A guest post by Lucy Rogers:

Access to a lawyer is a human right, as is the right to argue your case in court. Unfortunately, although these freedoms exist within Israel itself, it engages in the practice of administrative detention in the West Bank. I have spent the last two years of my life protesting the hypocrisy of anti-Israel protesters across the Western world, who generally do not acknowledge Israel’s side of the story. Accordingly, I feel a sense of obligation now to speak up once more for the Palestinian side of the story following Hamas agreeing to release the hostages.

At present, Hamas is overwhelmingly popular in the West Bank. Having talked with Palestinians at the weekly protests over the last few months (in fact, years) I am told that the reason for this is that the Palestinian Authority is failing to prevent rampant settler violence in the West Bank. The Times of Israel covered one such settler attack here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/afp-photographer-injured-in-settler-attack-during-west-bank-olive-harvest/

I have been told many firsthand accounts of settler misdeeds. For example, someone told me that his neighbour was held at gunpoint by settlers who forced him to hand over his car keys and they stole his car right before his eyes. This sort of thing apparently happens all the time. Stories of Palestinian children arrested and held in prison for months or years simply for throwing a stone I also find appalling. There is no concept of proportionate punishment.

When settlers are going berserk, setting fire to your villages and fields, shooting people, getting behind the wheel of a car and running down civilians, and stealing people’s property, and when Palestinians have zero civil rights and can be arrested without trial on the whim of an Israeli soldier, of course the Palestinians will turn to Hamas if the Palestinian Authority fails to stop this, because there is no other option.  

Worse, the settlers have the full support of the IDF. In January of this year, Katz ordered the release of every single settler held in administrative detention for crimes against Palestinians: 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/katz-says-settlers-in-administrative-detention-to-go-free-ties-it-to-palestinian-release

I think the Western obsession with the Israeli settlements is just a distraction from the main problems here. Sure, I think Israel should stop settlements immediately. But Israel’s supporters perceive Israel’s actions here as “just building houses” and it turns into a debate about who owns the land. Because the focus is on the settlements Israel’s supporters don’t realise the extent of the main problems. What is clearly and unequivocally wrong is killing Palestinian civilians for no reason, and that should be the focus of Western media.

I think a two-state solution in the near future is unrealistic. Israel cannot simply hand over East Jerusalem to the Palestinians because there is no geographical buffer zone to prevent repeats of October 7. I am also not so naïve as to think that Palestinian hatred of Jews is a purely proportionate response to settler violence. Hamas would hate Jews and Israel regardless. This amply illustrated by (say) the hatred of Hezbollah or Iran or the Taliban towards Jews despite the fact that they are not living in the West Bank.

But if Israel will rein in the settlers and end its practice of detaining Palestinians without trial, then with the passage of time it is possible that for Palestinians in the West Bank practical self-interested concerns will supersede hatred of Jews. (In other words, a rapprochement between Israelis and Palestinians may be more possible than people who are not actually having to live under Israel’s control.) Hamas’ plummeting popularity in Gaza gives me hope in this regard, because Gazans are realising that they don’t like being treated as human shields. If that day comes in the West Bank, then a two-state solution and the withdrawal of Israeli troops may become possible. Palestinians and Israelis do not have to like each other, just to live in peace. But whether or not it leads to peace, settler violence and imprisoning people without trial is wrong and must end. Thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails are being exchanged for the hostages, but sadly I don’t think it’s women and children imprisoned for throwing a stone whom 

The NZ Initiative has published a report looking at what changes we should make to MMP as it approaches its 30th birthday. I’m on a panel discussing the report at 2.30 pm tomorrow (Wed 29th) for those interested. The report will be made public at that time.

Radio NZ reports:

Labour has agreed to campaign on a capital gains tax (CGT) covering just property – excluding the family home and farms – to help fund three free doctor visits for everyone.

The policy was announced abruptly on Tuesday morning after RNZ was earlier leaked details over the long weekend.

The fact their tax policy was leaked is in itself significant. In government leaks almost invariably comes from disgruntled public servants. But an opposition policy doesn’t involve the public service. This means it was either leaked by a Labour Party MP, a senior parliamentary staffer or Labour HQ. This is a sure sign that not all is well. Readers will recall National in opposition had a spell of leaking before Chris Luxon became leader. A united caucus doesn’t leak. A disgruntled caucus does.

As to the policy itself, it is typical Labour tax and spend. They promised they’d keep spending to under 30% off GDP, below it out to 34%, and now want more tax and more spending.

The most important thing people should realise about Labour’s CGT is that it will be based on nominal, not real, increases in house values. This means the higher Labour gets inflation to, the more revenue it brings in, and the worse off you will be if subject to it. Here’s an example.

You own a second home worth $1 million. Let’s say inflation is 3% a year. In 10 years you sell that home for $1.3 million. You will be taxed at 28% so pay $84,000 tax.

However that $1.3 million in 10 years is equal to $968,000 in today’s dollars. So in real terms you have lost $34,000 on that house and Labour will tax you $84,000 on top of that $34,000 loss.

I would suggest anyone who has contact with Labour MPs asks them why they are going to tax inflation. They could have made their policy to only tax real gains, not nominal gains. It was a deliberate decision to maximise tax revenue.

Waatea News reports:

That the Te Tai Tokerau Electorate Executive be reset by way of a Special General Meeting, on the basis that the Electorate Executive is no longer functioning in accordance with Party requirements and the Kawa.

This is basically head office sacking the local electorate committee because they don’t support head office.

That the Te Tai Tokerau MP be suspended.

This is a step towards deselection.

Waatea understands that all four resolutions were passed by the Members present  (Agreed: Tāmaki Makaurau, Hauraki-Waikato, Waiariki, Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, Te Tai Hauāuru) with one Abstenation (Te Tai Tonga).

So it is a 5-2 split.

Erica Stanford released the following data on new school entrants:

• 58 per cent of students were at or above expectations, up from 36 per cent in Term 1.
• 43 per cent of students exceeded expectations in Term 3, more than double the Term 1 rate. 
• Māori students performing at or above what’s expected have increased from 25 per cent to 43 per cent
• In high equity (low-decile) schools, children meeting expected levels has gone up from 18 per cent to 35 per cent
• Pacific students, from 27 per cent up to 43 per cent.

These are incredibly pleasing results, and so early on. We need to make sure Erica Stanford has another four years (at least) as Education Minister, so all this progress isn’t lost.

I got sent a link to this website about Naenae College.

I have no first or even second hand knowledge about Naenae College, except I note that it is about to implement an enrolment scheme, which usually happens because too many students want to attend.

What struck me about the website is how absolutely detailed it is. It is not uncommon to have criticism sites set up, but this one is incredibly detailed, even getting into faculty level details.

I’m somewhat puzzled by the motivation of the person behind it. If you’re a parent, you don’t tend to care once your kids are no longer there. My guess is a former long serving staff member, but I may be wrong.

A guest post by Lucy Rogers:

At the moment, different sides on the Israel/ Palestine conflict are accusing each other either of antisemitism on the one hand or of weaponising claims of antisemitism to silence criticism of Israel on the other. Anti-Israel Westerners then say that criticism of Israel is not hostility to Jewish people in general. (Checkmate!)

And the truth is that I do not think that most Westerners who hate Israel would be hostile to a Jewish person in (say) a social context such as a dinner party. In other words, I think there are a significant proportion of people who hate Israel who are not antisemitic per se. But I also believe that the vast majority of the anti-Israel movement in the Western world is intellectually dishonest (with the caveat that of course movements are diverse, and I am not accusing them all of this).

And that, not “antisemitism”, is what we ought to call out, because the fact that they are intellectually dishonest is so obvious that it’s beyond argument, whereas accusations of antisemitism just run into the above problems.

It is intellectually dishonest to organise a protest against Israel three days after the Hamas massacre of civilians on October 7 2023. That is what the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) did:

https://www.facebook.com/events/7231802770185706/?post_id=7231802783519038&view=permalink&__cft__[0]=AZWoBfrIDs17XnzZGJEoS2MIvvbrTlUsft9KoSgDzrClvahymVBhYhAFrQlqYqWg8mGNGIz0MHmQF1Y-w6GnhfRnXGLfQISKxCovFj6Ho7cVAJowS-Sjd2avBGVKPsY9rm_J9g7_3rleFtB1ClD_KGGD&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

It is intellectually dishonest to accuse Israel of “genocide” three days after October 7 before it had even started its counteroffensive in Gaza, which is what the PSNA did.

It is intellectually dishonest to expand the definition of genocide for political purposes because you know that Israel’s actions do not meet that threshold, which is what Ireland did (and which Chloe Swarbrick does on a daily basis): https://news.sky.com/story/icj-asked-to-broaden-definition-of-genocide-over-collective-punishment-in-gaza-13271874

It is intellectually dishonest to turn up to a pro-Palestine protest with a transgender flag, which protesters in Auckland do constantly: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ixkqumttrQM

It is intellectually dishonest to call for a ceasefire every week for the past two years, but when Israel accepted the terms of a ceasefire last week proposed by Donald Trump not to call on Hamas to accept the deal, which is what the PSNA in Auckland did.

It is intellectually dishonest to call weekly for a ceasefire while in the next breath calling for an intifada, which is what the PSNA does constantly. (There were 138 suicide bombings during the Second Intifada, primarily targeting Israeli civilians.)

It is intellectually dishonest for the anti-Israel protesters to criticise Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians, but not to so much as mention the mass protests by Gazans against Hamas earlier this year when they risked their lives to stand against Hamas, which is what the PSNA in Auckland did.

It is intellectually dishonest for the anti-Israel protesters to put up posters in Auckland describing detained activists who sought to violate Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza as “abducted”, while never once ever publicly calling on Hamas to release the Israeli hostages: https://israelinstitute.nz/2025/10/the-moral-bankruptcy-of-the-flotilla-activists/

It is intellectually dishonest for the self-same people who obsess over an American border wall with Mexico (“no human being is illegal”) and accuse anyone who believes in national borders of being a racist not to say a single word about Egypt’s border wall preventing Palestinian refugees from fleeing Gaza.

The intellectual dishonesty and limitless hypocrisy of the likes of Max Harris I have expounded here: https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/11/guest_post_response_to_max_harris.html

And if it’s screamingly obvious that a significant proportion of (but not all) anti-Israel protesters are intellectually dishonest, the question naturally arises as to why exactly that is. I’m not sure the answer is antisemitism per se. But I’m certain there’s much more to it than a genuine concern for truth.

Conclusion: accusations of antisemitism just fall afoul of the banal response that criticism of Israel is not hatred of Jews. In my opinion, we should stop accusing them of antisemitism and start accusing them of being intellectually dishonest. They have no answer to that, because they are.

The Post reports:

About one in five ACT local candidates won the seats they stand for and party leader David Seymour says he’s happy more weren’t successful because now they can stand to run for Parliament.

“In some cases, I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t get elected so we can run them next year,” he told The Post.

In total, ACT ran 46 candidates in 25 councils at ward and constituency levels from Northland to Otago, including nine candidates in Auckland Local Board positions. It was the party’s first attempt at local government.

Candidates signed up to a set of ACT values, like lower rates, reducing “waste” and opposing the push to “get people out of their cars”. They fundraised for their own campaigns, but were supported by the party machine.

On provisional results, it appears nine were elected

Getting 20% of your candidates elected is a pretty reasonable result for the first time a party has contested local elections.

So long as National doesn’t contest local elections (or even provide guidance on who is worth supporting) I suspect ACT Local candidates will do better and better, as the brand will be a guide to fiscal responsibility.

A good article by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger on how to fix its liberal bias.

• End decision making by consensus. Have an editorial committee that votes.
• Enable competing articles
• Abolish source blacklists
• Revive the original neutrality policy
• Repeal “ignore all rules”
• Reveal who Wikipedia’s senior editors are
• Let the public rate articles
• End indefinite blocking
• Adopt a legislative process

I find Wikipedia excellent for non-political topics, especially in history, science, entertainment etc. But it does have a significant liberal bias on political topics.

An interesting chart from Yahoo:

I found this very interesting. It is no surprise perhaps that Justices have backed emergency requests from the Government of the President whose party appointed them. The range is from 96% (Alito, Gorsuch) down to 78% (Roberts).

What is more interesting is how often they have backed an emergency request from the Government of a President from the other side. In order the percentages are:

1. Roberts 59%
2. Barrett 53%
3. Kavanaugh 47%
4. Gorsuch 35%
5. Alito 18%
6. Thomas 18%
7. Kagan 17%
8. Sotomayor 9%
9. Jackson 0%

I think this reflects well on Roberts, Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.

Radio NZ reports:

LGNZ president Sam Broughton told Morning Report part of the reason for low turnout was voters having to deal with postal voting in the digital age, or not having access to polling places and not knowing the candidates.

The Electoral Commission should run all the elections in a standardised process across the country, he said.

“One of the key recommendations is that we should return to having a polling day, as well as the open voting beforehand,” he said.

These are all worthwhile things, but won’t change things much. The one change that would massively lift turnout is allowing people to return their voting paper via the Internet.

By this I don’t mean Internet voting, which is where you vote on a website, and your vote is recorded and tallied over the Internet. I mean simply using the Internet to deliver your ballot paper to the Returning Officer.

Every resident gets a voting paper with a unique barcode that identifies them (so verifies they are enrolled). What I propose is that once they have completed it, they can take a photo of it on their phone, and then either e-mail the ballot to the Returning Office, or upload it via a website to the returning officer.

This is in fact more secure than relying on the post, as you get a receipt acknowledging it has been received.

And this method has actually been in place for the last few general elections – it is how the vast majority of NZers overseas vote in a general election. I estimate over 200,000 New Zealanders have used this method to vote in general elections.

Postal voting is a dying mechanism. Booth voting can help, but you’re still going to have much lower turnout than general elections, as the stakes are less. You need to make it as easy as possible to vote, and sending in your ballot via the Internet (which is not Internet voting) is a tried and tested method we have used for the last four or more general elections.

See if you can guess which UK MP this is. Guesses welcome in the comments.

1. Was a professor at age 25, proficient in 14 languages including Urdu
2. Was good friends with Tony Benn and Michael Foot
3. Decried the deaths of Kenyan prisoners in a British POW camp saying African lives are worth just as much as European lives
4. Labour MP Dennis Healey called the speech on the Kenyan prisoners the greatest parliamentary speech he ever heard
5. Refused a ministerial post due to the what he saw as the new Prime Minister’s backwards views on Africa
6. Supported legalising homosexuality
7. Supported abolishing the death penalty
8. A vocal opponent of the Vietnam War
9. Vehemently anti-american and decided American imperialism
10. Won the BBC Man of the Year poll twice

Unheard reports:

Brewdog has sold an £8.8 million Scottish forest it acquired just five years ago as part of its Net Zero drive after mounting losses forced it to cut spending. …

The site, a former grouse moor known as the Kinrara Estate, was acquired by the brewer in 2020 to help with its Net Zero credentials. At the time, the Scottish brewer had grand plans to plant millions of trees and turn it into Scotland’s “biggest ever” forest.

However the initial planting was a failure because the trees died and Brewdog had now sold the estate to rewilding outfit, Oxygen Conservation.

“The time is right to hand over the reins to an organisation that specialises in protecting and investing in natural capital,” Brewdog said.

Under then-chief executive James Watt, the company said the project would help it become the world’s first carbon negative beer brand and be funded partly by sales of its Lost Forest beer.

However Brewdog, which rose to prominence for its eye-catching stunts, was forced to retract many of the claims about the forest after unveiling the purchase to much fanfare.

These included admitting that the estate was actually 9,142 acres rather than over 12,000 acres as claimed and that the site would absorb much less CO₂ annually than original expected.

The move signals Brewdog’s bid to revive its fortunes and focus on its main brewing business after a slide in sales.

The company’s latest accounts showed it posted a loss of £37 million last year, the fifth consecutive year of losses.

A brewer that sticks to brewing would be rather sensible!

María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize. Here’s a few things about her.

• She is an industrial engineer with a master’s in finance
• She started a foundation to care for orphaned and delinquent street children
• She has a long professional relationship with the Altas Network and gave a speech at the organization’s annual Freedom Dinner in 2009
• She founded and directed the Opportunitas Foundation, an NGO that provides support to children and youth from low-income families
• Also founded of Súmate, an organisation devoted to democratic development. Through this platform, she fought for electoral transparency, judicial independence, human rights, and popular representation. 
• She was charged with treason in 2004 for supporting the referendum to recall President Chavez
• In 2010 she was elected to the National Assembly with the highest votes in the country
• She was barred from standing in the 2024 Venezuela Presidential Election, but her replacement candidate was widely thought to have won the election, but Madura claimed he won and stayed on.
• Says freedom is the guiding principle, in order to leave socialism behind

The Post reports:

Ben McNulty puts securing his record-breaking number of votes and big margin over his rivals down to communication.

It appears he has secured the highest single number of votes for a ward councillor and the biggest margin over his rivals since the single-transferable voting system came in.

“I was talking to my wife [and said] ‘this is wild’. I kind of couldn’t believe the numbers as they came through,” the Labour councillor and Takapū/Northern ward councillor said.

I’m not hugely surprised. Ben is constantly communicating with residents. He posts regularly on all the neighbourhood Facebook groups (which most residents belong to) and tells people what is happening, what is coming up, what has been decided, how he voted etc. He doesn’t do so in a campaigning way (although he is, of course) but in an explaining way. He does AMAs on Reddit, and is a constant presence in his communities.

Liam Hehir writes:

The clash between the Broadcasting Standards Authority and The Platform has exposed a troubling reality in New Zealand’s system of government: ministers can now routinely hide behind the mantra of “operational matters” to avoid accountability for regulatory overreach happening on their watch.

Minister for Media and Communications Paul Goldsmith’s refusal to engage with the BSA’s bold attempt to extend its jurisdiction over internet content represents not principled adherence to constitutional convention, but an abdication of ministerial responsibility that demands a remedy in the form of either a change in approach or a change in minister.

When the BSA announced its interpretation that an outdated Broadcasting Act gave it authority to regulate internet platforms, it was reasonable for us to expect the responsible minister to respond.

This is more than an administrative decision about processing a complaint within a widely accepted framework. It was instead a fundamental expansion of state regulatory power into new territory, on the basis of a view for which there is no consensus, with profound implications for free speech and internet freedom.

It was incredibly frustration to see Goldsmith declare a preference to let things “flow through the system” and making only broadly supportive noises about the BSA. In short, the Minister has acted as if he was the BSA’s representative to the people and not the other way around.

Worth reading the entire article, but I think it nicely captures the frustration so many of us feel on this issue.

I am well and truly documented as being no fan at all of the teacher unions (PPTA/NZEI). The nature of the collective contract – that assumes all teachers are of the same quality and prevents schools with greater need providing any incentives for staff – is a major handbrake on the quality of our education system.

After a two day education summit I organised in Cambridge in 2022, with some outstanding people (and the, to be Minister Stanford in attendance), I compiled a summary of recommendations and tabled it while presenting at the 2023 Economic Forum at Waikato University. A summary is here.

Of high relevance at present is this one:
8)     Deal quickly and effectively with the Union demands after the next election. They offer nothing helpful to the dialogue so throw them a bone and walk on.

The Minister has signalled plenty of changes and made some. Some are positive and could be effective – others – such as the significant alienation of Maori through the bizarre work of Elizabeth Rata, and many process breaches – will only be damaging. The sheer volume of work and pace of change is also highly problematic – as is the major split between schools who are positive about a new qualifications system and more that are not.

To bring about significant change you need the teachers on your side – you need to carry the sector. It is no use telling them to just “suck it up and get on with it” – as they have alternatives – e.g. heading off to Australia, protest action, just ignoring changes in their teaching practice.

It is no use telling them that there is no money available as, if the Minister was serious on that front, there would not still be nearly 4,000 Ministry of Education FTE’s with vastly superior contracts to teachers (including OT, call-out payments, etc).

The teacher unions are a well known and predictabe animal. You don’t stand in a cage with a hungry lion and just give them a bit of beef jerky. If you want to survive you either shoot them (but there is no political will/courage to do away with the collective contract and truly challenge Union power) … or give them a decent meal so you can get on with cleaning the cage.

With inflation still running near 3%, plus all of the demands being put on teachers, the person/people who kicked off this fiasco by offering seondary teachers a salary rise of 1% per annum over three years (an approximately 6% drop in real wages) … is/are either really stupid or a massive Labour supporter. The Minister should have seen the very predicatable effects and stepped in immediately. National is reading the room on this like a dyslexic trying to get through War and Peace in a week.

Alwyn Poole
[email protected]
alwynpoole.substack.com

Radio NZ reports:

A union for primary principals has been able to secure a pay rise, because – according to them – it has not threatened strike action.

The Primary Principals Collective Bargaining Union has accepted a 2.5 percent pay rise this year, followed by a 2.1 percent rise next year, after four months of negotiation with the Ministry of Education.

Offered by Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche last week, the deal was set for the next 26 months.

Of their 515 members, 85 percent voted on the proposal, 95 percent of them voting in favour.

President Mark Ellis said the union never reached a point where it felt a strike was necessary.

“Our membership has gone and accepted it as a good offer,” he said. “We can appreciate that, right now, we’re in a crisis for living costs and living wages, and things like that.

“In particular, our principals want to do their jobs, be in front of kids, be supporting teachers.

“I think the good-faith negotiations continued because we had not threatened strike action.

“I believe firmly that we were at the table in constructive conversation, we had clarity of communication and, in particular, we had prioritised our priorities very carefully.”

Great to see a deal done, and with both parties saying the other operated in good faith.

The difference here is PPCBU is a union with a sole focus – negotiating a good salary deal, and supporting principals. The NZEI is a political lobby group that listed Palestine as the first item on its agenda for a meeting with the Education Minister.

PPCBU only costs $300 a year for principals to join, while NZEI charges almost $800.