A guest post by Ben Nettleton:

My Grandmother was a very wise woman, one of her memorable remarks when reflecting on 80 odd years was “never judge the present generation by your own standards, you don’t know the challenges and difficulties they face”.

I was reflecting on that remark against the recent publicity over Wellington College Students. Watching the frenzy build, listening to John Campbell on Checkpoint stoking the fire with sanctimonious indignation. Listening to the School Principal outline carefully rehearsed public relations influenced statements.

It is sadly becoming all too common; indeed, these are almost a weekly occurrence. We have the online world to thank. Once upon a time the social justice warriors could be filtered by newspaper’s editorial departments, restricted to once a month, or just filed in the rubbish bin. Now they roam wild and free, a cause just looking for a problem. Primed to scream the house down upon discovering anything that offends their view of how the world should be, regardless of whether it is merely silly teenage bravado.

To be clear (assuming the relevant warriors have managed to read this far without popping a blood vessel) I am not condoning what said the students concerned said, they were stupid and they didn’t think, and I am certain they will learn from the experience. But that is my point the teenage years are formative they are when you learn a lot of life lessons, such as if you drink 4 cruisers in 20 minutes you’re going to throw up or that the girl you imagined was your one and only true love probably isn’t and the world may not end after all and countless other things.

I was at University around a decade or so ago, High School a bit before, we had MSN messenger usually on dial up. It had its problems but they are nothing on what teenagers are encountering today through the rapid rise and develop of numerous social media platforms. Recently on Dunedin News Facebook page a lynch mob of 200 plus formed based on a video being posted of a Kings High School student yelling dumb things at a Queens High School girl, we didn’t have the context of the video, what preceded it or what happened after, but this is not the type of detail the online community cares to concern itself with, they are usually far too busy constructing the gallows, the Otago Daily Times joining in to boot.

If we think hard enough I think we can all remember the challenges we faced in our teenage years, they are called growing pains for a reason. All too often baby boomers remark to me “thank goodness they didn’t have social media in my day”. In a previous capacity as a school board of trustee’s member I sat on numerous board discipline committees, it used to frustrate the hell out of me, having a student in front of me who had been bounced up to us for something horrendous, and the best explanation they managed to come up with is “I don’t know why I did it”. A retired School Principal gave me some good insight pointing out when they tell you they don’t know, they are being honest, they don’t always know why they do things, they’re brains are still wiring up, science suggests this can take till 25.

In our rush to condemn we are all too quick to forget our own misdemeanors at that age. The behavior needs dealt with and schools and parents are well resourced to do that. A media feeding frenzy adds nothing. As my young brother, (somewhat closer to the demographic) said to me “if schools are going to hold a special assembly every time some teenage guy says some stupid shit on Facebook, they are not going to get much done”. 

So, knowing that teenagers make bad decisions, impulsive decisions, why an earth is appropriate to summon the rabble and have such a public tarring and feathering session. Yes, some media don’t identify names but New Zealand is a small place and it is unlikely to have anything other than token effect.

It is my great fear (as overseas evidence would appear to suggest) it is only a matter of time before his type of unethical reporting results in a tragedy. For the doctrinal social justice warriors, the means will no doubt justify the ends. However, given our media will no doubt be wringing their hands upon such an event, perhaps they could pause to consider on how their actions contribute.

A very good post.

The Herald reports:

Labour will not be raising taxes if elected at this year’s election.

Party leader Andrew Little said his team would have enough income to pay for their election promises now the government was expecting a $1 billion surplus this year ahead of Treasury projections.

He said as a result, his team was not planning to raise taxes if elected.

This is great news, and excellent to see Labour drop their previous policies of walloping higher income earners. Parties should be debating tax cuts, not tax increases.

It really is good to see the Labour Party promise no tax increases – the first time in over 20 years they have done so. This is a real move towards the middle ground, and will make them more electable.

Of course we have de facto tax increases through bracket creep. Almost all workers end up paying a higher average tax rate every year as wages increases and more of their income moves into a higher bracket. Over the past seven years the Government is receiving $2.1 billion a year more through bracket creep, so the first priority should be handing those stealth increases back.

Anyway again it is great to see Labour promise no tax increases. Hopefully Greens and NZ first will do the same.

This is so very funny. For those who don’t know, National Review is one of the most widely read conservative sites on the Internet and was founded by William F Buckley Jr.

The final results are here.

• Jacinda Ardern 10,495
• Julie Anne Genter 1,564
• Geoff Simmons 623
• Total Votes 13,559

Turnout was a very very low 30%.

In the 2009 Mt Albert by-election David Shearer got 13,260 votes.

The Herald reports:

Jacinda Ardern’s foray into DIY has been a flash in the pan after an Auckland resident complained that Labour’s deputy leader installed her own new toilet.

Justin Will complained to the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board in February after reading a media report that Ardern replaced her own toilet at the home she shares with television personality Clarke Gayford in Point Chevalier.

The board investigated and chief executive Martin Sawyers this week told Will that Ardern had apologised for her error and the case was closed.

In some parts of Auckland, including where Ardern lives, it is illegal to install a toilet unless the work is carried out by an authorised plumber.

Ardern told the Herald she did not realise when she bought and installed with Gayford the new toilet, to replace a broken down existing one, that they were breaking the law.

“Interestingly enough you can replace your own toilet in Wellington, but you can’t replace your own toilet in parts of Auckland and I fall outside the area that you’re allowed to replace your own toilet, I’m told, by about a kilometre.”

The real story here is why do we have such a stupid rule or law. Either it is safe everywhere to install your own toilet or it isn’t safe. People own their own properties. Unless there is a significant safety issue (such as major electrical or structural work), they should be able to DIY.

Interesting stuff in the USA Today/Suffolk Uni poll:

• Right direction 46%, wrong direction 43%
• Trump favourable 45%, unfavouable 47%
• Clinton favourable 35%, unfavourable 55%
• Pence favourable 47%, unfavourable 35%
• Media favourable 37%, unfavourable 50%
• Trump approve 47%,disapprove 44%
• Hispanics – Trump approve 38%, disapprove 53%
• 34% agree media are the enemy of the people, 59% disagree
• Most trusted TV sources – Fox 28%, CNN 11%, PBS 9%,

The Herald reports:

Gareth Morgan’s new political party has been officially registered by the Electoral Commission.

Morgan launched The Opportunities Party (Top) last year and after signing up more than 2000 financial members applied for registration in January.

Top stood Geoff Simmons in the Mt Albert by-election last month, and he recorded 600 votes; 4.6 per cent of the total.

Simmons, an economist who worked for the Morgan Foundation and is now Top’s chief of staff, declared the party happy with that result, given its target was 5 per cent.

That was 4.6% in a by-election where minor parties get more coverage and National wasn’t even standing.

Anyway I hope they are just as successful as in the by-election and they get say 4.6% of the vote nationally.

A guest post by Carrick Graham:

It seems tobacco is so last-year, particularly with the overwhelming public health focus now on addressing global obesity issues.

For years, if not decades, tobacco control advocates successfully moved the dial against tobacco products, heralding in restriction after restriction. Virtually all the boxes on the tobacco control to-do list have been ticked off, including the holy grail of plain-packaging.

Governments meanwhile, have not only been happy to introduce changes to the Smokefree Environments Act – on average every seven years or so, but perhaps more tellingly, have quietly sat back and collected more than NZ$1.7 billion in excise revenue year after year from the sale of tobacco products.

But there’s now a glitch in all of this, and its reverberations are starting to crumble the status quo.

The annual excise increase, so eagerly awaited by tobacco control proponents, is fueling what seems to be a daily, if not weekly occurrence of aggravated robberies against dairies, convenience stores and service stations around the country. These robberies are often violent, and wreak havoc on these small retailers businesses.

ACT leader David Seymour is regularly tweeting about these incidents, and has called on the Police to track tobacco theft, saying ‘tobacco related robberies have become a cottage industry and a threat to public safety’.

Seymour says that ‘tobacco taxes have more than doubled in the past five years’ and ‘it’s only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt or worse’. Amazingly, the Police don’t record information on the rates of tobacco-related burglary.

Further to this  comments about a flourishing black-market in tobacco products continue to gain traction. Even Customs Minister Nicky Wagner recognises it saying, ‘the black market for tobacco will likely grow as the price of cigarettes increases and officials are “watching it very closely”’.

There would be few, if any, that would say increased excised rates have not reduced smoking rates in New Zealand. But is this view now slightly changing?

Take End Smoking New Zealand, a group that includes some of New Zealand’s leading and most respected tobacco control figures. They have just issued a media release saying:

‘Manufacturer’s returns to the Ministry of Health released on 3 March show that tobacco consumption per adult decreased by 2.4% in 2016 compared with 2015. This is much less than the average annual decrease of 5% per year from 2011 to 2015. This 2.4% decrease was equal to the increase in adult population over the past year.’

In other words, it looks like tobacco excise increases may have run their course and lost their efficacy.

This then makes the call by tobacco giant Philip Morris to ‘tax its cigarettes more as a bid to move to a “smoke-free future”’ even more interesting. While this suggestion was made in the UK, there is no reason to believe it would not be supported by their company here in New Zealand.

With tobacco excise rates already among the highest in the world, retailers are likely to be alarmed at the prospect of a tobacco company calling for yet more increases on tobacco when they are at the coal-face of unintended consequences.

None the less, it is a cunning move by Philip Morris and draws further attention to how the world is changing as more and more people look towards electronic cigarettes to reduce their harm from combustible tobacco products.

Right now the Government is sitting on a Report from the Ministry of Health following a consultation last year into policy options for the regulation of electronic cigarettes. For once you have both public health researchers and vaping organisations on the same page supporting the Government’s intention to legalise electronic cigarettes and e-liquids that contain nicotine.

This unprecedented support by two vastly different groups further demonstrates how the ‘tobacco debate’ has moved on from years of acrimonious arguments.

It also shows an opportunity that should not be lost, particularly as the issue of harm-reduction starts to take centre-stage around the world.

Disclosure: Carrick Graham was Corporate & Regulatory Affairs Director for BAT NZ for four years until 2006. He has since founded and managed several public affairs firms, and now runs GMS Management, a company that provides research, analysis and regulatory insights.

The Ministry for Women released:

The Ministry for Women has today published new research – undertaken by Auckland University of Technology for the Ministry for Women – that identifies what’s driving the gender pay gap which still sits at 12 percent.

“The research, lead by Professor Gail Pacheco, tells us that factors such as type of work, family responsibilities, education, and age only actually account for 20 percent of the gender pay gap,” says Margaret Retter, Acting CEO of the Ministry for Women.

“Around 80 percent of the gap is due to ‘unexplained’ factors. We, at the Ministry for Women, view these factors primarily as behaviour, attitudes, and assumptions about women in work, including unconscious bias.”

Although women are graduating with more qualifications than men, the research shows these qualifications are not fully reflected in wages.

I’m surprised that known factors account for only 20%. I assumed it would be higher.

The unexplained factors are of course difficult to counter. One of those factors is that women are not as assertive or aggressive as men in negotiating pay rises, but this is partly because women who are as assertive as men get labelled as high maintenance, difficult etc etc. So part of the solution is having a culture where assertiveness is seen just as positively for women as men.

Paula Bennett noted:

It will take a concerted effort to reduce the gender pay gap. Our former Finance Minister, now Prime Minister, Bill English is a good example of someone striving to do better for women. When he was Minister of Finance he had to approve board appointments. He’d receive lists that were mostly, if not entirely men. So instead of taking the attitude “that must be all there was out there” and the word of Treasury that these were the only qualified candidates, he’d send the list back to Treasury and wouldn’t consider making appointments until he had women to choose from. And sure enough – once Treasury was challenged they always found good women candidates. He would still always choose the best person for the job – he just insisted on having the best to choose from. Forty eight per cent of his board appointments as Finance Minister were women. 

Interesting by contrast, the entire senior leadership of Andrew Little’s office is men – a total blokefest.

Dave Guerin at Education Directions summarised the recent Performance Improvement Framework report for Callaghan Innovation:

The Callaghan Innovation PIF report (62 pages) was dated Dec 2016.

• 4 substantive ratings are possible in initial PIF reports. 19/24 of Callaghan Innovation’s ratings were Needing Development, the second worst. 4 were Well Placed and 1 was Weak.
• The organisation operates, in many ways, alongside the tertiary education sector, as it has a primary focus on supporting firm growth in high value manufacturing and services (mostly by giving out grants and advice to firms).

NBR also reports:

A review of the government’s flagship agency for commercialising innovation has found Callaghan Innovation has “weak” management, and is “struggling internally” to complete a strategy guiding how it offers services to companies with high-value, high-tech commercial ideas.

Many of the comments on the NBR article are quite scathing. This reinforces my suspicion that the best thing the Government can do to help innovation is get out of the way, rather than do partnerships and hand out grants.

Newshub reports:

The Māori King is set to publicly endorse a Waikato-Tainui tribal leader who is expected to be the Māori Party’s candidate in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate.

Rahui Papa has for many years been a key figure within King Tuheitia’s inner circle. He is currently the chairman of Te Arataura the tribal executive of Waikato-Tainui.

The King will make the announcement on Thursday afternoon at Parawera Marae, south of Hamilton, where local celebrations are being held in honour of the Māori King. 

Mr Papa is set to challenge incumbent Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta for the seat. It will be the closest race the electorate has seen in decades.

Mahuta has a large majority but that is partly because she has had the backing of Tainui. If Tainui voters follow the endorsement of their King, then the seat could come into play.

NewstalkZB reports:

National, Labour, and New Zealand First have been the winners in Parliament’s latest Members’ Bill ballot with all three parties getting Bills drawn to go before Parliament.

Labour MP Ruth Dyson’s Bill, putting more emphasis on a code of ethics for teachers is now up for debate.

National MP Paul Foster-Bell’s Arbitration Amendment Bill proposes changing the Arbitration Act in line with Law Commission recommendations on the way trust deeds are dealt with.

So too is New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball’s Bill on youth employment training which would see the Defence Force involved in vocational training.

It proposes a partnership between the Ministry of Social Development and the Defence Force, setting up a “new pathway” into paid work for 15 to 17-year-olds.

“It aims to help 90,000 school drop outs who are languishing on the unemployment benefit,” Mr Ball said after his bill had been drawn.

“They will be in the Army to work, train and learn trade skills so they are work ready by the time they turn 18.”

Mr Ball said the Army has an existing youth development unit, and under his bill it would be expanded and fully resourced.

None of the three bills seems very major. Dyson’s seems silly – renaming the Education Council the Teaching Council and changing the code of conduct to a code of ethics.

Christopher Snowden quotes the Guardian:

Selling high calorie foods in plain packaging could help in the battle against obesity according to a leading researcher who has won a share of the most lucrative prize in neuroscience for his work on the brain’s reward system.

The colourful wrapping and attractive advertising of calorie-rich foods encourage people to buy items that put them at risk of overeating and becoming obese in the future, said Wolfram Schultz, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Cambridge.

Stuff reports:

A nationwide system for broadcasting public text alerts about emergencies, earthquakes, and hazards to mobile phones is expected to be live by the end of the year, the Government says.

Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said the new channel for sending alerts was on track and messages would appear similar to texts.

Broadcasting emergency alerts on cellphones will be added to a range of channels currently used to transmit information about emergencies, such as radio, social media, and television.

Mobile phones in a set area can receive emergency alerts without downloading any apps or subscribing to any services.

Basically the messages are sent through cell phone towers in a particular area. A very smart use of technology.

Eric Crampton blogs on a recent working paper by Stefan Boes and Steve Stillman:

Overall, we find no evidence that changing the drinking age from 20 to 18 led to more vehicular accidents or alcohol-related accidents among teens. This is true both in the short-run following the law change and when examining cumulative accidents for the affected cohorts. We find that accidents do increase after one’s 18th birthday, but this appears to be a short-run phenomenon. Finally, our parametric regression models suggest that reducing the drinking age led to a decline in risky driving by youth who were already 15 at the time of the law change but had no longer-run impacts on youth risky driving among younger cohorts. We speculate that this occurred because of the extensive public discussion about the drinking age change that took place and because teens are likely to be particularly focused on the near future. We also present supportive evidence from infrequent health surveys showing a similar pattern for alcohol consumption among different youth cohorts. Our results support the argument that the legal drinking age can be lowered without leading to increases in detrimental outcomes for youth and call into question previous studies that have made policy recommendations by extrapolating from results identified using age-based RDDs.

Of interest is that youth drink driving rates continue to drop. A 2012 Stuff article shows a drop from 6,414 offences to 3,091.

Stuff reports:

He’s too young to drink, drive or cast a vote but youth is no barrier for beef farmer Simeon Cook.

Simeon, 15, owns a herd of santa gertrudis cattle which he runs on a seven-hectare lease block at Cardiff in Taranaki. …

Without a drivers license, Simeon has to take the bus from school to the farm, where he spends every afternoon during the week feeding, shifting and preparing his stock for shows.

“I try to get them set up for the weekend on Friday afternoon so I can have a couple of days to do other things.”

The regular competitor at A&P shows across the lower North Island has racked up multiple medals and placings. He also claimed the title of supreme champion at last year’s Stratford show with Stirling Betty.

A year 11 student and chairman of the TeenAg club at Stratford High School, Simeon said juggling school and farming could be difficult but his animals would always be his top priority.

“I have to knuckle down a bit more at school this year but in my eyes it’s animals first,” he said.

“Mum and Dad want me to do well at school and having the farm is going to mean there are a few late nights but that’s how it is.”

Beyond school, Simeon hopes to get a place at Smedley Station and Cadet Training Farm in Hawke’s Bay but competition for the trainee positions was fierce, he said.

“They take on 11 cadets a year and there are hundreds of applicants.  But that’s where I want to be and that’s what I’m working towards.” 

While he is often alone on the farm, Simeon never felt like he was missing out on his friends’ after school activities.

“I actually feel like I’ve got the better end of the deal,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.”

Not many 15 year olds with that sort of maturity and work ethic. Very impressive young man.

Stuff reports:

A Wellington City councillor will be campaigning in Christchurch because he’s standing for Parliament. 

Southern ward councillor David Lee will be the Green Party candidate for Ilam, the seat currently held by National’s Gerry Brownlee.

Lee is not standing on the party list, meaning he will only become an MP in the unlikely event he defeats Brownlee, the politician he calls his mentor.

So why isn’t he standing in a Wellington seat?

He said he could still do his councillor job from Christchurch via phone and email.

“I do very little face-to face interaction, so I can still do my job as long as I have technology.”

Reminds me of the guy elected to Capital and Coast DHB who lived in Auckland!

“This is my opportunity to give back to the Greens and push up the party vote up in an electorate that requires an alternative voice for voters and not just a soundpiece for National.”

Was there not a single other Green Party member in Christchurch willing to stand in Ilam?

Despite being a Green Party member for four years, blue blood runs in his veins.

The former Young Nat and election campaigner for Murray McCully describes himself as a born-again green who was “very blue with a green halo”.

“Gerry Brownlee is my mentor.”

Lee wanted to get his name out there for the 2020 election, when he planned to go “hard out” to win the Ilam electorate.

So in fact his long term commitment is to Ilam, not Wellington.

Although he was looking at buying a residential property in Ilam, he  did not intend to move there.

If successful at winning the seat, he would still live in Wellington, he said.

“MPs are expected to live in Wellington.”

Really?

Tim Watkin at Pundit wrote:

It’s almost become a truism within political circles, but the cry around Ardern is always, “but what has she done?”. She’s had almost a decade in the House and a string of high profile portfolio responsibilities – from police to vulnerable children and more – and it’s a struggle to point to any impact she’s had either on policy or public opinion in any.

Several other journalists have also pointed to the lack of tangible achievements, so I thought it was worth expanding on this.

Jacinda does have many political skills. She is warm and funny. She is a good communicator. She is smart. She has been a political staffer and knows Parliament. She is comfortable in her own skin, and she is genuine. She is a bit of a policy wonk. She attracts and motivates supporters. And she is the queen of soft media. She is definitely one of the better performing Labour MPs. She is a genuinely nice person.

But after eight years in Parliament, to quote Tim Watkin, “what has she done?”

To answer why so many ask this question, I want to look at three areas – electorate, political and legislative.

Electorate

Jacinda stood twice in Auckland Central and lost both times. I had to laugh at one media article which said she had always stood in unwinnable seats. Auckland Central was held by Labour for 90 years or so, and the combined left party vote of 46% is greater than seats Labour did win such as Christchurch East, Te Atatu, Rimutaka, Wigram, Palmerston North, Port Hills, Hutt South, West Coast Tasman and Napier.

The current electorate MP, Nikki Kaye, has a huge list of things she has achieved in the electorate. They include:

• Getting Aotea Conservation Park established on Great Barrier Island
• Delivered rural broadband to GBI
• Key role in re-establishing the Pride Parade
• Led a campaign on changing body corporate laws for apartment dwellers
• Helped persuade Mt Albert Grammar to include GBI students in their zone

A former staffer for Len Brown once told me that when most people met the Mayor they had just one issue to talk about. Nikki would front up regularly with 10 to 15 issues.

This is why Nikki beat Jacinda in 2011 and 2014. The electorate knew she had delivered for them.

Now you might say that it is unfair to compare Nikki to Jacinda as Nikki is already the Electorate MP and Jacinda just a List MP. Well let’s look at what Chris Bishop has done in just two years as a List MP in Hutt South:

• Established Hutt City Youth Awards scheme in 2015 to recognise young talent in Hutt
• Successfully campaigned for free parking in the Hutt CBD with local businesse
• Established monthly food truck night in Hutt CBD with local food trucks and Council
• Helped local student organise a Ted-X style Tech Talks event
• Two successful public meetings (Technology Valley and Predator Free), both with standing room only. Tech meeting led to a student tech forum in the Hutt

This is why I believe Chris Bishop will win Hutt South. He has shown that a List MP can be just as effective as an Electorate MP in achieving things. If Jacinda had done what Chris Bishop is doing, Jacinda would probably have won Auckland Central.

Another example is Labour’s Stuart Nash. He won Napier by being all over local issues – he led the fight against amalgamation, against the dam and on police staffing levels.

Now in no way am I saying that Jacinda is not active or hard working locally. She sleeps out for charity, she door knocks, she turns up to all the functions etc. But that is different from actual achievements.

Political

Jacinda has held 11 portfolios including Employment, Social Development, Police, Corrections, Children, Justice and Small Business. In all of them she has been hard working and competent and on top of the issues but she hasn’t really achieved anything, compared to some of her colleagues. For example:

• Kelvin Davis – hugely successful in his campaign on prisons, and also on Australian deportees. Both led to government policy changes.
• Shane Jones – very successful campaign against Countdown on behalf of small suppliers
• Stuart Nash – campaign on petrol prices got Government to do an inquiry. Also helped get Government inquiry into guns.
• Phil Twyford – huge cut through on housing issues

Legislative

It is in the legislative area that Jacinda has done worse. Her two members’ bills have been shockingly weak. Her first bill on adoption was a press release pretending to be a bill. It merely instructed the Law Commission to go write the real bill and have the Government introduce it. The bill was so bad even the Greens voted against it. It actually undermined the real work done cross party by Kevin Hague and Nikki Kaye who met with all the stakeholders, with law professors, adoption groups and wrote a detailed law reform bill.

Her latest bill is much the same. It is labelled the Child Poverty Reduction and Eradication Bill. It basically sets up a a Child Poverty Reduction Board! That’s it. It’s a sound bite not a serious law.

In no way do I think Jacinda doesn’t care about gay adoption and child poverty. She does. But the consistent pattern in her career has been that she prioritises empathy over effectiveness. She is not alone in this, of course.

Jacinda has said you can’t achieve much in opposition, that you get to make a difference in government. But this is not true. Many other MPs have achieved substantial things as List MPs and/or in Opposition.

Jacinda will become a Minister one day. I stand by my prediction she will become Prime Minister – possibly as early as 2020, if she becomes Leader of the Opposition after this year’s election.

As I said at the beginning Jacinda does have many skills, and she is a good MP who deserved to be on Labour’s front bench. But her record of achievements is very limited for eight years in Parliament. Her challenge is to show effectiveness as well as empathy.

She is now the MP for Mt Albert, so that’s a good place to start.

News.com.au reports:

There are reportedly nine Malaysian nationals in the communist country who will be unable to return home as the investigation into Kim Jong Nam’s murder continues.

Mr Kim, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was killed in Malaysia last month.

In the latest shot fired in a growing diplomatic row between the two Asian nations, the North Korean state news agency, KCNA, reported the ban would stay in place until Pyongyang was satisfied the case was solved.

Basically they are saying we will imprison or kill your nationals, unless you cover up what we did.

Kim Jong Un appears to be a more vile dictator than his father and grandfather. I long for the day that North Korea is freed from them.

Stuff reports:

NZ First MP Barbara Stewart’s husband passing away earlier this year has prompted her decision not to stand at the election in September.

Stewart first entered Parliament in 2002 and her departure takes out one of only three women in the 12-member caucus.

A well liked MP. I wish her well. She is one of the longer serving NZ First MPs.

It will be interesting if any new female candidates are ranked in winnable list positions.