A British-Israeli woman who was held hostage by Hamas for more than 15 months has accused Keir Starmer of “moral failure” after he set the UK on course to recognise a Palestinian state.
Emily Damari, 29, who was released in January, said the prime minister was “not standing on the right side of history” and should be ashamed.
Her criticism came as lawyers representing British families of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas said the UK government’s intention to recognise a Palestinian state ran the risk of disincentivising the release of captives.
Starmer said on Tuesday that the UK would recognise a Palestinian state in September unless the Israeli government abided by a ceasefire and committed to a two-state solution to the conflict.
A ceasefire needs both sides to agree. One of the issues around a ceasefire is Israel wants the return of the remaining hostages.
Starmer has effectively said that if Hamas refuses to release any more hostages, resulting in no ceasefire with Israel, then the UK will recognise Palestine as an independent state. This does not seem to me like a good incentive!
As I blogged in June, I no longer support the ongoing military action in Gaza. I fully supported Israel’s actions in the first year to 18 months as justified by self defence. But there is no mandate for an endless war. As I said, I would do a Korea style DMZ around Gaza.
Illicit, excise-evading cigarettes now comprise half of the cancer-inducing products sold to Australia’s 2.7 million smokers.
A study published by FTI Consulting put it at 39.4 per cent in 2024, up from 14 per cent six years ago, but an update for the month of June puts the figure at 50 per cent.
And, according to studies of wastewater, nicotine consumption in Australia, including vaping, is at an all-time high.
We can now conclude that the strategy of taxing and banning nicotine addiction out of existence is a complete failure.
The result is that organised crime is making about $10 billion a year in revenue.
This is what the previous Government had in store for NZ. Prohibition is a fat strategy, which fails, and just makes criminals wealthier.
Will Radio NZ report on this, alongside their scores of articles decrying the Government for not implementing the previous government’s prohibition strategy?
The black market in Australia has grown from 14% to 54%. So they used to have 86% of the tobacco market taxed and regulated, and now only 50% of the tobacco market is taxed or regulated.
Texas Republicans unveiled a new congressional map on Wednesday that would provide their party with five new red-leaning districts, a plan that — if enacted — could provide a boost to the party as it tries to cling to control of the House.
The redraw would significantly benefit Republicans by making districts held by Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, who both represent heavily-Latino areas of the Rio Grande Valley, redder, and make some Democratic-controlled districts even bluer in an attempt to create GOP-leaning districts elsewhere.
The GOP basically told their computer program to design the best possible boundaries for them, and have passed them into law. Gerrymandering has occurred for a long time, but normally happens when they have to redraw boundaries after a census. This one has occurred just because they can.
We are fortunate this can’t happen in NZ. The law states boundaries get redrawn only after each census, and the Representation Commission is chaired by a judge and has a majority on it of neutral public servants. Having MPs decide their own boundaries is a very bad idea.
A group of Jewish school kids were forced off a plane in Spain after they sang in Hebrew. Snopes looks into this story, and they find that there is no evidence to back up the airline’s assertion they were unruly.
In fact several passengers on the flight with no connection to the group did affidavits saying the teens were well behaved and respectful. Utterly disgraceful behaviour from the airline.
Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron are suing former Maga influencer Candace Owens after she falsely claimed France’s first lady was born a man.
The French President and his wife are willing to travel to the United States for the case, should it go ahead, to end what their lawyer described as a “relentless and unjustified smear campaign”.
The 218-page lawsuit, filed in Delaware yesterday, accuses Owens of publishing “outlandish, defamatory and far-fetched fictions”, chief among them the claim that Brigitte Macron was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux.
Owens makes money out of saying outlandish false things. There is literally zero evidence of her claims. Evidence is not a theory. I doubt she even believes it herself. It is just a way to get clicks and listeners.
I suspect the damages in the case, once concluded, will be huge.
Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have reached agreement over the launch of a new leftwing party after weeks of discussions, sending out a joint statement encouraging would-be supporters to register their interest.
The new movement has yet to be named but has an interim website under the moniker of Your party. In a statement on X, the two former Labour MPs appealed described it as “a new kind of political party, one that belongs to you”.
This party could do quite well. The UK has a sizeable minority of hard left socialists who would vote for a neo-marxist party.
In March the Minister texted Prime after she became Education Spokesperson to congratulate her, and asked to meet her to brief her on the NCEA change process, noting she had been working with her predecessor, Jan Tinetti, on it. Prime didn’t even reply!
In May Stanford’s office e-mailed Prime’s officer following up one the text, and repeating the offer to meet and be briefed. Again no answer.
In June Stanford personally e-mailed Prime asking for a meeting. Again no reply for a third time.
Later in June, Stanford e-mails Hipkins seeking cross-party support, and noting that Prime’s office had not responded multiple times. The next day Prime’s office finally responds, and declines an invitation to be briefed.
Only a few days before the announcement did Prime change her mind and say she wanted to be consulted, but of course decision were all made by then.
I don’t know if Prime’s actions were a result of incompetence or arrogance or simply not caring. But Seymour is right, that it is basically a sackable offence. She turned down multiple opportunities to be briefed and have input into the reform process. And on top of that, it is just damn rude – to not even reply to a personal text from the Minister.
The first issue was that they ran the article, and didn’t even ask the Minister for comment. They only quoted opponents of the new school lunch programme.
Simon Clarke, David Seymour’s Director of Communications, complained the article breached Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance because no effort was made to contact the Minister’s office for comment during the formation of the story, despite the article containing direct criticism of him. He said because the article was already printed and had been online for at least 12 hours before any attempt was made to include comment, the opportunity for balance was rendered moot. He said the reporter instead sought comment only from known detractors of the programme and failed to approach other relevant stakeholders, such as the School Lunch Collective.
The Press said this was a mistake – they just forgot to ask the Minister to comment!. The Media Council ruled their failure a breach.
The second issue is more interesting.
Mr Clarke complained the article also contained a significant undeclared conflict of interest relating to the reporter’s previous role. He said the journalist assigned to the story served as Director of Communications for Health Coalition Aotearoa (HCA), confirmed in correspondence with The Press’ editor. Mr Clarke said HCA has been an outspoken critic of the school lunch programme and the reporter had overseen communications campaigns against it.
So the journalist who wrote the “neutral” story on the school lunch programme had just a few weeks earlier been the effective campaign manager for a lobby group campaigning against it. She interviewed her former employer for the story, but not the Minister.
This was also, not surprisingly, found to be a breach.
Now some might say, that her previous role was just a job, and didn’t reflect her actual views. But if you look at her Twitter account, she has tweeted multiple times against the school lunch programme.
For many students the school lunch was the only meal meal of the day and “a sandwich and muesli bar isn’t gonna cut it” in winter.
— Cate Macintosh (formerly Broughton) (@CateMacintosh) May 9, 2024
“That whole experience of what it is to be a whanau and eat quality meals is being taught to those who have not had the luxury of what is normal for so many New Zealanders,”Terrible choice’ for school with lunches programme change, principal says https://t.co/bpfz5EXKtx
— Cate Macintosh (formerly Broughton) (@CateMacintosh) May 8, 2024
That’s just a couple. There have been multiple tweets on this issue, and also a huge number on other issues – in every case attacking the Government.
Bryce Edwards likes to talk about the revolving door between Government and lobbyists. Maybe he should also focus on the revolving door between lobbyists and the media. Here you have someone who is campaigning stridently against the Government on an issue, and they get employed as a journalist to them neutrally report on the same issue.
You now have the HCA promoting stories written by their former communications manager. And there are plenty of them. A look at her page at The Press, lists seven stories in just the last three months on school lunches. And the one thing they all have in common, is that they are all negative on the programme.
I have a son who is a professional fire-fighter. I would imagine that they most basic advice they receive is to point the hose at the fire.
Stanford has done almost nothing on what all data and research show to be the most important aspects for the education of our children and young people. There is barely any water going on the flames.
These are the absolute key areas for the contribution of education towards our future.
How to support parenting so that the vast majority of 5 year olds arrive at school ready to fully engage and with the basics of a love of learning, good behaviours, as well as numeracy and literacy in place. This includes parents reading to their children and being fully informed of key aspects of development from conception until 5 years old (at least).
Massively improving school attendance. She has allocated just 0.7 of 1% of VOTE education to improving this aspect – that remains in deep crises.
How to significantly close the gaps between those who achieve – and those who don’t (concentrated among poorer families, Maori and Pasifika). 2024 school leavers data shows that the proportion of school leavers with no qualifications has risen to 16% for all ethnicities. This is the worst in a decade and it well-and-truly under her watch. It is now 28% for Maori youth. Appalling – but I do not see a single ounce of effort from Stanford on this. Let this statistic land … 28% of Maori youth are leaving school with no qualification. Will the proposed qualifications changes improve this? What are the future consequences?
Improving the quality of outcomes of every high school. There is actually some low hanging fruit here with an easy to implement programme. NZ only has 460 high schools. To have every one of them create a 5 year improvement plan for outcomes – aims and how to achieve them – is easy and can be highly effective. I have already been working with some schools on this in a private capacity.
Improving the quality of teachers. While there has been some emphasis on this – the impact of poorly consulted curriculum changes, and barely consulted qualifications changes, will have massive work conditions implications for teachers (i.e. chaos). While teachers remain in a collective contract that restricts the ability to reward high contributors – the prospect for true change remains low.
The huge hand-brake of a massive and inept Ministry of Education has barely been challenged by Stanford. National/ACT promised to reduce the employment numbers in the Ministry to 2,700 (pre-Hipkins) but it remains near 4,000. Even one of Stanford’s best friends, Tim O’Connor of Auckland Grammar – recently stated that the Ministry serves little purpose and should be disestablished. Stanford has not even been able to appoint a new Secretary for Education – nearly a year after the previous one left.
As someone who fully evaluates the outcomes of our education system each year … the current changes will do nothing to halt the decline – except that students from high performing schools, and privileged demographics, will have a better qualification to get themselves into international study.
After turning up at his former partner’s house unwanted, and repeatedly being asked to leave, Chad Lionel Erueti eventually drove off in his car.
He got to the end of the road, turned around and drove into his former partner, pinning her against a retaining wall.
It left the woman fearing she was going to die, and living in fear. …
But Judge Tini Clark was struggling to see how she could get to the home detention threshold of 24 months, given Erueti had been jailed in 2021 for “almost identical” offending. …
Over the past 10 years, Erueti had been arrested in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024.
“And here we are today … this is the worst offending so far.” …
In jailing him for 28 and a half months, Judge Clark told him he hoped it would be a wake-up call.
The Judge made the right call in ruling out home detention. But 28 months is still not much for what is clearly a recidivist offender who is likely to end up killing a woman eventually.
South Park co-creator Trey Parker had the briefest of responses on Thursday to anger from the White House over the latest season premiere, which showed a naked Donald Trump in bed with Satan.
“We’re terribly sorry,” Parker said, followed by a long, deadpan-comic stare. …
I love Southpark. They skewer everyone. I never actually watched the TV series until they did a film and I read a news story about how Rev Graham Capill had condemned it because it showed a sex scene between Saddam Hussein and Satan. I knew I had to see that film (which was hilarious) and been a fan sense.
Their treatment of Trump is no harder than their treatment of Paris Hilton. They had Obama paying Chinese agents and Cartman to steal an election.
I’m surprised the White House thought it was a good idea to attack the show. They should laugh it off, and be flattered they got an episode!
This poll summary from Lord Ashcroft is fascinating. Nigel Farage overall is seen as performing much better than the PM and Opposition Leader.
Even more interesting is of those who voted for Labour in 2024, they give Farage a B- and their own leader Starmer a C+ only.
Likewise Conservative voters give Farage a B and Badenoch a C-.
He also polled on the target of doubling defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. 52% backed it (or faster). A further 14% supported a smaller increase and just 14% said defence spending should remain the same or reduce.
In the new American Eagle campaign, Sydney Sweeney leans on an antique Mustang, stares straight down the barrel of the camera, and breathily delivers a list of her inherited traits: blonde hair, blue eyes. She says a word that sounds like “jeans,” and then says they “are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.” She avoids mentioning the two biggest traits everyone is thinking about, but the camera doesn’t avoid them. Then she lands on the punchline:
“My jeans are blue.”
The screen flashes a wink. We see the text, “Sydney Sweeney has great genes”—with the word “genes” crossed out and replaced, cheekily, with “jeans.”
It’s a clever play on words, a harmless pun, the kind of joke a dad would make. Or was it?
“This is literal Nazi propaganda,” announced one viral post. “Did they mean to include a bunch of Nazi dog whistles in this?” asked another. Yet another referenced a notorious white supremacist slogan in their tweet: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white childrenis a crazy tagline for selling denim.” The ad’s been called “regressive,” “racist,” and “tone-deaf.”
This just shows how crazy parts of the American left are. It a joke based on a homonym. Sydney Sweeney is attractive. there is a genetic component to attractiveness, and they played on genes vs jeans to sell jeans. It isn’t eugenics for God’s sake.
They could have done the same ad with Beyonce, and it would have worked. But because Sweeney is white, the left meltdown and declare it Nazi eugenics. And they wonder why people voted for Trump.
While Canada’s official guidelines look similar to ours, Canada’s standard drink measure is 34.5% larger than New Zealand’s. If we take that into account, Canada’s low-risk guidelines are more liberal than New Zealand’s. Three standard Canadian drinks is four standard New Zealand drinks.
If New Zealand followed Canada’s example, we would be relaxing our guidelines rather than tightening them. And Canada’s guidelines have not changed since 2011. …
No-one listening to that NZ On Air funded episode of The Detail will know that industry intervention helped to correct an error. Or that, if we followed Canada’s actual example, our low-risk threshold would increase from 15 to 20 standard New Zealand drinks per week.
About five years ago, misinformation was almost a capital crime. Times change.
It is terrible that false information on a government website was corrected. This is clearly wrong. False information is good, if it comes from the right people.
We see another interesting example around pregnancy labels. Alcohol Healthwatch did a report which claimed 34% of alcohol products had no pregnancy warning label on them. They refuse to release details of which retailers they surveyed.
This so alarmed the Alcohol Beverages Council, that they commissioned an audit of a retail store where all 1,756 products were checked. They found 99.3% of products had correct labelling. They are able to provide full details of the store and the audit.
A key issue is that the requirement for labelling only came in on 1 August 2023, so products manufactured before then do not have to have the label. So while almost all beers will have the label, many wine and whiskeys etc which are often sold after they have aged will be on the shelves for a while.
Today, leaders from New Zealand’s Muslim and Jewish organisations gathered at Government House in Auckland to present the New Zealand Harmony Accord to the Governor-General, the Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro.
This landmark agreement affirms their shared commitment to promoting understanding, rejecting hate, and strengthening social cohesion in New Zealand.
“This Accord is a powerful statement of unity, courage, and compassion,” says Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro, Governor-General of New Zealand. “It reminds us that dialogue, even when difficult, is the foundation of a peaceful and inclusive nation. I commend those who have worked so tirelessly to bring this vision to life.”
“To the leaders here today, you have my deepest respect. Your commitment to dialogue, to mutual respect, and to standing together in difficult times is something we can all learn from. Thank you for your leadership and for the example you have set,” says Hon Mark Mitchell, Minister for Ethnic Communities.
More than 70 guests attended, including Members of Parliament, senior faith leaders, and community representatives. Participants and guests at the ceremony included Race Relations Commissioner Dr Melissa Derby, Police Commissioner Richard Chambers, Juliet Moses (President of the New Zealand Jewish Council), Ibrar Sheikh (President of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand), Phillip Green (Jewish Community Security Group), Avigail Allan (Dayenu), and Salman Momin, Member for New Zealand, (The Aga Khan Council for Australia and New Zealand).
Very pleased to see this. It is vital that New Zealanders of different faiths can live and work together in harmony. The Accord notes:
The Muslim and Jewish communities in New Zealand have much in common. We share the same founding forefather, Abraham; we share faith in one God; and we share many of the same prophets, philosophies and practices, such as dietary restrictions and burial rites. We value education and family. We greet each other with “shalom” or “salaam”. We have a moral imperative to give charity (“sadaqat” in Arabic, “tzedakah” in Hebrew). The Jewish and Muslim communities contribute to, and are an integral part of, New Zealand’s rich and diverse ethnic and faith tapestry. We are proud of these contributions.
As New Zealand’s population ages and, in particular, as the proportion of over-65s increases, the cost of New Zealand Superannuation (NZS) is rising. We know that and it doesn’t help us understand the issues to create headlines that catastrophise the expected costs.
The pensions payable in the future, public and private, will be claims on tomorrow’s economy, so the best way to express the expected cost of NZS is as a proportion of tomorrow’s economy. At present, this is probably best measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is not a perfect measure, given the number of factors that bear on its calculation, particularly for long periods into the future. But it’s the best we have.
A catastrophiser will cite the billions of dollars of costs today and the even greater billions of dollars of costs tomorrow but that is misleading and matters much less than the ability of tomorrow’s economy to meet those claims.
Pensioners pay income tax on NZS so the government pays with one hand and collects with the other. Again, what matters to future voters is the net cost of pensions.
With that introduction, let’s look at what the Treasury thinks about the expected net cost of NZS. Since 2000, the Treasury has published estimates that put together all the known information about the drivers of the cost of NZS: number (and expected number) of pensioners, mortality expectations, expected growth of the national average wage and prices (those drive the annual calculation of the level of NZS) and all the assumptions that drive estimates of future growth.
The Treasury’s ‘New Zealand Superannuation Fund Contribution Rate Model’ (NZSF Model) works out contributions to the NZSF and expected future drawdowns. Those calculations are done twice a year and are archived here[1].
Given the headlines created recently by apparently dire, future projections, I was curious to see what the Treasury now thinks is the best estimate of the net cost of NZS in future decades.
The table uses the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) versions over the last 25 years.
Expected net costs of NZS (as a % of GDP) – NZSF Contribution Rate Model
Year Model run
NZS net cost in that year
Net cost in 2050
Net cost in 2060
Net cost in 2070
2000
3.7%
9.0%
9.7%
10.0%
2005
3.3%
7.5%
7.8%
8.1%
2010
3.7%
6.4%
6.9%
7.0%
2015
4.1%
6.3%
6.9%
7.4%
2020
4.5%
5.7%
6.5%
7.1%
2023
4.1%
5.6%
6.2%
6.7%
2024
4.3%
5.5%
6.2%
6.7%
2025
4.4%
5.4%
6.0%
6.4%
Yes, over the last 25 years the current year’s cost of NZS has risen by 19% (0.7% a year) but over the same 25 years (2000-2025), the expected net cost of NZS in 2050 has actually fallen from 9.0% of GDP to 5.4% (down 40%).
NZS is expected to cost less, in real terms, in 2050, 2060 and 2070 than we expected 25 years ago? That sounds like a ‘good news’ story to me. The pattern of possible costs across the table is consistent; consistently downwards.
We know this is all based on a bunch of assumptions that have varied over the 25 years but, in each case, the estimate is the Treasury’s best contemporary guess about those future costs.
Focussing on just the 2025 numbers, the Treasury expects the net cost in 2070 to be about 2 percentage points of 2070’s GDP higher than today’s 4.4% (+45%).
So how come the real future cost seems to be falling over the last 25 years? NZS is the numerator in this equation; the denominator is GDP and that has grown more than the Treasury expected in the early 2000s and in subsequent years, due to a combination of increasing labour force participation rates and higher immigration numbers. That combination drives the reduction. For example, the 2000 model predicted the net cost of NZS in 2025 would be 5.3% of predicted GDP. In fact, it turned out to be just 4.4%, a reduction of 17% in real terms.
That’s why real, future economic growth is so important in this discussion. An actuarial colleague and I put a substantial submission together for the 2019 Retirement Commissioner’s Review. We called it Informing the 2019 Review – 133 questions that New Zealand needs answered[2]. Of nine key “reforms that really matter”, we ranked greater economic growth than we, or even the Treasury, expect as the #1 priority:
“Greater economic growth (than expected) should be central to discussions on every aspect of public policy, including retirement incomes. At the foot of every significant retirement or pension policy proposal should be the question: ‘How does this help New Zealand grow more than under current settings?’ Not all policy changes have to be about economic growth, but if we do not get that growth, we will not see material improvements in the standard of living of the population, including retirees.”
How do we judge whether NZS is/will be ‘affordable’ in 2070?
We could compare the cost of our pensions with those in other countries. International comparisons of public pension systems are difficult – the OECD tries to do that in its Pensions at a Glance 2024[3]. The net cost of government spending on public pensions across all OECD countries was an average 7.0% of GDP in 2020 (and will be higher now). And that doesn’t include the cost of favoured tax-treatment for private savings in all other countries. New Zealand’s $0.55 bn on KiwiSaver subsidies for 2026[4] is exceptionally modest in that regard.
So, New Zealand’s net 6.4% for NZS in 2070 (up from today’s 4.4%) looks modest in that context. But that doesn’t necessarily make it affordable.
We need to talk about NZS. The 2019 Submission already cited had something to say about that as well:
“New Zealand needs a research-led review of every aspect of NZS… New Zealand has never done such a review before. NZS is the best Tier 1 scheme in the world but it can undoubtedly be improved.”[5]
[1] Accessible at https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/archive-new-zealand-superannuation-fund-nzsf-contribution-rate-models
[4] Because of the 2025 Budget’s changes, the YE 2025 estimate of $1.06bn is expected to reduce to $0.55bn (0.12% of GDP) in the year to 30 June 2026 (Fiscal Strategy Model BEFU 2025).
It has been unbelievable that so many people have gone insane over the entirely sensible and trivial change to NZ passports where the language used by 99% of New Zealanders appears first and the language used by 4% appears second.
Both languages are still on the NZ passport. All that has changed is the order.
When the word Aotearoa started appearing more prominently in public life, most Kiwis didn’t mind. In fact, a lot of us thought it was a nice touch; an acknowledgment of heritage, a nod to the history of this land. We were told it was just a gesture of inclusion. That it was about respect, dual heritage, embracing both names as part of our national identity. Most Kiwis were fine with that. Shrugged and moved on.
I’m one of those who likes the increasing use of te reo, when it is done naturally. We have incorporated words such as whanau, kai, kia kaha into everyday conversation. I love the te reo version of the national anthem, and enjoy my primary school kids learning concepts such as manaakitanga.
But somewhere along the way, inclusion morphed into dominance. What began as a well-meaning effort to honour Māori language and culture has, in the hands of our cultural elites, become a tool for ideological conformity and social stratification.
It’s not really about te reo, tikanga, or even Māori. It’s about power. The university-educated, bureaucratically-ensconced, BlueSky-scrolling class have seized on te ao Māori as a mechanism through which to assert their own moral superiority over the “low-status” masses. It’s a modern version of the noble savage trope only this time, the reverence isn’t for the culture itself, but for what revering it allows them to do.
By elevating mātauranga Māori to sacred, unchallengeable status, above science, above secularism, above democratic consensus, these cultural elites get to draw a bright line between the enlightened and the ignorant. They get to be the priest class. They can sneer at the plumber in Palmerston North who doesn’t want his kids doing karakia at school, and tell themselves they’re not just smarter, but better.
This is sadly spot on. We saw this under the last Government where numerous government agencies refused to even use their English name. The Reserve Bank would out out a press release referring to four other agencies only be their te reo names, meaning that 96% of NZers could not understand it without using Google. They must have seen it as their job to force the non-elite into compliance.
I worked in the public service for a few years and I didn’t think twice about participating in karakia, waiata, and tikanga when interacting with Māori communities and iwi. Being culturally sensitive is good manners in my view. I took advantage of the taxpayer-funded te reo lessons available to us and thoroughly enjoyed them.
Where I got frustrated was when we frequently had upwards of five meetings a day (always called hui) and in each of these meetings at least the first ten minutes (but usually longer) would be dedicated to ritualistic introductions and karakia. Most of these meetings were internal or with other public servants who we regularly interacted with. I tried once to figure out how much of my taxpayer-funded time was being dedicated to sitting through these performances. In a week I might attend around 25-30 hui (yes, that is a horrendous amount but it is how the public service operates) if we play it on the conservative side and say ten minutes of each meeting was karakia and pepeha that is 250-300 minutes each week. Four or five hours each week. Now multiple that by the 600 people who worked in the same building as me.
On top of that, a few times a week there was a “non-compulsory” “lunch time” waiata practice in our unit. It was explicitly not mandatory, but socially suicidal to skip it. Led by the cabal of middle-class white women who were the most ferocious enforcers of all things Māori, they made sure that choosing not to attend was not worth the grief that came with it. Only racists and people not sufficiently aware of their own privileges wouldn’t attend. The half hour of singing was officially a lunch time activity so that if someone sent in an Official Information Act request they wouldn’t find that taxes were being spent paying the generous salaries of professionals to sing out-of-tune. But everyone took their full lunch break as well as attending practice.
The Integrity Institute was set up by Grant and Marilyn Nelson. They used to fund the Institute of Governance and Policy Studies at VUW, but took their money away when IGPS wouldn’t produce what they wanted. So they set up The Integrity Institute. It is a trust, which means its finances are secret, unlike an incorporated society which must publish annual accounts.
The trust deed is shown above. I suggest people read it and make their own minds up over whether this is a neutral institute that aims to improve integrity in politics, or whether it it is lobby group that wants to take out other lobby groups.
One interesting aspect of the trust deed is they seem to dislike lawyers. They actually ban anyone who holds a law degree from being a trustee! I can’t imagine why you would ban anyone with a law degree from being a trustee. Maybe a lawyer once ran over a pet?
The Trust Deed is equivalent to the constitution for an incorporated society. It must be followed by the board and staff. Normally a constitutional document lists aims, but doesn’t dictate a work programme. For example the Taxpayers’ Union Constitution lists general objectives around lowering the tax burden, reducing wasteful spending but doesn’t dictate specific work.
The fourth schedule of the trust deed lists the priority work which is binding on the staff, and it is incredibly detailed. There is obviously no trust in staff to develop their own work programme in line with the objectives of the Institute. It is all laid out for them, and a few items ring alarm bells about what they actually are about.
So their first aim is to undermine Transparency International New Zealand, because they don’t like the fact their Perceptions of Corruption Index usually have New Zealand as one of the best countries. They start with a conclusion (that TINZ has created a myth) and then say they want research to back to their view. This is the opposite of integrity, in my opinion.
They have done even better than that. They have given Newsroom an unspecified amount of money, so Newsroom can investigate the groups they don’t like.
Yes, that’s right. Their version of integrity is to pay media to conduct sting operations against groups they don’t like.
Note the direction that they are to cherry pick OECD statistics where NZ does badly. They are not to review all statistics and give a complete picture.
They have of course only listed entities whose policies they disagree with. They presumably are unconcerned with Green Party MPs going straight into CEO positions at Greenpeace and Forest and Bird.
And as far as Taxpayers Union goes, the notion of a revolving door would make you think there is some sort of secret plan to have TU staff go into government jobs etc. The reality is other organisations poach the TU staff. I am tempted to joke that if ACT steal one more staffer from the TU, I’ll blow their building up!
Note again the only examples given are groups who broadly are seen on the non-left of politics. If they really want to research the origins of the TU, they could buy the very detailed 10 year history book which actually sets it out.
Again only certain organisations are targeted. There is no interest in the influence of the CTU on policy, or Eu Tu Union. I mean you have powerful lobby groups that actually fund the Labour Party, vote in their leadership elections, and get huge policy influence in Labour-led Governments. Do you think the Integrity Institute will ever cover these?
There are actually a number of policy areas where I agree with the Integrity Institute. I don’t think Ministers should go straight from the Cabinet table to a lobbying role. I do support a written constitution. I oppose corporate welfare schemes etc. I think transparency over lobbying is a good thing.
But unlike the founders of the Integrity Institute, I apply that to all lobbying. They have a view that lobbying by anyone who makes money is bad, and that lobbying by everyone else is good.
An institute established to expose corruption in politics is now being accused of playing dirty politics itself.
The Wellington-based Integrity Institute is financing journalists to expose what it claims are corrupt practices in New Zealand politics.
But it is who the Institute is trying to expose and how they are going about it that is raising the questions about their own integrity.
Their current target is Federated Farmers, and the Institute has funded the website Newsroom to expose what it says is the “power of the farm lobby.”
The Institute was established after a wealthy Christchurch couple, Grant and Marilyn Nelson, who had funded the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, fell out with its director, Professor Jonathan Boston.
And Federated Farmers have commented:
Langford said Federated Farmers had never heard of the ‘Integrity Institute’ until last week, when they were clearly identified as the funders of a story by David Williams on Newsroom.
“We’ve since seen the organisation’s highly prescriptive trust deed and it’s safe to say we have some significant concerns – ironically, about what seems to be a lack of integrity,” he said.
“I think Newsroom, and in particular David Williams, have some serious questions to answer about whether they’re engaging in pay-for-play journalism and dirty politics.
“The fact that Newsroom have taken money from the Integrity Institute seriously calls into question their editorial independence and journalistic integrity.”
Newsroom co-editor, Tim Murphy, rejects those charges.
“The grant we received from the Integrity Institute came with no strings attached,” he said.
“We are free to investigate any lobby group we choose.
This is, with respect, missing the point. For this grant, they may not have been told who to investigate, but if what the do doesn’t please the funders of the Integrity Institute, then they won’t get any future grants. If they do a series of reports on how the left wing Action Station hides its accounts behind a front company, will that get them another grant? Of course not. Only by targeting the groups explicitly mentioned in the Trust Deed.
The simple reality is that if you take money from one lobby group to investigate other lobby groups, you are compromised.
Here’s my challenge to Newsroom and the Integrity Institute. Reveal how much money they are being paid by the Integrity Institute, and publish the funding agreement.
The institute’s deed of trust records 26 “first priority” areas of focus, of which the first is to take down TINZ.
Specifically, point a) in the “research and educate” section is to “research the track record of TINZ to expose the myth they have created to help businesses make money by corrupting Government decision-making”.
So far, TINZ has maintained a dignified silence in response to some pretty inflammatory blogging from Edwards, who describes the organisation as having a “strategy” to undermine good public sector practice.
To anyone who’s ever interacted with TINZ, this will come as a bit of a surprise. TINZ has been advocating for better governance practices among governments for years. If anything, it is guilty of a quality of earnestness that can tend to blunt impact.
It is fascinating that the II wants to undermine TINZ, rather than work with them. In the public policy space I often see organisations work together that disagree on some things, but agree on others. The TU and the NZ Initiative often have disagreements on particular policy issues (such as petrol tax reductions) but they don’t try and take each other out because of them.
Among the Integrity Institute’s other objectives is to “pay news media expenses to conduct a sting operation to record a lobbyist and a politician agreeing to arrange special favours”, such as “to get funds or favours for a business sector”.
Journalists: form an orderly queue, but don’t hold your breath for an early result.
Again what is interesting about this is what it reveals about the Integrity Institute’s beliefs. They are convinced that lobbyists literally buy off politicians.
Sometimes, those who claim to defend democracy are the ones who misunderstand it most. The Integrity Institute’s recent campaign, ostensibly about exposing undue influence over policy, has revealed something more troubling: a fundamental confusion about how policy advice, participation, and legitimacy actually work in democratic systems. …
The policy advisory literature has long since moved past the myth of the neutral bureaucracy. As Craft and Howlett (2012) argue, modern advisory systems are pluralised and layered. Policy advice no longer flows solely from within the state. It emerges through dynamic interaction between political actors, ministerial advisers, public servants, and external stakeholders: including iwi, hapū, academics, commentators, lobbyists, consultants, contractors, industry and community interest groups, and civil society. This is not a breakdown in integrity. It is a shift in how democratic knowledge is produced and contested; a shift that has been underway since 1996, when we began correcting for the distortions of the 1980s’ new public management reforms.
Rather than engage with this shift, the Integrity Institute appears to reject its premise. In targeting Federated Farmers, the Institute frames visible, declared advocacy as inherently suspect. Yet publishing policy platforms, meeting with ministers, or advocating for sector interests is entirely within the bounds of democratic practice. As Craft and Halligan (2020) remind us, robust advisory systems must accommodate both internal and external sources of advice. To treat advocacy as corruption is to misread the core architecture of modern policy-making.
This conflation is not just technically inaccurate. It is democratically dangerous. Legitimacy in policy does not come from insulation. As I have been exploring in the Waitangi Tribunal Thursdays series, and arguing in The Practical State, it comes from contestability, transparency, and deliberative engagement.
The bolded parts are key. We are seeing concerted campaigns to basically say that advocacy should be limited or ignored, if it is from certain sectors. They demand that public servants refuse to respond to e-mails from advocates they don’t like. They complain that officials spent more time meeting with farmers who have to implement freshwater regulations than groups who don’t have to.
It is democratically dangerous to say that the Government which has the power to pass laws and regulations that can make or break businesses, should limit interactions with those businesses.
That does not mean they should always agree with the point of view of business lobby groups. All regulations and laws produce a mixture of benefits and costs. Decisions will be made based on the respective magnitudes and priorities.
If there is corrupt secret lobbying with promises of donations for policies, I am 100% in favour of exposing those. But public open advocacy by groups such as Federated Farmers should not be seen as is any way suspect.
Anyway in the interest of integrity and transparency I look forward to the contract between the Integrity Institute and Newsroom being published.
