Fuck one-way "bipartisanship"

When National came into office, it went on vandalism spree, smashing everything and repealing policies simply because they had been passed by the previous government. Climate change policy was a prime target, with the regime repealing all effective policy and reneging on the bipartisan deal over the Zero Carbon Act, which saw targets and policies watered down in exchange for its supposedly ongoing support. Since then, they've repealed the offshore gas exploration ban - and now they're demanding that Labour commit to not reinstating it, in the name of "bipartisanship":

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has written to Labour leader Chris Hipkins asking him to commit to supporting offshore exploration for natural gas for at least the next 10 years.

In the letter, seen by RNZ, Luxon said if Labour reinstated a ban on offshore gas exploration, it might pose an insurmountable barrier for some investors.

"You have said previously that, if elected, Labour will not spend its time 'pausing, cancelling, and reviewing everything'. But bipartisanship must be more than a political slogan," Luxon wrote to Hipkins on Monday.

"Hence, I am writing to seek a commitment from the Labour Party to support offshore exploration for natural gas for at least the next ten years.

Hipkins has already said "fuck that", and rightly so. If National wants to make deals, they have to keep them. They haven't, so no deals can be made. Their one-sided version of "bipartisanship", where they get to do whatever they want, and everyone else has to simply accept it, is a mug's game.

A policy of murder

Unreinforced masonry buildings killed 40 people in the Christchurch earthquakes, and as a result owners were required to fix their deathtraps. Except they didn't. Instead, they whined and dragged their feet and asked for more time and more time and more time - and now, National is letting them off the hook:

The government says a new "risk-based" approach to earthquake strengthening will save building owners more than $8.2 billion across New Zealand, and reduce risk from derelict empty buildings.

The Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said the current 'New Building Standard' used by engineers was too broad and inconsistent and would be scrapped.

[...]

Replacement standards, called the Earthquake Prone Building system, will mean unreinforced masonry buildings with unsecured facades and walls facing public areas or above neighbouring properties will be deemed earthquake prone.

However, those under three storeys and in towns with under 10,000 people would no longer need strengthening, remediation or warning notices - and could be removed from the earthquake-prone register after having the facade secured.

So, provincial New Zealand will be allowed to keep using its deathtrap buildings, and people will almost certainly die as a result. And when they do, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk will have murdered them. It is that simple. They have decided to put rich people's money ahead of human lives, and that is simply murder.

National wants to eradicate Māori from the law

One of the major legal changes of the last fifty years has been the increasing recognition of te Tiriti o Waitangi and tikanga in law, both through statute and caselaw. The present white supremacist regime, with their Treaty Principles Bill, Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Act, and plans to repeal Treaty clauses, have made it clear that they want to remove statutory recognition. And now they're going after caselaw as well, threatening legislation to simply overturn decisions they don't like:

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the judiciary is creating a “bespoke” legal system that’s not internationally transferable and could deter foreign investors.

These comments – made to an audience of lawyers at a Law Association function last week, and first reported by Law News – came with a commitment to create legislation that would essentially overwrite certain judicial decisions where tikanga and te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations are involved.

The Government is already doing exactly this in regards to its Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Amendment Bill, which seeks to tighten the law around Māori claims to customary rights following significant court decisions.

And according to the Law News report, Goldsmith revealed at last Wednesday’s breakfast event that he planned to go further.

Which you'd think would be an even bigger threat to the legal system and deterrant to foreign investors than the "problem" Goldsmith purports to be solving. After all, a government which overturns decisions which benefit Māori could also overturn decisions which benefit foreign investors. But weirdly racists never think they'll be the victim (because white supremacy).

Not that there is actually a problem here to solve at all. A "bespoke" legal system? You mean a country's laws reflecting the society and historical circumstances of that country, rather than a foreign one on the other side of the world? Quelle horreur! And yet people have no problem accepting this when talking about the USA, or France, or Germany, or Canada, or pretty much anywhere else. It is only when they're only talking about Māori that it becomes a problem. And we all know why.

But Māori are the first people of this country, and tikanga is its first law. Under accepted and completely orthodox legal principles, that law remains until extinguished. And it is a matter of historical fact that parts of it have not been extinguished, and therefore effectively remain in force, to influence the rest of the legal system. This may offend the sensibilities of richwhite lawyers from the fancy suburbs of Auckland, but the fact remains. And if they don't understand it, maybe they should adhere to their professional responsibilities and learn, rather than seeking to eliminate it.

(As for Goldsmith's threat, if this gets to the stage of legislation and passes into law, it just goes on the list of things to be immediately repealed under urgency by the next government. We have a revert button too, and we will use it, so if you want "stability", then stop fucking around and let the judges do their job).

Shameful and cowardly

That is the only way to describe the regime's refusal today to recognise Palestine. Faced with a clear moral test - an illegal occupation and an ongoing genocide - they blew it. They'd rather toady to fascists and génocidaires than do the right thing.

The message is clear: if we want a government which will (eventually) follow the world and do the right thing, we need regime change. Bring on the election, so we can vote these genocidal chickenshits out.

This corruption has to stop

Two weeks ago, we learned that National MP Carl Bates had hidden his interest in 25 properties from parliament's register of pecuniary interests, using the time-honoured technique of pretending that he didn't have an interest in them because he had hidden them in a trust (and while voting to give money to landlords, screw over renters, and of course reduce the bright-line test - all clear conflicts of interest). Today the Registrar of Pecuniary Interests announced an investigation into Bates' false declaration:

Labour MP Glen Bennet wrote to Sir Maarten Wevers, Parliament’s Registrar of Pecuniary Interests, asking him to investigate whether Bates had broken the rules by not listing interest in those 25 properties.

On Thursday, Wevers confirmed he would investigate.

“Having conducted a preliminary review of the request, the Registrar has determined that an inquiry is warranted,” a spokesperson said, in a statement.

If Wevers finds Bates was misleading, the issue will be sent to the Privileges Committee. Which raises the obvious question: will the penalty that body hands out for effectively trying to defraud the public be anything like that handed out to Te Pāti Māori MPs for being Māori? And if not, what does that say about "our" parliament, its legitimacy, and the behaviour it accepts and that it condemns?

Meanwhile, this issue keeps cropping up. Our political class seems fundamentally incapable of being honest with us or behaving with an appropriate degree of probity. Which in turn creates suspicions of corruption and brings the entire institution of Parliament into disrepute. Stronger measures are called for: MPs must be required to completely divest themselves of all assets beyond their homes and interests in Māori land, and shove the money in an index fund or government bonds upon election, just to ensure their minds aren't focused on enriching themselves. If they don't like that, they shouldn't pursue a career in public life.

Of course, they won't do that. Which leaves the alternative. MPs who lie about their interests are deliberately attempting to defraud the public. And they should be criminally prosecuted for it.

Still wibbling

On Monday, Australia, Canada, and the UK finally recognised Palestine. Today, France followed suit. Meanwhile, New Zealand is still wibbling:

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has refused to be drawn over whether New Zealand will join nations taking steps to formally recognised a Palestinian state.

[...]

Peters said there were many days to go, and he planned to spend those days "finding out all the facts".

"We've been waiting 80 long years for an answer here, and a few days finding out all the facts will not be wasted."

Asked what information he was searching for while in New York this week, Peters said "we're here to listen, hear all the arguments, all the facts as best known, and when we have them, we will finalise our decision".

I assume the "facts" he is waiting to hear are his marching orders from the fascist regime in Washington. Because he is clearly not interested in what is happening on the ground in Gaza - genocide, a crime against humanity - or in the views of fellow UN member-states, 80% of whom recognise Palestine. Let alone those of New Zealanders, 40% of whom support immediate recognition (vs 22% who oppose it).

Once upon a time, Aotearoa stood up for what was right on the international stage. This regime clearly will not. If we want a government which reflects our values, they have to go.

(Of course, recognition is only the first step. We need full sanctions and a trade-ban on Israel, an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for genocide and war crimes, and an international effort to identify, locate, and arrest them).

Unravelling the Zero Carbon Act

For twenty years, Aotearoa's climate change policy went through a continuous cycle of governments making big promises, then doing nothing at all to meet them, resulting in targets being unmet and problems getting worse. But in 2019, in a rare act of bipartisanship, Parliament passed the Zero Carbon Act, which was meant to break this cycle. Governments would have to be upfront about what their targets were and how they planned to meet them. And to keep them honest, an independent Climate Commission - He Pou a Rangi - would advise them and review their work, making it clear to the public whether the politicians were doing enough.

Unfortunately, the current regime are climate change deniers who want to revert to the old way of doing nothing. And so they plan to end He Pou a Rangi's watchdog role over their emissions reduction plans:

Climate Change Minister Simon Watts repeatedly adamantly denied any plan to remove the Climate Change Commission's role in advising on emissions reduction plans, only for his office to two days later confirm the Government was considering exactly that.

1News can reveal the Government was weighing up whether to remove the Climate Change Commission's role in advising on emissions reduction plans — a move the Green Party says would undermine independent scrutiny of climate policy.

The proposal was part of a broader review of the Climate Change Response Act, which requires the Climate Change Commission to provide independent expert advice on the Government's five-yearly emissions reduction plans.

The 1News story focuses on the Minister's deceit, and that is bad - Ministers should not lie to the media and the public like this. But the policy effect of removing He Pou a Rangi's advice on emissions reduction plans will be to enable the government to lie to the public about the effects of its policies, while reducing a key accountability mechanism. Which obviously suits the current regime - which has removed all effective climate policy, and whose emissions reduction plan therefore will not meet its legislated targets - very well. But it seems actively harmful to us, the public.

The other lesson in this of course that there is simply no point seeking consensus or bipartisan agreement with national on this or any other issue, because they have clearly demonstrated that they are cheats and liars who will play you for a sucker. The next government should take this lesson to heart, ignore the wailing from National and its polluting, ecocidal backers, and legislate for real climate action, which drives said backers out of business and ends their destructive pollution as quickly as possible. As National has shown, its easy to smash things. So lets start smashing.

Who to vote for in Palmerston North 2

Palmerston North held a mayoral candidate debate last night, and based on the Substandard's writeup, I've finally figured out how I'm ranking the candidates.

My first preference goes to Michael Morris, who's big pitch was being vegan. He's also the only candidate to fully back the Featherston Street remodelling, saying that "if the city was serious about sustainability, health and inclusivity it had to look beyond giving priority to people driving motor cars." He's also Green-affiliated, so that puts him to the top.

Number two is incumbent Grant Smith, who has been a pretty good mayor, and (from once being a Nat IIRC) now describes himself as "centre-right with a green tinge" (which is accurate, given his record). Both he and Mickalad had second-thoughts about the design of Featherston Street, but not the goal, which is not a terrible position to take.

Number three is Orphée Mickalad, who played up his National Party affiliations (so fuck him), and whose main pitch just seemed to be "a new face".

Not preferenced: Caleb Riddick, whose answers were all danger-signs: rabidly anti-Featherston Street, self-described "independent", no real platform. I'm not saying that he's a cooker - but from his statements and the complete lack of public information about him, I can't rule it out either. And that's enough to chuck him in the bin.

So, I've now finally filled out my form, and its just a matter of finding a big orange bin to dump it in.

Climate Change: Beaten by Australia

Australia has just announced its new climate target: a 62 to 70% cut in emissions by 2035:

Australia will vow to cut its emissions by 62 to 70 per cent by 2035, lifting its sights further as the world strives to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government had listened to the Climate Change Authority's advice.

"It's the right target to protect our environment, to protect and advance our economy and jobs, and to ensure that we act in our national interest and in the interest of this and future generations," Mr Albanese said.

"It's based upon the science, and it is independent advice to the government."

Compare this to National's pathetic, unambitious, irresponsible target of a 51 to 55% cut, which was pulled out of Rimmer's arse and explicitly ignored the expert advice of He Pou a Rangi. Thanks to National, we're going to be beaten by Australia, one of the most fossil-addicted countries in the world.

its completely pathetic. The only good side to it is that National's NDC is so unambitious as to likely be illegal, and the next government will inevitably have to increase it. And Australia has just set a clear bar for us to beat. But the struggle now is to ensure that there is a "next government" to do that; to throw these bums out at the first opportunity.

Israel is commiting genocide in Gaza

Its official: a UN independent international commission of inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza:

The COI, set up by the UN in 2021 and staffed by three independent experts, cited the killing of civilians and children in a “scorched-earth military strategy”, starvation and deaths caused by restrictions on food and medicines, mistreatment of detainees, forced displacement and the physical devastation of much of the territory to support its finding.

The COI also accused Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister who has been accused of war crimes by the international criminal court, and other senior Israeli leaders of incitement of genocide, and said there was clear evidence of their genocidal intent, a key legal requirement.

“The commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent … The commission also concludes … that genocidal intent was the only reasonably inference that can be drawn from the totality of the evidence,” Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, told reporters.

As they point out, all states have an obligation under international law to use all means reasonably available to them to stop genocide. We're a small country on the other side of the world, but the very least we can do would seem to be sanctioning them like we sanction Russia, cutting off the hundreds of millions in trade which genocide-enablers are currently profiting from, supporting an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible, and a global intelligence and law enforcement effort to identify, locate, arrest, and deliver them for trial. Plus of course recognising Palestine.

But realistically, Rimmer - who at this stage is just a local agent for far-right foreigners - isn't going to permit any of this. And while he's nominally only deputy prime minister, Luxon's utter spinelessness has left him de facto in charge of our government. So if we want justice for Gaza, we're going to have to throw these bums out to get it.

"Laser focused"

When the regime was elected, they claimed to have a laser focus on bringing down the cost of living. So how's that working out for them? Badly:

Food prices are rising much faster than wages, putting more pressure on household budgets and creating a squeeze that's feeling worse for some than the global financial crisis, one economist says.

Stats NZ data for August shows prices were 5 percent higher than a year earlier.

Depending on how wage growth is measured, incomes are growing by as little as half that.

[...]

Higher prices for the grocery food group, up 4.7 percent, contributed most to the annual increase in food prices.

That was largely down to the increase in milk, cheese and butter. Milk was up 16.3 percent to $4.72 per two litres, cheese up 26.2 percent to $12.89 for a kilogram block and butter was up 31.8 percent year-on-year to $8.58 per 500g.

Meat, fruit, and vegetables are also all up. And what's the government's answer? Nothing. Oh, they'll tinker around the edges and wish for a deep-pocketed competitor to enter the market, but they won't actually do anything. They won't make a KiwiKai to provide competition, or forcibly break up the oligopoly which gouges us. And the Prime Minister's response to basic food prices being so high is to blame "international markets", without once asking why kiwis, the people who subsidise food production and bear its environmental costs, are paying those prices, or why food producers are allowed to export in preference to feeding us first. Because asking those questions would be very bad for the people who fund this regime, and who profit by gouging us.

But if this regime doesn't have an answer, then voters can and should look for one at the ballot box. Price gouging does terrible things for your social licence, and its time we reminded our grocery oligopolies of that. Regulate them properly, force them to sell to us first at a fair price before they export anything, and make it clear that their primary purpose is to serve the New Zealand market, not foreigners. The problem with having a food industry which exports 90% of its output is that they don't have to care about us; so maybe we need to challenge the problem at its root, stop those exports, shrink the industry to something more manageable (and less environmentally destructive), rather than letting them impoverish us economically, socially, and environmentally for their own profit?

Typically useless

On Saturday, the Herald's Thomas Coughlan reported that Labour was inching its way to a capital gains tax. But in typical Labour fashion, they're watering it down so much as to exclude almost everything:

It would probably look like a maximalist bright-line test: family homes exempt, farms also likely spared, but residential investment property and the family bach are all in.

Tax would be levied at realisation, not the once-favoured “deemed return” method, which is a wee bit too much like a wealth tax on people who aren’t always that wealthy.

[...]

Trade-offs abound. Political saleability comes at a fiscal cost. Oliver’s paper reckoned his limited CGT would raise barely 39% of the broad CGT’s take – around $2.4 billion after 10 years. Not trivial, but still less in 10 years than Labour’s 2023 wealth tax would have netted in one. At worst, it could make Labour look unserious about tackling the alleged austerity it’s spent the parliamentary term prosecuting.

So, 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. And meanwhile, their rival parties, on whom they depend to even be a government, are going for simpler wealth taxes, which whack the rich to raise enough revenue to actually fix things, while leaving normal people - almost everybody, in fact - completely unaffected. Which seems simpler, easier, and clearer than Labour's bullshit.

If you're on the left, and you want better public services and a reduction in inequality, why vote for half-measures? And why vote for a party which waters its policies down, in order to comply in advance with the rich? Fuck the rich. By definition, we outnumber them 99-to-one. And if our country imagines itself to be democratic, our government should serve us, not them. It is an appalling indictment of our mainstream political parties that they continually pander to this tiny minority, while screwing over almost everybody who actually votes for them.

So next election, if you want change, vote for it. Vote for parties who will hold a metaphorical gun to labour's head to force them to do what is necessary. Don't vote for useless bootlickers.

Who to vote for in Palmerston North (2025)

My local body voting papers arrived earlier in the week, so its time for the usual post in which I try and work out who I'm voting for. This year in addition to my usual policy interests of climate change, public transport, decent services (which must be paid for), and wanting a council that looks like Aotearoa, I'm doing an outright litmus test on Māori wards: supporters in, opponents out. I'm also worried about the quiet campaign of stealth cooker candidates seeking to infiltrate, subvert, and undermine local government. Sadly the media seems to have stopped paying attention to this, and there hasn't been any concentrated coverage or big exposes like last time, so I've had to try and spot the cookers myself. I've also been using the Progress Report to see what there is about the candidates; unfortunately policy.nz hasn't been very useful to me this time (it may be useful to you?). Where does that leave me? Read on...

Referendums

If it wasn't clear enough, I will be voting to retain Māori wards at both local and regional level, because fuck this racist anti-Māori regime. Also, the endless parade of local body figures - including lots of boring old white conservatives - saying simply "they work" or even defending them on economic grounds, ought to convince everyone that the government has made a very bad decision here.

Mayor

There are four candidates this time, all of which seem fairly normal. All of them support Māori wards, and all of them seem to be on roughly the same page (so far) regarding climate change and public transport - though there's a mayoral debate next week, so maybe some policy differences will arise then. Until then I'm mostly going on vibes, and those are that the incumbent, Grant Smith, is pretty good. That said, I like Orphée Mickalad, and normally I'd preference him ahead of Smith on demographic grounds (young before old etc...), if not for the fact that he talks about "faith" in his blurb (which is usually a sign of being a bigot or a weirdo or both), and he supported the regime tolling the existing state highway connection to Hawkes' Bay (which I don't use, but still... fuck that shit). Michael Morris's big pitch is that he's a vegan, which doesn't seem to have much relevance to local government, but I'm tempted to rank him first on environmental grounds (STV, so it doesn't hurt). There is no information about Caleb Riddick, none whatsoever. He might be a great candidate (and again, would normally rank highly on demographic grounds) - but there's just nothing, other than support for Māori wards. In the current environment that's a danger sign, so unless something pops up in the debate next week, he's probably not even getting preferenced.

City Council This is a big decision-space: 37 candidates for 13 spaces in the Te Hirawanui general ward. So its mostly an exercise in winnowing the field. Fortunately some of it is easy: there are two Green and two Labour candidates, who will get the top spots, and the incumbents are known quantities who generally support Māori wards as well (with a couple of notable exceptions), and some of them can be safely given a lower preference. There are also people who are easy to rule out, starting the ACT candidate (fuck them), anyone who has signed the Taxpayers Onion pledge, anyone who says "keep rates low" (or equivalent), anyone ranting about Featherston Street and cycleways, and cookers. On the latter front, Jackie Wheeler submitted against the pandemic response (and explicitly endorsed Voices For Freedom to boot); she also founded the local angry "residents" group, which is a VFF front (so, no preference for anyone they endorse). Quintin McGregor also submitted in favour of the virus, spewing cooker tropes. Mel Butler ran last time and I'd marked her as an anti-vaxer then. Dave Poppelwell is a former New Conservative candidate. Zakk Rokkanno smells like a cooker as well, talking about being "not easily led" and "think[ing] for myself" (last time it was an explicit promise to Do His Own Research), but his concern about "cancel culture" is still a screaming red flag - what are you afraid of being "cancelled" over, Zakk?

"Back to basics" seems to be the local cooker passphrase, and so anyone with that in their blurb (Dunlop, Hoskins, Salisbury) can be ruled out.

Incumbents who can be ruled out: Hapeta and Wood (Nats, oppose Māori wards), Arnott (pro-car), Findlay, Meehan, and Naylor (keep rates low). I'd also rule out Michael Strachan, simply because he seems to have no idea what local government actually does (its not about mental health and education), and because he talks about "faith" (weirdo!). Verne Wilson is just a Business Daddy, so he can fuck off.

So who does that leave who might get a preference after my top four (Zabelin, Barrett, Butt, Johnson) and safe incumbents (Bowen, Dennison)? Nelson Harper is involved in Just Zilch (a local food rescue charity; a good sign), and a self-described greenie. He's been critical of Featherston Street, but approaches it from a place of not being sure it was the best design, rather than "rarr! bike lanes!". Worth a preference I think. Cameron Jenkins is from the Manawatu Tenants Union, and a queer community advocate. Richard Woolgar is a water engineer, seems pretty sensible, supports Māori wards, and might be OK.

People I'm not sure about: Tobias Nash (an OK blurb, and he's been trolling the cookers and the TPU, but I'm just not sure OK, seen some endorsements of him as smart and progressive, so I'll bump him up to giving him a preference), Eldhose Poovathumveettil Mathew (good blurb, but mentions reducing rates while promising more services), Adrian Phillips (pro-rail, pro-Māori wards, but talking about political "independence" just smalls bad), Atif Rahim (pro 3 waters last time, but also says "sensible spending"), and of course Caleb Riddick (again: nothing to judge on but the blurb, which isn't enough). These might get a preference if I have any left.

The Māori ward candidates all look quite good, but I'm not on that roll.

Horizons

Lots of choice this year - ten candidates for four positions. And a recent debate showed most candidates to be on the same page on the issues I care about. The exception being Peter Wells, who I'd rule out just on his "affordable rates" tag anyway. I also have a long-standing hate against corrupt former mayor Jono Naylor, even if he spoke up strongly for Māori wards and is largely in the right place on everything else.

Horizons still uses the archaic and undemocratic bloc-vote system, so I need to be more careful than I would under STV. I'll happily give a tick to incumbents Wiremu Te Awe Awe and Fiona Gordon, and to Green candidate Emma Gregg. as for my fourth vote, it'll probably go to Daniel Fordyce (the Just Zilch seal of approval again!), or to Manu Karki. I'd rule out Charles George purely on demographics (and because he talks about being "independent" again - should this be an official red flag?), but nothing seems particularly wrong with the other two.

Voting closes at noon on Saturday, 11 October, so I have a bit of time to refine my choices. Because of the general unreliability of NZ Post these days, I'll be dropping my vote in one of the big orange boxes around town, rather than trusting the postal system. Fortunately there's one at every library, supermarket, and a bunch of other places as well, so it ought to be easy.

Update (11/09/2025): added comments about Tobias Nash; I'm bumping him up from "not sure" to "preference".

Justice in Brazil

In 2022, Brazilian voters kicked president Jair Bolsonaro out of office. He responded with an attempted coup. Now, he's been convicted for it, and sentenced to 27 years in prison:

Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup and seeking to “annihilate” the South American country’s democracy.

Justices Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha and Cristiano Zanin ruled on Thursday that Bolsonaro – a former paratrooper who was elected president in 2018 – was guilty of seeking to forcibly cling to power after losing the 2022 election, meaning four of the five judges involved in the trial had found Brazil’s former leader guilty.

Announcing Bolsonaro’s sentence for crimes including coup d’etat and violently attempting to abolish Brazil’s democracy on Thursday night, the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes said: “[He tried to] annihilate the essential pillars of the democratic rule-of-law state ... the greatest consequence [of which] ... would have been the return of dictatorship to Brazil.”

Good. This is how democracies with a functioning legal system, like Brazil and Korea, respond to coups: with law and criminal charges. Meanwhile, the US, which purports to be the "world's greatest democracy", has not only failed to hold Trump to account for his coup attempt on January 6, 2021 - it re-elected him, and he is now threatening Brazil with tariffs and sanctions for upholding the law and defending their democracy from fascism. Which kindof makes it clear which side he's on, doesn't it?

A clear conflict of interest

Another day, another MP caught fiddling their pecuniary interests declaration. This time it's National's Carl Bates, who hid his interest in 25 properties from public scrutiny:

Trusts linked to Whanganui first-term National MP Carl Bates and his family own 25 properties, which are not disclosed on Parliament’s list of MPs’ property and financial interests.

Many of the properties are rentals in Whanganui, making Bates’ family one of the biggest private landlords in his electorate.

Bates told the Herald he was merely a beneficiary of the trusts and had checked he was declaring everything required of him.

...and then deliberately moved all those properties into a trust to prevent disclosure. It may be "within the rules" (which we all know are bullshit). But it is also deeply dishonest and corrupt. And meanwhile, while he held this enormous secret interest as one of Whanganui's biggest landlords, he merrily voted on legislation benefiting landlords and screwing over renters. Normal people would call that a clear conflict of interest, exactly the sort of thing the pecuniary interests register was intended to prevent. But as we all know, our political class are no longer normal people, and no longer share our values. Instead they exist in their own little world where landleeching and corruption are pervasive.

This system needs to be cleaned out. And those who hide their corrupt interests need to go.

Drawn

A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn:

• Drug Overdose (Assistance Protection) Legislation Bill (Kahurangi Carter)

There were 76 bills in the ballot today, including three "right to repair" bills and two competing ones on slavery. You'd think that the parties might cut a deal on these topics to at least get bills with clear bipartisan support before the House. But I guess they'd rather squabble over who gets the credit than work together on the increasingly rare areas of common ground...

(There were also five bills on renter’s rights, which suggests that it is going to be a priority issue for the next government).

A clear message

There's an election next year, and we're already seeing the usual posturing about who will work with who. Today it's Labour refusing to work with Te Pāti Māori in the wake of the latter's victory in the Tāmaki Makaurau byelection - a victory which showed that Māori voters don't want to be represented by Labour and don't want their representatives being constantly over-ruled by Pakeha primarily concerned with pandering to other Pakeha. Which probably sounds "tough" to Chris Hipkins and the Pakeha he is trying to pander to. But there's someone Hipkins seems to have forgotten in all his ruling out: the voters. Because on current polling, Te Pāti Māori is vital to forming a Labour-led government. And that looks like it will be the case unless Labour drags its own vote well into the upper part of the 35 - 40% range (and then assuming that it grows it from National, not at the expense of the Greens). Which seems... unlikely when the party is essentially offering voters nothing, other than that Ministers will wear a different coloured tie while delivering the same old austerity.

In fact, Hipkins' refusal sends voters a clear message: if you want real change, you need to vote for it. And that means voting for the Greens or Te Pāti Māori rather than Labour. If you want wealth taxes, better public services, climate action, a Tiriti-centric government, and the repeal of all National's racist legislation, don't vote Labour. Vote for one of the parties who actually advocates for those things instead. Vote for them to hold a democratic gun to Labour's head and force them to implement those policies - or surrender the power and positions and prestige and salaries which they crave so much.

Labour won't like this. But if they want the votes of people who want change and the support of the parties we elect - rather than taking both for granted - they need to earn them. They do this by offering us something, rather than arrogantly insisting on an obligation to support them, as if they were the only alternative to National. They're not, and they never have been - but they especially haven't been since 1996, when we got MMP. Which was almost 30 years ago. You'd think their brains would have caught up by now...

Hipkins can huff and puff and rule parties out all he likes. But at the end of the day he has to play the hand we deal him. That's our weapon. And we should use it.

Aotearoa is no longer a democracy

A regime Minister uses their parliamentary platform to slander an opposition MP as a pedophile, resulting in escalating threats to their safety. Eventually, they are forced to resign in order to protect their child from harm.

Putin's Russia? Orban's Hungary? No, it's Winston Peters' New Zealand:

The Green Party’s Benjamin Doyle is resigning as an MP, citing concerns for their safety and the wellbeing of their whānau.

[...]

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Doyle said they decided to resign after their young child had asked them to leave Parliament for their own wellbeing.

“After having baseless and violent accusations thrown at me, and an onslaught of hate, vitriol and threats of real-world violence directed at me and my whānau, I have decided to move on from Parliament.

“Whānau is the most precious thing in the world. From the start, I have always said my child is my priority. My tamati asked me to leave Parliament, and I am leaving for them and for my own wellbeing,” they said.

This is clearly the right decision for Doyle and their family (and good on them for putting their kid first - something too few MPs do). At the same time, its a terrible precedent for our democracy.

This is not the first time this has happened. Jacinda Ardern was bullied out of office. And there have been systematic campaigns against Golriz Ghahraman and Tory Whanau. It is clear that the right are pursuing a deliberate campaign of harassment and threats of violence as a way of over-ruling the will of the voters and eliminating effective opponents. In a normal country, the people responsible would be in jail. But clearly, we're not a normal country any more. Instead, we have a regime, whipping up mobs and using terror to silence opposition.

In a democracy, who represents us is meant to be decided by voting. A country where elected representatives are bullied out of office by threatening their children is no longer a democracy.

National's divide and rule plan for health

The regime's austerity has resulted in a perfect storm of industrial action: primary teachers, secondary teachers, and nurses have all struck this month, and doctors are currently balloting on industrial action. And the latter is enough for Health Minister Simeon Brown to demand arbitration:

Brown said the only way to avoid that strike would be for an independent, binding, arbitration process.

“The rejection of Health New Zealand’s latest offer and the immediate ballot for further strike action has made it clear that the bargaining relationship has broken down. I see little prospect of Health New Zealand and ASMS reaching a resolution on their own,” he said.

[...]

Brown gave the union until the end of the week to decide whether it would accept going to an independent arbitration process.

If it wanted arbitration, he said the union would need to agree not to strike.

But why should they do that? Why surrender in advance?

Brown's unspoken threat here is legislating to ban strikes and force arbitration, as is the case for police. But that has huge political costs, and runs the risks of replacing organised industrial action with disorganised industrial action - with the kicker that there will be no-one to negotiate with to stop it. The fact that Brown is asking, rather than doing that, tells us that he doesn't want to pay those costs and risk those outcomes at present. And he'll be even less likely to want to pay them, and more likely to want to settle, in an election year. So there's nothing to gain by complying in advance - and insofar as any legislation will simply be repealed, and will increase the chances of regime change and a new government more willing to settle in the long-term, then there doesn't seem to be much to lose by rejection National's divide-and-rule plan and saying "fuck you; make me".

If the regime wants a functioning health system, and a functioning education system, and functioning public services, they have a simple solution: pay these workers what they're worth. And introduce safe staffing, so our overworked hospitals don't kill people. Its that simple. And if they want to plead poverty, having given away billions in pointless landlord tax cuts, and wasted hundreds of millions more on no boats, that honestly sounds like a "them" problem. They're the government, they can raise money by taxation or decide to spend it less wastefully if they want. And if they're prefer to have strikes and dysfunctional public services rather than do that, well, that's on them.

National's New Zealand

National came to power in part because it promised to reduce the cost of living of ordinary New Zealadners. But two years in, the reality is different. Stuff today reports that we are paying 80% more for food than the Australians are, despite (or perhaps because?) farmers telling us they're "feeding the world". And meanwhile, RNZ reports that people with jobs are forced to live in cars:

Lower Hutt vinyl layer Dylan Holdaway, 35, said he had been sleeping in his silver Toyota Wish for the past five months.

He told RNZ that living this way had led to him losing 25 kilograms and dealing with several infections.

[...]

He worked 30 hours a week, and said living in his car made it hard to maintain his appearance on the job.

This is National's New Zealand: a country where we are gouged by landlords, supermarkets, banks, and power companies; where ordinary people with jobs can't afford a place to sleep and are slowly starving to death because they can't afford food. Because National's low-wage, cartel-dominated economy doesn't provide the income for people to have even the basics anymore, and their gutted government doesn't provide the services to make up for that.

In 2016, similar stories shamed the Key government into actually doing something to ease homelessness. But this bunch are shameless. They have made things this way deliberately, grinding down working conditions, giving a green light to gougers, gutting Kainga Ora, and giving away the government revenue which could have helped solve this to landlords with gratuitous tax cuts. They are not going to fix this, because doing so would mean admitting they were wrong - and because they and their mates are profiting from the misery they are inflicting.

The only way this will change is if we change the regime. But that's not enough, because the next government needs to actually do something about it, rather than just trying to perpetuate the grossly unjust status quo. And that means restarting Kainga Ora's building program, to build the homes people need; forcibly breaking up the cartels and regulating the fuck out of the pieces to prevent price-gouging; regulating landlords to prevent them gouging for rent; restoring the benefit system; and taxing wealth to pay for it all. And if Labour won't promise that, then you should vote for someone else who will.