A rubberstamp for Shane Jones' bulldozer

Last month, the Environment Committee caused outrage by allowing only ten days for public submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill. At the time, I pointed out how this was an abuse of the parliamentary process, a ratfucking of our democracy which did not give submitters sufficient time to make the "high-quality" submissions elitist Ministers supposedly want, and which would undermine the legitimacy of parliament and the state.

The committee has now reported back on the bill, approving it despite 95% of submissions being opposed. They've recommended no changes, because they simply didn't give themselves time to do so, and because it has emerged that the bill is still being written: the regime plans to introduce substantial amendments at the committee stage, without even a pretence of public consultation or democratic process.

This isn't "consideration" or "scrutiny" of legislation - it's a rubberstamp for executive autocracy. And it's not "government by consent" - it's simply a naked exercise of power, to bulldoze through corrupt legislation and ensure that Shame Jones gets his payoffs. Which probably makes Jones and Bishop feel big and hard and powerful, but there's a cost to bulldozing through democracy like this. And now that the regime has bulldozed through the democratic limits to pass their law, opponents of both it and any specific projects rubberstamped may not feel constrained by thse limits in their methods of opposition. Which isn't great for our democracy or our society. But I guess the regime simply regards that as a problem for next quarter...

Companies who buy "consents" under this law should not expect either the next government or the public to treat them as legitimate. And the next government should legislatively nullify every single one of them under urgency. Because a bulldozer works both ways, and having driven it through our parliamentary process, Jones and co can hardly cry foul when someone else seizes control, kicks him off, and reverses it back over him and his mates.

Climate Change: National rejects ambition

Late last year He Pou a Rangi Climate Commission reviewed our climate change targets, including whether to start including a share of shipping and aviation emissions in them. Their analysis showed that we could move further and faster and were likely to meet our existing targets a decade early. As a result, they recommended including aviation and shipping, and that our overall targets be strengthened, to -20 million tons of long-lived gases by and a 35% - 47% reduction in biogenic methane by 2050.

National was legally required to respond to these recommendations, and a year later, they finally have. Their response? Fuck that! Let the planet burn!

The government has rejected all of the Climate Change Commission's recommendations to strengthen New Zealand's emissions targets.

The move comes despite the Commission warning the effects of climate change are hitting New Zealand sooner and more severely than expected, and that New Zealand can and should be doing more.

[...]

The government acknowledged strengthened targets would help with efforts to limit global warming.

There also would have been co-benefits from a stronger target, including greater energy security and improved health outcomes, the response said. However, its analysis showed that would come at an economic cost to New Zealand.

So they're going to leave us to pay the economic costs of perpetual storms, floods, droughts, and fires instead.

Its unclear if this is driven by pure climate change denial, or a cynical desire to be able to criticise the next government when they do the necessary, responsible thing and adopt these strengthened targets and the policies required to meet them. Neither is acceptable. This is not the action of a responsible party governing for the long-term. As with their decision to renege on Paris, is is the action of a dogshit vandal regime, intent on ratfucking us out of a better future. The quicker we throw these scum out of office, the better.

Climate Change: A year of failed auctions

The final ETS auction of the year was held today, resulting in another failure. No-one bid, no units were sold, and so the year's entire allocation - 6 million tons, plus 7.1 million tons of cost-containment reserve - goes in the trash. Broadly speaking, because National destroyed confidence in the durability of climate policy, crashing the carbon price to ~$40/ton, well below the auction's reserve level.

The good news is that that unsold carbon won't be burned, and won't be reintroduced to the system in future auction allocations. Its gone for good. Which, insofar as ETS allocations reflect our desired emissions pathway and/or actual future emissions, is a good thing. But its not how the ETS is meant to function, and an artificially low carbon price set by political expectations is not going to provide a financial incentive for polluters to decarbonise. Instead, it does the opposite: encourage them to keep on polluting. Which is not a good thing at all.

On the other hand, if its all about political expectations now, maybe the opposition parties - who if we remain a democracy will be in power some day (and hopefully sooner rather than later) - should just start setting them directly. They've already signalled that the gas industry has no future, by announcing the intention to restore the drilling ban. Maybe they should start setting similarly direct expectations for coal users, or for fossil cars, or for our biggest polluter agriculture? Or would that be too great a departure from capitalist orthodoxy for the "Labour" party?

Climate Change: National reneges on Paris

In October 2016 the then-National government under John Key ratified the Paris Agreement, signing up to progressively reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. As part of that we set a formal emissions reduction target of a 30% net reduction (from gross 2005 levels) by 2030. This was later strengthened to a 50% reduction. Throughout this process, successive governments have been clear that these targets are "responsibility targets": domestic reductions alone won't get us there, and so they expect to buy reductions offshore to meet it. But now National has said that actually, no they won't:

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed the Government has no intention to spend on overseas carbon offsets, if New Zealand fails to reduce emissions to the level agreed under the Paris Agreement.

[...]

To date, successive governments have held off accounting for this upcoming cost in their books.

Now, Willis has confirmed there is no plan to change this.

“It is the Government's position that the most important contribution that New Zealand can make to reducing global climate change is reducing our emissions here at home, and we are working to achieve that,” she told reporters after appearing in front of the finance select committee for Scrutiny Week.

“It is also the case that the NDC the previous government set for us was well beyond what was required. ... We don't think New Zealanders ... would thank us for sending billions of dollars offshore to meet that Paris obligation.”

Fact check: Aotearoa's climate target is not "well beyond what was required". It is in fact woefully insufficient, and inconsistent with our (legally binding) obligations to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Willis' false claim marks her as nothing more than a dirty climate change denier, just like the rest of her party.

But the important thing here is that National has effectively announced that it reneging on the Paris agreement. This is a violation not just of the agreement itself, but also of various free trade agreements which reference it and require us to uphold it. Some of those trade partners have already raised concerns; now with the regime officially reneging then that seems likely to - and should - escalate into a threat of trade sanctions. It should also lead to action in the International Court of Justice to force adherence to the agreement, or pay compensation to those harmed by our refusal.

They're also abandoning over 75 years of foreign policy. Since 1945. Aotearoa has supported the "rules-based international order", reasoning that as a small country, a world where countries keep their agreements is better than one where they do not. National is pissing on that. Its not a very sensible thing to do, and it surrenders any right to whine when bigger countries do it to us. But National isn't concerned about any of that. They're driven by an ideology of climate change denial, fiscal short-termism, and pure ratfuckery, a desire to slag off the opposition for saying "we will meet our international obligations".

This is not the action of a credible, responsible governing party. Its is the action of a dogshit vandal regime, desperate to smash as much stuff and do as much damage as they can before they are thrown out of power. The quicker we vote these scum out, the better.

You don't win elections by telling voters to expect less

Aotearoa is broken. The economy is fucked. The dogshit vandal regime is smashing our democracy, our public services, and our society, while pushing the accelerator on burning the planet to the ground. People are crying out for change. And so Labour, the largest opposition party and so the de facto leader if there is a change of government, is telling them "nope, you won't get that from us!" First, we had finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds promising to continue the NeoLiberal austerity which has gutted our public services and allowed our infrastructure to decay. And now we have party leader Chris Hipkins - the de facto Prime Minister of any new government - telling people to dream smaller:

But the wider public-facing focus of the conference was a presentation of Labour as a very sensible-sounding Government-in-waiting, with small targeted changes to allow for more health spending, but nothing big enough for National to really attack.

[...]

Hipkins told media Labour would need to do more than just critique National to win. Yet despite borrowing the design style of New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani for the posters the party faithful were waving at Hipkins, the new policy he had to offer yesterday was far less ambitious than anything Mamdani would put his name to – a new low-interest loan scheme to let 50 GPs a year set up their own practices. It’s hard to see this being a policy that defines much of the campaign. A small, easily achievable promise is exactly what Labour is eager to put out currently. The party will tell anyone who asks that it was making too many promises that hurt them last time they were in government.

Which will no doubt have the smooth-brained political consultants nodding and stroking their beards and murmuring sagely about "small target strategies". Quite apart from the inherent deceit - a "small target strategy" is one where a party deliberately refuses to say what it plans to do in government, so its lying to voters - its a mistake. In order to regain power, Labour needs to increase its vote share to 40% of the vote (it can get less if it is willing to deal with a three-way coalition situation, but 40% plus 10% from a coalition partner is the basic equation). Its not going to get there by telling people to expect less. While it might avoid offending swinging middle voters, its not going to inspire anyone to actually tick their box rather than shrug and stay home.

Its also a complete failure to read the room. People want change. Not just in people, but in policies. Not just in tone, but in substance. Sure, we want the current regime gone, an end to the regime's weekly attacks on Māori, poor people, parents, children, democracy, and everything else - but we also want the harm caused by those attacks to be undone, insofar as it is possible. We want te Tiriti restored. We want democracy respected. We want pay equity and worker's rights restored. And we want the health and education systems to function. But Labour isn't in any hurry to do that bit. They'll change the faces and the tone and stop the attacks, but they're not promising to fix anything (or at least, anything which might cost money - can't offend the rich, after all). It really is as if their entire critique of government boils down to it simply being a matter of the wrong people being in charge, and things would be infinitely better if only their team were the ones collecting the fat salaries and juicy appointments...

Fortunately there are other left-leaning parties who are actually promising to change things and undo the damage the vandal regime is causing. And because we have MMP, voting for one of them doesn't actually hurt the chances of a left-wing government (you're just contributing to a different part of that equation, while still helping to boost the total). So I'd suggest that if you're a left voter who wants more, who doesn't want to dream smaller and expect less, then vote for one of them and leave Labour to rot.

More unaffordable food

Remember when Luxon promised a "laser focus on the cost of living"? Mince - the most basic meat you can get - has now become unaffordable:

Beef mince long seen as the most affordable red-meat option for households is losing that status as prices continue to surge.

RaboResearch senior animal protein analyst Jen Corkran said food prices had risen across the board, but beef mince had jumped far faster than most staples.

New Stats NZ figures showed in the year to October, overall food prices rose 4.7 percent, but the average price of a one-kilogram pack of beef mince climbed 18 percent.

Corkran said mince was now averaging $23.17 per kilo, meaning it was actually slightly more expensive than lamb chops, which sat at $22.27.

As with butter earlier in the year, the cause is exports driving up prices. 80% of NZ beef is exported, and domestic prices are set by international markers - meaning the people where the food is produced (and who pay the environmental costs of that production in the form of polluted water and higher greenhouse gas emissions) can no longer afford to eat it. The dominance of exports also makes farmers immune to local consumer pressure, meaning the normal "market" solution - reducing demand - has no effect.

Which means that if we want affordable food, we need non-market solutions: export bans, domestic quotas, price regulation. Otherwise, if farmers aren't going to feed us, we have no reason to permit their industry to exist - and certainly no reason to continue to subsidise them with free water and free pollution and free emissions.

Climate Change: Failure and fraud

RNZ yesterday had a piece about the regime's consultation on amendments to the Second Emissions Reduction Plan 2026-30, which closed yesterday. The headline is that the regime has officially given up on its carbon capture and storage fantasy, admitting that it will never happen and adjusting its emissions projections accordingly. This was doing all the heavy lifting over the next two emissions budgets, and without it they're basicly left with nothing (because they repealed everything that actually worked then crashed the carbon price to ensure the ETS wouldn't do anything either. Heckuva job there, National. No wonder our trade partners are worried...)

The other big news is that they now predict that they will miss the legislated 2030 methane target of a 10% drop in biogenic methane emissions from 2017 levels, instead achieving only a 7.9% reduction. Why? Because while they talk a big game about "technology" (their discussion document even includes a table with development pathways and expected deployment dates for various options), having removed agriculture from the ETS and forsworn regulating anything farmers do they have no way to ensure it is used - meaning that, for practical purposes, it might as well not exist. More importantly, despite assuming significant reductions from these fantasy technologies,

Higher forecast stock numbers are driving an increase in total agricultural emissions across the EB2 period compared with the forecast in the 2024 projections. While expectations of more uptake of mitigation technology result in a greater relative decrease in agricultural emissions through the EB2 period, this is not enough to offset increased production. The overall result is a 4.8 Mt increase in emissions from agriculture across the EB2 period, compared with that projected in ERP2.

Or, to put it another way: they removed environmental restrictions on farmers and let them keep on polluting without having to even pay for it, so of course they are now planning to. Again, repealing all effective policy leads to a blowout. Who knew?

(So what happens if they miss the methane target? Well, nothing. We have a target in law, with an explicit clause saying that there is no efective remedy for failing to meet it. "Our" government can burn us all to death, and all they will face is a wagging finger, because states gonna state. Plus of course the people who fucked this up - National - simply don't expect to be in power when the failure is announced, and are probably looking forward to attacking the then-government from opposition for "their" failure...)

And yet despite all that, National still claims it is going to meet our 2025 and 2030 emissions budgets, the first by a substantial margin, the second by a whisker:

Which looks great! Until you remember that those projections include significant methodological changes, and that last year He Pou a Rangi recommended lowering the budgets to account for them and ensure we were comparing like with like. While the government has not yet responded to this advice - I wonder why? - they are the numbers we should be using. The revised budgets are 283 MT for EB1 and 290 MT for EB2, and comparing National's projections with them shows they expect to meet EB1 by the merest whisker, and to miss EB2 by 10 million tons. As for EB3, the appendix shows they plan to be missing that by 18 MT.

If the regime refuses to adjust the emissions budgets as recommended, it will be able to claim a "surplus" of 7.8 MT, effectively by account fraud. It will then be able to bank that fraudulent surplus, and use it to cover up its failure in EB2. Which is pretty much how National "met" its Kyoto target as well: by fraud.

This is not something we should accept. We deserve honest carbon accounts just as we deserve honest financial ones. A regime which relies on fraud to claim to have achieved it targets is not just dishonest - it is criminal, and it should be treated as such.

An utter shambles II

Two weeks ago, the regime rammed through its deeply unpopular Regulatory Standards Act, imposing a radical Libertarian ideological straitjacket on all future actions by the New Zealand state. Just two days after voting to pass it, NZ First was promising to repeal it (or maybe not). And now, National is saying they might campaign on repealing it as well:

The National Party could join coalition partner NZ First and campaign on repealing the Regulatory Standards Act at the next election, deputy leader Nicola Willis says.

This is despite the law, which was pushed by the Act Party during coalition talks, being less than a month old, and having been passed into law with votes from both National and NZ First.

Speaking to Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills on Newstalk ZB, Willis said National had not “come up with what our party position will be after the election”.

“We haven’t ruled out repealing it either. We haven’t taken a position yet, but it’s not impossible that we would go to the campaign trail saying, ‘yes, we met our coalition commitment, we supported that into law, but actually we agree with the concerns of some people, it hasn’t operated as we’d hoped and we want to repeal it’.

“We haven’t come to a position yet, but we haven’t ruled it out.”

So we have a regime effectively campaigning against its own legislative program. I just don't have the words for this.

What I do have the words for is how utterly wasteful this is. The regime spent a year developing this law. It then put it out to public consultation in November last year, got 23,000 people telling them it was a stupid idea, ignored them, and sent it to parliament, where 159,000 people repeated the message. National ignored all those people and passed it anyway. They have wasted the time of public servants, MPs, and the public, at huge expense to everyone. So next time they talk about "waste" or "cost-cutting", we can all remember how they created a whole new ministry to develop and pass a law which they now promise to repeal.

I suppose it is good that National has finally listened, albeit far too late to do any good. But if they think any of the people who they ignored and derided will vote for them for this, I think they are doing an unpleasant bodily function metaphor in an uncomfortable place. As with Winston, only a fool would trust them to do what they say they will - on anything! If you want this dogshit law gone, better to vote for a party which has opposed it all along. Better to vote to throw this entire regime into the sea.

The Commerce Commission's weak case for secrecy

Back in September, the regime announced plans to give new powers to the Commerce Commission. But the announcement also included this:

We have also heard in your submissions that businesses and individuals are increasingly reluctant to share information with the Commission because of fears confidential information could be released under the Official Information Act, potentially leading to retaliation or misuse of confidential information by competitors. This is undermining the Commission’s ability to collect evidence and receive useful information, particularly in investigations and merger clearances.

The regime's solution was of course more secrecy, with a 10-year blanket exemption from the OIA for "confidential" information provided to the Commission, and greater power for the Commission to issue temporary exemption orders. I was curious about the justification for this, so I asked the Commission whether they in fact had any evidence supporting it: were they aware of any OIA release from them actually causing the harms the Minister had alleged, and did they have any evidence their existing secrecy powers were inadequate? In both cases, the answer was "no":

Regarding the first two bullets of your request, the Commission is not aware of any specific instances where information we have released under the OIA has caused harm to the business who provided the information to us.

The Commission is also not aware of any documents containing specific evidence that section 100 of the Commerce Act is inadequate.

What about wider advice on the OIA? Here the Commission said they had information, then refused to provide it for a further two months as they were (illegally) "consulting MBIE and the Minister’s Office prior to making our decision on the potential release of this material". But they finally provided the response yesterday, and a folder full of documents. There are a few interesting things in here, including that the Commission has apparently been running its own private "special advocate"-style system for merger cases, where lawyers are given access to evidence but forbidden from discussing it with or disclosing it to their clients - similar to the system used in "national security" cases here and overseas, with all the unfairness and professional issues that entails, only without any statutory authorisation. But on the actual case for secrecy, its largely fear, uncertainty, and doubt. TL;DR businesses are afraid they will be harmed by the release of "confidential" or commercially sensitive information. There's also fear over the public interest over-ride, and the inability of the Commission to give categorical assurances of total secrecy. Both show that businesses do not understand the law (which is to be expected), but that the Commission seriously entertains this shows that they don't either (possibly due to corporate culture capture). The fact is that there is a clear and obvious case for withholding confidential evidence under s9(2)(ba)(i) (in that it is clearly in the public interest that people are able to give evidence to the Commission, so if release would inhibit the giving of such evidence in future, s9(2)(ba)(i) applies), and while this is subject to the public interest test, the reality is that in practice such information is almost never released, because the usual public interest factors of accountability, transparency, and participation simply don't apply to information provided by third parties about themselves.

(There is the issue of the accountability of the Commission for its decisions, which means they must release the evidence which justifies them, but they should be doing that publicly anyway, so that's not an OIA issue, but a basic one of administrative law...)

However, there is one significant issue: big companies intimidating smaller ones from giving evidence against them:

In cases involving an applicant with alleged market power, dominance, or some other form of power or leverage over market participants, those market participants may be particularly concerned by the prospect of any information provided to us being provided to the applicant. This is of particular concern to us, as cases of this nature generally merit scrutiny.

Which sounds reasonable at first glance. But it isn't specifically an OIA problem - because, as the Commission admits, it is required to provide such information to applicants for reasons of natural justice. So the applicants are going to find out whether a request is made or not, and all attacking the OIA does is hide information from other people.

The obvious move here is not to undermine the OIA, but to target the actual problem of retaliation and victimisation, just as we do for whistleblowers. And the government announcement included that, so there's no need for secrecy at all.

The release also includes a summary of public submissions to a consultation by MBIE, which gives a good overview of their consultees' views on "protecting confidential information". Its worth noting that a broad OIA exemption was not one of the options canvassed in that consultation, so the Commission is going well beyond what was floated. Its also shocking that any government agency would fail to recognise the constitutional nature of the OIA, and that their response to it causing them minor irritations is to try and exempt themselves from a fundamental part of our constitution. But again, this is likely a matter of capture by corporate culture. We know that local and international business are fundamentally hostile to democracy and transparency; its utterly shocking that the body we have established to police them has been so captured by them as to share that hostility. At the end of the day, the Commerce Commission is a public body. That means it must respect democratic norms - including the OIA.

Overturning local democracy

A month ago we had local body elections in this country. As part of that, we elected new members to each of the country's eleven regional councils. Five regions also held referenda on Māori wards, with two voting to retain them.

But apparently we wasted our time with all that campaigning and voting, because National is just going to overturn the elections and smash the lot of them:

The Government is set to announce local government reforms that could spell the death of regional councils, it is understood.

Multiple well-placed sources have confirmed reforms being announced on Tuesday will mean the dissolving of regional councils.

It is understood the first steps could be within this current three-year council term with talk of a panel of regional mayors taking over the running of regional councils. This would be the first steps towards removing the councils all together, it is understood.

And of course it will likely be done under urgency, because National doesn't do consultation or democracy any more.

To do this so soon after elections displays a complete contempt for the democratic process, and invites suspicion that National just didn't like the results. Though the alternative - that National just made us all vote knowing we were wasting our time and didn't tell us isn't exactly great either. As for temporarily installing panels of regional mayors in the place of properly elected representatives, this effectively silences the cities and ensures rural over-representation, allowing these unelected bodies to make environmental decisions while ignoring the wishes of their local populations. Which is exactly what they did to ECan in 2010. And the result was giving Canterbury's water to farmers and letting them intensify and pollute with abandon - with consequences we are still suffering from.

Overturning elections and removing democratic representation in order to advance the interests of cronies and donors is the act of a corrupt and undemocratic tyranny. We should not accept it, or the regime which does it. So its something else to be reverted in the Omnibus Repeal Bill.

Climate Change: No ambition

Last December, He Pou a Rangi Climate Commission looked at our current emissions targets, and recognised that we could do more. Existing technology was expected to lead to a deep and rapid decarbonisation of the economy, including agriculture, resulting in not just lower emissions, but also cleaner air, cleaner water, and a healthier population. We were expected to hit our current net-zero carbon dioxide target nearly a decade early. Based on this, they recommended strengthening that target to a net negative one, compensating for remaining methane emissions and reducing our overall warming effect.

"Nah," said National. "It's all too hard. Let's not bother":

The government has quietly rejected Climate Change Commission advice to set a much more ambitious 'net negative' long-term target for carbon emissions.

Instead, it will retain the original 2050 goal of net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide and other long-lived gases.

That's despite warnings from the Climate Change Commission that the effects of climate change are hitting the country sooner and more severely than expected, and that New Zealand can and should be doing more.

A climate policy expert says the decision is "incredibly consequential" and should have been communicated more transparently.

The stupidity here is stunning. We had a better future in our grasp. And National has thrown it - and us - on the bonfire, out of pure ideological hostility to climate action. (Though their doing it in secret shows that some of them are at least ashamed of the decision, or at least scared of what we will think of it - and of them).

The good news is that they won't last forever. And once this dogshit zombie regime is gone, we can restore policy and get ourselves back on that negative carbon track. The bad news is that the three years of delay they have imposed has allowed much higher emissions, and will have made our future that much worse. We need to hold them accountable for that - not just politically, but criminally as ecocidaires.

An utter shambles

Last week, the regime rammed through its deeply unpopular Regulatory Standards Act, imposing a radical Libertarian ideological straitjacket on all future actions by the New Zealand state. As part of the current regime, NZ First voted for the bill. And now, just a week later, they're promising to repeal it:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has vowed to repeal the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) if re-elected next year.

It's prompted the bill's key proponent, ACT leader David Seymour, to warn Peters could be jumping ship to Labour.

Peters told Radio Waatea's Dale Husband he wanted the bill gone earlier on Thursday, having voted it through its third reading this time last week.

"It was their deal, the ACT Party's deal with the National Party. We were opposed to this from the word go but you've only got so many cards you can play.

"We did our best to neutralise its adverse effects and we will campaign at the next election to repeal it."

While its good to see they've decided the law is a bad idea, it would have been better if they'd made their opposition clear last week, when it mattered, rather than this week when it doesn't. But the problem for Winston is that this makes it clear that we just can't trust anything he says. He might promise something in an election campaign or even a coalition agreement, but he might change his mind a week later, or work within government to sabotage the policies he has supposedly pledged to support. No-one can rely on such a party - not the other parties they would need to work with to form a government, and certainly not the voters, who can't be sure what they'll be getting. But then, hasn't that always been the case with Winston?

Meanwhile, I guess we can enjoy watching the current regime slowly collapsing under the weight of its internal hatreds. And the sooner it all falls apart and we can throw them all out on their arses, the better.

Leave the kids alone

Like many others, I am outraged by the regime's decision today to ban the use of puberty-blockers for trans (but not cis) children. And while I feel deeply unqualified to talk about gender or queer issues, you don't need to be to recognise that this is a decision which rightfully belongs to doctors and patients - not politicians. It is simply none of their business, and they should stay the fuck out of other people's lives.

Rights Aotearoa has argued that the decision is discriminaotry, and it is likely to be challenged in the courts. Good. And hopefully that challenge will involve an injunction preventing its application. Because there are clear harms from it, in the form of dead kids. Gender-affirming care saves lives, and by deny it, the regime is making a clear statement: they would rather kids kill themselves than be allowed to be who they are. They would rather kids kill themselves than be trans.

There is a name for such people: murderers. Such people are not just unfit to govern - they deserve to be prosecuted, convicted, and jailed.

There is a magic money-tree after all

Remember when Bill English called prisons "a moral and fiscal failure"? It was an example of his cautious conservativism, a recognition not just that prisons do no-one any good 9and often make people worse) and are driven by wider social failings, but also that maintaining that system costs an absolute fuck-ton of money which could be better spent elsewhere.

The attitude of the current National regime couldn't be any more different:

Facing reporters at Parliament on Tuesday, Luxon was questioned about the prison muster, which has surged to record highs and is now nearing 11,000 inmates.

"Absolutely, that's a good thing," he said. "Yep, good thing."

Luxon said the coalition would not ease up on criminals or adjust policy simply because the costs were rising.

"I understand... the financial implication of... restoring law and order in New Zealand, but we make no apologies about that," he said.

"The cost will be what the cost will be."

There's no thinking here, just the mindless "number go up so it must be good" of the mediocre middle manager promoted to his level of incompetence. As for "the cost will be what the cost will be", its a perfect example of how spending decisions illustrate real priorities. The regime dismantled the pay equity regime, putting fair pay out of reach for a generation, because "we can't afford it". It uses the same excuse for working doctors and nurses to death rather than accepting safe staffing levels, and for underpaying teachers and public servants. It is used to justify cutting Kāinga Ora's massive building program, leaving empty wastelands in our cities where once social housing stood; for shitting on beneficiaries; for cutting the vital Cook Strait ferry link; for refusing to fund decarbonisation; and for a host of other policy areas. If we need it, National says "we can't afford it". But when it comes to prisons, "the cost will be what the cost will be".

I guess there is a "magic money tree" in Wellington after all. Its just that the money can only be spent on cruelty and sadism, on ruining people and making our problems worse (and on roads, of course). As for our actual needs, our actual demands, National doesn't give a flying fuck about any of that.

We need to get rid of this corrupt dogshit regime as quickly as possible. Bring on the election!

National cares about nothing but roads

National has announced its latest bullshit roading plan: $4 billion to shove more cars into central Wellington:

The New Zealand Transport Agency has unveiled its proposals for State Highway One in Wellington, which would see a second Mount Victoria tunnel "affect some Town Belt" land.

An additional tunnel was part of the National Party's campaign promise, with improvements in the area discussed for years.

The revamped state highway corridor from the Terrace Tunnel through to Kilbirnie is expected to cost $2.9 to $3.8 billion and is a bid to "alleviate Wellington's longstanding bottlenecks".

The proposal - which is being considered for fast-track approval - includes second tunnels created at Mount Victoria and The Terrace, and sees traffic moving in both directions around the Basin Reserve.

$4 billion is a huge cost, and you immediately have to ask where else it could be better spent. What would it do for housing? For education? For health? For the environment? Or indeed, for public transport in Wellington, to make those giant new roads unnecessary? How many Dunedin hospitals or Christchurch commuter rail networks would it pay for?

But none of these things matter to National. No, what's important is ensuring that rich business fat cats in suits can get to their pointless meetings "up to" ten minutes faster. And said rich business fat cats don't use public schools and public hospitals, let alone trams or trains - and they think they can avoid the current environmental apocalypse by hiding out in bunkers with their rich pedophile mates.

Its a perfect example of National's priorities: they care about nothing but roads.

Ratfucking our democracy

One of the major themes of this regime has been its contempt for democracy and the parliamentary process. The statistics on this were laid bare recently in the Clerk of the House's submission on the triennial Review of Standing Orders, where they detailed just how much the regime (ab)uses urgency and extended sittings to ram its agenda through. But one of the other issues they highlighted was the constant skipping or truncation of select committee consideration. Parliament has decided that bills should generally receive six months' consideration by select committee, and has procedural safeguards in place to protect that, requiring a long debate on any move to reduce consideration below six months. Despite this, only 44% of bills get full consideration, 22% get between 4 and 6 months, 13% get less time, and 20% are never considered at all.

The Clerk proposes stopping this trend by strengthening procedural safeguards. Meanwhile, national has found a new way of bypassing them and undermining the parliamentary process. Last Thursday, the House passed the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill through its first reading. The bill makes a number of significant changes to National's corrupt Muldoonist fast-track regime, including strengthening ministerial powers to dictate outcomes while removing the right to submit on or challenge decisions in court. Its significant legislation and deserves significant scrutiny (not least to avoid repeating the process we're going through now, where major legislation is getting major amendments within a year because the government rushed it in the first place) - and at the first reading debate RMA minister Chris Bishop gave the impression that it would be, asking for no special instruction to committee, meaning the default six-month consideration would apply.

Despite that, just a few days later, Catherine Wedd, the chair of the Environment Committee advertised that there would only be 11 days allowed for submissions, and that she expected the committee to report the bill back early so it could be passed by christmas.

[Interlude: You should submit on this bill. You have until Monday. Submissions are open here, and there are submission guides here and here. You know the drill. Go and bury them. Don't let them say no-one cared. And don't let the opposition think they can leave it in place.]

Wedd has been questoned in parliament about this twice this week, and after trying to hide behind a standing order which does not grant her the power she says it does, she claimed that there had been no collusion with any ministers or ministerial advisers over the changed deadline. Which is obvious bullshit - firstly because select committee chairs don't make this kind of decision from nowhere, and secondly because Bishop clearly planned it all along: at first reading he simply said "I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill", without the usual "for a period of six months" (or "four months and one day" or whatever). So this is another planned assault on our democratic process and on the right of Aotearoans to have a say in our own laws.

Unfortunately during that questioning Speaker Brownlee said outright that this was a "loophole" - that it was "within the rules", as the politicians like to say - and that he had raised it with the business committee:

yesterday I spoke at the Business Committee, and, whether we like it or not, this is best described as a gap or a loophole in our Standing Orders. There is a problem with that, it is the Standing Orders Committee that will need to consider it, and I have said I will put it on the agenda for that committee to review.

Meanwhile, while he's "reviewing", rather than putting his foot down over a clear misleading of the House, we've had three bills reported back early today: the Patents Amendment Bill (two months early), the Retail Payment System (Ban on Merchant Surcharges) Amendment Bill (two months early), and the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Standard) Amendment Bill (No 2) (one month early). National seems to be using that loophole for everything they can. In the process, they have turned the Ministers who advanced those bills and suggested they would receive real consideration into liars and put them in the position of having misled the House (which BTW is how to deal with this: a complaint against Bishop for misleading the House, because the smirking fuck obviously did so).

The select committee process exists for good reason - not just to improve legislation, but also to legitimate it, by ensuring we can have a say and be heard. It helps us believe that government in this country is something that happens by consent, rather than being a naked exercise of power, and that legislation is somehow well-considered and rational (in some sense of the word), rather than being a poorly-drafted corrupt joke. It is essential to trust in government. Guillotining the process destroys all that. It destroys that trust. It directly undermines the legitimacy of parliament and the state. Which you'd think a bunch of people whose power rests on that legitimacy might worry about. But hey, whatever it takes to meet this quarter's KPIs, right?

This can be fixed: parliament can and should pass a sessional order to plug the loophole and prevent select committees from truncating consideration periods unless explicitly granted permission by the House. If the regime refuses to do so, it tells us everything we need to know about their intentions towards our democracy, and everything we need to know about how we should treat them and their bullshit rubberstamp "parliament" in future.

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.