1 News reports:

Lennox Goodhue-Wikitera, 17, has been keeping students cool over the summer with his Juicie treats since 2022. But the school’s board of trustees now says he can only sell the frozen juice if he hands over all profits to the school and doesn’t take a wage. That’s despite donating around $3000 to the college of money made by the enterprise. 

“In late 2021, the canteen at our school closed down, and I had this lightbulb moment, walking around thinking I could really do with a Juicie right now because it was so hot and there was no canteen then the light bulb moment came – why don’t I just sell them?” he said.

“The next day, I turned up with a chilly bin in tow. I started selling them for about $1.50, sold a few at first, every day I kept selling more and more.”

Great to see Lennox seeing a need, and filling it.

In addition to the ice block sales, Lennox set up a business buying and selling imported products online and in his store, Bali Boutique, on the main street of Kaitāia.

He’d also attended a free IRD workshop in Kaitāia to learn more about his tax responsibilities. IRD staff later visited him at school during lunchtime to help him file his tax returns. He now has an accountant who does that for him. 

Amazing. We need more students like Lennox. And good on IRD for being helpful.

However, this year Lennox ran into problems once again with his ice block sales when the board asked to see a breakdown of his business expenses and saw Lennox had been paying himself a wage. 

“So profit is revenue minus expenses right, so there are lots of expenses involved in running this enterprise, for example I have to purchase chilly bins, I have to use my petrol to drive to Pak’nSave, there’s power in the freezer at home, also my time is expensive so I charge a very fair remuneration for myself,” said Lennox.

The board stopped him from selling at school again.

So the board banned him, because he had the temerity to pay himself a wage for his time. What an awful message this sends young people.

The Herald reports:

Welcome to Wellington, where council leaders from around the country have met in a convention centre that the Prime Minister thinks is an example of wasteful spending and is just down the road from a burst water main that has turned a street into a paddling pool.

The Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) conference started today in the capital. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon could not have asked for a better backdrop to deliver a sharply worded speech about council spending that did not go down well with some of Wellington’s leaders.

Luxon hit back at councils demanding more funding and support from central government while avoiding tightening their own belts.

The convention centre is a prime example of a non core activity, which is part of the reason rates are increasing 20%.

He also took advantage of the LGNZ conference location – Wellington’s $180 million Tākina convention centre. The audience of mayors from around the country was audibly disgruntled.

“It looks very nice, and it’s very nice that politicians like us have a wonderful space to make some great speeches in,” Luxon said.

“But can anyone seriously say it was the right financial decision or the highest priority for Wellington, given all of its challenges?”

Tākina has been criticised as a white elephant.

Councils can do some things very well. Wellington City has some brilliant playgrounds. The new library and cafe in Johnsonville has been a massive boon to the area. Playgrounds, libraries, parks, roads, water infrastructure etc is what we value and should be top priority.

Green Party regional councillor Thomas Nash said Luxon’s speech was “one of the most mana diminishing, paternalistic and visionless speeches to a group of people I have ever heard”.

Must have been a great speech then.

The Herald also summarises some changes announced by the Government:

• Refocusing the purpose provisions in the Local Government Act by removing four wellbeings from the Local Government Act.
• Investigating performance benchmarks for local councils.
• Investigating options to limit council expenditure on nice-to-haves through a regulator that would cap rate increases for non-core spending.
• Reviewing transparency and accountability rules to make it easier for councillors to request information from council staff, possibly by a written question system.
• Reforming the code of conduct process to balance councillors’ freedom of speech rights with spurious and politicised code of conduct investigations.

I’m not sure about having a regulator for local government spending. What I’d rather have is more decision making by ratepayers. Why not have any major project that would lead to a significant rates increase beyond inflation go to ratepayer/resident referendum?

We need more electricity, especially renewable energy. But once again actually getting consent is the problem. We currently have high wholesale rates due to shortages, and

Stuff reports:

Labour leader Chris Hipkins is distancing himself from his MP’s position that benefit sanctions are a “good idea” for those under the age of 20.

Labour has been vocal about the ramping up of the use of sanctions by the Government, calling it “callous”, that the government was “picking on” beneficiaries, and had a “willingness to kick people while they were down”.

But Greg O’Connor, Labour’s Ōhāriu MP, has said twice over the past week that he thinks applying sanctions to young jobseekers is warranted.

“Particularly for young ones, I’ll put my neck out, I think they’re actually not necessarily a bad thing, particularly maybe for those under 21,” he told The Working Group podcast.

Nice to have common sense from a Labour MP.

The Herald reports:

The carbon price is expected to rise on news the Government is slashing the number of tonnes of planet-heating emissions for sale by more than half.

Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said advice he has received suggests the impact on household bills should be “minimal”, adding only 3-4c a litre to petrol by 2029.

“We need the carbon price to encourage businesses and individuals to reduce their emissions to meet our climate targets,” he said.

The coalition is hoping that by selling fewer permits-to-pollute, it will flush out stockpiles of carbon credits companies are holding onto. Tuesday’s announcement means it will offer radically fewer units or permits than previously announced from 2025-2029.

This is a good thing. The whole idea of the ETS is that the number of units for sale reduces over time. This sends a market signal around investment, and allows individuals businesses to respond to demand, rather than have age Government trying to dictate what should happen.

But Watts said advice he had received suggested the impact would be small.

“The impact on inflation, our estimate is it could increase CPI inflation by 0.03 of a percentage point by 2029 so that pretty insignificant,” he said.

“Petrol you’re potentially looking at 1% by 2029 or around 3-4 cents a litre.”

That seems a small impact.

There has been a lot of scrutiny of Vice-Presidental candidate Tim Walz’s military service. Many Republicans say he has blatantly lied and claimed stolen valor. Many Democrats have said there is nothing to it at all.

The most balanced take I have seen comes from The Free Press. Their conclusion:

Over the years, there have been plenty of politicians who have exaggerated their military service—or falsely claimed to serve when they never did. On the one hand, it seems as though we can now add Tim Walz to that list. On the other hand, his transgressions appear to be more sloppy than venal. Whether his comments qualify as “stolen valor” is in the eye of the beholder. 

I am a huge fan of The Free Press, as it genuinely scrutinises both sides.

Law News reports:

I attended a LEANZ webinar recently where Karen Feint KC and Gary Judd KC debated the issue of compulsory teaching of tikanga Māori in law schools.

In keeping with their rank, both articulated their positions clearly and civilly.

They showed how we should engage with each other over controversial issues and how members of the legal profession can make valuable contributions to civil society.

We should not cower in our legal caves for fear of cancellation or disapproval.

Once upon a time, it was the norm to politely debate controversial issues. Now we have Law School Deans who throw insults and abuse at people whose views they disagree with. Glad to see LEANZ (Law and Economics Assn of NZ) is a Forum that still welcomes debate. Does the Law Society?

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has told Parliament he believes Māori ceded sovereignty to the Crown.

During Question Time, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick pushed him on the issue multiple times, asking, “does the Prime Minister believe that Māori ceded sovereignty?”

Luxon responded, saying “our position is the Crown is sovereign”.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters interjected, citing prominent former Māori MP Sir Apirana Ngata from 1922.

“Is it a fact that, 102 years ago in a major thesis, Sir Āpirana Ngata set out the very circumstances of the Treaty, and he said that Māori ceded sovereignty.”

“As I said, our position is the Crown is sovereign,” repeated Luxon, “and also, importantly, the Treaty of Waitangi has protections in there for both Crown and Māori interests.”

It is a somewhat pointless debate. You can argue all you like about what was the intention of 200 chiefs 180 years ago, but it doesn’t change the reality that the elected Government of New Zealand has sovereignty over the Realm of New Zealand, and has exercised it for many scores of years.

Sovereignty is not based on ancestry or race, but territory.

The WP reports:

In a statement released late Wednesday night, the Harris campaign said that if elected, she would push for the “first-ever federal ban” on food price hikes

Rob Muldoon would like his policy from the 1980s back please.

It is depressing how bad the Harris policy positions are.

The ABC reports:

For most schools, it doesn’t get much better than seeing academic scores skyrocket.

At Upwey South Primary School, in Melbourne’s outer-eastern suburbs, that is exactly what has happened.

In the past six years, its NAPLAN results across the board have surged — in reading alone, scores lifted by a massive 70 points.

At the average NAPLAN result is around 400 so an increase of 70 is huge. That’s almost one standard deviation so would be like moving from the 16th to the 84th percentile or from the 84th to the 95th percentile.

Six years ago, the school decided to change the way it taught literacy, abandoning an approach known as “whole language”, or balanced literacy, popular on university campuses.

It switched to a more direct, evidence-based approach known as “structured literacy”.

The approach Erica Stanford has mandated.

Mr Kitch retrained the school’s teachers in direct, explicit instruction.

“And since we began … we’ve just seen huge positive results across the school, not just in academics for English but also in mathematics, in the culture of the school and in children’s engagement,” he said.

So this approach works for maths also, despite claims it doesn’t.

The teaching practices at Upwey South have now been adopted across all of Victoria’s public schools.

The move was opposed by teachers’ unions, but momentum has been growing — a number of private schools have started retraining teachers in explicit instruction, too.

Victoria has been covered by the Victorian Labor Party since 2014, so this happened under a Labor Party that isn’t beholden to local teacher unions.

David Seymour announced:

Associate Education Minister David Seymour says the Charter Schools Agency (CSA) has received 78 applications to open new charter schools, or to convert existing state schools to charter schools.

“This shows the demand from educators to free themselves from the shackles of the state system and meet the needs of students who are being failed by the current system,” says Mr Seymour.

“The education sector is facing several challenges, particularly regarding attendance and achievement. The ‘one size fits all’ model offered by the current school system struggles to address these challenges.”

Funding provided by Budget 24 will allow 15 new charter schools and the conversion of 35 state schools to charter schools in 2025 and 2026 depending on demand and suitability.

“Due to demand outstripping the funding made available in Budget 24, I acknowledge some sponsors will be disappointed when final decisions are made by the CSA,” says Mr Seymour.

It is good that there are more applications than capacity at this stage, as it should mean only the most convincing applications proceed.

“Charter schools will be subject to a high level of monitoring and accountability and could be shut down if they do not achieve the outcomes they were funded to achieve.

Imagine if that applied to all schools – you face closure if you don’t achieve agreed upon outcomes!

A guest post by Lucy Rogers:

Today (as of the time of writing) I saw Associate Professor Michael Mawson of the theology faculty at Auckland University advertise on Facebook an event hosting Professor Miguel De La Torre, a Cuban academic specialising in liberation theology. The event is to be held at the Maclaurin Chapel at Auckland University at the apparent invitation of Associate Professor Mawson.

I responded on his post (which was public) making the following six points:

• Cuba is a brutal communist tyranny.

• While Professor De La Torre is a Cuban himself, any public criticisms of the Cuban government seem curiously absent, despite Cuba’s atrocious human rights record. Instead he focusses his attention exclusively on the many misdeeds of the United States (which I acknowledge, by the way, are egregious).

• Professor De La Torre has spoken as an academic at Cuban universities with the blessing of the Cuban government (whereas you can imagine of course the reaction if an academic who had spoken at Nazi universities was invited to speak at Auckland University). 

• Professor De La Torre has “taken students on immersion classes to Cuba” according to his own website: http://drmigueldelatorre.com/

• Professor De La Torre’s area of academic speciality, liberation theology, which he is speaking on at the University of Auckland,  was an invention of the KGB during the Cold War as a device of ideological warfare against the West: https://catholicnewsagency.com/news/31919/former-soviet-spy-we-created-liberation-theologyThe KGB were the secret police of Joseph Stalin, who murdered 20 million people including Christians.

• That accordingly for a Christian institution like the Maclaurin Chapel to host Professor De La Torre was morally wrong. (Having said that, I of course respect the legal right of such a person to speak at Auckland University and would never dream of employing the power of the state to prevent such an event.)

I tagged Professor De La Torre himself in the comments and politely called on him to publicly whakahengia (condemn) the arrest of Sissi Abascal, 23-year-old member of the indigenous Cuban dissident group the Ladies in White, who was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for her non-violent protests against the Cuban government on July 11 2021: https://translatingcuba.com/cuban-prisoner-sissi-abascal-punished-for-refusing-to-shout-slogans-in-favor-of-the-regime/

To my amusement, but not altogether to my surprise, within half an hour Associate Professor Mawson had blocked me on Facebook. He does not want Cuba’s human rights violations to be made known to the public of Aotearoa, New Zealand.

While Nazi atrocities are widely known, the actions of the Cuban government are far less so. Autobiographies of Cuban dissidents, like Against All Hope by Armando Valladares, describe the pono (truth) which is that the revolution in 1959 resulted in mass murder. Thousands more people were sent to labour camps, including LGBTQI+ people who were subject to mass arrests. To this day freedom of the press, freedom of conscience and the rule of law are non-existent.

Mass protests of Cubans on 11 July 2021 against their own government received almost no media attention across the Western world, despite resemblance to pivotal historical events like the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. The Cuban government responded with predictable brutality, imposing lengthy terms of imprisonment on non-violent protesters. These events were reported on translatingcuba.com, a blog by indigenous Cuban dissidents which I encourage Kiwiblog readers to peruse.

So I reiterate my challenge to Professor De La Torre: will you publicly condemn both on social media and at your event this Friday the mass arrests of peaceful protesters on 11 July 2021 for protesting the Cuban government, including Sissi Abascal? I extend this challenge also to Associate Professor Mawson.

If you won’t, then what is your real motivation for criticising the United States’ human rights abuses?

Louise Upston released:

Immediate action will be taken to stabilise the disability support system after an independent review found the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha was ‘ill-prepared’ to deliver these services when it was established in 2022.

“This Government is committed to supporting disabled people, which is why we provided a record $1.1 billion funding boost to disability support services in this year’s Budget,” Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says.

“We must now take urgent action after an independent review found the delivery of these services is in a dire state, with unsustainable spending and a lack of fairness and transparency around what support disabled people can access.

“The review found much of the problem stems from the previous government’s ‘rushed’ six-month establishment of the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha.

Disability funding is one of the most challenging areas of government support, because each person’s circumstances can be so different, so it is very challenging to have fair and transparent criteria.

Disability funding has never been performed particularly well, and it was fragmented over several agencies such as Ministry of Health and Education and MSD. The concept of one funding agency was a good one, but as is often the case, the previous Government went for a big bang approach of a brand new agency. That means no inherited systems or controls. Expecting a new Ministry to go from nothing to a $1billion+ funder in a short period of time was always unrealistic, just like the HealthNZ merger.

The Office of Disability Issues was a small team of 15 with a policy focus, and growing that to a full Ministry of 500+ staff administering $1 billion of funding was not something easily achievable, if at all.

While I’m no longer on the Board of the Taxpayers’ Union, I still speak regularly to Jordan Williams and keep an eye on the organisation we founded together 10 years ago.

Something that we hopped to achieve one day, but it came much sooner than expected, was to see the organisation identify and develop young talent, and perhaps serve as a stepping stone for careers in public policy, political advocacy, and politics.

Jordan and I were recently reminiscing where our alumni have ended up, and counted more than a dozen who currently work in the Parliamentary complex (both in the government and opposition parties) serving from Cabinet Ministers (Casey) to secretarial support in Minister’s offices. We take much pride in being a launchpad for careers in politics, public policy and beyond.

It surprises many to learn that Jordan doesn’t just hire fellow travellers. In fact, when I was on the Board he always use to insist on having a mix of political views in the office (as well as genders) as a safeguard against being too masculine or aggressive in some of the more ‘hard hitting’ Taxpayers’ Union campaigns. 

Jordan has reached out to me as the Government has, yet again, managed to poach a couple of the Taxpayers’ Union’s key staffers. That’s great for New Zealand, but not so good for the Taxpayers’ Union!

In fact a Chief of Staff for one of the Government’s parties recently commented that the Taxpayers’ Union is “their nursery” for identifying and developing talent.  Not the words that Jordan and I would have used, but we’ll take it as a compliment.

While the Taxpayers’ Union is huge in terms of subscribed supporters, it has a small staff of only around a dozen.  It tends young, but I know Jordan invests a lot in professional development and maybe that’s why that staffers are poached for a full range of jobs: Chris Hipkins’ and Ardern’s offices through to Business NZ and the NZ Initiative.

The Taxpayers’ Union has also acted as career spring boards for staffers coming to us from Parliament – usually ‘behind the scenes’ advisers wanting a new role making the campaign decisions and honing their own skills be in front of the camera.

I know they are currently looking for a new Campaigns Manager (details here) but Jordan tells me he’ll consider people for other roles too. So if you are interested in a job at a hungry, creative, comms-led organisation that punches above its weight (and doesn’t just sit at desks in Wellington and Auckland),contact the Taxpayers’ Union.

Nate Silver now has Harris ahead in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and Trump still ahead in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. That would give Harris a very narrow margin of 276 to 262 in the Electoral College.

It would be very risky to make a prediction at this stage. The campaigns will matter. The only prediction I’ll make is that Trump will claim he won regardless of the actual result!

Lindsay Mitchell applies a blowtorch to some nonsense from Chris Hipkins.

• Hipkins: benefit sanctions make people “less likely they are to end up in sustainable long-term employment”
• Mitchell: Under Labour verage estimated future years on a benefit grew from 10.7 to 13.6 years and the number of beneficiaries jumped from 289,788 in Dec 2017 to 378,711 by Dec 2023

• Hipkins: fewer people in emergency housing is because National has “made it harder for them to access” and “made it harder for them to access” and “Where have the families they’ve turfed out gone to?”
• Mitchell: The number of people in emergency housing also fell from in the last two years of the Labour Government (after massive increase) yet no one claimed they were turfing people out

• Hipkins: “the vast majority who go onto a benefit come off a benefit within six months”
• Mitchell: At a given point-in-time (let’s use June 2024) 72 percent of beneficiaries have been dependent for more than a year.

A very good fisking.

The raw data for the above has released a few days and I have just completed the annual process I do that ranks every high school

For every high school the process looks at (including Equity Index Numbers – the decile system replacement).

– NCEA Level 3+ for Leavers

– University Entrance for Leavers

– The gap between L3 and NCEA

– Retention until 17 years of age.

– Progression to Degree Level study.

(NB: The UE statistics include equivalents for Cambridge and IB).

It also includes a range of system wide aggregates.

The data always surprises and many high profile schools are not quite where people think and there are some fabulous quiet achievers.

See exactly how the high schools are doing and the, just released, LEAVERS data is the definitive picture through the inclusion of all students the schools have worked with. Also included are results by EQI tenth (similar to the old decile system) and also a State School only comparison.

By looking at how every high school is doing it allows a greater understanding of the system as a whole. Many schools/organisations/researchers use this data process for exactly that reason.

It also allows Principals and Boards to set progression goals for each of these important metrics (as well as attendance) into the future. It is an opportunity to plan for measurable improvements that can be communicated broadly.

(there are 15 Excel sheets)..

So please email alwyn.poole@gmail.com if you would like this important data process. If it is for school or professional use then I can invoice for $350. For personal use I can provide on a donation basis.

Best

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com
Innovative Education Consultants Ltd
Education 710+ Ltd
(NB – both websites currently being re-done)
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

The Herald reports:

The Government is planning to scrap the requirement for company directors to make their home addresses public on the Companies Register.

It’s proposing to allow directors to put another service address online, like an address for their business or lawyer.

The aim is to better protect directors’ safety and privacy while still ensuring an address is provided for accountability, including from those owed money by the company.

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly is pledging to make the change as a part of a wider revamp of the Companies Act 1993.

This is a great and overdue move, one that has in the past also had several members’ bills propose.

People who have concern for their safety at home should still be able to be company directors, without having to choose between safety and being a director.