doubled with a record 73 in 2017. Those donations resulted in 215 people receiving life saving heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas transplants compared to just 115 people receiving organs in 2013.

It is great to see this increase, but our overall donation rate is still well below most countries. Australia’s is 60% higher, UK twice as high, and US almost three times as high.

Liam Hehir writes:

My alma mater, Victoria University of Wellington, says it is also grappling with name baggage. It is losing money hand over fist, the claim goes, because potential enrollees are confused about the “Victoria” bit. Does it refer to the Australian state? The city in Canada? The waterfall in Zimbabwe?

To fix this, the university has decided, in principle, upon a “simplification” of its name. “Victoria” is to be expunged, leaving the name to be “the University of Wellington”. Bloodless, but more lucrative, the thinking goes. …

The decision has provoked a backlash on the part of alumni, most of whom were totally unaware of the pending decision. In fairness to the university, it had sought feedback through its e-newsletter and on forums such as LinkedIn.

My wife, also an unimpressed Victoria grad, was not happy with this form of engagement. It reminded her of that scene from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the notification for the demolition of the hero’s house had been placed “on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘beware of the Leopard'”.

Even worse the Vic VC is saying the low level of submissions means there is little opposition, rather than they ran a flawed consultation process.

The Herald reports:

A law that gives children more protection against forced marriage is expected to pass with unanimous support in Parliament today.

The Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill aims to prevent forced marriages of mostly girls, aged 16 and 17 and considered minors by the state, by changing the requirement of consent from parents to a Family Court judge.

The change also applies to civil unions and de facto relationships.

Dozens of teens are married in New Zealand each year and Shakti NZ, a community organisation which works with migrant and refugee women of Asian, African and Middle Eastern origin, says it sees the damage done by forced marriage.

It is sad this law is needed, but it is. The extra step of the needing a Family Court Judge to consent should deter these forced marriages of under 18s.

There is arguably a case for the age of marriage to be 18, not 16. I guess as the age of sexual consent is 16, the age of marriage is linked to that.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters made a personal explanation in Parliament today in a bid to distance himself from Wally Haumaha, despite Peters speaking at an event to celebrate Haumaha’s promotion last year to Assistant Police Commissioner.

Peters said he had been invited to the event to mark Haumaha’s promotion under the previous National Government and that the Police had asked Peters to make a speech.

“I do not think that in any way compromises me,” said Peters.

This is avoiding the real question. Why was Peters asked to speak? Surely it was because Haumaha requested it. Which means they have a significant relationship.

It can’t just be because Peters is Maori. The then Deputy Prime Minister, Paula Bennett, is Maori and hence was the most senior Maori MP.

Haumaha has multiple links to NZ First. He was selected as a candidate. He is related to the Deputy Leader. He is very close to Tommy Gear, who is Peters’ closest confidante.

This is why no NZ First Minister should be involved with the inquiry, and the Herald exposes the red herring that it had to be Tracey Martin as she is Internal Affairs Minister:

The Internal Affairs staff provide administrative assistance to public and Government inquiries set up under the Inquiries Act 2013, but that does not mean the Internal Affairs Minister must set up each inquiry.

David Parker as Attorney-General, for example, set up the Government inquiry into the Operation Burnham.

It seems pretty clear Winston chose Martin as a loyal NZ First Minister, rather than Parker or Little. And Martin had 10 candidates to choose from, and chose an inquiry head who thought so highly of Haumaha (whom she had worked with) that she had publicly endorsed all his skills on Linked In.

The sad thing about all this is that the actions of the NZ First Ministers make Haumaha’s viability for the job more tenuous. I’m not sure his comments 14 years ago should disqualify him for the job. But the more NZ First tries to protect him, the more he looks like a partisan appointment, and the less confidence we have in the Police.

The best thing NZ First could do for Haumaha is for Martin to recuse herself. Otherwise he may end up being the victim of their attempts to run interference.

The terrible decision by the Massey Vice-Chancellor to ban Don Brash from speaking on campus has managed to unite almost everyone. The Minister of Education has said it was the wrong decision. Simon Bridges said it was appalling. Even Bomber Bradbury has condemned it.

The Dom Post editorial says:

The possibility of offence, the creation of innovation and the path of progress go hand in hand. And universities are so often vital vessels in their transportation. That a university, no less, a venue we so often look to for that cultural, political and academic disruption, would ban a speaker such as Brash, a former Reserve Bank governor and Opposition leader, is of great concern. We hope that other institutions will either distance themselves from such actions or make it clear they disagree.

Brash is used to a bit of mud-slinging. He once infamously tasted a bit of the brown stuff because of his views on race and racial preference. Thomas and Massey University have just thrown some themselves. But in the act of doing so they have covered themselves in more than a little dirt. And besmirched the free speech and academic freedoms they should be promoting.

If the Vice-Chancellor won’t back down and apologise, the University Council should intervene as the body obligated to ensure they uphold academic freedom.

Michael Reddell blogs:

Professor Thomas appears to regard such views –  and opposition to Maori wards on local councils (which have been defeated in most/all places where a referendum has been held on them) –  as simply illegitimate, and having no place in New Zealand, let alone on the campus of Massey University, an organisation founded and substantially funded by the New Zealand government and taxpayers.  She was terrified that Dr Brash might make some negative comment about Maori wards on campus and presumably no one at the university she manages could cope with knowing that somewhere on campus, an elderly former politician was expressing a view they might disagree with –  a view which, on this particular occasion, appears to be held by a fairly large chunk of the population.

Well summed up.

Massey is different: it is a public institution (establishment, funding, appointments to the council).  And if the (foreign) Vice-Chancellor of a public university thinks Dr Brash  –  who has given decades of public service to this country – shouldn’t be allowed to speak on campus, when invited by students (what, one wonders, would she do if one of the professors invited him to speak to a class?), you have to wonder who –  and which views –  are next in the line for a ban.  Dr Brash is prominent enough –  even if not always liked –  that there will be an outcry against his ban, while this sort of insidious censorship can be applied more broadly to less prominent people.

This move has backfired, but as Reddell says it may be used in future against less prominent people.

Her approach isn’t that of the courageous leader defending freedom and debate, but rather of aligning herself with the mob to veto the ability of student groups to invite speakers (ones uttering controversial views) to campus.  That sort of mobocracy, if allowed sway, would be the very antithesis of democracy as we’ve come to practice it in countries like ours (even Professor Thomas’s Australia) in the last couple of centuries.  Thugs and bullies rule, at the expense of those who respect the ability of decent people to disagree.   Thugs and bullies can come from either side of the political spectrum.  These days, in New Zealand (and other Anglo countries) they are almost all from the far-left.

Yep.

And Stephen Franks lays in:

The Free Speech Coalition’s next job seems likely to be to ask a court to tell us about the mystery safety-above-all provision that it appears Auckland Council and Massey University believe in.

This decision by the VC is so appalling it must be challenged.

Barry Soper is succinct:

Thomas says her Māori staff were offended by Brash’s leadership of Hobson’s Pledge, which she seems to think is akin to hate speech. Poor diddums.

If her staff are so precious that they can’t handle an argument against race based seats, they have no business working at a university whose mandate is to allow controversial and unpopular views.

We also have the Manawatu Standard News Director:

It seems Thomas is banning Brash because she doesn’t like what he says – an extraordinary position for a university leader. As Thomas herself says, university staff and students should be allowed to examine controversial and unpopular ideas.

A university that stifles debate, no matter how uncomfortable the subject matter, is undermining its reason for being.

So the local newspaper is also appalled. Yet the VC won’t back down, and is now backed be her Chancellor.

Nicola Willis writes in the NZ Herald:

A shiver went down my spine as I read Deborah Hill Cone’s opinion piece demonising early childhood education. Has she been into an early learning centre lately? Has she talked to families about the choices we make for the care of our kids?

If we are to believe her, all daycare is soul-destroying and parents who choose to use it are selfish and uncaring. Cue the eye-rolling of thousands of parents and teachers.

I had a similar reaction to DHC’s column.

We have Benjamin in an ECE for 24 hours a week. It is not a factory farm. There are only eight under twos there and it has been great for him. He has made friends with some of the other kids, he gets to do all sorts of activities we wouldn’t be able to do at home, and learns lot of stuff also (no it isn’t a baby sitting service – it is educational).

The teachers are awesome and I love hearing from them at the end of the day what Ben has been up to.

For us, ECE is the opposite of soul destroying.

I’m a mum to four kids aged 8,7, 5 and 2. Each attended a so-called “factory farm” for a period of their early years, or as we choose to see it: they attended an early childhood education centre. We continue to drop off our youngest daughter at one each day.

So I’m familiar with the knot of worry that accompanies families’ choices about childcare arrangements. Believe me I’ve sweated this stuff in the small hours. Am I a bad mother for returning to work? Will my children be scarred by being cared for by people who are initially strangers?

The first few weeks are tough especially when your kid gets upset as you leave them behind. But it normally only lasts for a few minutes. And now Ben looks forward to going.

In my role as National’s Early Childhood Education spokesperson I’ve had the privilege of visiting plenty of childcare centres and talking to lots of parents, teachers and experts about the choices families make about care for children under 6.

Quality early childhood education won’t damage your child’s psyche. Years of research and experience have given us clear evidence about this. What kids need is warm, responsive relationships with their caregivers – whether at home or elsewhere.

Quite the opposite of damaging, quality ECE can help your child for later in life.

I blogged last month on an op ed by the Massey Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas, which caused me concern over her views on free speech. She backed the decision of Phil Goff to decide who can speak at an Auckland Council venue, and said that some of the Hobson’s Pledge campaign against special race based wards on local government comes dangerously close to hate speech.

She even went on to talk about free speech being a tool of colonialism that must be restricted.

We were right to be concerned. She has unilaterally banned Don Brash from speaking on the Massey campus. It is an appalling decision from a Vice-Chancellor as the Education Act states:

academic freedom, in relation to an institution, means the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions

Her rationale for banning Brash is disingenuous:

The members later approached University management concerned about their ability to meet the agreement’s terms around security after becoming aware of social media posts suggesting the event could lead to violence.

The University considered providing additional security for the event, but decided the risk of harm to students, staff and members of the public was too great, particularly at  time of heightened tension over the issues around free speech and hate speech.

First of all there were no threats of violence. There was simply an open letter from one student. Secondly even if there were threats of violence, the proper response is to provide security, not allow what many now call the thug’s veto or heckler’s veto. To do otherwise is to incentivise people to make threats of violence against speakers they disagree with, so that the speakers are shut down.

But the VC makes very clear she think Brash is a “hate speaker” and this is beyond doubt why she made her decision. She said:

“Mr Brash’s leadership of Hobson’s Pledge and views he and its supporters espoused in relation to Māori wards on councils was clearly of concern to many staff, particularly Māori staff. Whether those views would have been repeated to students in the context of a discussion about the National Party may seem unlikely, but I have no way of knowing. In my opinion the views expressed by members of Hobson’s Pledge come dangerously close to hate speech.

So being against race based seats on Council, is akin to hate speech according to the VC, which can’t be tolerated as it may upset Maori staff.

By this logic I should be banned from speaking on Massey, as should John Key, Simon Bridges and most of the National caucus. Winston Peters has been against much of this stuff also. Would the Massey VC also deplatform him?

Don Brash is a former leader of the National Party. Almost 900,000 people voted (effectively) for him to be Prime Minister in 2005 (just 45,000 fewer than Clark’s Labour). For the Massey VC to ban him from speaking because of his views is insulting to pretty much every National voter.

Don Brash is no Southern or Molyneux. But the speech battle is connected. There is no doubt that the rationale is much the same – we find their views offensive and upsetting, so they must not be heard.

Universities are meant to be bastions of free speech. They should be the last places that should be banning someone for their views, let alone a former National Party Leader. If we let this one ride, then it will only get worse.

So I have some ideas for activism. Feel free to comment which ones are most worth doing. But we have to do something.

1. A Boycott Massey graduates campaign. Encourage employers to announce they will hire no graduates from Massey because it is obviously a university which is hostile to diversity of thought, so one can’t trust any graduates to have been as rigorously tested as on other campuses. The boycott to cease only when Thomas rescinds her ban and apologises.
2. Turn the Free Speech Coalition into a permanent group to fight this stuff. Fundraise heaps for a legal fighting fund, staff, advertisements.
3. E-mail Massey Council members asking them to rein in Thomas and tell her to respect the requirement of academic freedom in the Education Act.
4. Amend the Human Rights Act to require one of the Human Rights Commissioners to be a dedicated Free Speech Commissioner who can then fight these battles with Government resource. Sure many don’t like the HRC, but it isn’t going away so try and use it for good in this battle. Tim Wilson in Australia was very effective as a de facto Free Speech Commissioner.
5. Target Massey’s funding. Identify major donors to Massey and request meetings with them to make the case for why they should donate to one of the other universities that doesn’t ban speakers on the personal whim of the VC.
6. Target secondary school students and advise them not to enrol at Massey due to its hostility to free speech. One can hand out flyers at schools up and down the country.
7. Seek a judicial review of the decision of the Vice-Chancellor under the Education Act and Bill of Rights Act.
8. Lobby the Government to reduce funding to universities that don’t uphold free speech, as it being looked at in the UK
9. A petition to the Massey University Council demanding they over-rule the VC

These are just off the top of my head. Some of them may be bad ideas, but hopefully not all of them. Are there any others that should be looked at?

The one thing we shouldn’t do is shrug and say well this is where society is going, and we can’t do anything about it. We have widespread support to fight this. Many on the left are appalled at this, such as academics Andrew Geddis and Jarrod Gilbert. We can’t afford to allow a Vice-Chancellor to unilaterally ban people from speaking on campus on such a flimsy pretext.

One of the great things about NZ is we have largely avoided the extremism and polarisation of politics that the US had. This act by the Massey VC is something you expect in the US with its culture wars. It has no place in NZ. If it is allowed to stand, then it will be a defining moment for us.

The Herald reports:

A group of West Aucklanders have launched an online petition to challenge the alcohol monopoly that prevents local residents buying wine or beer at supermarkets.

West Auckland Licensing Trust Action Group (WALTAG) spokesman Nick Smale said the Portage and Waitakere Licensing Trusts had held a monopoly over hotels, taverns and bottle stores in West Auckland since the 1970s. Residents were missing out due to the lack of competition in the area.

“The trusts have not kept up with the changing tastes of West Aucklanders and are not equipped to meet the needs of a modern and increasingly cosmopolitan city.

“There’s a distinct lack of local options for entertainment all over West Auckland. Many of us want to support local businesses, including bars but we don’t have the venues – or many choices. People end up traveling into the city or elsewhere to spend their money.”

Smale said it had been 15 years since residents last voted, and he believed a referendum was needed ahead of the next local body elections.

“We need 15 per cent of voters in the Portage and Waitakere Licensing Trusts areas to sign the petition – that’s about 28,000 people. If we can achieve this it will force a referendum and allow West Aucklanders to have their say.”

Monopoly licensing trusts are a failed experiment that almost all of NZ has ditched.

Stuff reports:

Attractive people are paid something like 12 per cent more than unattractive people. They’re also more likely to get a job in the first place.

It’s weird that we don’t talk about this more. The disparity between “hot” and “not” is just as glaring as the gender pay gap, and just as unfair. No-one chooses their genes: some people are blessed with a heavenly visage, others receive a fair old whack of the ugly stick.

True, where are the campaigns to close the hotness pay gap?

Also the gender pay gap can go both ways. An economist pointed out to me that in certain professions such as adult entertainment, women are paid vastly more than men.

A study of Canadian election candidates found the attractive ones received more than two and a half times as many votes. Fortune 500 chief executives tower over the rest of the populace, with an average height of 6’2″. And so on.

So do we also have a height pay gap? Do taller people get paid more?

Barry Soper writes:

It’s a bit like putting the produce-laden cart before the lumbering Clydesdale as the Government tries to bring the public on board with free trade deals and what they’re calling a ‘Trade for All’ agenda. …

This soft sell to the public was Jacinda Ardern’s first big announcement after putting her feet under the Beehive’s Cabinet table yesterday.

And just like all Government announcements without substance they’re setting up a board to advise on how to woo the great unwashed when it comes to trade. And as usual they’ve appointed the chair with the boardroom chairs to be filled later, or as the blurb said “in due course”.

This is almost the Government being a parody of itself.

Business confidence is rock bottom and the Government says that they will have a major announcement on trade, as a way to get business confidence higher.

So one may have expected some significant policy or initiative. Instead it was another effing working group.

John Roughan writes:

It is legislative laziness that ignores practical flaws in the policy behind it.

It was a weakness of the previous Labour Government and it has now appeared in this one, on the subject of legalising cannabis for medicinal use.

All parties in Parliament appear to have been persuaded this would be a good thing to do. Doubt that the drug has any unique pain-killing properties have been put aside. Labour and the Greens – especially the Greens – want to be seen as liberal on drugs.

Labour mainly wants to be seen as compassionate to the terminally ill. Who doesn’t? But good government requires more than good intentions. The hard part is working out the practicalities of putting good intentions into effect. That is the bit Labour governments are inclined to duck – or delegate, which amounts to the same thing.

The new Government put a bill before Parliament that would have allowed terminally ill people to possess and use a drug that would remain illegal for anybody else. Quite how the drug would be cultivated, manufactured and supplied only to the terminally ill were details that did not unduly concern Labour MPs on the select committee that would have let the bill proceed if Labour and the Greens had a majority.

The Government bill is very flawed. It forces terminally ill people to use the black market to get pain relief. It actually incentivises law breaking!

Not surprisingly, many of the submissions to the select committee wanted legalisation extended to people not terminally ill but in chronic pain or with severe or debilitating illness such as cancer, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. Labour’s response was that those patients “should continue to be able to access quality medicinal cannabis products on prescription.” Which begs the question, why would the terminally ill need access to a lower grade of cannabis products than they could get on prescription?

Many of the submissions also wanted the medicinal legalisation extended to growers, suppliers, friends and whanau, caregivers or nominated people since the terminally ill might not be able to obtain the drug for themselves. Labour could only answer lamely that the legal position of suppliers was “outside the scope of this bill.”

Likewise, allowing the terminally ill to grow their own cannabis was “outside the scope of this bill.”

So what was its purpose, other than to give Labour’s voters the impression the Government was doing something on this subject while, in fact, the difficult details it was ducking would very likely prove insurmountable.

This is not the first time. Ardern’s previous members’ bill were much the same. They achieved nothing except to say we care.

Jared Savage reports:

New Zealand First deputy Fletcher Tabuteau and Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha are whanau, come from the same Rotorua marae.

 

New family links between New Zealand First and controversial deputy police commissioner appointment Wally Haumaha have emerged, as one of the party’s senior ministers looks to restart the inquiry into the process which led to his promotion.

Fletcher Tabuteau, the deputy leader of New Zealand First, comes from Waiteti Marae in Ngongotaha near Rotorua, of which Haumaha is the chairman.

They are both Ngāti Ngāraranui and Tabuteau referred to Haumaha as a member of his whānau in his maiden speech to Parliament in 2014.

Tabuteau’s uncle Tommy Gear – a close friend of Winston Peters – is a trustee of the Ngāti Ngāraranui Hapu Trust along with Haumaha.

Gear and Haumaha are senior leaders on the Waiteti Marae, where a special function was held in June last year to celebrate Haumaha’s promotion to assistant police commissioner.

New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters was one of the speakers at the function, along with Police Commissioner Mike Bush.

This may explain why Peters gave the inquiry to a NZ First Minister. It could have gone to the SSC Minister (Hipkins) or Justice Minister (Little) or Attorney-General (Parker) or even the PM (as she made the appointment).

The Minister hand picked by Peters, in turn hand picked someone who had significant conflicts of interest – she was on Police recruitment panels, and had worked with Bush and Haumaha on Police Maori strategy.

What is very interesting is that Peters spoke at the function to celebrate Haumaha being made an Assistant Police Commissioner in June 2017. Peters was not Deputy PM then. So for him to be invited to speak would suggest a deep personal connection with Haumaha.

Ardern really needs to show some leadership and take the inquiry off the NZ First Ministers before it becomes even more of a Mickey Mouse show.

Stuff reports:

National wants to make National Health Targets a legal requirement with a new bill, but governments would be allowed to decide what targets to set.

It uses almost exactly the same wording as the Government’s own child poverty legislation, which contains the same requirement.

It comes after Stuff revealed the Ministry of Health had quietly stopped publishing data from six National Health Targets, under a directive from Health Minister David Clark. 

Labour doesn’t want accountability. Health targets allow patients and taxpayers to see if the health system is delivering more services and better outcomes for the extra funding.

“Tremendous gains were achieved when they were set and performance against them was published,” said Woodhouse. 

“Research indicates that 700 lives per year have been saved by the target to shorten stays in emergency departments. 

“Childhood immunisation rates have risen from 67 per cent to 92 per cent, cancer treatment waiting times are now at world-best standards and people no longer have to travel to Australia for basic treatment – as as the case under the previous Labour Government,” he said. 

The health targets were very successful. Cancer treatment waiting times used to be a disgrace.

The Herald reports:

Patrick Stewart has announced he is finally returning to the Star Trek franchise for the first time in more than 20 years.

The star took to Twitter to make the announcement, confirming he will return as his original Star Trek: The Next Generation character Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

“It is an unexpected but delightful surprise to find myself excited and invigorated to be returning to Jean-Luc Picard and to explore new dimensions within him,” the actor tweeted.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Stewart’s Picard will return for a new CBS show which is reportedly set to tell the story of “the next chapter of Picard’s life”.

This is fairly exciting. Jean-Luc Picard was my favourite Star Trek captain.

My order of ranking the Captains is:

1. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, TNG
2. Captain Gabriel Lorca, Discovery
3. Captain James T Kirk, TOS
4. Captain Benjamin Sisko, DS9
5. Captain John Archer, Enterprise
6. Captain Kathryn Janeway, Voyager

Feel free to disagree in comments!

A good article on Newsroom about the impact of the new policy (they say they are consulting on it but they announced it in the Speech from the Throne) by the Government to ban all mining on conservation land.

The current law prohibits mining on what is called Section 4 land. This is around 40% of the DOC estate – the most precious, scenic etc such as National Parks.

The DOC estate is around 30% of NZ land, so currently 12% of all land in NZ can’t be mined. The Government has unilaterally (again not Labour policy before the election) now said 100% of the DOC estate will be closed for mining. Now much of the DOC estate is land with little conservation value – they call it stewardship land.

This unilateral change is a big thing for communities like the West Coast. Newsroom reports:

Kokshoorn, a fierce defender of any opportunity for his struggling district, says the proposed ban is ideologically driven and “doesn’t stack up.” The Resource Management Act is an effective safeguard and if those minerals – or other resources – can be responsibly developed on low-value parts of the DoC estate then that should be allowed, he says.

Yep this is why we have the RMA. It allows an Environment Court Judge to decide on a case by case basis if a particular mining proposal on a specific piece of land should proceed.

The footprint of the existing mining activities on the DoC estate is tiny – about 3,000 hectares.

That’s 30 square kms only, out of 90,000 square kms. That’s 0.033%.

At the end of May, there were 112 operations approved for access to the DoC estate nationwide – 12 for coal, 90 for gold and 10 for quarrying, including limestone.

So only 10% are coal mines. So this isn’t about climate change.

Former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright looked at the issues around mining in the DoC estate three times.

She considered the DoC estate too large for the Crown not to get a return on it and argued in 2010 that lower value areas should be open for mining, or land swaps, if a net conservation benefit resulted.

Very sensible.

If a mining company wants to mine say 5 hectares of low value conservation land, let them do so if in exchange they arrange for say 25 hectares of higher value land to be donated to the conservation estate. A win win.

The new Government declined a request to mine a 12-hectare sliver of Doc stewardship land as part of a development at Te Kuha, inland from Westport, approved last year by independent planning commissioners. The bulk of the project is in the adjoining Buller District Council-managed water catchment.

Sage and Woods said the economic benefits from the project were insufficient to offset the irreversible damage to the unique and nationally significant conservation values in that part of the DoC estate.

The venture has gone to court to challenge the ruling. Mining the four million tonnes of high-value coking coal would have employed about 50 people for 16 years and delivered an estimated $130 million of value through coal sales, royalties and blending gains for other coal miners in the area.

As well as rehabilitating the 109-hectare mine site, including direct transfer of at least 15 hectares of vegetation and the creation of 50 square-metres of lakes, the venture had also offered to fund a 25-year management programme over 5000 hectares in the nearby Orikaka Forest and a heritage reserve at the Charming Creek mine site.

5,000 hectares for 109 hectares and the Government said no!

Matthew Hooton writes:

The Green Party’s support for Andrew Little’s Orwellian Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill reveals its complete lack of power in the Government’s coalition. …

Little says the bill is about maintaining the integrity of MMP by stopping MPs elected for one party becoming independent or supporting another.

But often when MPs go rogue, it is the rebel MP keeping faith with voters, and the party leader breaking their promises to you and me.

Had such a law been in place historically, David Lange could have used it to get rid of Jim Anderton for opposing Rogernomics, and Anderton could have expelled Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons when they indicated the Greens were leaving his Alliance in 1997.

Jim Bolger could have dispatched Winston Peters, and Helen Clark any Māori MP who opposed her foreshore and seabed law.

There would be no Green Party MPs if this bill had been law in 1999.

Every prominent constitutionalist in New Zealand has attacked Little’s legislation as undemocratic.

Former Green MPs have been among the most vociferous.

The party’s doyen, Fitzsimons, says the bill “breaches the Bill of Rights, denies freedom of speech and association, is contrary to international and NZ precedent, … is opposed by an impressive array of senior legal, constitutional and political experts [and] is unnecessary to address any real problem”.

The reality is this bill is actually opposed by 120 of the 121 MPs in Parliament.

• All 56 National MPs oppose it
• None of the 46 Labour MPs really support it. They never campaigned on it. They know it is crap. You could see at select committee them nodding along to the criticisms made by submitters. They are supporting it because it was the price of Winston’s support
• ACT’s MP is against it
• The eight Green MPs have said they are against it, but are scared of Winston so are voting for it so they keep their baubles of office
• And in reality eight of the nine NZ First MPs are against it. They are the ones most terrified of it, because almost beyond doubt it will be used against one or more of them.

So we have a law that would be voted down 1-120 in a free vote, but because Winston is incapable of managing a caucus successfully, he is forcing everyone else into giving him the power to expel MPs he falls out with.