Shanah Tovah
Rosh Hashanah is a two day celebration of the start of the Jewish New Year. We are in Year 5786 Anno Mundi, since the biblical belief in the creation of the world. It is also held to be the creation day of Adam and Eve.
Radio NZ reports:
David Seymour says changes to warning labels for tobacco, nicotine and alcohol products are on the table in a labelling review by his Ministry for Regulation.
Public health groups have written to Seymour, asking for nicotine, tobacco and alcohol to be excluded from the review, but when asked by RNZ, the Deputy Prime Minister said: “No, I have no plans to do that.”
Seymour said warnings about nicotine being addictive, tobacco causing cancer, or alcohol harming pregnancies were unlikely to be removed altogether, but changing the nature of those labels was still an option.
He gave the example of the requirement to use the colour red in labels warning about the danger of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
“I think the real problem here is people (being) so irresponsible, they drink when pregnant and do massive harm to unborn children,” Seymour said. “That, in my view, is the real problem here.
“The problem is not the colour of the label.”
Seymour said he visited a craft beer business struggling with the requirement to use red in pregnancy warning labels.
“They use two-colour printing, but they can’t get the third colour, unless they go to three-colour printing, which increases their costs,” he said. “They made the quite reasonable point – you could still have a very effective ‘don’t drink when pregnant’ warning, without putting that cost on them.”
A great example. Mandating red ink for the label imposes a significant cost on some businesses, yet has a zero impact on public health.
Here are my thoughts on voting in the Wellington Local Body Elections. My major focus is affordability. I want a Council that doesn’t put rates up 20% and doesn’t accept 200% cost blowouts on major projects.
I am generally just covering the candidates who have a significant chance of being elected. So don’t be offended if you are not mentioned. It doesn’t mean I am saying don’t vote for you – just that I don’t think you have a realistic chance of winning.
I will classify candidates as either preferred or acceptable.
Mayor
Preferred – Diane Calvert, Ray Chung, Karl Tiefenbacher
All three are strong advocates for lower (or zero) rates increases and Calvert and Chung on Council have consistently voted the right way.
Andrew Little has been critical of performance of the current Council, but I note he has gone out of his way to make any specific commitment on rates. If he is Mayor I have no doubt he will do a better job than the incumbent in managing the Council, but I am far from convinced he will prevent huge future rates increases.
Northern Ward
Preferred – Tony Randle, Andrea Compton, John Apanowicz
Tony is a great Councillor – both on wider fiscal issues at Council, and for his local ward. Andrea has been a voice for lower rates also and has an impressive resume. John is an active local councillor. He has voted for a few things though which I think were nice to haves, not must haves.
Acceptable – Ben McNulty, Mark Flynn
I like Ben. If he wasn’t Labour I would vote for him. Mark Flynn is standing for ACT so would vote the right way on key issues,. but I don’t know much about him.
Onslow-Western Ward
Preferred – Ray Chung , Diane Calvert, Ray Boyden, Guy Nunns, Lily Brown
Ray Chung and Diane Calvert are two of the four most fiscally responsible Councillors. We can’t afford to lose them. Lily Brown, Ray Boyden (ACT) and Guy Nunns (IT) all look good for the third slot. So rank them all in the top five.
Rebecca Matthews is standing for the Greens after a stoush with Labour. Rebecca is definitely not fiscally responsible so I would not vote for her, but I will say she has been a good advocate on issues of housing affordability.
Lambton Ward
Preferred – Nicola Young, Dan Millward, Stuart Wong (IT),
Nicola is one of the four fiscally responsible councillors and is a must retain. Dan Millwood impresses me and would be as good addition, as would Stuart Wong.
Acceptable – Teal Mau
I don’t know Teal but as a small business owner he should be a sensible voice if elected.
Eastern Ward
Preferred – Karl Tiefenbacher, Luke Kuggeleijn (ACT), Michelle McGuire (IT), Ken Ah Kuoi (IT)
Karl would be a great Councilor (or Mayor). Definitely have him No 1. Ken, Luke and Michelle are both standing on tickets on low or zero rates increases. Have them in your top four.
Acceptable – Chris Calvi-Freeman
Chris was a diligent Councillor when he was last on. Unsure though that he would vote to stop the costly projects forcing rates up, but we’ll see if he gets elected.
Southern Ward
Preferable – Paula Muollo (IT) and Mike Petrie
Paula is a strong advocate for her area and would be my No 1.
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Māori Ward
I’m not just saying this as his opponent is Tory, but Matthew Reweti (Labour) would be a good Councillor, albeit we wouldn’t agree on lots of stuff. Have met him a few times, and a good guy.
Won’t just see this as a stepping stone for Parliament.
Newsroom reports:
Environmental groups have seen increased support since the 2023 election, though this hasn’t always translated into more donations.
As part of what their leaders have called a “war on nature”, the coalition Government has cut off Crown funding to the big four environmental Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) with varying consequences. …
The big four environmental groups are Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Environmental Defence Society (EDS). This grouping is broken down into pairs: Greenpeace and Forest & Bird are larger with similar membership and cashflow, while WWF and EDS are smaller.
None of these groups should get a cent from the taxpayer. They are lobbyists. It is repugnant for taxpayers to fund lobbyists who then lobby the government.
I have no beef with most of them. I think Forest & Bird do some amazing stuff. I am a monthly donor to WWF and I think EDS are examples of smart environmental lobbyists. Greenpeace are different – they are eco-terrorists.
I donate to those I want to. That is how it should work.
Around 100,000 Americans from all 50 states gathered for the memorial service of Charlie Kirk. He is the only private citizen in American history to have the President and Vice-President speak at his memorial service. It is clear the impact of his assassination will be felt for many years.
Kirk was assassinated because his killer believed his words to be hateful. But whatever he hoped to achieve, this is not it. He has made Kirk a modern Christian martyr.
Some key quotes from the service:
Erika Kirk may go on to be an even more influential and powerful figure than her husband. Her explicit forgiveness of his killer was riveting. Earlier she had said she won’t push for the death penalty for him as she wants to join Charlie in heaven and Jesus would disapprove of “an eye for an eye”.
I am not religious but I am blown away by her devotion to Christ.
Radio NZ reports:
Nicola Willis is calling Labour’s willingness to discuss increasing the Reserve Bank’s inflation target “insane economic illiteracy”. Labour says that’s a “massive misrepresentation” of their stance.
Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds this morning said the party was “open to a discussion” about lifting the 2 percent midpoint of the RBNZ’s target to 2.5 percent.
I don’t support 2% or 2.5%. The original target was 0% to 2% with a midpoint of 1%. That was a good target as it was as close to no inflation as you can get, without risking negative inflation.
The difference between say 1% and 2.5% over time is quite huge. Say you shopping comes to $300. Over a decade the former sees you paying $331 and the latter $384. A 10.5% increase vs a 28% increase.
Labour MP Ingrid Leary is complaining that no New Zealand Ministers flew over to the UK to attend the Black Ferns game in Bristol!!
No doubt if they were in attendance, she would complain about that also.
I don’t understand the mentality of people who try to politicise everything. It’s so desperate.
Radio NZ reports:
The $1.4 billion national ticketing solution (NTS) has been delayed by a year with a review finding NZTA’s original timings for the plan were “overly ambitious”.
The nationwide ticketing solution would – for the first time – allow New Zealanders to easily tag on to buses, trains and ferries using contactless payments across the country.
It was meant to be on public transport across the country by the end of next year, but following an independent review has been announced that deadline would be pushed back to the end of 2027.
This is another example of the sunk cost fallacy. We have already spent so much on it, we have to keep pouring more money in. The NTS is a nice to have, not a must have. The vast majority of people don’t use public transport in multiple regions. You only really need such smart cards locally for regular users so you can have daily or monthly caps. But if I am just visiting a place for a day or two, then it is not hassle to just use a local card or eftpos.
The cost of this ticketing system will be more than three years worth of actual public transport funding from the government. That’s crazy. You’d be better to spend that money on buses or trains, than a ticketing system.
C.S. Lewis is truly one of the most remarkable and influential intellects of the 20th Century – as was George MacDonald in the Century before him.
Lewis regarded MacDonald as his “master” – high praise indeed when he got to sit across the table and share a beer with Tolkien weekly.
This piece is interesting and inspiring – and I assume Greta Gerwig’s Narnia Films: https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/20-09-2025/an-ode-to-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe
Anyone who can read the series and finish The Last Battle without tears has a cold heart indeed.
If all NZ children could – and would – read the seven books of the Chronicles of Narnia … it would be hard to say we have a LITERACY CRISIS.
CNN reports:
When police arrested a 13-year-old boy in Washington state last week accused of making threats to kill, they found he had “everything ready to go to commit a mass shooting” – including a trove of more than 20 guns in his home.
Horrific.
What investigators found in the boy’s bedroom revealed what they describe as an obsession with past school shooters. He “imitated similar behaviors, with photos and inscriptions spread throughout his room,” the sheriff’s office said.
Did his parents ever notice?
Outside the courtroom, his parents told KOMO the situation is a misunderstanding. His mother suggested his social media posts were an attempt to “be cool” among peers, and his father said he had no intention to harm anyone, KOMO reported.
This is why they are appalling parents. Their kid had 23 weapons lying around their home, was making threats online, and he had photos of other school shooters. And good old mum says he was just trying to be cool and dad says he would never harm anyone.
The Guardian reports:
The writer of TV’s Father Ted has been arrested at Heathrow over three social media posts on transgender issues.
Graham Linehan, who also created the IT Crowd and, with Dylan Moran, Black Books, said he was intercepted by five armed officers after flying in from Arizona and told he was under arrest over the messages.
Writing on Substack, the 57-year-old Irishman said he was taken to a cell and then questioned over the posts, published on X in April.
He said the posts related to him challenging a “trans-identified male” in a “female-only space”.
More insanity from the UK. As I understand it Lineham tweeted something along the lines of if a trans-woman is in a women’s toilets you should kick them in the balls. It’s clearly not an actual incitement to violence. You can disagree with what he said, but not think he should be arrested for it.
You can read his tweets and his arrest direct from Lineham here.
Politico reports:
When the White House added “irregular migration” to her policy portfolio, Harris wrote that she helped secure billions in private investment for Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador as part of an administration push to defray the root causes of immigration from the region. She detailed meetings with leaders and activist groups and touted the creation of 70,000 jobs due to American investment.
But when she looked to publicize the success, “White House staff stalled,” Harris wrote.
“Instead, I shouldered the blame for the porous border, an issue that had proved intractable for Democratic and Republican administrations alike,” she said.
It is interesting that Kamala Harris says the porous Southern border was an intractable issue. Here’s the data for illegal crossings:
So illegal crossings are down 93% from a year ago. The number of illegal crossings is down the a level last seen in the 1960s. You can hate Trump’s policies, but there is no doubt he has massively succeeded in making the southern border more secure.
I have heard the audio. It was chilling. He was so proud he had killed so many Jews (not Israelis, not Zionists, Jews).
An excellent speech by the President of the University of Austin on inequality:
But on the heels of America’s quarter-millennium since the Declaration of Independence, I want to do something a bit unfashionable: I want to defend inequality.
Of course, all men are created equal. But all men are not the same. We have unequal curiosity, unequal intellect, unequal talent, unequal courage, unequal drive, unequal achievement.
The right generally believes in equality of opportunity, while the left tries to engineer equality of outcome.
At UATX, we open our gates to any American, from any background, regardless of means, family legacy, or identity. A child of an American president and the child of a waitress get the same treatment in our admissions process and in our seminar rooms.
Equality of opportunity.
Equality, without excellence, is the surest path to national decline.
A free society, to remain dynamic and free, must enable those gifts to develop rather than force them into a common mold. So even in a republic of equals, we need small sanctuaries of aristocracy and excellence to ensure the success of liberty.
Democracy runs on equality; freedom and excellence run on inequality.
The tension between those two realities shapes almost every real problem in education today. How do we respect every person’s equal dignity and opportunity while also recognizing and cultivating individual excellence?
Nearly every university in America has decided to answer that question by abandoning excellence. Harvard hands out more A’s than any other grade. Yale gives nearly 60 percent of students straight A’s. Princeton no longer requires Greek or Latin to major in the classics. Columbia proudly ditched the SAT. In our leading institutions, honors are handed out like candy while calculus is quietly dropped.
A rare speech.
A guest post by Matthew Flanagan:
Goodbye NCEA, Farewell, Get lost, Good Riddance
Some readers of this blog will know that I work as a secondary school teacher. Recently, several people have asked my opinion about the government’s decision to ditch the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). My thoughts follow.
When I was at teachers’ college, I was taught that New Zealand had the best curriculum in the world. Unlike other curricula, which focused on subject content, New Zealand’s curriculum focused on certain kinds of skills—analysis, critical thinking, research, etc.
A comparison between the NCEA standards for Religious Studies (my specialist subject) and Cambridge illustrates the contrast. For IGCSE World Religions, students study two major religions over the course of a year. The syllabus requires them to learn a huge amount of content—about the religion’s history, doctrines, modes of worship, and so on. The assessment is an examination in which any of these topics could be assessed.
By contrast, Level 1 NCEA has standards such as: Demonstrate understanding of the development of a community that shares religious or spiritual beliefs. This is flexible—teachers can choose any religion. One gets an Achieved if they show understanding of the development of the religious community, a Merit if they can explain it, and an Excellence if they examine it. The focus is on analytical skills. Prima facie, this is a good idea. Education should not be about regurgitating facts; it should develop skills of understanding, explaining, and examining.
This appearance, however, has not withstood my experience at the coalface, teaching Religious Studies to Year 11–13 boys.
My first practical experience with NCEA was during my practicum in 2009. I was placed at a low-decile school in South Auckland. The school was almost entirely in Pasifika in demographic. Despite being in a poor area and having a demographic that statistically underachieves, the school was getting good results—large numbers of students were getting Achieved. Here was the method I encountered:
I am not joking. What was interesting was that even under these conditions, students would talk during the assessment and not finish. So extensions were given until the students all passed. Or they were held in till they finished.
Here I discovered the perverse incentive structures of NCEA. Because there were certain prescribed skills (such as “explain” and “describe”) which were internally assessed by the school, and because the school’s reputation was tied to how well it got traditionally low-achieving groups to pass, tactics like this actually made the school “successful.” Students who struggled with basic skills and academic discipline would pass at high rates.
My experience in the teaching sector has suggested to me that this sort of thing is not an aberration. I have seen many NCEA programmes where students who lack basic skills pass because they are spoon-fed the answers. I have seen, for example, courses where students copy notes into a workbook in each class, then have a week of classes to copy those notes into a resource, and are then given a structured worksheet on how to write an essay. They fill in the worksheet with the material from the resource. Despite the apparent ease of this, I have witnessed teachers offer several weeks of classes—including lunchtime and after-school sessions—to get students to complete the task. If all else fails, threaten a detention until they fill out the sheet. Instant Achieved. In a short time, this student who can’t write an essay or hand one in gets University Entrance. A school has managed to get large numbers of students known for lack of academic ability to university level. It looks impressive—but of course, in the long term, it is fraudulent. These students haven’t achieved the “skills”; they’ve ticked boxes and been micromanaged on how to tick them.
My next experience was doing professional development on NCEA marking. At a best-practice workshop, I was given a model answer for the standard Describe the beliefs of a religious community. It stated: “According to Christianity, Jesus was a good moral teacher.” Achieved or Not Achieved?
I said “Not Achieved”. My reason: this is not an accurate description of what Christianity teaches. Muslims believe Isa (Jesus) was a prophet, so they would consent to this statement. An agnostic could—and many do—accept that Jesus was a good moral teacher. Christianity teaches Jesus is the Messiah and God incarnate.
I was told I was being too precise. To meet the standard, they only need the most generic answer. The student should get an Achieved simply for writing that down.
We went on to look at exemplars of Merit and Excellence. To get an Excellence, a student needs to “evaluate.” I pointed out that the evaluation provided was extremely poor. I was told that the standard didn’t say “evaluate well”—it simply said “evaluate.” That meant the student used words like therefore and in conclusion. If they used such words, they were using evaluative language and hence got an Excellence.
On another occasion, I was learning the ropes of moderation. The course was on the Reformation. To get an Achieved, the student had to describe the key facts. To get a Merit, they had to show the implications of the facts. I was told that because the word “facts” is plural, NZQA required that a student get two facts correct. Facts were things like names, places, and dates. This meant that if a student, after studying the Reformation for several weeks, wrote only: “Martin Luther, Wittenberg 1517,” they got an Achieved.
Here I learned how words like “describe,” “evaluate,” “discuss,” and “analyse” did not mean what they appeared to. Due to bureaucratic requirements, and moderation proceedures they had highly specific meanings which reduced them to a checklist. A student could know in advance what the checklist was and tick the boxes. They didn’t need to understand, analyse, or evaluate in the ordinary sense of those terms. Or at least not in terms of what would be expected by the canons of the discipline.
Students were often aware of this. I’ve had several classes where I assigned an essay and got the response: “Sir, if I don’t write an intro and a conclusion, but just write X, Y, Z, will I still get an Achieved?” The honest answer, according to the requirements I had been told, was yes. What do the students do? They don’t bother learning to write an essay. They can Google the basic “facts” they need to meet the minimum standard. Do it, pass. They haven’t learned to write an essay, or research, or think critically. They’ve learned that they don’t have to. The most efficient path to success is to not do these things. They know the game.
This was exacerbated by a third feature of NCEA. When I was teaching it, a student could accumulate enough credits by doing two or three internal assessments early in the year. Once they had ticked the box and got an Achieved, they could tune out for the rest of the course. They could fail to show up for the exam and still get the requiste an “achieve” grades. I had many students ask me: “Sir, if I don’t hand in X and Y or do the exam, I’ll still get an Achieved, right?” They were right. I saw large numbers of students pass subjects without ever successfully sitting an exam. They left with University Entrance.
The school I currently teach at has a dual pathway: NCEA and Cambridge. A few years ago, the leadership began assigning me fewer NCEA classes and more Cambridge ones. Here’s what I noticed.
First, students were much more concerned about learning the content. They knew that anything they learned might be in the examination—and they didn’t know which topics would be. Second, they were keenly aware of risk. They understood that if they failed the exam, that was it—they failed the year. They also knew I couldn’t give them a break; I wasn’t the examiner—Cambridge was. A re-sit might mean they would repeat another six months of work. It couldn’t be done for two days during my lunch hour.
Third, I discovered that appearances can be deceiving. While Cambridge had a huge amount of content, when it asked questions in the exam, it used terms like “discuss,” “describe,” and “explain.” These terms were not redefined in non-standard ways. The people marking the exams were subject specialists who knew what these terms meant, and the marking schedule reflected that. Students were assessed on things like “used relevant information,” “took into account various views,” and “some inaccurate information.” They also had to write answers in essay form. Through the process of doing practice exams, students learned those skills. To prepare, they had to research a massive body of content and ask how they could put it into essay form—how to analyse and draw on relevant information. They weren’t just regurgitating facts; they were developing the requisite skills.
Fourth—and most disturbing—I noticed that every year I taught bright students with potential who told me they were going to transfer to NCEA because it was easier. They could get into university without doing an exam and could, with minimal stress, get an Excellence in every subject—often in the first half of the year. Even more pernicious, I encountered Māori and Pasifika students who tell me that because of their race, they are “too dumb” for Cambridge. These students—often bright and full of potential—lack self-belief. Because of this, they doubt themselves, and they know they can get academic success without the risk, effort, or fear of failure. Every year, I try to talk students out of dropping out and switching to NCEA because “it’s easier to pass.”
Here I reflect on the irony of my first experience with NCEA. People were concerned about Māori and Pasifika fail rates. They were using NCEA to fix the problem. Increased numbers were passing. The problem is—they were not being educated. We were defrauding society and the students themselves by declaring they were educated and certifying them as having skills they didn’t have. Academic skills are acquired through work, practice, and the risk of failure. Making errors is part of the process. It requires students to take ownership and responsibility for their learning. It couldn’t just be given for free by a teacher or from the ministry. These students were learning that they didn’t need any of that to pass. Someone else would just give them the results if they checked a box.
So, when I heard the government was scrapping NCEA, my response was this: “Goodbye NCEA. Farwell, Get lost. Good riddance.”
Mike Davidson will be the new Green MP replacing Benjamin Doyle. Looking at his electoral record, you might conclude he is exceptionally lucky.
He was effectively No 20 on the Greens List, which was an unwinnable place. But somehow the Greens have managed to lose a third of their caucus in 18 months, so he is now going to get to be a Member of Parliament, after failing to even win a community board seat.
Chris Lynch sets out why he thinks Davidson has been rejected locally:
Davidson has struggled to build broad support. On council he was defined less by collaboration than by confrontation, clashing with colleagues and pursuing narrow agendas. …
He became known for his fixation on cycleways and for the anger he carried into online forums.
Anyone who disagreed with his opinion was labelled as spreading “misinformation.” …
Christchurch once had a Green MP who commanded respect across the political spectrum. Eugenie Sage was measured, informed, and grounded in policy detail.
Davidson represents the opposite trajectory, a continuation of performative politics where gestures replace substance.
His arrival in Parliament will not give Christchurch a stronger voice.
He is more likely to show up at whatever protest is fashionable than deliver anything resembling real change.
The comparison to Sage is an apt one. She was widely respected across parties.
On Patreon I write about hate speech being used to justify Charlie Kirk’s murder, but also being used to justify the state targeting people who said hateful things about Kirk’s murder, especially US Attorney General Pam Bondi declaring hate speech is not free speech and vowing to target people who say what she deems is hateful. I also cover the Jimmy Kimmel sacking (basically right decision for wrong reasons).
I conclude mentioning:
One of the projects I have on the back burner was to set up an organisation that would hold regular conferences where participants could debate highly controversial issues in a measured way. My plan was to ask all living former Prime Ministers to be co-patrons of it, and for its purpose to be to demonstrate that political differences between New Zealanders should be debated and discussed, not shouted down.
It might be time for me to start looking for some sugar daddies or mummies who would be happy to fund it!
The Herald reported:
Act and NZ First are duking it out over who first came up with the idea of pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Act made the announcement on Tuesday morning. That afternoon Winston Peters claimed on social media that he’d come up with the idea first.
Winston is saying he was first to propose pulling out of Paris? Let’s look at what he has said over time on Paris:
2015
“COP21 is progress. Global collaboration has moved ahead with the international agreement reached in Paris.” – 16 December 2015
2017
“China and New Zealand are committed to working together on climate change, and meeting our obligations under the Paris Agreement. Our Government has stated its intention to place a high priority on climate change issues.” – 5 December 2017
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/anniversary-diplomatic-relations-china
“Make the PCCC legally responsible for reporting against both the Kyoto and Paris Agreements setting three-yearly ‘Carbon Budget’ designed to reach these commitments.”
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/87669/election-2017-party-policies-environment-climate-change
2018
“Implementing the Paris Agreement is the 21st Century’s existential challenge”. – 8 May 2018
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/first-steps
“agreed to work together bilaterally and through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to combat climate change, including through reaching agreement on fair, transparent and effective rules for implementation of the Paris Agreement at COP24 in December.” – 7 August 2018
2024
“The Government is committed to meeting New Zealand’s international climate change responsibilities. New Zealand’s international standing with regards to addressing climate challenges will be shaped by delivering on the government’s steadfast commitment to the Paris Agreement and other accords. The government remains committed to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy production and therefore becoming a lower-emissions economy.” – 3 May 2024
https://questions.parliament.nz/written-questions/question/WQ_07054_2024
“The Ministers emphasised their shared commitments to adapting to and mitigating the impacts of climate change under the Paris Agreement.” – 30 July 2024
“Ministers highlighted Australia and New Zealand’s shared commitment to the Paris Agreement.” – 6 December 2024
2025
“The Ministers emphasised their shared commitment to adapting to and mitigating the impacts of climate change under the Paris Agreement.” – 13 June 2025
Zero Carbon Act
NZ First is partially responsible for the Zero Carbon Act and a net zero target. A commitment to pass the Zero Carbon Act was in NZ First’s coalition agreement with Labour. The Zero Carbon Act sets out how New Zealand must meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement.
NZ First’s press release claiming credit for it is here:
Here is an interesting video where Winston claims the credit for the Zero Carbon Act:
Here’s NZ First’s coalition agreement with a commitment to “Introduce a Zero Carbon Act”:
https://www.parliament.nz/media/4486/362429780labourandnewzealandfirstcoalitionagreement.pdf
So if NZ First is opposed to the Paris Agreement, it will be a reversal of years of advocacy for it and even claiming credit for the Zero Carbon Act!
This was facebooked by Cr Aaron Keown, and seems a pretty good voting guide. It went:
No Speed Hump & Lower Rates Candidate List 2025 (these candidates will deliver this)
Mayor Phil Mauger
Councillors
Community Boards
He has also done a website where you can see how Crs voted on key issues. Wish we had one of these for Wellington.