The coalition Government has taken the first steps to ensure prisoners on remand can access the rehabilitation and reintegration support they need to turn their lives around, says Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell.
“The number of people on remand has increased by 146 per cent over the past 10 years. With almost 45 per cent of the prison population now on remand, the corrections system needs to adapt to support their needs so we can reduce re-offending and keep the public safe.
“That’s why, as part of this Government’s 100-day plan, we are taking steps to make it explicit in the Corrections Act 2004 that prisoners who are on remand and convicted of a crime will be provided with rehabilitation that helps address the causes of their offending.
Basically the current law doesn’t allow rehabilitation to be provided to prisoners on remand because they are awaiting trial or sentencing. This is pretty nuts as all prisoners should be able to access rehabilitation courses.
Not sure why it needed a change of Government to make it happen, but glad it is.
In this interview, Chris Hipkins states that the money given to councils for Three Waters was compensation for taking water assets off Councils, the exact opposite of what Nanaia Mahuta said.
Unlike a lot of conservatives gleefully cheering on Mitch McConnell’s announcement that he will step down as Senate Republican Leader in November, after the election, I actually paid a price for vocally opposing McConnell. In 2014, I used my platform at RedState to back Matt Bevin’s race against McConnell. I was one year into my contract at Fox News. Roger Ailes told me to stop bashing McConnell or stop going on Fox. I was sidelined at Fox for the next two years. And McConnell beat Bevin.
I learned Mitch McConnell does not care. He does not care because he was busy putting points on the board.
As conservative agitators, rarely were I and my side in the win column against McConnell. Much of the rage directed at McConnell since noon yesterday and before has a lot to do with that — McConnell kept winning, and he didn’t care.
McConnell did not care about my complaints or your complaints. He did not care about those who vilified him or his own popularity. He did not care that Republicans would attack him on the campaign trail and denounce him on TV. He did not care that Democrats made McConnell the most disliked national politician in America. Real Clear Politics’ political average for McConnell has him with a 21% national approval rating — lower than any other national political figure, including Kamala Harris.
But Mitch McConnell does not care. He is elected by the people of Kentucky who have been returning him to the Senate more than any other senator in the commonwealth’s 232 year history. He cares about Kentucky, not national opinion polls.
Mitch McConnell does not care that Republicans or Democrats dislike him.
McConnell not caring about those things made him dangerously successful at his job. He had to care about a majority of the Republicans in the United States Senate, not you or me.
As an appropriator, he knew how to cobble together deals and build coalitions. He took that skill to the Republican Leader’s office. He often sacrificed things we conservatives wanted to instead make life comfortable for Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, or any number of other liberal to moderate Republicans who sometimes then made deals that conservatives hated.
They kept McConnell in charge and, in turn, McConnell kept the GOP mostly in the majority and, through that, blocked Democrat judges and rapidly confirmed Republican judges.
Mitch McConnell did not care about your or my temper tantrums and demands because he has long understood that a Republican majority, for better or worse, had the power to block the administrative state and build a judiciary that has no term limits or elections for its members. He has cared very deeply about that.
Whether you or I care for McConnell does not matter. You can say any Republican would have done what McConnell did, but you would have to ignore a series of Republican Senate Leaders before McConnell who did not ram through judges at breakneck pace and wage jihad against bureaucratic appointees. McConnell was willing to cut the throats Trent Lott and Bill Frist would never dream of cutting. The populist bros like to mock the Marquess of Queensberry Rules they think everybody is playing by. McConnell pants’d the Marquess and gave him a swirly before the populist bros were out of diapers.
McConnell was fixated on keeping the GOP in the majority in the Senate, and using the power that gave them to deliver. People’s views on McConnell will be shaped by whether or not you agree with his policies, but almost no one denies he was incredibly effective – some say the most effective post WWII Senator in the US.
With the GOP likely to regain the Senate this year, it will be very interesting to see who replaces him.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have announced today the designation of Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist entity.
“The terrorist attacks by Hamas in October 2023 were brutal and we have unequivocally condemned them,” Mr Luxon says.
Following these attacks, then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins commissioned advice from officials about designating the entirety of Hamas – which has now been received.
Mr Peters says New Zealand has designated the military wing of Hamas as a terrorist entity since 2010.
“But what happened on 7 October reinforces we can no longer distinguish between the military and political wings of Hamas. The organisation as a whole bears responsibility for these horrific terrorist attacks.”
The distinction was always tenuous. It is good NZ now recognises the reality.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have announced travel bans on a number of extremist Israeli settlers who have committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.
“New Zealand is seriously concerned by the significant increase in extremist violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinian populations in recent months. This is particularly destabilising in what is already a major crisis,” Mr Luxon says.
“New Zealand has taken this step to signal clearly that this behaviour is unacceptable”, Mr Peters says.
“We are imposing travel bans on a number of people known to have committed violent acts. These individuals will not be able to travel to New Zealand.
This seems very reasonable also. Those who commit illegal violent acts should not be welcome in NZ.
I read in the Herald that the public health lobbyists are concerned that the previous government didn’t act to ban fizzy drinks and juices in schools, and the new government isn’t particularly interested in it.
I especially liked this quote from Tinetti that it is:
disappointing to hear the Government isn’t progressing work to help kids make healthy choices at school
To me, you’re not helping kids to make choices if you’re taking their choices away. You’re restricting what options they have so that they don’t learn to make choices at all.
Really this is about not selling fizzy drinks or juices in the school tuck shop. The problem is that these things are perfectly fine as a treat (which is what the tuck shop should be for), they’re not fine every day. A small number of kids are having them every day, so the proposed solution is to ban them for every kid.
It’s a particularly Orwellian turn of phrase, and very much betrays the thinking that pervades Labour.
The track to Cathedral Cove has been closed for over a year. DOC says that the track is impassable, and is so dangerous that it will take years to reopen it (until the Minister got involved, and now they are saying it may open by this summer).
But locals in Hahei have told me that the track damage is quite minor, and in fact one local said:
Hi, walked cathedral cove 6 times(fitness) two weeks ago.
Apart from having to walk around 5 DOC fences and initially over a 2.4 wooden wall the track was in great order.
EXCEPT for a 12 meter slip that we walked up and around. Plus where DOC dropped 3 trees over the track which we walked under(safely) Have got photos but not very techy.
My fencing son with mate could clear the trees and post the slip area for railed steps in two days. Rails with a builder helping another day.
So who is right. Is the track impassable as DOC says or passable as locals say?
Well in the best traditions of investigative journalism I decided to find out first hand. So on Saturday I attempted to get to Cathedral Cove on foot, rather than pay $80 for a five minute water taxi.
Starts off with a lovely stroll along the beach.
The start of the track. Marked as dangerous with multiple hazards.
A lovely walk so far.
We’re at a high hazard area. That pink mark indicates the path has a small crack in it. Luckily with the right gear we managed to get past it.
Now we had a real challenge. At around six stages DOC has put up barriers to stop people risking their lives by walking on this incredibly dangerous track. As you can see, you have to walk a few metres down the bank to get past the fence.
Here we have some trees across the path. But these are not trees that came down in Cyclone Gabrielle. They were chopped down by DOC later on. If you wanted to you could remove them in a few hours, but actually kids (and me) love making their way through them.
Here at one of the lookouts there is a crack in the surface. But it is well off to the side of the main path.
As you can see the track is extremely hazardous. I was fortunate I am up to date with my medical insurance.
The second to last DOC fence or barrier. This one is more formidable as you have to squeeze around the left of it, adding around 10 seconds to the duration.
Finally, after we are 90% of the way there we come across something that would be risky. You definitely wouldn’t want to carry on that way.
Fortunately there is a very safe and easy path a few metres to the left of the slip. Around a 20 second detour.
As we descend to the Cove, the steps need a bit of a tidy up, but are perfectly adequate.
Finally just before the cove, we have a final barrier, because the steps down have washed away. You could easily put a couple of ropes there, or a ladder, or even new steps. But even without those it is trivial to get down safely – can actually use the barrier to lower yourself down.
And I’m at Cathedral Cove.
The track was far less challenging that some of the tramping tracks in the Remutakas. They also have slips, where you have to detour around. It’s not rocket science.
The test for me is whether I would be comfortable taking my four and seven year old on the track. I actually do get quite paranoid about dangers to them. If walking along a rural road, I constantly look for a fence or tree I could try and throw them over should a car skid out of control. So I take their safety seriously.
Absolutely without hesitation I would take them on the Cathedral Cove track in its current state. In fact they have done much more challenging tracks in the Remutakas. At no stage on the walk, was there a portion where you felt if there was some sudden erosion you might end up down a cliff. It is a lovely wonderful walk, and it is a travesty it has been closed for over a year.
The local who e-mailed me saying a couple of people could fix it in three days was, if anything, over-estimating the time. The only two things you really need to do are rope off the slip area near the end, and mark the detour, and do some steps at the end of the track. There was absolutely nothing else that was a challenge.
All tracks have risks of slips, but they are weather dependent. You could simply close the track three or four days a year when the weather is terrible, rather than have it closed for two years.
Perfect is the enemy of good, and this is a very good track. It is a beautiful walk, and a stunning destination. It’s sad that so many people have missed out being able to access it. The announcement that they plan to reopen it by next summer should be a limit, not a target. If they had the will, it could be opened within a week.
If you do walk the track, once it reopens, I recommend also doing a side track to a lookout. Stunning views. Was so pleased that some locals invited me along to walk the track (officially we walked next to the track, as only the track is closed, not the area around it which is public land) and am already planning a return trip with the kids.
After I got back to the bach, also did around 600 metres swim along Hahei Beach out to a buoy and back twice. Water was surprisingly warm for March.
I want to start by reiterating that I believe we all have the same dream for the health system: we all want to address health inequities, we all want to shorten waiting lists, and we all want a workforce that isn’t overstretched and that has the right skills to respond effectively to all our diverse populations. …
This Government is totally focused on outcomes. The question we ask about any policy is: will it improve outcomes? Will it mean people get better care? Will it mean people get faster care? Will it mean people will get the care that suits their circumstances, including cultural competency?
My dream for the health system isn’t about bureaucratic structures and endless plans and reports; it’s about identifying need and responding to it.
For health: we can choose form or function; I choose function.
We can choose activism or actions; I choose actions.
We can choose outrage or outcomes; I choose outcomes.
Pharmac is changing its process so it can assess a funding application at the same time Medsafe is assessing the application for regulatory approval. This means that medicines will be able to be considered for funding sooner in New Zealand.
“Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’re speeding up the process so more people have access to the medicines they need, faster,” says Associate Health Minister David Seymour.
“Currently Pharmac waits until Medsafe has completed its assessment before it starts a funding assessment. Doing both at the same time will mean medicines are assessed sooner.
“It’s a common-sense efficiency that costs nothing but helps Kiwis in need. It can shave up to nine months off the approval process.
This seems very common sense, and you wonder why it took a new Government to do this.
But there are further changes that can be made. Having Medsafe duplicate the work of much much larger overseas regulators does not add value to NZ. We should have a policy that any drug deemed safe by two reputable overseas regulators is automatically authorised in NZ, unless there is an appeal. So Medsafe would only deal with rare appeals, rather than having to duplicate work on every drug and medicine.
Last week, the council’s economic wellbeing manager Anna Calver announced a new billboard and t-shirt campaign, aping the 1990s Absolutely Positively Wellington promotion devised by Saatchi & Saatchi.
Calver — who does not appear on the comms and engagement staff list — said she and other staff designed the Positively Pōneke drive to “help keep people aware of all the good change under way” and bring “those absolutely positive vibes to a hoarding near you”.
In a Linkedin post, Calver said the campaign was about getting Wellingtonians “to stop grumbling about our brilliant city” and in response to “grumbling” from The Post.
Rates are looking to increase 15%, the Council says it is all needed for essential services, yet they have enough money to spend on a campaign to convince Wellingtonians that things are all great here.
A new petition launched by local skincare entrepreneur Katey Mandy is challenging the New Zealand Government to remove GST from the sale of sunscreen products. …
But is it fair to pay GST on a product that can save your life?
Katey Mandy, entrepreneur and founder of local skincare label Raaie, doesn’t think so, and now she’s urging you to join her mission to lobby the government to do away with GST on sunscreen altogether.
No, no, no, no ,no.
This is what happens when people start to see GST as a tax that should only be applied to some goods and services, and not others. Then every industry in NZ wants to be exempted – food, tampons, sunscreen.
You could make a case for no GST on doctors fees. No GST on sun hats.
GST is about efficiently collecting revenue. It is not about how good or not good a product is.
The core of this new antisemitism lies in the idea that Jews are not a historically oppressed people seeking self-preservation but instead oppressors: imperialists, colonialists, and even white supremacists. This view preserves vestiges of the trope that Jews exercise vast power. It creatively updates that narrative to contemporary circumstances and current cultural preoccupations with the nature of power and injustice. …
That caution is especially important because Israel, the first Jewish state to exist in two millennia, plays a central role in the narrative of the new antisemitism. Israel is not an imaginary conspiracy but a real country with real citizens, a real history, a real military, and real political and social problems that concern relations between Jews and Palestinians. It is not inherently antisemitic to criticize Israel. Its power, like any national power, may be subject to legitimate, fair criticism.
It is also essential not to tar all critics of Israel with the brush of antisemitism, especially in wartime, when Israel, like any other war-waging power, is properly subject to the strictures of international humanitarian law. To deploy the charge of antisemitism for political reasons is morally wrong, undermining the horror of antisemitism itself. It is also likely to backfire, convincing critics of Israel that they are being unfairly silenced.
There are many many ways to criticise the behaviour of Israel, without being anti-semitic. You could say things such as:
The policy to allow new settlements in the West Bank is wrong and inflammatory
The response to the Hamas attacks has been disproportional and is resulting in too many civilian deaths
The current Prime Minister of Israel is using the war to hold onto power
Note that these are all criticism of a specific policy, issue or person.
To emphasize the narrative of Jews as oppressors, the new antisemitism must also somehow sidestep not only two millennia of Jewish oppression, but also the Holocaust, the largest organized, institutionalized murder of any ethnic group in human history. On the right, antisemites either deny the Holocaustever happened or claim its scope has been overstated. On the left, one line is that Jews are weaponizing the Holocaust to legitimize the oppression of Palestinians.
Many on the left use the language of genocide against Israel, to try and minimise the Holocaust.
The means Israel has used are subject to legitimate criticism for killing too many civilians as collateral damage. But Israel’s military campaign has been conducted pursuant to Israel’s interpretation of the international laws of war. There is no single, definitive international-law answer to the question of how much collateral damage renders a strike disproportionate to its concrete military objective. Israel’s approach resembles campaigns fought by the U.S. and its coalition partners in Iraq in Afghanistan, and by the international coalition in the battle against ISIS for control of Mosul. Even if the numbers of civilian deaths from the air seem to be higher, it is important to recognize that Israel is also confronting miles of tunnels intentionally connected to civilian facilities by Hamas.
To be clear: as a matter of human worth, a child who dies at the hands of a genocidal murderer is no different from one who dies as collateral damage in a lawful attack. The child is equally innocent, and the parents’ sorrow equally profound. As a matter of international law, however, the difference is decisive. During the Hamas attack, terrorists intentionally murdered children and raped women. Its charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Yet the accusation of genocide is being made against Israel.
If Hamas had the ability to invade Israel, it would happily kill every Jew there. We saw this on 7 October.
These relevant facts matter for putting the genocide charge into the context of potential antisemitism. Neither South Africa nor other states have brought a genocide case against China for its conduct in Tibet or Xinjiang, or against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. There is something specifically noteworthy about leveling the charge at the Jewish state—something intertwined with the new narrative of the Jews as archetypal oppressors rather than archetypal victims. Call it the genocide sleight of hand: if the Jews are depicted as genocidal—if Israel becomes the very archetype of a genocidal state—then Jews are much less likely to be conceived as a historically oppressed people engaged in self-defense.
The new narrative of Jews as oppressors is, in the end, far too close for comfort to the antisemitic tradition of singling out Jews as uniquely deserving of condemnation and punishment, whether in its old religious form or its Nazi iteration. Like those earlier forms of antisemitism, the new kind is not ultimately about the Jews, but about the human impulse to point the finger at someone who can be made to carry the weight of our social ills. Oppression is real. Power can be exercised without justice. Israel should not be immune from criticism when it acts wrongfully. Yet the horrific history and undefeated resilience of antisemitism mean that modes of rhetorical attack on Israel and on Jews should be subject to careful scrutiny.
It is impossible to overstate the dire situation the New Zealand education system is in – and the future consequences for individuals, families and society as a whole.
It was been pointed out the the Ministry of Education has grown from 2700 employees (already well and truly overblown and inefficient) to 4400 employees over the last 6 years. Completely inversely related to the achievement of students. The top 12 should already have walked with their heads hung low.
Recent critique is about the 20 building projects cancelled and the 350 on hold. This is not all bad as many of these builds will not be high value for money and ignore the changing nature of teaching and learning (e.g. www.mthobson.school.nz).
Rumour has it that the Ministry have told the Minister that any cuts to funding can only go as deep as 2% before property is affected. Nonsense. The 4400 Ministry employees come at an average cost of $103k per annum (and I wonder if that takes into account overtime, etc, the officials get but teachers don’t). That totals to $453,200,000 for achieving very little (at best). Even the extra 1700 Ministry employees cost the taxpayer over $175,000,000.
ACT campaigned on taking the bureaucracies back to 2017 levels. That would only solve half of the Ministry of Education problem … but it would be a start.
There is not a child in New Zealand of lower inherent value than the Secretary for Education – Iona Holstead (who is paid around $600,000 per annum). It is well past time that things were realigned.
TVNZ rejected a last-ditch Newshub proposal to form a shared news agency with workers from both organisations – a decision Warner Bros Discovery has described as “baffling”.
Warner Bros Discovery met with TVNZ chairman Alistair Carruthers and chief executive Jodi O’Donnell, along with RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson, on 21 February to discuss the proposal.
But TVNZ rejected the idea just two days later.
Having the three leading broadcasters share a single news bureau would arguably be more efficient, but it would also be dangerous. That bureau would be very powerful.
NZPA worked well for many decades, and it is a shame it has gone. But it supplemented news bureaus, not replaced them. It was also strictly non-sensational. Their job was reporting.
Firstly, and in some ways most importantly, this is an unprincipled deal. No Council should be using its special privilege to tax its residents (which is why we can borrow at much lower interest rates) to help individuals or private for-profit companies.
This disadvantages all the other individuals and private companies who also “need help” to redevelop their business. That there is no agreed council policy covering this deal and that Reading International has lobbied the Council for years to finance them only makes this deal even more unprincipled.
All the other building owners who didn’t lobby Council are not happy about this.
Secondly, this Council is facing much bigger financial problems in fixing water, waste and transport.
Reading is simply not on the priority list.
Our infrastructure deficit is largely because previous councils diverted tens of millions of infrastructure depreciation funding towards projects they deemed as “needy” such as Tākina – our impressive new but loss-making convention centre.
Even before this deal, the WCC Long-Term Plan includes borrowing to 245% of our rates income. This is over our own financial policy limit of 225% … so why are we even considering non-essential projects when we cannot properly fund our essential ones?
The Council decided this was a higher priority than essential services. They are already at their debt limit.
You would think getting a $32M loan at significantly below market interest rates (by my estimate worth over $10M) should be enough for Reading International to get on with their strengthening project. But no, this council has also agreed to give Reading the option to buy its land back any over the next ten years for the same price! Wellington CBD land roughly doubles in price every decade which means this land in 10 years’ time will likely be worth over $64M. In ten years, Reading can give us the $32M back and then immediately sell the same land for $64M walking off with the extra money.
Because the Council plans to fund this deal by selling $32M of other CBD land, this loss of the land capital gain is real money … hell, we haven’t even got the buyback price inflation-adjusted so we lose on a decade worth of inflation on our loan principle!
The Labour Party is mourning the death of one if its longest-serving MPs, Jonathan Hunt, who has died aged 85.
Entering Parliament in 1966, Hunt was an MP for 39 years, 30 of which were as MP for New Lynn.
Becoming a minister in the David Lange Government, he held roles as Minister of Housing, Tourism, and Broadcasting, as well as the Postmaster-General.
Hunt was appointed Speaker of the House in 1999 by the Helen Clark Government.
After leaving Parliament in 2005, he went on to serve as the High Commissioner to the United Kingdom for three years.
He was also famously nicknamed the Minister of Wine and Cheese, and was appointed as a member of the Order of New Zealand in 2005.
I know a lot of Labour Party staff who adored Jonathan Hunt, and spoke of how kind he was and always asking how they were.
He was a parliamentary institution, and was the Father of the House from 1991 to 2005. That made him the longest serving Father of the House since Sir Apirana Ngata.
David Parker’s plan had 36% of land transport spending going on public transport, rail, walking, cycling etc. The Brown plan has that reduced to 28%, which is still quite generous. The big winner is state highway improvements up 37% and local road maintenance up 14%.
TVNZ is axing Sunday, Fair Go and two of its daily news bulletins as part of a massive overhaul of its news and current affairs portfolio.
There are reports the Midday and Tonight weekday bulletins are also being dumped as part of widespread cost-saving measures as the company cuts costs in a challenged economy.
This is sad both for news coverage in NZ, and especially for affected staff.
I’m probably an example of the challenge broadcasters face. I used to watch several news bulletins a day, loved Fair Go and Sunday etc.
Today I don’t even watch the 6 pm news. Not because I will dislike it, or it isn’t good, but because it isn’t necessary. I already know what has happened of interest that day through Twitter feeds, websites etc. Life is too busy to spend an hour in front of the television. I’ll just tune in occasionally for very major stories.
So if former news junkies like me have tuned out, it is no surprise TVNZ is having to make the hard decision to close these shows. It is a pity, but the would has changed. Linear TV has a limited life span.
This is the co-chair of Health Coalition Aotearoa. If you followed media coverage of them commenting on school lunches, you’d believe they were politically-neutral academics. @1NewsNZ was shown this before it ran a story at 6pm quoting them, but chose not to inform its viewers. pic.twitter.com/U4n01bctvz
For those who can’t see the graphics, the co-chair of the Health Coalition Aotearoa tweeted:
We now have a fascist white supremacist government
She hopes David Seymour never breeds
The Government has a deliberate policy to kill off Maori
Yet this person gets treated by the media as a neutral expert, with masses of air and print time. Now imagine a right leaning academic said the Ardern Government was a Marxist racist Government, how Jacinda should never breed, and they have a deliberate policy to kill off Europeans. How much media space would that person get – zero right. They would rightfully be dismissed as an extremist.
People have every right to be an extremist. It’s good we get to see how deranged some of these people are. But lets not pretend they are neutral experts.
