DPMC's secret guide on how to be a minister

One of the common criticisms governments make of oppositions is that they're inexperienced, and have no idea how to be ministers or run the country (so its better to stick with the status quo). But why don't they know? Changes of government are and ought to be a regular feature in a parliamentary democracy like ours, but weirdly there's no real preparation for them for the people concerned. There's no training course on "how to be a minister" for MPs, for example - even though it would seem to be an obvious necessity which would help improve governance overall. While the Cabinet Manual is public, there isn't a public "how-to" guide so would-be Ministers can prepare themselves for the job and see what it entails.

There is however a private one. DPMC publishes an Induction Handbook for New Ministers, outlining basic constitutional responsibilities, the nuts and bolts of a ministerial office, and how to do the job. I heard about this earlier this year, and requested it under the OIA. DPMC initially released a redacted version, but after a complaint to the Ombudsman, you can read the whole thing here:

What did DPMC try and hide? The anodyne introduction, basic explanations of the role, an obvious statement about social media and hats, basic HR and time management advice, a sentence telling ministers to ask their agencies if they got along with Treasury, and some basic stuff about setting policy priorities and compromising on them. All of this was withheld as "free and frank", with an implicit claim that its release would inhibit similar advice in future. Which both suggests a fairly extreme level of paranoia and self-consciousness about even the most banal advice, but also a complete failure to consider the public interest. There are no deep, dark secrets here. Instead, DPMC seems to have complete contempt for the public, and believe that we have no right to know even the most basic and obvious information about how this country is governed.

(They also tried to withhold the fact that no cellphones are allowed in the cabinet room, something we all knew anyway, as prejudicial to national security...)

As noted above, I think this sort of information being public would be hugely beneficial to governance in this country, and help ease changes of government. It would also help the public understand how our government actually works, and what actually goes on in a minsiterial office, and what they can and can't do. I am shocked that it is not prominently and proactively published. Who does DPMC's policy of secrecy serve, other than officials wanting to "break in" and dominate new and inexperienced ministers?

Oh.

Anyway, it's public now, and hopefully MPs will use it in future to prepare themselves for office. While they're at it, their staff might also want to look at DIA's Ministerial Adviser Deskfile, which is a similar guide for new Ministerial Advisers.

Nothing has changed II

The IPCA report into the (non)-investigation into Jevon McSkimming found that it was undermined by senior members of the police executive working to protect McSkimming's career prospects. Then-Commissioner Andrew Coster apparently wanted McSkimming to succeed him as Commissioner, and so wanted everything swept under the rug.

...which immediately made me think of a past IPCA report from 2021. The report found a toxic culture and pervasive culture of bullying within the police, including:

intolerance of questioning or dissent; favouritism and protectionism; marginalisation and ostracism; abuse and intimidatory conduct; sexist and racist behaviour; inappropriate office culture, and lack of empathy and caring.

[...]

"Given the reported intolerance of diversity of thought and the existence of cliques based on loyalty, it is not surprising to find that almost all interviewees complained that [appointment] processes are biased and unfair.

"More generally, we were told by many people that in particular workplaces, including Police National Headquarters, everyone knew who was going to be appointed to the majority of positions before they were ever advertised, and there was no point in applying for a position unless you had already been 'shoulder-tapped' for it.

"Senior positions are believed to go to favoured people, regardless of actual or potential skills in leading and managing people.

...which is exactly what was going on here. Coster wanted his mate McSkimming for the job, and was willing to overlook anything including allegations of sexual assault to get him there.

And what happens if you try and change this, or if you're not part of the in-group? This. The boy's club protects its own, and tries to drive out anyone who is not one of them.

The IPCA talks more in the McSkimming report about the problems of police culture, of groupthink and cliques and loyalty, the "Them and Us" mentality, and the resulting tolerance for unethical behaviour. It thinks that things have changed since 2007. it is clear from its more recent reports that they have not. The police culture is still utterly toxic. It is still clique-based and stresses internal loyalty over professionalism and adherence to the law. And that is completely unacceptable.

Nothing has changed

In 2004 the government was forced to launch the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct after allegations of rape and sexual assault by high-ranking police officers. The inquiry found that police systematically disbelieved victims and covered for their own. It recommended significant changes to the Independent Police Conduct authority and police integrity system, and a decade-long monitoring program to ensure the changes stuck.

Twenty years later, and we learn that once again a high-ranking police officer has been accused of sexual assault and corruption. And the IPCA found that the police's response was not just to disbelieve the victim, but to prosecute her, while systematically covering for their own in order to protect their chances of promotion. The cover-up was enabled by those at the very top of the police: then-Commissioner Andrew Coster, two Deputy Commissioners and an Assistant Commissioner, as well as by numerous underlings. It only fell apart because the perpetrator - who Coster clearly wanted to succeed him as Commissioner - had his computer searched, resulting in a sudden prosecution and conviction for knowing possession of child pornography. A bunch of senior police officers have already quit, the IPCA has recommended beginning employment proceedings against others, and former Commissioner Coster seems likely to lose his cushy retirement job as the regime's "social investment" czar. The IPCA has also recommended significant changes to the police integrity system, including independent review of police employment and prosecution decisions, and the regime seems to be taking this seriously.

All of which is good. But is it enough? Because it is clear from all of this that despite the Bazeley inquiry, nothing has changed. The police are still a deeply corrupt institution, which covers up serious criminal offending by its own, allows them to act with impunity, and even tries to promote them into senior roles. It's still a boy's club, it's still rotten, even after the past changes and a decade of monitoring. And the worry is that no matter what changes are made, the police will make the right noises, pretend to go along with it, and then go right back to their business as usual of raping and abusing and lying and covering up. Behaving exactly like the gangs they pretend to be fighting. And its hard to see how the organisation can retain any public confidence whatsoever after this.

As other people have said, when the tree is producing this many bad apples, you don't just throw them away one by one. You cut off the whole branch - or cut down the tree, tear up the roots, and start again from scratch. And maybe we need to do that with the police.

A murderous policy

When the police relaxed pursuit policy in 2023, allowing them to go back to chasing people like mad dogs regardless of the supposed offence committed or the risk to the public, they were warned that people would die as a result. Two years on, the numbers are in, and the warnings were correct:

The research, which has yet to be peer reviewed, showed while the raw crash numbers didn’t show an obvious drop, once underlying trends were factored in, the 2020 policy was linked to about 19 fewer crashes a month than would otherwise have occurred.

[...]

The result of that 2023 policy U-turn? “A large, immediate increase in crashes” of roughly 74 a month, based on modelling.

“The finding is stark,” the study concludes: “The reversal of the restrictive policy did not simply return the situation to the previous status quo; it was associated with a far greater number of crashes than had existed prior to 2020.”

There were at least 11 fatal crashes associated with the new policy. Those crashes - and the associated deaths - were completely avoidable. But its clear that the police would rather behave like mad dogs, and endanger everyone, rather than simply doing the safe and sensible thing of arresting people later. Which says something about the relative values they put on our lives and their (Cartman voice) "authority".

Bulldozing the fast-track

When National rammed its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law through Parliament last year, they expected it to be a rubber-stamp. Developers would donate "apply", committees would approve, and the public would be bulldozed out of the way for their bold new projects which would revitalise the economy.

It didn't work out like that. Rather than just blindly rubber-stamping things, the EPA and the approval panels actually tried to do their jobs properly, rejecting applications, inviting comment from affected parties to supplement the (often incomplete) information on environmental impacts, and imposing conditions to address them - as required by law. The regime is not happy with this. So they've introduced an amendment bill to increase ministerial powers, prevent court challenges, and cut the public out of the process even more. They rammed it through the House yesterday and sent it to select committee - which has allowed just ten days for submissions. Why? The submissions page notes that:

The Chairperson intends to discuss the bill timeline with the Members on the Environment Committee, with the aim of reporting back to the House by early December 2025. If the committee agrees, public hearings are likely to take place in the week of 24 November 2025.

The regime has a majority on the committee, so "committee approval" means a partisan vote to shorten the process and cut the public out. They're basically bulldozing the fast-track.

And they're abusing parliament to do so. Bills are meant to be sent to committee for four to six months - and this one was. The House can shorten that process when it sends the bill to committee, but that's a "debatable motion", imposing a cost in parliamentary time. The Minister responsible for the bill filed no such motion, and made no mention of the planned shorter timeframe - so he nakedly lied to the House. This regime lacks the courage to do its dirty deeds openly.

Why the rush? Because the regime knows they are going to lose the election. So they have to try and get this through, and get projects approved to pay off their donors as quickly as possible. Normal parliamentary timeframes won't let them do that, so they're stomping all over our democracy to enable their corruption.

(This BTW is why a mere normal repeal of fast-track is not enough. It must not just be repealed, but all outstanding applications need to be dumped in the bin, and any consents purportedly "granted" by this corrupt abuse of process need to be legislative cancelled, with no compensation to the donors. We can not allow corruption to be rewarded. It is that simple.)

Given the importance of the bill, I really should submit on it. But given the abbreviated timeframe, I won't have time to gather evidence or craft arguments, and it is clear that the regime does not want me to. So instead I'm simply likely to say "I oppose this bill", and criticise their process while I'm at it. Anti-democrats like Rimmer and James Meager will no doubt sneer at this as a "low-quality" submission which adds nothing new. But they can hardly complain about a lack of real submissions if they don't give people the time to make them. And fundamentally, neither the regime nor parliament nor the committee are taking the process seriously, so I don't see why we should either. The only submission this bill - and this regime - deserves is "fuck you!". But of course it would be "unparliamentary" to say it so clearly.

Why fake breath tests are a problem for police

Last Friday we learned that over a hundred police officers were being investigated for faking over 30,000 non-evidential breath tests. Subsequent stories have revleaed that the faking was done in a similar manner to the massive breath-test fraud in Victoria, and likely for similar reasons: to meet productivity targets. But none of the staff have been suspended, and the police just don't seem that concerned that a huge number of their staff have been implicated in a nationwide pattern of fraud (meaning: they were likely sharing information about how to do this), or why it may have happened.

Which is typical of the police as an institution. But it is a problem, and the reason why ought to be obvious to everyone: because none of these officers can do their jobs effectively any more. They've shown they are liars. And having lied about something for trivial reasons - to apparently meet management targets - who's to say that they won't lie for more important reasons as well, such as securing convictions?

The fact that a police officer has done this automatically impacts their credibility in court, and taints every piece of evidence they have ever given or managed or collected. They can't give evidence in court, they can't manage a chain of custody, they can't even be allowed at a crime scene, because who's to say they didn't plant something now? (its not as if it hasn't happened before, after all...) Any competent defence lawyer will be asking whether anyone involved in a case has ever faked a breath test (or been investigated by police for doing so), and using that to undermine the police's case or build a case for appeal. If the police can't see this, they are stupid, arrogant morons.

Meanwhile, RNZ has talked to a couple of employment lawyers, who are shocked by the scale of deceit, and draw the obvious conclusion that there is a problem with management and culture. But they also talk about how the police may be reluctant to fire people for this as being fired for deceit in a position of public trust would mean they would never be able to work in such a position again. But that's what should happen! We certainly shouldn't keep untrustworthy people in such positions to avoid people recognising that they are untrustworthy! But at the end of the day, the police will protect their own, and management will protect themselves. Holding people accountable will mean answering serious questions about why this happened and the role of police management and culture in encouraging it. Besides, the police have a target to increase numbers by 500 officers. Sacking a hundred would blow a huge hole in that. So its easier for them if its all just swept under the carpet. And if that means turning a blind eye to a bunch of untrustworthy, corrupt cops, that's a price they're willing to make Aotearoa pay. The question is whether we let them...

Climate Change: A death cult regime

The UN reported today that the world will fail to prevent dangerous levels of climate change, and is instead on track for a catastrophic 2.5 degrees of warming by the end of the century. Which means fires, floods, famines, and whole parts of the globe becoming uninhabitable. meanwhile, the national regime is gutting our climate change laws, weakening targets, severing the connection between the ETS and our international target, cutting the independent Climate Commission out of the policy process, and pushing back the target for a carbon neutral public service by 25 years. They're also removing consultation requirements, to prevent the public from demanding that they act. And of course all of this is going to be rammed through under urgency.

The message is clear: National does not think climate change is a problem, and certainly not one worth doing anything about. And they're doing this just a fortnight after (another) giant weather disaster which caused enormous disruption and millions of dollars of damage. They're naked climate deniers, determined to kill us all.

This death cult regime has to go. And when we've kicked them out, the next government is going to have to mash the "revert" button and undo all this bullshit, and then move on to real climate change policy: fully-priced agricultural emissions, no pollution subsidies, a phase-out of fossil fuels and other dirty technology, and prosecution of climate criminals and ecocidaires. We have the technology to live cleanly; it just means huge economic losses for the status quo. But they should not be allowed to put their wealth and greed above our lives. Make them pay they way, and give them a choice: clean up, or go out of business!

38,000 unemployed under National

The September labour market statistics are out, showing unemployment has risen again to 5.3%. There are now 160,000 unemployed - 38,000 more than when National took office.

National's response to this disaster has been to throw people off benefits in a desperate effort to cut costs. But that doesn't actually help people get work - it just makes them suffer more. But what would a Minister on a $304,800 a year salary and an enormous tax-free pile of hoarded houses know or care about that?

More racism from the regime

Another day, and more racism from the regime:

The government's decision to axe schools' obligation to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi has shocked groups representing school boards, teachers and principals.

The government had been moving to change the emphasis on the requirement in the Education Act, but on Tuesday announced it would remove it altogether.

Education Minister Erica Stanford said the treaty was the Crown's responsibility, not schools'.

Except schools are agents of the state, and the law is how the state meets that responsibility. So what does repealing it - and all the other similar laws by which the state implements that specific responsibility - tell us about the state's future intentions towards meeting its obligations?

(Hint: look at climate change policy pre-Zero Carbon Act, where we had promises, but no implementation or accountability. Yeah, that...)

Worse: Rimmer says this will be enacted "by the end of the year". Which means no real select committee process or consideration, let alone public consultation. I guess their experience with the Treaty Principles and Regulatory Standards Bill has led them to double down on stomping on our democracy as well...

Which just means that this law is illegitimate, like the regime which passed it. And its just another thing which will have to go into the Treaty Restoration Bill which will have to be passed by the next government under all-stages urgency as its first order of business. Because we have an "undo" button too, and we will need to use it.

Sometimes you win

I'm a regular submitter on legislation, and one of my pet topics is transparency. A lot of recent laws propose secrecy clauses - excluding particular information from the scope of the Official Information Act, or creating new, bespoke statutory barriers to release, usually after whining from some industry lobby shocked at the existence of a constitutional law that has been on the books for 40 years. But there are also cases where some body, whether unintentionally or by design, is excluded from the OIA.

One of these bodies was the Valuers Registration Board, the body which is meant to register and discipline valuers (the people who decide how much land is worth, for example if you're a Prime Minister who wants your holiday home valued at a lower level so you can pay less rates). It was created by a 1948 law, and viewed as a mostly private institution, so its absence from the Act wasn't surprising. But the law is being updated by the new Valuers Bill, which weirdly had failed to add it in. So I did a quick submission, copying the boilerplate from the last time I'd done this, pointing out that attitudes to transparency had significantly shifted since 1982 (when presumably someone made a decision not to include it), and in particular it seemed odd that a publicly-owned and funded, ministerially appointed body for registering and disciplining valuers would be treated differently from similar bodies overseeing teachers, builders, architects, plumbers, and security guards. And rather than feeding the submissions to an AI and then saying "fuck off, peasants!", the committee actually listened:

On balance, we consider that the Board plays a public role, given the importance of valuations to property markets and property rights. In our view, the Board meets key criteria for being subject to the OIA. We also heard that applying the OIA would not place an unreasonable administrative burden on the Board.

We recommend amending Schedule 4 of the bill to insert the Valuers Registration Board into Schedule 1, Part 2 of the Ombudsmen Act. We note that an organisation named under Schedule 1, Part 2 of the Act is subject to the Official Information Act.

So that's a win. Now if only they'll listen when it comes to the Commerce Commission or Shane Jones' secrecy shield for fishers...

Rotten to the core

There's not one, but two police corruption stories today. In the first, the police are refusing to say how many staff they are investigating over their internet use in the wake of Jevon McSkimming's prosecution for possessing objectionable material. In the second, over a hundred officers are being investigated for faking breath-test results, which from the timing was done in an effort to meet new Ministerial targets. Which is troubling for two reasons. Firstly, because the police received millions of dollars in incentive payments on the basis of those fraudulent tests (isn't there a name for that?) And second, because police who will lie to meet a breath test target will lie about other things as well - like who committed a crime, or whether they have a reasonable basis for that search. It calls their basic organisational honesty into question.

It is clear from this that the entire police force is rotten to the core. It needs a thorough cleanout, from the top down.

Luxon is a poster boy for greed

Yesterday, when talking about his proposed capital gains tax, Labour leader Chris Hipkins pointed out an unpleasant truth about the Prime Minister:

"He sold four houses last year and made more money, tax free, from doing that than he made in the prime minister's salary, which he paid tax on every dollar of.

"Why should he be able to make more than $600,000 in one year from flipping properties whilst the people who go out and work hard every day for a living pay tax on every single dollar that they earn?"

He made more from flipping houses than he did from his huge prime minister's salary, as much as a dozen of us would earn in a year. But unlike those dozen median income earners, he didn't pay any tax on his side-hustle income. It is simply obscene.

Luxon thinks this is unfair, but its not. Luxon is emblematic of a social problem in our country: that the rich are thieves. They steal from us, they do not pay their way, and they write the rules to ensure that that theft is legal. Luxon, a rich-lister worth between $20 and $30 million, is basically a poster boy for what is wrong with our society, a perfect illustration that you don't get rich (or stay rich) by living honestly. He chisels us at every opportunity, demanding to be paid to live in his own house, demanding cuts to his rates, and now demanding that we all ignore his greed and tax cheating. We should not ignore it. Instead, we should throw this rich prick out on his arse, and tax his capital gains and his wealth so that he pays his fair share and no longer distorts our society. And if he doesn't like that, he used to run an airline, so I'm sure he knows what to do.

Still useless

So, Labour has finally, shambolically, released its capital gains tax policy, and as signalled it is a weak extension of the bright-line test, covering only non-residential property (but not farms), pre-compromised into oblivion in a desperate effort to avoid offending anybody. When they teased this idea back in September, I said that they're going to pay the political price of a CGT, in order to not raise enough money to do anything useful. All cost, no benefit. That hasn't changed. About the only thing going for this policy is that it can be implemented quickly, within a year of an election. And it can be extended later to cover the things Labour has excluded, like farms and shares and other financial instruments, some of which might require tricky policy work. But Labour isn't talking about that, so they're not even teasing incrementalism here. So even if you have an optimistic view that this is part of a secret plan to incrementally impose a comprehensive CGT one sector at a time, Labour simply can't be trusted to follow through on it.

(As for their quid pro quo - three free GP visits a year for everyone! - they've lumbered it with a pile of NeoLiberal rationing and a de facto universal ID card. Which is just intrusive, pointless waste. FFS, just fund health...)

It is clear that the state needs money to pay for the things we want it to do. It is also clear that we need to arrest inequality and the political power of the ultra-rich, by taking money away from the wealthy and using it for public purposes. Labour's bullshit half-measure doesn't really do any of these things. So I won't be voting for them. Instead, I'll be voting for a party which promises an actual wealth tax, which whacks the rich and raises enough revenue to actually fix things. I encourage everyone on the left, who wants proper public services and hates billionaires, to do the same. Labour's half-measure is OK as a transitional step towards a real wealth tax. But its not enough - and looking at their institutional culture of complying-in-advance with the demands of the rich, nothing from them ever will be.

We should be celebrating democratic engagement, not limiting it

This parliamentary term has seen a succession of deeply unpopular legislation, leading to an unprecedented number of select committee submissions as people take the only opportunity they've been given to tell the regime that they hate its agenda. Given that we're supposed to be a democracy, you'd expect the government to be celebrating this massive increase in democratic engagement. Instead, they want to limit it:

The MP in charge of handling record-breaking submissions on the controversial Treaty principles bill says politicians may need to think about requiring proof of identity or citizenship if a surge in feedback is not kept under control.

[...]

“While it is natural for controversial legislation to draw wider engagement, the rise of coordinated, largely online campaigns risks undermining the committee’s ability to identify and consider substantive, good-faith submissions.”

Meager said MPs could need to consider whether organisations should be allowed to submit on behalf of others, or if individuals should have to submit their own views.

With few restrictions in place on making a submission, it was possible proof of identity or citizenship could be necessary to guard against abuse of the select committee process, including any use of artificial intelligence tools to generate submissions on behalf of fake people.

“I do not think that is a road our Parliament wants to go down, but it is a very real and possible consequence of recent submission campaigns,” Meager said of implementing additional verification processes.

Which I think again shows the anti-democratic instincts of this regime. Not content with election rigging and suppressing protest, they want to stop us from telling them (and each other) what we think of their bullshit laws. We should not stand for it. A parliament which walls itself off from the people ceases to be a representative body - with all that that implies for its legitimacy and durability.

Ironically, one reason submission numbers are so huge is precisely because of the contempt the regime has shown for the normal democratic process by avoiding the normal consultation and policy development process. If they'd followed those processes, people would likely have had their say earlier, and ideally the regime would have got the message that we hate them and their laws and backed off a little. So maybe its a case of "we'll be less activist if you'll be less shit"...

Drawn

A ballot for two member's bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn:

• Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill (Laura McClure)
• Social Media (Age-Restricted Users) Bill (Catherine Wedd)

So double social media bills. Joy. While the first may be justified, the second has huge privacy risks, and just smacks of another attempt at censoring the web for young people to stop them from finding out who they are. The good news is that its unlikely to make it to a third reading vote before this dogshit zombie parliament will be dissolved for the election next year.

There were 76 bills in the ballot today.

Strike day

Today is strike day. Teachers, nurses, doctors, and assorted other medical professionals and public servants are all on strike today. Its the largest strike since the 1970's, and in numbers it exceeds the Great Strike of 1913 (though that went on for months, not just a single day. Still, early days yet...).

The regime says they don't understand what the strikers want. This is bullshit. The teachers, nurses, doctors etc have all been crystal clear: a decent, above-inflation pay rise, rather than effective pay cuts. Safe staffing, so they're not being overworked and those in their care are not at risk. No erosion of conditions. If the regime can't or won't understand that, that's on them. Likewise if they claim to "have no money" because they gave it all away to landlords, rich people, and the cancer industry.

Unsurprisingly, the public overwhelmingly supports the strikes. The regime needs to listen to that, and start making offers public servants can accept. If not, we'll just have to de-elect the selfish pricks, and get a government which will.

The Right to Repair Bill and parliamentary cooperation

Marama Davidson's Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill was due for its second reading today, but was instead discharged without a vote. Why? Because when the time came, Davidson was not in the House, so the chair dumped it and moved to the next item of business (conveniently, a National member's bill).

Watching the video, this all happens very quickly. Pugh announces the end of the previous item of business, the clerk fluffs reading the bill's name, Pugh looks around, and immediately calls Nationals' Tom Rutherford. Who gets as far as saying "she's not here", and the camera pans across - and Davidson is in her seat (she wasn't ten seconds ago). So there's definitely some eagerness from the chair to move on there. At the conclusion of that piece of business, Davidson politely rises and asks for leave for the bill to be reinstated, which National denies.

Interestingly, in between those two events, the Speaker had taken the chair at the end of the dinner break and asked the House for leave to alter proxy limits to enable MPs to flee back to their electorates and avoid the bad weather. This was of course granted. And maybe the Greens were assuming that having cooperated in the management of the House, the House would cooperate with them. If so, they were played for suckers.

It was clear long ago, but this is another reminder: there is no benefit to cooperating with this regime. And therefore opposition parties should not do it. If the regime asks for leave, even over something like letting their MPs go back to their rural electorates in an emergency, the response should either be "concessions in advance" or "go fuck yourselves" (or, in this case: "you'll get your leave when we get ours"). And if the regime doesn't like that, they can either waste parliamentary time on a pointless vote, or they can restore the cooperation required for parliament to function easily. Because at this stage, with the way they are doing things, there is no point in anyone cooperating. And for those of us outside parliament, there's no point pretending that the House is anything other than a dictatorship for the regime, and no point respecting an obviously rotten institution.

But the thing the regime has forgotten is that they will not be in power forever. The zombie house has less than a year to run, and then there will be an election, and hopefully the boot will be on the other foot. And when it is, I hope National is given a fucking good kicking with it, to remind them of why they should play nice.

Raupatu

That is the only way to describe last night's passage of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Bill. Drafted in a response to a Māori court victory over the foreshore and seabed, the bill changes the rules, making successful claims all but impossible, and forces already determined cases to be reheard under the new test. It is simply a confiscation. it is a violation of te Tiriti o Waitangi, the ultimate law of this land. It is immoral and it is wrong.

Like all raupatu, it must also be reversed. To their credit, the opposition are making the right noises about this, and you would hope that they will make it (and the reversal of National's other odious, Tiriti-violating legislation on Māori wards, section 7AA, the elimination of Treaty clauses, and the "de-Māorification" of the health and education systems) a high priority. Of course, mere reversal will not be enough: any cases reheard under National's racist new rules will need to be reheard under the proper ones. But that waste of judicial resources is squarely on the present regime, who apparently could not tolerate Māori winning in court even once.

Meanwhile, in another test of how racist the colonial parliament is, Speaker Gerry Brownlee is again threatening Te Pāti Māori for burning a copy of his regime's racist bill on Parliament steps. Which is interesting, because when Rimmer drove a land-rover up those same steps, Brownlee said he could do nothing. It simply was not a violation of Parliament's rules. Those rules have not been changed, so either Brownlee is going to have to invent some in order to punish his enemies in a nakedly arbitrary and racist way, or he will have to admit that what goes for the white supremacist also applies to Māori representatives.

Sadly, the former path can't be ruled out under this Speaker. But if Brownlee wants to set fire to Parliament's legitimacy and social licence, then I guess he can. And all future governments will pay the price for that.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. First up is the committee stage of the of the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill. Following that are the second readings of Marama Davidson's Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill and Carl Bates' Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill. If the House moves quickly it may make a start on the first reading of Cameron Brewer's Life Jackets for Children and Young Persons Bill, but given how they dragged stuff out last time that may be a forlorn hope.

This regime is a failure

When running for election in 2023, National's key promise was simple: "we will lower the cost of living". They've repeated that mantra every day since. Last week in question time, they were gloating about "lowering inflation" in a desperate effort to bat away the regime's terrible record on unemployment and economic growth. So how's that working out for them? Badly:

Inflation has edged to a 15-month-high on the back of higher rents, rates, electricity, and food, touching the top of the Reserve Bank's target band but unlikely to prevent further rate cuts.

Stats NZ said the consumer price index rose 1.0 percent in the three months ended September, pushing the annual rose to 3.0 percent from 2.7 percent, the highest since June last year.

The 11.3 percent rise in electricity prices was the single biggest contributor to the annual increase.

"Annual electricity increases are at their highest since the late 1980s, when there were several major reforms in the electricity market," Stats NZ senior manager of prices Nicola Growden said.

In other news, rent is unaffordable, butter is unaffordable, meat has become unaffordable, while the regime tries to suppress wages to keep profits high for its donors and cronies. No wonder people are angry!

This regime is a failure on its own terms. They set themselves a simple target, and they blew it - ruining countless lives in the process. The sooner we kick them out on their arses, the better.