On 7 May, there will be elections in Scotland, Wales and much of England. Up will be:

• 5,066 councillors on 136 English councils
• Six directly elected Mayors

The latest poll projections have Labour losing around 1,700 of their 2,200 councillors with the gains being Reform +1,450, Greens +900, Lib Dems +330. Losing 80% of your seats is terrible.

In the Welsh Senedd, Labour have 30 seats of the 60 seats. Current polls have them dropping to 12 behind Reform on 37 and Plaid Cymru on 36 (increase in seats to 96).

In the Scottish Parliament they are running in third place behind the SNP and Reform.

This may lead to an unusual situation where the Parliaments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will all be led by parties that wish to secede from the United Kingdom.

The Herald reports:

The Government has signed a “letter of intent” with Z Energy to procure 90 million litres of diesel, which is the equivalent of an additional nine days’ supply. 

The fuel will be delivered to Marsden Point, either as a single cargo or two cargoes. It will be stored here in a refurbished tank, which is expected to be available for use from early June.

This is a very important, even vital, thing to do. We currently have sufficient supply into NZ. But when or if that diminishes, what will be vital is how many days storage we have in NZ.

There is no point in reducing demand if we don’t have the storage capacity. Doing one without the other, will just mean we start turning tankers away as there is no storage for them.

Henry Cooke points out:

At this point in 2023, National had launched its income tax policy, its FamilyBoost childcare policy, its renewable electricity generation policy, its policy on interest deductibility for rentals, its brightline test policy, some of its Overseas Investment Act plans, its boot camp and gang patch policies, its youth welfare policies, its “Local Water Done Well” repeal of Three Waters, and a whole bevy of other promised reversals or initiatives.

At this point in 2017, Labour had announced KiwiBuild, its Healthy Homes policy for tenancies, its intended expansion of the Reserve Bank’s mandate, its Tax Working Group to look at capital gains taxes (CGT), a Centre of Digital Excellence in Dunedin, and a whole bunch of other reversals and initiatives, all under the leadership of Andrew Little.

This is in contrast to Chris Hipkins who has announced close to nothing.

Such a narrow policy platform makes it easy for opponents to intimate that there must be something far scarier hidden up your sleeve – or in the platforms of your potential coalition partners. It forces your MPs into media appearances where they can only talk of the problems with their opponents and never about the positive ways they want to change New Zealand. And it can simply make you look unserious and uninterested in the challenges the country has, like a restorationist project for New Zealand in 2023, rather than a team trying to take things forward.

Unserious is a good term.

The Herald reported:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held crisis talks with Foreign Minister Winston Peters in the Beehive last night after Peters’ office released emails to the Herald showing Luxon wanted to shift the Government’s position to show “explicit public support” for the US-led war in Iran days after it broke out.

Luxon was talked out of this position by Peters and staff in Peters’ office, the emails show.

Responding to the emails before the crisis meeting, a spokesman for Peters said Luxon’s support for the war was “imprudent” and would have “run counter to New Zealand’s national interests”.

“Experience matters in foreign policy,” he said.

The Herald contacted Luxon’s office for their response to the story. A spokesman for Luxon responded on Wednesday night, after the meeting, saying the emails “mischaracterise the PM’s position”.

“As you’d expect, it is the PM’s job to always challenge the advice he receives and, in this case, he sought to test New Zealand’s position against that of Canada and Australia.

“The public statements made by the Government reflect the PM’s position. If they didn’t, they would not have been made,” they said.

The normal aspect to this is a Prime Minister gets feedback on a draft position, and the final position varies after receiving the advice. This is a good thing.

The Labour/left Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada and UK all took more supportive stances towards the initial (not later) US strikes on Iran. It would be no surprise that the PM would say, should our stance not be the same. MFAT and the MFA said no, and their advice was taken. That is all normal.

What is abnormal is the release of these e-mails under the OIA, and how they were done. The OIA states information should not be released that could prejudice the international relations of NZ. Additionally it can be withheld under protecting collective and individual ministerial responsibility, the confidentiality of advice tendered by Ministers of the Crown and officials; or free and frank expression of opinions by or between or to Ministers of the Crown. I’d say it is 99.99% likely the Ombudsman would rule those e-mails do not have to be released under the OIA.

Further more Peters’ office unilaterally released these, not in consultation with the other Minister involved (the PM). This was a gross breach of policy and procedure. It was clearly deliberate, and designed to make the Prime Minister look bad.

What Peters did is very abnormal. There seem to be only two reasonable explanations.

1. He is peeved off that Luxon and Willis hit back at him, after he needlessly started commenting on the National Party leadership. So he did it in a fit of pique. It is just tit for tat.
2. He is setting things up, so he can backtrack on his promise not to go with Labour.

I don’t know which it is.

The Herald reports:

The Speaker has stepped into a stand-off between the National Party and TVNZ over the way two of its journalists – including political editor Maiki Sherman – tried to interview National whip Stuart Smith in a Parliament corridor late on Tuesday night last week.

Sherman and at least one other colleague could face a temporary ban from covering politics at Parliament if the Speaker has found TVNZ breached longstanding press gallery rules.

“The matters relating to gallery behaviour and that of the TVNZ political editor last week are being considered in a process long agreed by the gallery,” Speaker Gerry Brownlee said in a statement provided to Media Insider today.

He said he would “not be making any further comment at this point”.

The key document here are the rules on Interviewing MPs. Rule 18 says:

Members of the Press Gallery must not pursue members, staff, or users of Parliament who decline to be interviewed.

Pretty clear. You can question them and film them in the public area (the tiles) outside the House. But you are not allowed to follow them from there. On the basis of what has been reported, the TVNZ staff clearly broke that rule.

Interviewing, filming or photographing a member in the corridor outside the member’s office is permitted only if the member agrees.

Also very clear.

If the reports are accurate of what TVNZ did, there seems no doubt that they have broken the rules (which are long standing). The only real issue is what the sanction will be.

UPDATE: The Herald has reported a five day suspension for Sherman.

Interesting profile on Banks Peninsula MP Vanessa Weenink. Her background includes:

• Saw her dad arrested when she was 5 years old
• Almost died at 8 from osteomyelitis
• Her dad died when she was 19
• Went to medical school
• Enlisted in NZ Army and served for 22 years
• Two deployments to Afghanistan and one to East Timor
• Did a 22 hour shift as a triage team leader during the Christchurch earthquake
• Shifted parties from Labour to National as she realised people should have independence, autonomy of thought, and reward for achievement.
• Was Chair of the GP Council of the NZ Medical Assn

Those on the hard left think National MPs all come from privileged backgrounds. The reality is quite different.

The Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal by Brenton Tarrant as “utterly devoid of merit”. The weasel realised he was going to lose, so tried to drop the appeal, but the court refused, and have usefully put on the record his appeal was hopeless – effectively meaning he can’t have another try later on.

Now we can forget all about him, knowing he will never ever be released.

Simon Court’s Facebook post about the parliamentary declaration condemning antisemitism recently created an avalanche of antisemitic posts in the comments with the most vile content imaginable. These screenshots could have come straight out of Nazi Germany:

And that’s just a few of the hundreds of vile comments on there. But as to the titular post, I reported Rayray King for hate speech for saying “Fuck the jews”:

A week later Facebook replied saying this was not a violation of their Community Standards. Personally, I think it says everything about the worldview of the people who own Facebook that “fuck the Jews” is not hate speech.

I thought it was pretty bad a few years ago when I reported someone posting a picture of a spade with ashes on it and a caption “how to pick up Jewish chicks” and this was held not to violate the rules, but thought perhaps AI moderation found it difficult to pick up on what was being said. But Facebook’s Community Standards explicitly list posts saying “Fuck the —” (where — is a protected characteristic) as an example of hate speech, and says that ethnicity (and for that matter religion) is a protected characteristic. That’s not hard even for AI moderation to understand.

Hypocrites.

Radio NZ reports:

The Greens are defending their candidate for Māngere, saying now he has been selected he will be expected to meet different standards of behaviour.

Michel Mulipola was recently confirmed as the Green Party candidate for the South Auckland seat of Māngere.

Social media posts have surfaced showing him ripping up the New Zealand flag, calling police ‘pigs’, and a member of the coalition government as a “piece of s***”. …

ACT Party leader David Seymour said the Green co-leaders defending Mulipola were encouraging a path towards political violence.

The position of the Green Party is they are fine with a candidate cheering on political assassinations of right wingers and thinking the Police are c**ts, as long as he longer says so publicly!

Do you think he will be made Minister for Police or Minister of Justice if the Greens are in Government?

The NZ Herald reports:

TVNZ threatened to sue Newstalk ZB after a producer raised questions with the state broadcaster about an incident in which its political editor, Maiki Sherman, allegedly used a homophobic slur, ZB host Mike Hosking says.

Hosking told listeners today that his producer, Sam Carran, had been investigating the alleged incident – in which Sherman allegedly directed the word “f****t” at journalist Lloyd Burr during an event in Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ office – in the latter part of 2025. 

“We got to a point where we were going to say something about it,” Hosking said.

But when Carran went to TVNZ to seek a response, the state broadcaster came back to him saying it did not comment on employment matters – followed soon after by a legal letter from a corporate law firm, understood to be Russell McVeagh. 

“TVNZ threatened to sue us,” Hosking told listeners.

I’m not sure who looks worse in this.

First you have TVNZ threatening another media company with defamation, in relation to a story that appears to be 100% factually accurate (in that no one since Ani O’Brien published has said it is wrong). So the state owned broadcaster is using legal threats to squash an accurate story that one of their staff behaved badly.

But you also have NZME that got the legal threat, and decided to then sit on its hands. Once upon a time, a defamation threat would make a media outlet even more determined to publish. Would they have backed down to a non-media company acting the same?

And people wonder why there is low trust in media. This is why.

Andrew Sullivan quotes a pithy summary of what Trump has said he wants:

Unconditional surrender. Regime change. Partnership with regime for tariffing the strait. Close the strait. Open the strait. No nukes. Some nukes. No missiles. Some missiles. Civilization wipeout. Ceasefire. War. Peace. And if all that fails, we’ll take the JCPOA.

This isn’t 4d chess. At best it is snakes and ladders.

Sullivan notes:

This is the art of the deal? Please. Day-by-day contradictions, countless red lines crossed and crossed again, weird declarations of total victory, followed by even weirder threats to blow everything up again: at some point, even Goebbels would give up. Five deadlines have been set and five deadlines have passed without Iran capitulating.

Trump appears to be getting outsmarted by a supreme leader who may be in a coma!

The Southern Poverty Law Centre used to be a great institution. It used to be a major foe of the KKK and did a great job. But it has now morphed into a radical left group that classified almost anyone in the right as an extremist.

As a university student I was a huge supporter and member of Amnesty International. They stood up for political prisoners everywhere. Now they are extremely selective with their campaigns, and have widened their sphere to much wider political issues.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists did a great job with the Doomsday Clock where thermonuclear war really was an existential threat. Since the end of the Cold War, they have also become a ridiculous organisation that keeps moving the clock closer to midnight, on the basis of new criteria such as AI and climate change.

Oxfam used to be a great aid organisation. Now they are a political lobby group disguised as a charity.

The ALCU used to be a fearless defender of civil rights. They would defend even the right of Nazis to protest. Now they won’t even defend the right of people to hold gender critical views. Likewise the NZ Council for Civil Liberties only seems to come to life for views their activists agree with.

In New Zealand multiple bodies that used to have huge respect across the political spectrum – the Medical Council, the Law Society etc have become captured by left wing activists and are trying to impose Treaty ideology on their professions at the risk of deregistration.

These are not isolated examples. It is happening everywhere. When we talk about the falling trust in institutions, part of the problem is the capture of institutions by the left. They can’t just leave them to remain with a narrow focus – the KKK, political prisoners, registering doctors etc. They have to transform them into allies for their left wing views. The result is they lose status and trust.

I heard some time ago the story that the TVNZ Political Editor called a (gay) journalist the fa***t word at a function in a Minister’s office last year. I did not hear about it from an MP or staffer. I was amazed that it was never reported on.

Ani O’Brien did what no one else (including me) would and ran it yesterday. It has now (finally) been covered by legacy media outlets.

I have three main thoughts on this.

1. Calling a gay person the f word, in anger, is a terrible thing to do. This isn’t just being rude or slightly offensive. It is something that you just do not do.
2. I don’t think Maiki should lose her job over it, and it should not define her. People sometimes stuff up and do bad things. We should judge people over their entire contribution, not solely on the basis of the worst thing they have ever done. We are too quick to tear people down.
3. There has been an incredible double standard with the cone of silence over what happened (in front of many journalists). Yes, it was a private social function, but consider whether it would not have been reported if say an MP had called a gay journalist the F word. Of course it would have. Or not even an MP – say a staffer, a public servant, or a business person. If 20 journalists saw (for example) a high profile businessman call someone the f word, it would have been reported within minutes or hours.

It is the double standard that has wound most people up. Anyone else would have faced journalists camping outside their workplace or home asking them if they will resign, whether they hate gay people etc. They would have to (at a minimum) do a public statement apologising for their behaviour etc.

Some have suggested it was nor reported on as there is a convention what happens at private functions at Parliament is off the record. They are right, that there is an expectation of privacy at social events. What you say to people at the press gallery party for example is not for reporting. And if you drink a bit too much and say something embarrassing, again that is not news worthy. But there is a line. And calling a gay journalists a fa***t as part of an argument clearly crosses the line. If someone called a Maori journalist a n****r at a social function, would you really argue that is not reportable?

Now again, while it is was newsworthy, I think people should have some compassion for Maiki. She’s the mum of six children and has to explain to them why she is in the news, not reporting it. I suspect she is mortified by what she did, and again you should not judge someone by the worse thing they have done.

But people might rightfully say media have not been known for showing compassion to others who have behaved badly. Again it is the double standard.

Whenever I have interviewed children – and their parents – for a school place my key question has been: Do you read often?

If they say yes … I know we already have a young person on a great path.

If they say no … my response is that we need to change that!

This article – among many others – supports that plan.

”A child who starts reading for fun by age nine enters adolescence with measurably different brain structure than a peer who never picked up the habit. That is the central finding of a study published in Psychological Medicine, which examined brain scans and cognitive tests from more than 10,000 young adolescents across the United States.”

”Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Fudan University in Shanghai found that early reading for pleasure correlated with larger total brain cortical areas and volumes. The differences appeared in regions that govern language processing, attention control, and sensory integration, including the temporal, frontal, and insula cortices. Those same regions have been previously linked to improved mental health and behavioral regulation.”

“Teenagers who read for pleasure every day correctly identified 26 percent more words than peers who never read in their spare time. Those who grew up in homes with many books scored 42 percent higher than teenagers from homes with few books. After the team controlled for parental education, occupation, and cognitive tests administered when the children were five, daily readers still scored 12 percent higher.”

For the record – not only did I encourage my children to read – I read to them every night from when they were two until 14 years old. These were some of the books:

The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien

The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien

The Father Christmas Letters – J. R. R. Tolkien

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – J. R. R. Tolkien

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil – J. R. R. Tolkien

Farmer Giles of Ham – J. R. R. Tolkien

Smith of Wootton Major – J. R. R. Tolkien

Leaf by Niggle – J. R. R. Tolkien

The Magician’s Nephew – C. S. Lewis

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis

The Horse and His Boy – C. S. Lewis

Prince Caspian – C. S. Lewis

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C. S. Lewis

The Silver Chair – C. S. Lewis

The Last Battle – C. S. Lewis

Pilgrims Regress – C. S. Lewis

The Back of the North Wind – George MacDonald

The Princess and the Goblin – George MacDonald

The Princess and Curdie – George MacDonald

The Golden Key – George MacDonald

The Complete Fairy Tales – George MacDonald

Phantastes – George MacDonald

The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

Tom Brown’s Schooldays – Thomas Hughes

The Enchanted Castle – E. Nesbit

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

The Tanglewood’s Secret – Patricia St John

Treasures of the Snow – Patricia St John

The Victor – Patricia St John

Rainbow Garden – Patricia St John

The Mystery of Pheasant Cottage – Patricia St John

Star of Light – Patricia St John

The Secret of the Fourth Candle – Patricia St John

In the Grip of Winter – Colin Dann

The Big Fisherman – Lloyd C. Douglas

The Robe – Lloyd C. Douglas

The Jungle Book (1 & 2) – Rudyard Kipling

Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling

Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Swiss Family Robinson – Jonnie Wyss

Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

To Kill a Mocking Bird – Harper Lee

Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl

The Minpins – Roald Dahl

James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – Roald Dahl

Revolting Rhymes – Roald Dahl

The Giraffe the Pelly and Me – Roald Dahl

Dirty Beasts – Roald Dahl

Chalie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

Esio Trot – Roald Dahl

My Year – Roald Dahl

The BFG – Roald Dahl

Boy – Roald Dahl

George’s Marvelous Medecine – Roald Dahl

Danny The Champion of the World – Roald Dahl

Going Solo – Roald Dahl

Matilda – Roald Dahl

The Secret Garden Frances – Hodgson Burnett

Hans Andersons Fairy Tales Hans Christian Anderson

I Am David – Anne Holm

The Silver Sword – Ian Serraillier

Peter Pan – J. M. Barrie

Artemis Fowl – Eion Colfer

Winnie the Pooh – A. A. Milne

And Then We Were Six – A. A. Milne

Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

The Little White Horse – Elizabeth Gouge

Aesop’s Fables – Aesop

White Fang – Jack London

Dragon Boy – Dick King-Smith

Babe – Dick King-Smith

Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White

Stuart Little – E. B. White

The Knight and the Squire – Terry Jones

Watership Down – Richard Adams

The Odyssey – Homer

Anamalia – Graeme Base

The Eleventh Hour – Graeme Base

The Discovery of Dragons – Graeme Base

The 27^th Annual African Hippopotamus Race – Morris Lurie

The Snow Goose – Paul Gallico

Gullivers Travels – Jonathan Swift

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

365 Bible Stories – God

Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll

Alan Quartermain – Rider Haggard

Exodus – Leon Uris

The Storm – Frederick Buechner

On the Road with the Archangel – Frederick Buechner

Son of Laughter – Frederick Buechner

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

[email protected]

The Government announced:

“Compared to other countries, New Zealand has very frequent inspections for light vehicles. Modern light vehicles are significantly safer and more reliable, but our rules haven’t kept pace, imposing unnecessary costs on motorists. Other countries including Ireland, Germany, Japan, and Australia inspect every one to two years or at ownership change and achieve comparable or better safety outcomes,” Mr Bishop says.

“The Government’s changes mean that most light vehicles under 14 years old will move to two-yearly WoF inspections (up from yearly), and new vehicles will go four years before their second WoF. Older vehicles, motorcycles, and light rental vehicles will move from six-monthly to yearly inspections.

“These simple changes will deliver massive benefits for Kiwis. The cost-benefit analysis shows the changes are expected to deliver between $2.6 billion and $4.1 billion in net benefits over 30 years through reduced inspection fees, less time spent on compliance, and fewer unnecessary repairs.

This is an excellent move. The current regime imposes huge costs for little if any benefit. A brand new car doesn’t need to have a check up after 12 months.

Most US states, Australian states and Canadian provinces don’t even have any mandated regular check. Our new regime is a sensible compromise.

Fran O’Sullivan writes:

Christopher Luxon’s Government is putting its distinct imprint on New Zealand’s trade strategy, one that treats economic security as seriously as market access.

This will come into sharp focus when Luxon travels to Singapore in early May for top-level talks with his prime ministerial counterpart Lawrence Wong, the launch of the inaugural Singapore New Zealand Leadership Forum and the first steps in a strategy to triangulate the Singapore, New Zealand, Australia relationship.

The evolving economic security architecture owes far more to Covid-era improvisation and the current fuel crisis than to traditional trade diplomacy.

The most obvious demonstration is a novel agreement with Singapore under which the city-state commits to continue supplying fuel to New Zealand in return for continued food exports.

According to a senior official, it is possibly unique in the world: two countries voluntarily waiving their rights to impose export restrictions on each other in a crisis.

This agreement is a life saver for NZ. We guarantee food exports to Singapore and they guarantee fuel to NZ. As supply reduces and prices increase, this could make a huge difference.

This is why trade agreements with other countries are so important. Both for the actual legal commitments, but also for the relationship it builds. NZ is a very small country, and needs friends.

This is why scaremongering over the India FTA on the basis of 200 extra migrants a year is so stupid. It is literally putting New Zealand last. You really want to snub the most populous country on earth?

So the Green Party selected as a candidate a guy who:

• calls Police c**ts and pigs
• calls a Minister a “piece of shit”
• shared a cartoon that depict one minister with faeces streaming from his eyes and an anus for a mouth
• shared a cartoon showing a baboon with a minister’s face on its rear
• celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk

The Green Party say their values include:

Engage respectfully, without personal attacks

Such effing hypocrites.

David Seymour announced:

Regulation Minister David Seymour welcomes the appointment of the Regulatory Standards Board (the Board), established by the Regulatory Standard Act 2025 (the Act). 

“The Board will provide expert oversight and advice on new and existing regulation. It will assess laws against principles of good regulatory practice, including necessity, proportionality, transparency, and consistency with the rule of law,” says Mr Seymour. 

“The Board will be a strong watchdog. It will make sure the costs of regulations are made clear to voters. 

One of the biggest drags on the economy and productivity is regulatory burden, especially regulations that produce few benefits and exact great costs.

The members are:

• Mr Paul Ridley Smith (Chair)
• Mr Ian Chamberlain 
• Ms Julie Hardaker 
• Professor Ananish Chaudhuri 
• Mr Carl Hansen 
• Dr Nicola Swain 

I know and rate half the members of the board, and the others seem well qualified. If they do a good job, we will all be the winners.

I’ve been impressed with what I would call the PM getting some mongrel in the last few weeks, as his leadership came under attack. Let’s look at what he did.

1. Someone (not necessarily the PM) arranged for the names of suspected dissident MPs to be given to Hosking.
2. Called a vote of confidence in his own leadership, forcing people to put up or shut up
3. At the press conference refused to take questions from media, correctly judging that the result would speak for itself
4. Hit back at Peters (along with Willis) when Peters decided he would become a political commentator on the National leadership, reminding people he put Ardern and the Greens into power.
5. Got a complaint filed against TVNZ banging on the office door of National MP Stuart Smith, demanding he come out
6. Pulled out of Breakfast TV as it became apparent the interviews were more about gotcha moments (can you name your Maori Ministers) than discussing issues that matter to NZers

I think it is good the PM is showing some teeth.

Something I have picked up anecdotally is that there has been a bit of a sympathy backlash in the PMs favour, as people think that breathless coverage updated hourly over bad poll results is just ridiculous. Several people I know who are not particularly political have said that they think it was just too much, and they felt sorry for Luxon.