At Patreon (paywalled) I analyse the Trump effect on the Canadian and Australian elections, and whether it means that National in New Zealand could also head down in the polls because of a perceived association with Trump.

A post from PaulL, regular reader and sometime poster.

I regularly read about productive farmland being used for solar farms. I see people questioning why productive farmland would go into solar.

I’m generally a free market kind of guy. I think land should go into it’s most productive use, and we can tell it’s most productive use by how much people are prepared to pay for it. If a solar energy company can afford to pay more for land than a dairy farmer, then by definition the land is more useful in solar panels than it is in dairy farming.

And yet, the market here isn’t actually efficient. So I would suggest that the government could assist to do things better. And I know some of what I’ll suggest smacks a bit of central govt planning, but I’m not totally averse to that where there are legitimate co-ordination problems (or, in fact, where co-ordination may be illegal).

In a relatively short conclave Cardinals have elected Robert Francis Prevost as the 267th successor of Saint Peter as the Bishop of Rome and supreme pontiff.

Ten facts about the new Pope:

• He is the first American Pope. American has the 4th largest number of Catholics in the world after Brazil, Mexico and the Phillipines.
• He is the first Pope from an English speaking country since Adrian IV of England in 1154.
• He grew up in Chicago and was a priest there but was posted to Peru where he became Bishop of Chiclayo
• He was only made a Cardinal in 2023
• He is only 69 years old, considerably younger than the two Popes before him
• He speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese, and can read Latin and German
• He has worked as a Maths teacher
• He was head of the influential Vatican Dicastery for Bishops which advised the pope on bishop appointments globally.
• He is an Augustinian friar and was prior general of the worldwide order
• His father was a US Navy veteran of WWII

This is a very very disappointing tweet from Peter Davis, who I normally find to be much more thoughtful.

He is basically saying that Jews in Wellington deserve to have grafitti scrawled against them, because of the actions of the Israeli Government.

Would he excuse graffiti that says they hate Hindus because of the actions of the Indian Government? Or grafitti that says they hate Americans because of the actions of the US Government?

Conflating Jews with the Israeli Government is in itself classic anti-semitism. While the vast majority of Jews support the right of Israel to exist, there is a huge variation of opinion about the current Israeli Government, the war in Gaza, settlements, boundaries etc. Jews have a religion in common, but are very politically diverse.

So for Davis to justify graffiti that spreads hatred towards Jews on the basis of what the Government of Israel does is not at all good.

Benjamin Netanyahu won’t see graffiti in Wellington. It won’t influence him. The people who will see it is Jewish kids and Jewish families who live in Wellington and have to put up with this racism.

The Electoral Commission has published the donation returns for 2024. The level of overall donations is:

1. National $4.89 million
2. Labour $1.63 million
3. Greens $1.59 million
4. ACT $1.46 million
5. NZ First $758k
6. TPM $54k

The breakdown by size is interesting.

Only 33% of National’s donations come from those who donated over 5,000. 43% came from small dollar donors and 24% from medium level donors.

NZ First and the Greens are in fact the two parties that are most reliant on large donors.

Winston Peters announced:

New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill that would ensure the biological definition of a woman and man are defined in law.  

The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill will provide clarity and consistency in New Zealand law by defining “woman” as “an adult human biological female” and “man” as “an adult human biological male” in the Legislation Act 2019.  

I think this bill would have unfortunate unintended consequences. But, a simple amendment, could improve it.

I’m all for having the law allowing sporting events, facilities to restrict entry to those who are biologically women. But I’m also for allowing facilities to have entry based on gender identity, if that is what they want to do.

Trans NZers should be able to have their gender identity recognised in law. But the law should also recognise that this doesn’t replace biological sex. The health system, for example, needs to know your biological sex, but I’m not sure the Department of Conservation does.

So what I would do is have the law define both sex and gender. It could be along the lines of.

When referring to sex:

• a “woman” is “an adult human biological female”
• a “man” is “an adult human biological male”

When referring to gender:

• a “woman” is “an adult who identifies as a female”
• a “man” is “an adult who identified as a male”

When laws are passed, the laws could refer to either sex or gender, as is appropriate. In the absence of a specific reference, the assumption would be it is biological sex that is being referred to.

It is clear Te Pati Maori holds Parliament in contempt. I don’t just mean in the technical sense of breaching the rules of the House, but in the more general sense of behaving with contempt.

To publish the draft Privileges Committee report on the actions of three of their MPs on their social media feed is a provocation that should result in consequences.

Radio NZ reported:

Te Pāti Māori has apologised for posting a draft report from the privileges committee on Instagram, which breaches the rules of privilege.

It comes ahead of the committees meeting tonight to discuss complaints against three of the party’s MPs who conducted a haka in the House in November.

Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the Instagram post was a mistake made “internally”, and the party was reviewing it.

“We were aware that an Instagram put up last night created a little bit of tension for the chair of the Privileges Committee.”

She said no MP, including the co-leaders, were responsible for that.

This is just mendacious bullshit. There is no way a staffer would publish a confidential privileged draft report from the Privileges Committee, without authorisation from an MP and/or the leadership. In fact no staff should even have had access to the report.

Te Pati Maori think the rules don’t apply to them. No matter what decision the Privileges Committee makes, they will claim it is racist and unfair.

The only thing that will result in a change of attitude, is serious consequences. They should not be rewarded for treating this as a giant joke and PR exercise.

I have no idea what the Privileges Committee has or will decide, but I hope it along the lines of a 28 day suspension for the three MPs involved.

The Herald reports:

National MP Catherine Wedd is introducing a new member’s bill aiming to ban children under 16 from accessing social media platforms in New Zealand.

Wedd, MP for Tukituki in Hawke’s Bay, said the My Social Media Age-Appropriate Users Bill is about protecting the “most vulnerable young teenagers and children from the online harms of social media”. 

Wedd said social media was an “extraordinary resource” but it came with risks.

“Right now, we aren’t managing the risks for our young people well.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the move was intended to protect young people from bullying, inappropriate content and social media addiction.

This addresses a genuine and serious problem. Social media use by young people has had some terrible outcomes in terms of bullying and also peer pressure around body size and shape.

This chart, via Maddy, shows a massive correlation (and no doubt causation).

So yes absolutely, having kids not able to use social media until they are 16 would be a good thing.

The challenge though is unintended consequences and definition.

A ban may make it more attractive to young NZers. They may be able to get around it easily. Parental supervision and involvement is preferable to legislation – however they are not an either/or choice.

And how do you define it. Would text messaging be captured? Group chats? Youtube? Do you name specific platforms?

So definitely worth supporting at first reading, but select committee would have a lot of work to do to see if it can be made workable, and that the benefits will be greater than the costs and unintended consequences.

The Herald reports:

NZME’s likely new chairman Steven Joyce says he hopes to unify the media company’s shareholders as much as possible, following two months of sometimes heated debate over the company’s performance and editorial endeavour.

Joyce, a National Party Cabinet minister for three terms from 2008 and an experienced commercial media businessman, was today confirmed as a board nominee for NZME. 

NZME’s existing chair Barbara Chapman – who has been the focus of criticism from activist shareholders who are keen to overthrow her and other directors – says she will step aside if Joyce is appointed to the board at NZME’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 3, and becomes chair himself.

Joyce appears to be gathering decent early support from various quarters of NZME’s shareholding register, including – it is understood – its biggest shareholder, Australian fund Spheria Asset Management, which holds just under 20%.

This is a very canny choice by the outgoing NZME Board. Joyce appeals to both the rebels and the Empire 🙂

Joyce knows media. He built Mediaworks up from basically one radio station to a major network. He also knows media from the other side as an MP and Minister. It is no surprise that he appeals to both the incumbent Board and many of those wanting change.

I don’t think anyone should think that Joyce as NZME Chair will mean a change in Herald editorial direction towards the right. If anything, Joyce as a former Minister will be careful not to be seen to be getting involved in editorial issues.

But that does not mean he will be a status quo governor. Far from it. I’ve had the pleasure and challenge of working for and with Steven, and he is a change agent. He will not see his role as just charing the board. He will be driving strategy but also be into the details of significant operations. Michael Boggs will find him very different to the outgoing Chair, I suspect.

Legacy media faces a very difficult business environment as technology has upended their traditional business model. I’m unsure if many of them will be around in 20 years time. But if I was a shareholder in NZME, I’d be very pleased with the likely appointment of Joyce as Chair, and would expect to see a change in profitability and dividends. Steven is always interested in the bottom line.

This is the net approval rating for each US President at the 100 day mark of their administration.

1. Kennedy +78%
2. Eisenhower +63%
3. Nixon +47%
4. Reagan +47%
5. Carter +45%
6. Obama +36%
7. Bush GHW +34%
8. Bush GW +33%
9. Clinton +18%
10. Biden +17%
11. Trump II -9%
12. Trump I -13%

You can argue that as Trump is not running again, his approval rating doesn’t matter. But it will impact the mid-terms and control of Congress.

The Herald reported:

Te Pāti Māori has for some time believed eligibility should be race-based. It explained in statement:

“Te Pāti Māori is clear – our people should be able to access superannuation seven to 10 years earlier than the rest of the population.

“Māori life expectancy is significantly lower, and many of our people work in physically demanding jobs that take a toll well before retirement age.

“It is unacceptable that Māori contribute to the system their whole lives but die before they can benefit from it in the same way as others. 

Maori don’t die earlier because they are Maori, and that there is something in their genetic code than makes them die early.

They die earlier because of health and socio-economic factors. The focus should be on reducing the prevalence of those factors.

As there is no significant genetic link to dying early, giving NZ Super to anyone who has a fraction of Maori DNA would be a very bad policy. Why should David Seymour get NZ Super at 60 because of his ancestry?

Judith Collins announced:

The Defence Force’s ageing maritime helicopters will be replaced to increase the defensive and offensive capability and surveillance range of New Zealand’s frigates, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today.

“The replacement of the Seasprite helicopters will also extend the Navy’s ability to support non-combat tasks such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” Ms Collins says. 

“Together with a $957 million investment in Defence Force activities, personnel and estate, the $2 billion plus budgeted to replace the helicopters represents the first tranche of the Government’s $12 billion of planned commitments to upgrade the Defence Force over the next four years.

This is good to see. We only purchased the helicopters in 2015, but they were second hand. They were originally manufactured in the 1990s, and the airframes may even be from the 1970s or 1980s. So definitely time to replace them.

Erica Stanford announced:

Every parent wants to see their child thrive at school — to feel confident, supported, and capable. Today, the Government is taking a major step toward making that aspiration a reality with the launch of a new Parent Portal: an online resource designed to enable families to play their part in their child’s learning.

“This is about giving parents clarity, confidence, and practical tools to support their child’s learning journey,” says Erica Stanford.

Launching today, the Parent Portal will provide a clear, easy-to-understand year by year guide to what children will be learning in English and maths under New Zealand’s refreshed, knowledge-rich curriculum.

This is a great, much needed, initiative. By chance I have been meeting with a variety of parents of school aged kids, discussing changes to the education system which would help empower parents – who are meant to be active partners – in the schooling system.

One of the issues we identified was that so many parents have no idea what their child should be able to do each year. And two ten minute meetings a year isn’t sufficient.

The idea we had is that every term a parent should get from their school a short plain English summary of what subject areas will be taught in the next term, and what they will be covering in class.

The Government’s parent portal goes 90% of the way towards this goal. It provides simple summaries of the curriculum by subject, and year. So for example I can look up the Year 4 Maths curriculum and get:

• work with larger numbers and use estimation by comparing numbers up to 10,000 and adding and subtracting 2 and 3-digit numbers. They’re also using rounding and words like ‘about’, ‘more or less’, and ‘close to’ to estimate and check their answers
• multiply and divide building on their Year 3 multiplication facts (2-, 3-, 5-, and 10-times tables). Your child is learning the 4- and 6-times tables. They practise multiplication and division, like 23 x 5 or 44 ÷ 4, using methods such as the ‘family of facts’ (for example, 4 x 5 = 20, 20 ÷ 4 = 5)
• begin learning about decimals and develop fraction ideas by connecting ideas about fractions to decimal numbers (for example, 3/10 is the same as 0.3) and adding numbers with 1 decimal place (for example, 1.3 + 0.2 = 1.5). They’re also learning to add simple fractions and find fractions of whole amounts (for example, “if you eat 1/5 of 40 strawberries, how many did you eat?”)
• work with money by making amounts of money using dollars and cents, calculating amounts with dollars and cents, and working out change using whole-dollar amounts.

This allows parents to supplement school time, by working at home with their kids. And the portal even has suggestions as to stuff you can do with them at home.

I hope the portal is widely promoted to parents.

It is so nice to have a government that wants to empower parents in the education system. This has not always been the case.

At the beginning of the year the betting markets had Labour very unlikely to retain office. But over three months the polls swung their way. However the actual results have far exceeded the polls. As of writing Labour have won 85 seats (up 7) but with 19 seats still to be called. The Coalition is on just 36 seats.

At this stage the two party preferred vote is 55% Labor and 45% Coalition.

Even worse for the Coalition, leader Peter Dutton has lost his seat. And unlike Canada, there is no tradition of an MP in a safe seat falling on their sword to allow the leader back in. So the leadership front runners appear to be Deputy Leader Sussan Ley and Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor.

So far the ALP has won 12 seats off the Coalition and 2 off the Greens. So they should finish up north of 90 seats. The lead in 8 seats, If the leads in all the uncalled seats remain, the results would be:

• Labor 93
• Coalition 40
• Independents 15
• Greens 2

This would be the worst result for the Coalition since 1943. Their loss of so many city seats to Independents will make it very hard for them to get a majority again.

A guest post by Lucy Rogers:

As some readers will be aware, the IPCA released a report in February claiming that the law of protest in New Zealand is not fit for purpose. Among the alleged problems with it is that the law is vague about police powers. For example, the exact parameters of breach of the peace are (supposedly) vague, and furthermore the police are misinformed about what breach of the peace means in any event.

Although I agree with aspects of the above (specifically, that police are woefully misinformed about what breach of the peace is) I must agree in the end with the FSU’s criticism that for the IPCA to focus on perceived deficiencies and vagaries of the law in response to the cases covered in the report was misplaced in emphasis. It creates the misleading impression that police misconduct was attributable primarily to good faith mistakes about the law.

In fact, what we need are reforms aimed at preventing police from going on a power trip and at preventing ideological policing, because that is what really happened in the cases in question. The IPCA’s proposed reforms would not have prevented what happened on the day of my arrest because the police were not acting in good faith. Here are some proposals I think would make a real difference:

• All police should be required to wear mandatory body cameras while on duty so that they cannot lie about the circumstances leading to a person’s arrest. Please sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/justiceforsam-demand-accountability-for-police-actions-and-mandatory-police-bodycams

• The Police Professional Conduct Unit should be abolished and resources transferred to the IPCA. At present the IPCA is only nominally in charge of reviewing complaints into police misconduct. In fact the vast majority of complaints about police misconduct are investigated by other police officers. The IPCA is so chronically under-resourced it does not even have a branch in Auckland at the moment and staff have to fly up from Wellington to interview people.

• Failing the abolition of the PPCU, the introduction of IPCA audits into the PPCU’s investigations of police officers would help, but I suspect it is more cost effective to transfer everything to the IPCA.

• The IPCA should have the powers to order rather than to merely recommend prosecutions and employment investigations. These powers should not lie with people who have a conflict of interest i.e. police.

• A law change should be effected whereby if an arrest is so lacking in merit that on that balance of probabilities a judge believes that it was not in good faith, then the police officers who made the arrest should be required to pay financial compensation to the individual in question out of their own pocket. This has the advantage of not costing the taxpayer anything, and would have a much greater deterrent effect than the police paying compensation as an institution.

I do think that some of the IPCA’s proposals could be implemented with tweaking to the benefit of this country, but I shall cover that in a separate post.

This photo was sent to me by a reader. It was taken well before the current storm. What it shows is water welling up out of two massive bulges in the new asphalt of Thorndon Quay’s new cycle lane.

Great job!

Bob (Sir Robert) Jones has died aged 85. Bob was one of my favourite authors growing up, and I was fortunate enough to get to know him quite well in recent times. His larrikin sense of humour will be sadly missed – we need more in his mould.

In 1973 he published a book called “The first twelve months : a study of the achievements of the third Labour government in 1973”. It was 100 blank pages.

Later on he put up a pole in Wellington measuring the credibility of the Government. Every few weeks he would lower it. Then he started digging a hole. Finally he wrote to the Mayor of a city in Spain that is opposite Wellington and asked them to put up a pole there as the credibility had dropped so much, it had burrowed through the planet.

Other stunts includes the many humorous billboards such as “Mat Rata reads comics” and gatecrashing an interview with Bill Rowling with a human sized mouse.

He was a supporter of Muldoon but then became an implacable opponent as Muldoon went interventionist. His New Zealand Party in 1984 played a role in defeating the Muldoon Government. Later on though Bob organised a surprise farewell dinner for Muldoon as he was preparing to leave Parliament, as he was outraged no one else was doing anything.

I have read every single one of his books (and have many signed editions). My favourites by far were his “Letters” which were sidesplittingly funny as he dealt out humour and generosity to nuns and others. His letters to Sir Ron Brierley as a “gravely concerned shareholder” (he had one share) were especially great. Also great were his letters with the Secretary of Transport over his speeding tickets and his reference to various officers as “Moustached dwarves of indeterminate gender”. The Secretary made the mistake of asking if he could just refer to them as Officer X, and Bob replied that he doesn’t called the garbage collector “Garbage Collector X” and as that his a similar status to a traffic officer, why would he call them Office X.

I first met Bob in person in 2005. I was involved with the campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill that could have criminalised sending an e-mail that discussed policy. A colleague was meeting Bob to see if he was interested in relaunching the New Zealand Party with the sole purpose of repealing the law. Bob had some questions on the proposed law, and I was the expert on it so around 2 pm I got a phone call asking if I could pop over and join the meeting.

14 hours later at 4 am I staggered out of his building, having drunk more wine than I thought was possible. I lurched into the nearby petrol station and wolfed down a pie, as the 14 hours of talking and drinking with Bob involved much wine but little food.

Since then I’ve been a guest at his house (his parties are legendary – as is the view), and even helped him set up his own blog. I managed to hide from him that I was once a scout leader (he viewed them all as clones of Bill Rowling) but he still managed to find many things to hassle me about over the years.

In recent years I would often see him at the Taxpayers’ Union office as he was their landlord. He would often sit down for drinks with the staff, and provoke various degrees of outrage and amusement from them. He loved to be provocative, but it was never in a nasty way. It was always with humour.

New Zealand is the better for Bob Jones. He contributed so much in business, in politics, in sports (boxing) in literature and in humour.

He will be greatly missed, and I hope his style of irreverent humour will not pass away with him.