The Press reports:

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he was unaware of official advice warning him off funding a West Coast rubbish burning scheme.

This is despite an email provided by his office suggesting the warning from the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) was raised with him before the funding was announced.

On February 21, the MfE told the Provincial Growth Fund the proposed waste-to-energy project on the West Coast had serious economic and environmental flaws.

Two days later, Jones announced a $1 billion regional development package including $350,000 for a feasibility study into the project.

So MfE said it did not add up either economically or environmentally but Shane still gave them $350,000.

When the MfE advice was referred to Jones on Wednesday, he said he had not seen it.

However an email dated February 21, from regional development director John Doorbar to MfE counterparts, said their concerns had been raised “with Minister Jones and we’ve come up with a pretty good compromise that ensures that the MfE issues are addressed and that we don’t stop all hope on the West Coast”.

So did he not read it or did he not recall it?

He said the MfE’s concerns would have made no difference to his decision.

“I don’t recall the advice but I’m prepared to stand by the fact that John did tell me but the fact I can’t recall it bothers me not one jot. The prospect of it embarrassing me is inversely related to the truth. It takes a hell of a lot more to embarrass me.

Can anything embarrass him?

“If the thing dies as a consequence of a feasibility study that’s why private sector and public sector should do feasibility studies,” Jones said.

The MfE advice, released under the Official Information Act, warned the project relied upon “unrealistic expectations”.

Its backers did not understand the South Island waste market and had insufficient material to keep the plant running, it said. 

A business case and budget was inadequate and backers showed misunderstandings of the New Zealand context including the “erroneous assumption all landfills are required to close by 2040”.

The waste-to-energy scheme would undermine other waste reduction measures and increase carbon emissions, the MfE experts said.

Just because something is a feasibility study is not a good reason to waste $350,000 on it. The feasibility study itself needs to be sound.

You’d hope that if someone asked for $350,000 for a feasibility study into proving the earth is flat it would be turned down. But maybe not.

UPDATE: It turns out that not only doesn’t Shane read his advice, he doesn’t even listen to it!

One News reports:

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he simply forgot a briefing warning him away from a project funded by the government’s $3 billion-dollar provincial growth scheme.

Asked why he backed the project despite the ministry urging against it, Mr Jones originally said he had never been briefed, telling RNZ it was probably just part of a “Darwinistic bureaucratic debate”.

However, questioned about it in parliament on Thursday night, the minister admitted he had been told about the matter.

“During the preparation of the announcements, of which the West Coast waste project was one, it has been pointed out to me that my officials did brief me – which I have acknowledged obviously happened,” he said.

Stuff reports:

Coming to a rural road near you – a 70kmh speed limit?

A landmark report by an inter-governmental organisation with 59 member countries – including New Zealand – is recommending that rural roads that don’t have median barriers should have their speed limits lowered to 70kmh.

Taken literally, that would mean that almost NZ’s entire roading network, state highways included, would need to have their speed limits reduced to 70kmh. Only those section of motorways with median barriers would be allowed to retain their 100kmh limit. 

The Government that does this would be thrown out of office.

The ODT reports:

Plans to tackle Queenstown’s lack of affordable housing have been partially scuppered by possible changes to the Overseas Investment Act.

Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust executive officer Julie Scott confirmed one foreign investor, who was prepared to finance 50 new apartments in Frankton, has pulled the pin on the transaction.

Well done the Government.

Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Jim Boult described the situation as “very frustrating”.

“Government is setting out to assist with affordable housing but at the same time they are pushing forward legislation that is actually harming our ability to do something about affordable housing.

This is the trouble with policy as soundbites.

HDPA writes:

Yes it’s a tax.

The Prime Minister can dance on the head of a pin as much as she likes in a weak bid to defend hiking the petrol tax but she’s going to get nowhere. The damage is done.

This will hurt Labour in a huge way.

Here’s the problem. Jacinda Ardern and her finance minister promised no new taxes under Labour. 

This is what Grant Robertson said in September last year: “There will be no new taxes or levies introduced in our first term of Government beyond those we have already announced.”

When challenged about this new tax, Ardern said it’s not new, the levy has been around for ages and National hiked it plenty when it was in government.

And she says it’s not a tax, it’s an excise.

It’s an excise tax.

And motorists may accept increasing it by 25 cents if it meant more money going on the roads they drive on. But the Government is saying we want to increase the cost of petrol by 25 cents a litre and slash spending on roads. That will infuriate a lot of people.

I cannot actually believe that this is the level of the argument we’re having. That is how crap the PM’s defence of this tax is.

It’s weak, totally flimsy. And you know what that tells you?

This is the day Labour lost the 2020 election. Because people don’t care what beltway issues Labour has to fight fires on but they do care when those issues start hitting them in the pocket.

And this issue is not just going to hit some of us in the pocket, it’s going to hit all of us in the pocket.

So when you fill your car up and you’re paying $2.30 instead of $2.10, you’ll know who to blame – Labour.

Taxcinda strikes again.

A guest post by Damon Birchfield, CEO of EcoMatters Environment Trust:

In recent weeks EcoMatters Environment Trust has been accused of a range of almost nefarious sounding activities around our involvement in the production of a real world game called The Problem. I suspect the article from “a reader” in your Kiwiblog article from April the 3rd is a continuation of this particular person’s issue with ourselves and Auckland Council.

By way of background for your readers who may not be familiar with us, EcoMatters is a medium sized community Trust based in West Auckland. We undertake a wide range of environmental work together with the community, focussing in the areas of housing quality, environmental and stream restoration, waste minimisation, and sustainable transport through our cycle hub, which restores older bikes for people in the community who may not have the means to take their bikes to a professional shop to be repaired. A full summary of our annual activities can be found here.

Like all community organisations we receive funding from a range of funders, including Auckland Council, with whom we have a strong relationship that we are personally very proud of. The total pool of funding we receive from council in a year compared to their larger contractors is not high. Furthermore we work very hard for what funding we receive, all the while attempting to be a professionally run not for profit organisation that does a lot of community and environmental good, and which we believe provides an excellent return on investment for our funders.

EcoMatters is an apolitical organisation, and we don’t produce propaganda. We try to maintain a positive language with our supporters, and this can be seen on our Facebook page, which tells a range of community stories about our work.

The Problem your reader refers to is a real world gaming App that utilises a youth language framework to engage a normally disinterested audience. It is still in a very early development phase. EcoMatters helped to develop it, along with creative agency, The Agent-C, to engage with an 18 – 35 year old audience.

Based on research we had undertaken we found there are a lot of people in this age group who do not feel that traditional environmental messaging is speaking particularly well to them. We wanted to provide a way for a new audience to engage with socio-environmental issues, but to do that we needed a way of speaking their language. We also wanted to use technology to mobilise this community to be able to take action in the real world. That was the driving idea behind the project.

At EcoMatters we are worried about the future for our young adults, and we want them to be engaged in these issues. We know that a lot of the environmental news we hear these days suggests there are some compelling challenges ahead. The Problem attempts to use smartphone technology to engage with this audience, and most importantly, “give them a voice” and speak in their own language about the particular issues they see and are encountering.

The Problem was never intended to be partisan. However we do acknowledge that a very early piece of creative that was produced did contain some slides that could be considered politically offensive and we apologise for these.  We hasten to mention these slides were never used in public presentations, never taken to market and were merely representations of possible user generated content.

The suggestion that we are somehow busy with creating  ‘covert propaganda aimed at politicising youth to push its (our) beliefs on the public’, is simply untrue. EcoMatters and Auckland Libraries never signed off on any political messages being put to market, precisely for the reason that it went against council policy to do so. Ironically, your reader actually highlighted an example of Auckland Libraries filtering out objectionable and party-political messaging.

Meanwhile, any political user generated content created by the participants of the game is their right. We have no interest in suppressing freedom of speech and opinion. Neither EcoMatters or I suspect council will necessarily agree with what people define as “The Problem”, but that’s the whole point of the utility and it is surely sign of a healthy democracy that there is a willingness to give people a voice and be prepared to hear a range of world views.

In a crowded media marketplace, as I’m sure this Blog is aware, you do sometimes need to try something different, to be heard.

The Problem is there are still people out there who rather than mucking in and being part of the solution, prefer to shoot endless bullets from the sideline at people who are in the business of trying to make a positive difference.

Kind regards,

Damon Birchfield
EcoMatters CEO

The Herald has a copy of the timeline from the Radio NZ Chair, Dick Griffin. It is rather interesting.

Some key points:

• 22 March – Minister’s office rang Griffin to tell him that there were questions in the House and they did not want RNZ to comment. Only then did he find out that the meeting was pre-arranged. The staff were focused entirely on whether the Minister had misled the House and seem oblivious to the significance of Radio NZ having misled the Select Committee.
• 24 March- Griffin phoned Curran to tell her what he had learnt. She was defensive and kept insisting she could talk to anyone she wants. Very interesting that she really has no idea of the Cabinet Manual or that Ministers can’t go behind Chairs and CEOs backs.
• 26 March – Griffin informed the Minister, the Select Committee Chair and the PM’s Chief of Staff of what had happened.
• 27 March – Griffin informed Melissa Lee three minutes before the public press release

There was somewhat ridiculous behaviour by certain Labour MPs who said that Griffin had colluded with National because he told Melissa Lee about the resignation three minutes before the public release. They really made dicks of themselves.

Griffin acted entirely properly informing the Minister and even the PM’s Chief of Staff the day before. The phone call to Melissa Lee a few minutes before the release was common courtesy that you don’t want an MP to find out you inadvertently lied in response to their question through a media release.

Griffin refused to release the Minister’s voice mail message to the committee. But the committee may require its release. If so, it could be very interesting to see whether the PM’s insistence that Curran did not try to persuade Griffin not to appear is borne out by her message.

A guest post by Kimbo:

Every government must manage the inevitable ups and downs that come its way. The last one, over the course of nine years had its share, some major, others footnotes in political history: the GFC, South Canterbury Finance, three (literal) earthquakes, Richard Worth, Pansy Wong, Phil Heatley, Aaron Gilmore, Todd Barclay, Teapotgate, Ponytailgate and losing a Green Party/citizens’ initiated referendum over the partial sale of state assets. As British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once answered when asked what was the driving force in politics, “Events, my dear fellow, events!” So the real test in politics is how well one manages those events.

I’d suggest that already the current Labour-NZ First coalition, along with their Green confidence and supply partners, is struggling. Consider the following, not just the events, but also the accompanying (mis)management:

* A grope and booze and “what did the Prime minister know and when did she know it?” scandal involving teenagers at the youth camp of a political party that proudly espouses the rhetoric and values of 21st Century gender and sexual politics.

* A foreign minister who was engaged in his own idiosyncratic policy towards Russia in defiance of world opinion.

* The average to downright inept performance of three of Labour’s stars when they were in Opposition, Phil Twyford, Chris Hipkins and Kelvin Davis.

* The bad optics of new ministers overspending and misusing transport.

* Threats to the CEO and independent board of Air New Zealand by a cabinet minister.

* Allegations of stand over tactics to silence National MPs criticising NZ First’s flagship Regional Development Fund.

* And now the resignation of a top Radio New Zealand staff member, who was the cause of Parliament being misled about a meeting she had with a Government Minister.

More troubling for the Ardern administration, it’s been only six months since the last election  but even that relatively short period is deceiving. Due to Winston Peters’ protracted coalition negotiations, when the new government eventually took power there was only a short few weeks left of the 2017 political year. That was insufficient time for any reasonable judge to assess their worth, hence the press and New Zealand public were rightly generous, especially in the light of Jacinda Ardern’s undoubted charm and charisma. But once you factor in the long New Zealand holiday period that stretches to the end of January, in reality it has been less than two months since the political year kicked off in earnest. After a good start – Ardern made a good impression at Waitangi, and followed it up well on her tour of the Pacific with Winston Peters – it has suddenly turned bad real fast. Waitangi Day sure seems a long time ago. and we haven’t even reached Easter!

The real problem for Ardern is what does she do next to get her management, and maybe even generation of favourable events going? Winston Peters will likely never change, and already Shane Jones and Ron Mark have much of the swagger and arrogance that characterised New Zealand First “tight five” Maori electorate MPs of 1996-98. Also, Ardern herself will soon be taking a break, so she will have little, if any ability to manage the events.

While she’s gone, two Labour cabinet ministers will need to step up, and, as good senior players do in an All Black team, back up the coach and captain by setting the standard for others to follow.

One is Andrew Little, who, no matter what one thinks of his attitudes to penal reform, has nonetheless performed well. And he needed too, because he was the one who threw the Hail Mary pass that landed Ardern where she is now! Time will tell if it turns out to be a hospital pass.

The other is Grant Robertson. So far he’s been able to buy time, delaying spending specifics until he delivers his first budget. It had better be a good one, backed up by a good performance to rebut the scrutiny that will be coming his way. If, not, then the government is toast, because without a solid Minister of Finance, the suspicions of incompetence, critical media coverage and declining business and public confidence will only exacerbate.

Nevertheless, there is one sure  thing in the current Labour-led Government’s favour. It has been over forty years since a New Zealand government failed to win at least a second term. That indicates that the electorate favours stability and giving the incumbent the benefit of the doubt at the next election, and usually the one after that too. It hasn’t been since 1975 that Rob Muldoon handed the ill-fated third Labour Government an exact reversal of the landslide that delivered it into power in 1972.

Those old enough to remember, or who have studied the history will recall the events and accompanying mismanagement that led up to Bill Rowling’s defeat, and they are sobering for the current government to consider how events can spiral out of control if you don’t get the management right:

* A horrendous reversal in our terms of trade and balance of payments as a result of the first oil shock of 1973

* The tragic and untimely death of Labour’s only superstar, Prime Minister and pioneering Foreign Minister, Norman Kirk

* The inability of his replacement, Bill Rowling to make an impression next to the dynamic and barnstorming Muldoon

* A massive failure to deliver on an over-promised affordable housing policy (no, Phil Twyford wasn’t the first!)

* An unpopular compulsory superannuation scheme.

*  A succession of blunders and apparent ineptitude by cabinet ministers

* And an embarrassing lingering scandal in the form of the Bill Sutch affair.

Yet even with all that combination of bad luck events and bad management, the 1975 election result came as a huge surprise. I’d suggest, based on just the last two months, and unless something changes quickly, the defeat of the current government at the next election will be no surprise at all. Indeed, it may have jumped the shark already.

Stuff reports:

A judge has sided with tobacco giant Philip Morris in ruling non-burning tobacco sticks Heets can be legally sold in, and imported into, New Zealand.

The Ministry of Health laid two charges against Philip Morris New Zealand last year over the sale and importation of the tobacco sticks, which are heated in an electronic device called IQOS to release nicotine.

The ministry argued Heets fell into the category of tobacco products designed for oral use other than smoking, and were prohibited under Section 29 of the Smoke-Free Environments Act 1990.

But Judge Patrick Butler dismissed the charges in the Wellington District Court on Tuesday, ruling the product fell outside that scope.

It was a silly prosecution that was trying to punish a company for selling a product 95% less harmful than cigarettes.

The SST released:

Dylyn Davis is a violent thug with a long history of violence, including two “strike” offences. He has now pleaded guilty to his third strike – the brutal murder of a young woman whose only crime was to tell a friend she was frightened of him. He now faces the sentence of Life Without Parole (LWOP) under the three strikes regime.

He is 25 and on his third strike, and it is a vicious murder. It sounds like the sort of case three strikes was designed for.

“In as much as murders can be ‘worse’, this case is surely as bad as it can get. A young woman beaten and choked to death by a violent thug who later bragged about what he had done to his scumbag mates, and described his victim choking to death as she gargled on her own blood. Not only did he show no remorse, but was proud of what he had done.” said McVicar.

Yep he told his mates how he made sure she was dead, choking her as she gargles on her own blood. Her crime was to text someone to say she was worried about her safety.

“Davis’s previous strikes are for wounding with intent to injure, for which he received a paltry 18 months – which the Sentencing Act automatically reduced to 9 months – and 28 and a half months for an aggravated robbery, which was his second strike. 

Davis killed Kerehoma just five months after he was out of prison for the aggravated robbery.

Details of his first strike:

In July 2011 he was jailed for two years for a raft of charges, stemming from incidents on the night of November 26, 2010.

On that night a drunk Davis, armed with a hockey stick, smashed three windows of the Path-lab building in Urlich Ave, Melville, before setting his sights on a dairy owner who was locking up his shop nearby.

Davis walked toward him and lit the spray from an aerosol can, causing a large flame he then directed towards the dairy owner’s face.The flame came inches away from the victim’s face.

At his sentencing then-Crown prosecutor Sheila Cameron said Davis had told police that he did it for fun.

He seems to be a particularly vicious sociopath.

A reader writes in:

I have several kids that have gone to Blockhouse Bay Intermediate and one child has just started there this term.  The number of Polynesian students at Blockhouse Bay Intermediate is tiny.  The largest ethnic groups among the school population (by a long way) after NZ Europeans are Indians, Chinese, and other Asians.  The 2015 ERO report confirms this and three years later the number of Asian students has grown even more.  In fact, over half my daughter’s class are of Indian extraction. 

Interestingly, last year my son was told by his teacher that he and a bunch of the other teachers went on holiday to Rarotonga together.  The emphasis given to the students was very much about a holiday and no mention was made of it being a work trip.

You may also recall that it was the same school that came under fire in December for spending $10,000 on a farewell party and leaving gift for the outgoing principal and also for spending $3700 collected for Fiji flood victims.  See link here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11963278

Sounds like there is a real spending culture at Blockhouse Bay School.

Stuff reports:

A group of Green Party members have threatened to quit the party if Julie Anne Genter wins the co-leadership race.

A puerile attitude – I’ll walk away from the party if my preferred candidate doesn’t win. They really don’t get democracy.

A small group of Young Greens members – understood to be fewer than ten – have loudly threatened online to quit if Genter wins. Several branches have also seen single members threaten to quit in person.

Basically they are trying to bully people to vote their way.

“We’ve definitely heard that quite a bit from Marama supporters, which has put a lot of people off, because you really question their commitment to Green values if they are going to throw their toys out of the cot because they didn’t get their co-leader,” Barlow said.

Indeed their tactics might backfire.

Hobson’s Choice released:

In calling on Parliament to deny ratepayers the right to veto council decisions to create racially-based political structures, Local Government New Zealand reveals just how totally out of touch they are with the views of the overwhelming majority of ratepayers, Don Brash said today in response to a press release from LGNZ.

In every one of the districts whose councils decided to impose Maori wards – Western Bay of Plenty, Whakatane, Palmerston North, Manawatu and Kaikoura  –  large numbers of ratepayers petitioned for a poll, showing clearly that very many do not want race-based wards, Dr Brash said.

I understand LGNZ did not consult with member Councils before deciding their position of advocating to deny ratepayers a vote on whether to establish separate Maori seats.

I like a saying that you shouldn’t judge a person’s entire life on the basis of the worst thing they ever did. On that basis, everyone gets condemned.

So with that in mind I’m trying to be balanced about WInnie Mandela, but the problem is there is so many bad things she did – the necklacing, kidnappings, torture and murders of her Mandela Football Club. Plus the corruption, theft and fraud.

But to put this in context, she did much good fighting apartheid, and during the apartheid era she was also tortured, arrested and banished. Her treatment during those times may be responsible for turning her into the persons she became. If it wasn’t for apartheid, she would have had an easier life no doubt.

So in marking her death, it is fair to remember her earlier good days, as well as her awful latter days.

The Herald reports:

Aucklanders face a double whammy of fuel tax hikes of about 20 cents a litre if central government fuel levy increases and a regional fuel tax are brought in, but Transport Minister Phil Twyford says he believes Aucklanders understand the need for it.

Auckland Council is expected to introduce about 10 cents a litre in regional fuel taxes to pay for its share of major transport projects and the Government’s new 10-year policy plan for transport proposes a further nationwide increase of 9-12 cents litre over three to four years.

If you include the GST on top of the petrol tax this will put petrol prices up in Auckland by 25 cents a litre.

So a 50 litre car will cost an extra $12.50 to fill up, which for a weekly fill would be an extra $600 a year motorists in Auckland will pay.

And almost none of it will go on roads the motorists actually drive on.

The Herald reports:

It would have been better for someone other than Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran to call RNZ chairman Richard Griffin over his reappearance at a select committee, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

Curran has denied reports that she suggested Griffin should stay away from the select committee but says she left a message on his phone saying he didn’t have to appear in person.

“After receiving some advice from the Office of the Leader of the House I made a phone call to him suggesting that if he couldn’t attend in person that the record [to] be corrected could be corrected by letter,” Curran told reporters today.

The Minister really needs to learn some restraint.

Curran said she could not recall whether she had made a suggestion or inferred that Griffin not appear in person.

Well it was all of a couple of days ago.

Politik further reports:

When Curran learned of this, she left a message last Thursday morning on Griffin’s phone suggesting NZ not actually appear at the Committee again, but simply send a  written correction to their earlier statements to the Committee.

And the Prime Minister has confirmed that when Curran could not reach Griffin, directly, she asked the CEO of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, Paul James, to contact him to urge him to provide only a written statement.

Had Griffin agreed it would have meant that he and Thompson would not have been able to answer questions from the Committee.

So not only did Curran directly try to dissuade the Radio NZ Chair from appearing, the Government also sent in the Chief Executive of MCH to pressure him not to appear.

All because they don’t want MPs to be able to ask questions about what really happened.

Again I remind people this comes from the Minister for Open Government.

Stacey Kirk writes in Stuff on the comedy of errors that is the Government:

There was always a risk of NZ First-induced migraines when the Prime Minister signed on the dotted line to form a Government with Winston Peters. 

And political soothsayers have all had short odds on Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran being one of the weaker links within Labour’s own ranks. 

In a triple bill of unnecessary political dramas this week, Jacinda Ardern has been forced to battle two fires that go to the heart of her Government’s transparency and one that has left New Zealand the butt of international jokes. They’ve likely exacted a toll in the currency of Ardern’s political capital.

We’re the country with no spies!

The slowburner is the approach from Jenny Marcroft to National MP Mark Mitchell. She’s the hapless Fredo apparently sent by an anonymous NZ First Minister to make him an “offer he can’t refuse”, but she didn’t have the nous to realise the compromised position she was being placed in.

Trying to heavy the Opposition into silence by threatening to withhold Government funding for development projects in their electorates is about as mafioso as it gets; an image only compounded by the male caucus’ penchant for pinstripe suits and pocket squares. 

Marcroft’s and her party’s saving grace appears to be that she is such a non-entity the threat holds no credibility without a minister to pin it on. 

Ardern has sought and received assurances that no minister was behind the thuggish act, and is left with little choice but to take them at their word. 

Or she could do an inquiry, as Bill English did with Alfred Ngaro when he made some silly comments at a conference. This was far more serious as this was a private threat.

Meanwhile, National leader Simon Bridges has just passed his first month in the job and is looking sure-footed in comparison, without lifting a finger. 

On the contrary, he might be learning that there’s little need to go hunting for wins at all, provided he keeps his own troops in line.

The targets seem to present themselves and coming up on the horizon, when Peters becomes acting Prime Minister, a six-week shoot-out seems likely. 

Going to be an interesting six weeks.

HDPA writes:

You have to question the Prime Minister’s judgment. How good is she at running this ship? It’s now impossible not to ask that question.

The Government has had three weeks of car crash problems and Jacinda Ardern dropped the ball virtually every time.

The list of cock-ups in three weeks is astounding. International headlines over the PM’s refusal to kick out Russian spies. National headlines over the Radio New Zealand snafu. Allegations of blackmail threats over regional slush fund money. The PM’s mixed messages on the future of oil and gas exploration. The Labour Summer Camp stuff up.

What is interesting is almost all of these have involved the PM’s judgement. She decided to ignore the blackmail threats by an unnamed NZ First Minister using an NZ First backbencher. She has let Peters go soft on Russia. She did the virtue signalling on oil etc.

The impression is the new Government is at best naive, at worst (in at least one situation) potentially corrupt. Every crisis has created the sense Government MPs are still trying to figure out how to be in Government, still acting like they’re in Opposition.

Yep.

Take the Russian spies. That was a rookie mistake. Ardern should have expelled Russian diplomats as soon as the Australians did. It doesn’t matter whether they’re spies or not. That misses the point.

The point was to send a message we stand with the UK in its condemnation of Russia. Instead, New Zealand was the only member of Five Eyes not to act immediately. The incident was A-grade embarrassing on the world stage. New Zealand became the butt of international headlines.

Yep. Its the symbolism. It was about sending a message to Russia that we are united against their aggression. It wasn’t about how many undeclared intelligence agents there are.

At times like these it’s easy to blame those who give the PM advice. Her officials, her media people, Winston Peters. But again, the buck stops with the PM. She must take advice, then decide the right course.

Remember the election campaign? Ardern’s captain’s call on tax was the only mistake Labour made. It nearly cost the party the election. The saving grace was her decision to reverse that captain’s call. You have to wonder at the PM’s judgment.

Very true.

A guest post by John Bishop:

Notice I didn’t say: win the next election. That might be harder than the second leg of the double here. Arguably National “won” the last election but lost the battle to form the government.

I don’t want to relitigate all of that saga, except to say that National’s current position does present it with a strategic dilemma that has been about for a while. Right now, it’s friendless, other than its tame poodle in ACT.

So, what are the strategic challenges and how might National tackle them?

One is obviously to split up the coalition and support party arrangement, or at least to weaken the bonds among the three parties in government.

That can come about by exposing and exploiting their inherent differences and presenting them as out of control and divided. New Zealanders don’t like governments that cannot run themselves. So far, the three-legged stool that is the current government is standing firmly.

The belief that any government with Winston Peters in it will fall apart on its own is just wishful thinking. Too many people in government have found that they like being there, and will fight very hard to stay there, even if they have to swallow some big dead rats.

Secondly, go after the voters who supported New Zealand First and the Greens in the last election. That’s easier said than done, because they are quite different sets of followers, but any erosion of Green or the NZF vote could see one or both tumble out of Parliament at the next election, which can only help the Nat’s cause.

Neither party is likely ever to coalesce with National, or to support a National led government so their absence from parliament will be no loss in that sense.

Thirdly, can National find a new partner? There’s talk of a rural conservative party, but that just looks like cannibalising your own vote. Spreading the National vote across two parties is not to increase the total centre-right vote.

Others talk of a hard right committed to continued economic reform party of the kind that Roger Douglas had hoped ACT would be (and perhaps was in its earliest days). The worth of that argument depends on how many votes one thinks there are for such a programme. It’s hard to find many who will work for, fund and back thorough going reform of the kind that Don Brash might have delivered if National had won in 2005.

Certainly, there is not 5% of the population keen on that, and there is no concentration of such people in one place to make winning an electorate seat an attractive option.

What about a socially conservative party  – the conservatives without Colin Craig, or a Family First oriented grouping without so much religion. The Christian Coalition got 4.33% of the vote in 1996, and Graham Capill led the Christian Heritage Party to 2.38% in 1999. In 2014 Craig’s Conservatives got 3.97%.  

It’s hard to get such a group to 5%, and unless National is prepared to gift them a seat, that strategy may hurt rather than help National.

This is because there is always the counter argument that if the relationship between National and this putative socially conservative group looks too cosy, opponents will say:  vote National and you get the other lot (and their “odious, repressive policies”) too. Just as National used to say about Labour and the Greens.

(I recall in the 2014 campaign Linda Clark, pretending to be an independent political commentator, but really trolling hard for her Labour Party, raising exactly that scare tactic before a large business audience at a pre-election meeting.)

Can National resurrect the Maori Party or something like it, particularly if Labour and/or New Zealand First fail to deliver to Maori? Not impossible, but I would have thought this would be hard.

Again the 5% threshold is a significant barrier, and likewise, which electorate seat would such a party target? Not obvious, even if all the other questions marks about leadership, policy, funding, on the ground organisation and the like were resolved.

The same argument applies to a soft liberal centrist urban party.

So that leaves the option that National’s new leader, Simon Bridges, seems to have chosen by default. That is to drive to the centre, presenting National as women friendly, environmentally and socially caring, having repented its “sins”, made a clean separation from the past (and its attendant mistakes and misdirections) and with fresh faces in key roles.

Might work I suppose, but the centre is a very crowded place, and Labour has successfully manged to position itself as a party of the younger, urban people whose concerns, values, foibles, fads and peccadillos are to the forefront of their policy agenda.

Inherently this strategy is saying that National can not only hold its current vote, but can also win even more votes than it did before. Win enough to get to say 48% or 49% of the votes cast, which might be just enough to enable it to form a government on its own.  Bold, ambitious, even foolhardy, but without friends perhaps it is the only plan available.

To make it work, Bridges needs to move beyond the allocation of portfolios and getting the key people in the team driving forward together. If there is a weakness in his allocation it would be the lack of cross portfolio linkages. Many of the difficult and intractable issues now facing the country don’t neatly belong in one place.

Housing is just one aspect of the problems associated with poverty, but housing isn’t just a matter for poor people. It touches on the Kiwi dream.

Likewise, mental health crosses all borders of race and class. The big one is water, which is a problem of ownership, Maori and treaty relations, of allocation, of rural development, of conflicting claims on usage, touching on recreation, farming, and tourism as well as involving questions about quality and purity. 

Who is pulling together National’s response on this? And who is in charge of organising National’s thinking about the new taxation policies emerging from the Cullen working party? Ditto secondary issues like the America’s Cup base, freedom camping and more.

It would be foolish to leave such matters solely to whoever is the spokesperson, however competent that person might be. There are just too many interests involved and the issues too complex to risk getting it wrong.

Yes, it is true that oppositions win when governments fall apart, but all governments need some help to do that, and that is a very important task for this opposition if it is to return to power anytime soon.

John Bishop is a former political reporter and commentator.

Michael Woodhouse released:

The Prime Minister must condemn the latest threatening behaviour of the RMTU in the Lyttelton Port strike, National Party Workplace Relations Spokesperson Michael Woodhouse says.

“A union organiser has been delivering fliers around Christchurch with the name and address of one of the port’s board members on them,” Mr Woodhouse says.

“This is a clear attempt to get people to approach that person personally and place pressure on them to fold in behind the strikers.

“It’s threatening thuggish behaviour and it needs to be condemned and stopped.

“This is not the 1930s. It’s the 21st century and bully boy tactics should be long gone.

The left get outraged if someone’s address is published online in a political context. They call it doxing and scream outrage about it.

Here a union is delivering pamphlets around a neighbourhood with the home address of company directors, yet not a squeak.

Radio NZ reports:

The government has announced plans for a review, a working group, an advisory group, or an investigation, every four days since it took power, despite having nine years in opposition to develop policies.

When even Radio NZ is mocking the Government for its endless streams of working groups and reviews, you know how bad it is.