Retreating into his far-right bubble

When Rimmer proposed his weirdo libertarian Regulatory Standards Bill, the public reaction was clear and unequivocal. 88% of the 23,000 submissions on the initial consultation rejected it completely. Only 0.3% thought it was a good idea. Faced with this level of public opposition, a sensible, reality-based politician - or at least one who could count - would have realised they were on dangerous ground and dumped the bill, or at least paused to reconsider. But not Rimmer. Instead, he's decided that everyone who did not completely support the bill was a "bot":

ACT leader David Seymour has claimed 99.5 percent of the submissions received on the Regulatory Standards Bill were created using "bots".

[...]

"You're smart enough to know that those 23,000 submissions, 99.5 percent of them, were because somebody figured out how to make a bot make fake submissions that inflated the numbers," Seymour said.

The figures quoted were "meaningless" and represented nothing more than somebody "running a smart campaign with a bot".

When asked what evidence Seymour had that the submissions were fake, he said it's because "we've looked at them. Because we know what the contents of them is".

...except they didn't. Because the Ministry for Regulation got an AI - a "bot", if you will - to "read" and categorise the submissions. And it didn't make any such finding. Neither did they find a huge number of duplicate or form submissions (as used by far-right groups in support of Rimmer's racist Treaty Principles Bill). Those 20,000 submissions clearly opposed to the bill? They're from actual people, iwi, and organisations. They're not "bots"; they're simply people saying things Rimmer doesn't like.

(I should note that normally submissions on this sort of consultation are released, so normally you'd be able to check all this yourself. But Rimmer's quack ministry has refused to follow the normal democratic process, and refused to release them under the OIA. Which conveniently allows him to lie about them with impunity. Which is another example of how this government weaponises secrecy to undermine democracy).

Someone on kikorangi observed that "Bot submitters are just the digital version of the paid protesters trope." That seems accurate. And like claims about paid protestors or "crisis actors", claims of "bot submitters" (or his new one about "online campaigns") are an attempt to delegitimise clear and public signs of opposition. Its a sign that Rimmer is retreating into his far-right bubble - a bubble in which people organising to oppose the government is somehow suspicious and undemocratic - rather than admit the reality that his agenda is deeply unpopular. But while he can spout these absurdities, there's something he's not going to be deny: when we vote him and the rest of his dogshit regime out at the next election.

Naked corruption and cronyism

It was foreign monarch's fake birthday over the weekend, which meant an honours list, which turned out to be a demonstration of everything wrong with the "honours" system. Those the government deemed worthy included outright cronies, a politician so reviled that her name is synonymous with social murder and whose grave will be a piss-soaked sewer when she dies (if we don't just dig up her corpse and stake it), and a man who had given $150,000 to coalition parties in 2023 alone (strangely, this was not mentioned in any of the media stories around his honour). The inclusion of these people on the list was a naked "fuck you" to the people of Aotearoa, not to mention an implicit defamation by association of all the actually worthy recipients.

This is a perennial problem, and the government gets away with it in part because it uses those other recipients as a human shield. It hides behind the worthy while reward its donors and cronies, and the media plays the game and lets them get away with it. They shouldn't. When the government introduced a corrupt and Muldoonist fast-track law, the media published stories about exactly how much fast-track applicants had donated, and what they were getting for their money. They should do the same with honours lists. And if the rich donors cry foul, well, maybe they shouldn't behave in a manner which looks so nakedly corrupt.

Long term, it is clear that the system needs to either be completely destroyed, or taken out of the grubby hands of politicians. Having honours recommended by an independent board, according to statutory criteria, with strict rules against rewarding anyone who has ever worked in government or politics (no honours for cronies and time-servers! No retirement perks!), or ever donated to a political party (no corruption!), would be a good start. But why would the politicians ever vote for that?

Climate Change: Maybe we can take the win after all?

Last month, He Pou a Rangi shockingly recommended increasing the supply of carbon credits auctioned under the Emissions Trading Scheme. Their reason for this was essentially that climate policy had been too successful - plant closures of major emitters had reduced both emissions and pollution subsidies, while auction failures had forced polluters to use stockpiled units. Meaning that the huge pile of the latter was being reduced "too quickly", and we might - gasp - overachieve our goals.

You might think that this was a good problem to have: long-term there's effectively a finite pool of government credits in the ETS, effectively representing a long-term emissions budget, with anything extra having to come from trees. Cancelling some of this pool rather than using it - which is what the auction failures did - reduces total long-term emissions, or at least requires them to be compensated (for what that's worth). And anything which reduces the supply of units increases the price, and hence the economy-wide incentive for emissions reduction. But He Pou a Rangi was weirdly fixated on the idea of reducing the surplus over the period to 2030, and not before. Doing it too early - in 2029, say - was Bad. So it had to increase auction allocations to stop that from happening.

The good news is that they don't get the final say. There's another round of consultation before a Ministerial decision, and the Ministry for the Environment has included an option of maintaining the lower status quo allocations, with a proportionate allocation for 2030. Which would mean auctioning 13.6 million tons less than He Pou a Rangi's recommendation:

...which seems like a good idea. Partly because surplus estimates seem to be very uncertain and move around a lot, so its avoiding having to reverse things in a hurry, and partly because insofar it increases the chances of us actually meeting the second emissions budget (something which is now looking in doubt thanks to National's stupidity) - not to mention reduces our Paris liability. But mostly because we should be using every excuse we possibly can to grind down emissions budgets so as to reduce emissions.

The consultation is open until 29 June. I urge people to read the consultation documents and submit on it.

Getting what they paid for

So, having stolen $13 billion from New Zealand women by shitcanning pay equity negotiations, the National government is again attacking women - this time by reversing long-standing pay equity provisions for ECE teachers and allowing ECE providers to go back to paying them minimum wage:

The Associate Education Minister is changing who decides how much new Early Childcare Education (ECE) teachers can be paid, leaving it up to individual centres to determine their starting salary - rather than be set by the government according to the pay parity scheme with primary school teachers.

David Seymour says it will help ECE centres stay "viable" and not pass on costs to parents.

The education union says the change scraps pay parity rates for new teachers, undermining the scheme which took decades to secure. The Greens are concerned it will drive down wages and Labour says it means new ECE teachers will be at the "whim of their employers".

What this actually means is bigger profits for corporate baby-farms. And on that front, its worth noting that the Wright family - who own and profit from the biggest corporate baby-farm, Best Start - donated $32,450 to the National Party in 2016.

I guess they got what they paid for.

Climate Change: Denying our obligations

In 2016, the then-National government signed the Paris Agreement, committing Aotearoa to a 30 (later 50) percent reduction in emissions by 2030. But since then, successive governments have failed to do enough to meet the target, leaving us with a huge shortfall, currently estimated at 84 million tons. The target is legally binding, and Aotearoa is expected to make up that shortfall using Paris' international cooperation mechanisms. But despite that clear international commitment, the government is refusing to publicly say whether it will meet our obligations. Instead, Ministers have repeatedly talked openly about cheating on the deal.

RNZ has a piece today about the problems this is causing. The lead is potential trade problems, as both the EU and UK FTAs include commitments to meet our Paris obligations (so: we can expect trade sanctions, likely targetted at the polluting dairy industry, if we don't). But its also affecting domestic policy. Currently this is predicated on the government meeting its obligations. But if it does not, then He Pou a Rangi will have to recommend stronger action, as they are legally required to consider "New Zealand’s relevant obligations under international agreements" as well as our (weaker) domestic targets:

The commission needed to clarify whether offshore purchases were still on the table, because otherwise it would need to change its recommendations on the level of carbon cuts the government should make here using the Emission Trading Scheme, in order to remain compliant.

The commission noted that making all the cuts here would be "costly and disruptive" and also not possible using only the country's main climate tool of the Emissions Trading Scheme, which covers less than half the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

Basically, if the government isn't going to use international cooperation, then the Paris 2030 target becomes a default domestic 2030 target, and He Pou a Rangi will be legally obliged to recommend radical cuts to meet it. Of course, National could remove that obligation, but that sort of overt repudiation would completely end their game of pretending to care while doing nothing, alienating kiwi voters and triggering those international trade sanctions.

RNZ also talks about Treasury not knowing whether to recognise the cost of meeting Paris - estimated at up to $24 billion - as a liability on the government's books. Which is something that would both focus the mind and act as a clear financial incentive for emissions reduction policies, effectively setting a government carbon price of $285/ton for policies to be measured against. But it would also blow all future surplus projections out of the water, which is another reason why Ministers really want to talk up uncertainty and won't commit. And given what they did to pay equity to remove a liability half that size, uncertainty is probably the lesser of two evils at the moment.

But whether the government recognises that obligation or not, we will be paying regardless - if not under the international cooperation mechanism, then in cleaning up after floods and drought and fires and cyclones, plus the social costs of insurance retreat and sea-level rise. The Paris Agreement is meant to reduce those long-term costs. Refusing to meet it is just another example of the long-term problem of New Zealand governments: taking the cheap, short-term option, and refusing to invest for the future.

A people's select committee

Two weeks ago, National rammed the Equal Pay Amendment Bill through Parliament, nuking all current pay-equity claims and stealing $13 billion from New Zealand women. The bill was passed under all-stages urgency, so it didn't get a select committee phase, and the public had no chance to object. But now we do, thanks to Marilyn Waring:

Former National MP Dame Marilyn Waring has gathered a group of female former MPs to hold their own 'people's select committee' on the government's pay equity changes.

The unofficial committee is rounded out with former MPs Jackie Blue, Jo Hayes and Belinda Vernon from National, Nanaia Mahuta, Lianne Dalziel, Steve Chadwick and Lynne Pillay from Labour, Ria Bond from New Zealand First and Sue Bradford from the Greens. All are working on a 'pro bono' - unpaid - basis.

Independent consultant Amy Ross, previously the Public Service Commission's lead on pay equity, and former Parliamentary librarian and researcher Bessie Sutherland would provide additional research support, and would be paid.

Dame Marilyn said they were planning to hold their first session, hearing from submitters, in Wellington on 11 August with subsequent sittings via Zoom to allow for submitters to attend from around the country. All sessions would be public.

Full details, including how to submit, are here. Submissions are due by Thursday, 31 July 2025.

This is a completely informal process, which carries no legal weight. Its primary purpose is to embarass the regime and build a public case for immediate reversal of their theft. But it is still worth submitting to. While parliament is the formal center of politics, in a democracy it should be responding to what happens outside. This is part of showing that it needs to respond, and quickly, or else we will de-elect it and get a new one which will.

Aotearoa should not have places named after slavers

What do Picton, Ashburtn, Stokes Valley, and Ellice St in wellington have in common?

They're all named after slave-owners.

This is abhorrent. Naming stuff after foreign imperialists is bad enough, but slave-owners were participants in one of the greatest crimes against humanity in human history. We should not be naming our towns and suburbs and streets after them. Renaming these places seems like the least we can do.

Unfortunately, given the attitude of land information minister Chris Penk, who today refused to return Russell to its original name of Kororāreka, that seems unlikely to happen under this racist dogshit regime.

National's "investment boost"

I've been thinking a bit about National's "investment boost", the centrepiece of its dogshit budget. Its pitched by the government as encouraging big capital investments which will create jobs for the future. But I don't think there's much chance of that. The problem is that the policy just won't last long enough for that sort of investment.

The first reason for this is politics. We're due an election in the next 18 months - maybe sooner if the increasingly irritable Winston throws a tanty when Rimmer takes his job - and at best its a crap-shoot for National (and those odds will only have gotten worse after they stole $13 billion from women). A future Labour-Green government may toss the whole policy simply to make fiscal space for their own policy choices. At the least, they'll limit it to promote better investment, and rip out the bits promoting mining, fossil fuels, and farming, because they don't want to subsidise them. The second is that poor policy design means there is no cap to government exposure for this depreciation, meaning it runs the risks of a huge cost blowout and turning into another film subsidy disaster. So even if National somehow clings to power, they'll need to change it to stop the financial bleeding. They'll be slow about it, because they won't want to admit they made a mistake, but eventually it'll have to be limited, probably after three or four years.

What does that mean for the policy? Most obviously, it is not going to result in the sorts of big new capital investment National is talking up, because there's simply no time to get something conceived, designed, consented, and built (and so paid for) before the tax break gets changed. Planning a big, multi-year project around this tax break is a great way to lose money (though people may plan in hope, then shelve projects and whine for a handout when the inevitable happens. NZ businesses apparently love whining, and its almost as if that is their real business model).

So what will we get? Small, quick, cheap stuff. Utes and computers, obviously, which don't really do shit to boost productivity, and are effectively consumer spending for businesses. National is probably hoping that that might give them a quick economic juice before the next election so they can say "things are getting better". For bigger projects, it'll be either short planning cycle stuff - again, small and quick - or stuff which is already consented and planned for, which can be brought forward. And on that front, there's an obvious type of project which has plenty of pre-consented stuff sitting around, and which can be built in two years from saying "go": solar farms. Yes, National may just have strengthened our solar boom. Their farmer-cronies (who want rural land "protected" from more productive uses so they can instead use it to pollute) will be spitting.

(It may also help with wind farms - which again have a lot of projects pre-consented and waiting - but they take longer to build).

Which also brings me to how a future government could use this policy: use it solely to push decarbonisation. Building a renewable energy project, electrifying a factory and getting it off gas, switching your fleet of delivery trucks to EVs? Have a depreciation break. Want to keep buying old, fossil infrastructure? Fuck you. We need to decarbonise quickly, and this seems like an excellent way to bring that investment forward and make it happen.

Drawn

A ballot for three member's bills was held this morning, and the following bills were drawn:

• Local Government (Port Companies Accountability) Amendment Bill (Lemauga Lydia Sosene)
• Financial Markets (International Money Transfers) Amendment Bill (Arena Williams)
• Military Decorations and Distinctive Badges (Modernisation) Amendment Bill (Tim van de Molen)

The first would extend some (but not all) of the provisions covering council controlled organisations to port companies and their subsidiaries (which are excluded from the definition of CCO by s6(4)(c) and (ca) of the Local Government Act 2002). This would include the principal objective statement - setting up a legal clash with the principal objective clause of the Port Companies Act 1988 - and (most importantly) the LGOIMA and Ombudsmen Acts. If passed, it would be the biggest statutory expansion of transparency since the OIA was extended to cover Parliamentary Undersecretaries in 2016, but why its being done in this convoluted way rather than simply repeal the exemption isn't clear. Rachel Brooking, the original sponsor of the bill, told me there were "other consequences involving more moving parts" when she first put it in the ballot in 2021. Possibly there are worries about guarantees and lending, but it does also create direct conflicts of law, and set up problems for future (or past?) privatisations, in that all port companies would be subject to LGOIMA, regardless of whether they would be CCOs if not for the exemption. But that's what happens if you try and unravel a nearly 40 year old failed privatisation campaign, I guess.

The other bills are just basic consumer protection, and weirdo flagshagging (increasing the penalty for wearing medals you're not entitled to to $10,000, which seems wildly disproportionate - the penalty for equivalent offences under the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981 is $5000. But flagshaggers gonna shag flags, I guess). Given what else was in the ballot, it could have been much, much worse.

$13 billion

That's how much Nicola Willis thinks she stole from New Zealand women by repealing pay equity:

A tax incentive for businesses, boosts to health and education spending, and Crown funding for new gas fields are among new Budget initiatives made viable by nearly $13 billion in cuts to the pay equity regime.

[...]

The Government initially refused to disclose how much money it had saved as a result of the pay equity changes. However, the Budget says there is now $12.8b in “fiscal headroom” over the next four years as a result of the new, tighter system.

And she's using the money "saved" to pay for... more business tax cuts! Not health, housing, welfare, or any of the other countless things we desperately need as a result of National's cuts-driven recession, but to shovel more money to her donors and cronies. It's pure class warfare, based on outright theft. But that's so very very National, isn't it?

Meanwhile, there'll also be $200 million set aside for "co-investment" in the gas industry. This is an industry with literally no future - no future in electricity, no future in industry, and which faces a death spiral for its network. Only a complete sucker would invest in a pre-stranded asset. But then, its not about investment; its about creating a conflict of interest for the next government between its role as an investor and its role as a regulator and policy-maker, which will reliably generate advice and headlines about how much money the government will be burning by doing either. Essentially an ideological poison pill. The good news is that its a contingency, so there are no concrete plans yet for such investments (because there's no new gas fields to invest in), and this government has only 18 months left to run. And the quicker we kick it out, the less we'll lose on this bullshit.

National grovels to Trump

Its budget day, and the government has been whining about how it has no money and so can't afford anything. Meanwhile, they've just given away half a billion dollars a year to foreign fascist techbros:

New Zealand financial statements filed by tech firms including Google, Facebook and Amazon show how they're moving their local profits to tax havens like Ireland, allowing them to declare little or no taxable revenue here.

Treasury estimates a proposed Digital Services Tax would have pulled in $479 million from these firms over the next four years – but this week, under the shadow of Donald Trump's tariff threats, the Government announced it was dropping the bill from its legislative agenda.

The Herald has a closer look at Google's tax-cheating. They shipped over a billion dollars offshore by paying dodgy "service fees" to themselves, ensuring that there was nothing here to tax. If those profits had been taxed here instead of laundered through overseas tax havens, it would have been an extra quarter of a billion dollars we could have used to pay for the things we need. Instead, it will pay for political corruption and promoting fascism in the US.

A tax on tech revenue would have been one way of disincentivising techbro money-laundering. But National has cancelled it in order to grovel to Trump. But in the process, they've shown us a truth they'd rather deny: when they claim "there is no money", it is a choice, and a lie.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. Unusually, its not starting with bills; instead there will be two debates, the first on ACT MP Joseph Mooney's disallowance motion for the tikanga provisions in the Professional Examinations in Law Regulations 2008, and the second to authorise a select committee inquiry into online harm. After that there is the committee stage of the Auckland Harbour Board and Takapuna Borough Council Empowering Amendment Bill, followed by the first reading of Shanan Halbert's Enabling Crown Entities to Adopt Māori Names Bill and Andy Foster's Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment (Duty to Provide Financial Services) Amendment Bill. If the House moves very quickly, it might get to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer's Resource Management (Prohibition on Extraction of Freshwater for On-selling) Amendment Bill, but that seems unlikely. There should be a ballot for two bills tomorrow.

Parliamentary privilege is a threat to all of us

People are rightly outraged about psycho fascist Parmjeet Parmar "inquiring" about using the privileges committee to arbitrarily imprison her political opponents. As Chris Hipkins said yesterday, that is the sort of thing which happens in tinpot dictatorships, undemocratic and wrong, and a permanent stain on our Parliament. But its worse than that. Because parliamentary privilege doesn't only affect MPs, but all of us. Among the examples of contempts listed in the standing orders is:

reflecting on the character or conduct of the House or of a member in the member’s capacity as a member of the House.

Taken literally, this means that saying that Shane Jones is a corrupt mining industry stooge, or Winston is a senile old racist, or Casey Costello is a tobacco lobbyist, or David Seymour is a racist little incel are all contempts, punishable by parliament's private star chamber, the privileges committee. And its not just a theoretical problem: its not that many years since Matt Robson - then a private citizen, not an MP - was dragged before the privileges committee and forced to apologise for saying that Peter Dunne was in the pocket of the liquor and tobacco industries and had always faithfully delivered his vote for their interests.

That was outrageous enough when it was a mere apology. But now government MPs are discarding years of parliamentary precedent and openly speculating about throwing people in prison on the basis of pure political animus. That is beyond "outrageous"; it is a threat. A threat to every single one of us. Because "reflecting on the character and conduct of MPs in their capacity of MPs" is something we all do, and something we all should do. Our democracy is predicated on it. So when the government is "inquiring" about the ability of their kangaroo court to throw people in jail for breaching their bullshit "privileges", it sounds a lot like they are trying to outlaw democracy.

There is something we can do about this. Currently there is a bill before the House - the Parliament Bill - which would codify and re-enact the existing law around parliament, including parliamentary privilege. During its select committee hearings, several submitters raised the House's purported power to imprison for contempt, and recommended that they be explicitly repealed (just as its power to fine was limited in 2014). They were ignored. As a result, the House continues to claim the power to imprison people for up to two years (or maybe longer), for pretended offences like "making an MP feel bad", on the say-so of a kangaroo court which convicts on a partisan vote.

This cannot be allowed to stand. Parmjeet Parmar's "inquiry" turns this power from a theoretical historical anachronism to an active threat to each and every one of us. It is an active threat to our democracy and our liberty. It must be repealed.

(And while we're at it: in 2014 we also explicitly said that the House cannot expel a member, because of the impact of such a decision on democracy. Suspensions have a similar impact, so its time we legislatively limited them as well, to a maximum term of three days. Parliament clearly needs its wings clipped, and its time we did some clipping).

Update: Graeme Edgeler has already drafted the required amendment paper. So, which MP wants to stand up and move it?

A desperate delay

So, that was a bit of a damp squib. Everyone having geared up for an epic filibuster battle which would upset the government's legislative program for at least the day, National has now abused its parliamentary majority to adjourn the debate on its outrageous and anti-democratic punishment of Te Pāti Māori MPs until June. Officially this is to allow those MPs to participate in the budget debate, but Chris Bishop said the quiet part out loud: it's to "allow this week to focus on the Budget", rather than on a tyrannical government abusing parliamentary processes to effectively lynch its primary opposition. In other words, to ensure the government gets to control the headlines, rather than having to deal with the "distraction" of its own abuses.

The government is clearly hoping that public anger over this will dissipate. I am hoping it won't. And hopefully that anger will be shown to government MPs where-ever they go. This is a government which seriously suggested arbitrarily imprisoning its political opponents, merely for the opposing them. As Chris Hipkins noted in his speech, this regime is departing significantly from the democratic norms of Aotearoa. It is acting like a tinpot dictatorship. It is directly attacking our democracy. And that is not something the people of Aotearoa should tolerate or forgive.

(And yes, I'm glad to have been wrong about Hipkins on this; he moved that the penalty be reduced to a 24 hour suspension, in line with past practice, and seemed to be willing to fight for that).

National's move to ram through an adjournment caught everyone by surprise, including Brownlee. It was yet another abuse of parliamentary procedure to prevent debate and stifle opposition. Which is the central feature of this government: urgency and abuse of process all round. They are the worst, most abusive government we have had since Muldoon. And we should kick their arses out at the first opportunity.

Reported back

The Justice Committee has reported back on the Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill. The bill as introduced was a tyrannical law which threatened to outlaw protest and ordinary democratic activity in Aotearoa on the basis of government conspiracy theories and fantasies about its motivations. The good news is that its been made less bad, with the addition of "avoidance of doubt" clauses protecting protest, advocacy, dissent, and strikes, as used in the Terrorism Suppression Act. The bad news is that their attempts at a similar clause, clarifying that "protect[ing] information for a lawful purpose in the ordinary course of business, a profession, or an occupation, whether paid or unpaid" is not "improper", is too narrow, capturing only "jobs" (for want of a better term), rather than ordinary democratic activity. So if you organise a protest using invitation-only meetings and encrypted online messaging for the high-level planning, and you're not doing it as a job (if your "occupation" isn't "protest organiser"), then you're still at risk of the government having some fantasy about your motives and using it to imprison you. Likewise if you merely blog occasionally, rather than being able to say "actually, this is what I do". As for protecting journalism, the government (in its departmental report)is quite clear that it sees journalists as de facto enemy agents:

Journalism cannot be exempted from the definition of improper conduct because some journalistic endeavours are deliberately false or misleading and could be conducted for a foreign power intended to compromise a protected New Zealand interest(s).

...which confirms my suspicion that the government views even well-justified exemptions as undercutting its core purpose of all-encompassing criminalisation, so there are no "loopholes" for their "foreign agents" to wiggle through. The problem is that such "loopholes" are our democratic space, and blocking them blocks us. But I guess a government which will happily disenfranchise 210,000 Māori voters for 21 days by abusing its majority to kick their representatives out of parliament doesn't really give a shit about democracy.

Which side are you on, Labour?

Today will see an unprecedented moment in Parliament. A racist government whose leader opposes the "Maorification" of New Zealand is using its parliamentary majority to suspend opposition MPs from the House for being Māori, silencing them and the people they represent for up to 21 days. It is outrageous and anti-democratic; their own Speaker knows it is wrong, and they clearly do too. They're so ashamed of what they are doing - and scared of the public's reaction to it - that they have closed the public gallery, preventing anyone from watching their abuse of power.

This is a golden opportunity for the opposition Labour Party to stand up for our democracy and against this racist abuse of power. To show their voters which side they're on. To actually stand for something. So of course spineless jellyfish Chris Hipkins doesn't want to. Oh, he agrees the punishment is "too extreme", but he says Labour is "pretty unlikely" to filibuster the debate. So, he's going to take the leverage the Speaker handed him to force the government to compromise and adopt a more appropriate penalty, and he's going to do... nothing. Which is perhaps why the racist prime minister is now declaring there will be "no compromise" - because he knows Hipkins is weak and won't do anything other than whine and wring his hands.

But the Labour caucus isn't just Hipkins, and its MPs can speak even if its leader won't. And they should, if they want to continue in their gold-plated careers. Because their voters will be watching. And they will be judging. And silence, cowardice, and collaboration is unlikely to impress anyone.

Chipping away at National's gang-patch ban

National's racist gang-patch was clearly intended to humiliate gangs and allow them to be punished for being seen in public, and police have taken on that mission with enthusiasm, attacking funerals and kicking in doors to seize banned clothing (meanwhile, they've also abandoned domestic violence and mental health callouts, in a clear preference for violent, aggressive policing over core work). But while the government loves this, the courts might not. A local story in the Manawatu Standard last week about two gang members seeking the return of their seized patches shows the judiciary is showing some reluctance, especially where police have been unnecessarily aggressive in their seizure:

Nepia Wall, a member of the Black Power, had a sweatshirt seized by armed police at his family home, one that was given to him by his brother who had died.

Mongrel Mob member Raneira Tamaki was also asking the court to return his “side patches” that had been passed down generations, including from his own deceased brother.

Judge Lance Rowe said the Gangs Act 2024 made it an offence to wear gang insignia in public, but it was unclear whether the item could be returned to an offender or their whānau if it was proven to be of sentimental value.

[..]

[Wall] was not involved in any gang activity at the time, but it prompted armed police to go to his family home to seize the item, something which the judge said was concerning.

The judge is asking the police to explain why they thought guns were necessary for a seizure from someone not involved in gang activity, and signalling that excessive force will be relevant (because searches and seizures must be reasonable, and this seems... not to be). But the real red rag to National's racists is that the judge has said they will need to consider tikanga, mana, and whanaungatanga in their decision. To which we could also add te Tiriti, since an heirloom passed down for generations is a taonga, continued ownership of which is guaranteed by article two, and which should not be seized without a significant public policy reason. These are all part of the law of Aotearoa, and are clearly relevant here.

National will be spitting over this. But while they clearly intended that all patches would be seized and destroyed in order to humiliate their victims, the actual law gives courts discretion over their ultimate disposition. And return doesn't seem contrary to the purpose of the Act, which is explicitly about prohibiting public display, not about prohibiting private ownership. Where offending is low-level, the item in question is a taonga, and police have clearly been abusive in their seizure, then return does not seem at all unwarranted - if only to encourage the police to behave better in future.

We won't see a decision until June or July, but it looks like it will be interesting, and potentially litigated further up the chain. And while a positive ruling won't unravel the gang-patch ban, it will poke a few holes in it, and absolutely infuriate the government and the police.

Climate Change: Now what?

When National came to power in 2023, one of its first acts was to repeal all useful climate change policy. When they finally released their amended emissions reduction plan, it relied on a single project using a fantasy technology for the bulk of its reductions. And now, that project has fallen over:

Fully a third of the carbon savings needed to meet the government's legal obligations to cut emissions from 2025-2030 was supposed to come from carbon dioxide being stashed permanently under the ground of Taranaki, at the Kapuni gas field.

Kapuni's owner Todd Energy says the project's future is uncertain unless it gets some kind of extra incentive or subsidy from the government - something the government currently shows no signs of offering.

This was entirely predictable. As I pointed out when National first floated its CCS fantasy, carbon capture requires very high carbon prices. The perfect use-case - switching geothermal stations to closed- rather than open-cycle - did not happen when Aotearoa's carbon price was at $85 a ton with a credible pathway to keep rising. And since then, we've elected a climate-denier government, whose market-fuckery and lack of credibility on future emissions reduction policy has destroyed credibility in the ETS and crashed the carbon price to below $50 a ton (it has since recovered marginally to $55). So its entirely unsurprising that Todd Energy doesn't want to take the risk of investing in carbon capture when they won't get any financial return from it, and when National's ETS/forestry policy seems guaranteed to ensure they lose money.

Of course, Todd Energy is sticking their hand out for a subsidy. There are cases where that is justified - for example, when it would be offset by reduced pollution subsidies, or cause structural changes which would reduce emissions elsewhere (for example, by helping to destroy the future financial viability of the gas industry), or just when the cost of buying those reductions is substantially cheaper than the government would expect to pay. Glenbrook, the poster-child for the GIDI policy, did all three. But none of that is the case here. Instead, this particular CCS project would increase emissions, because Todd Energy would be using the "stored" CO₂ to push out more gas, both creating additional direct emissions and extending the lifetime of an industry we need to eliminate. And according to MBIE's highly optimistic Climate Implications of Policy Assessment, that would offset a huge chunk of any savings. But for National, subsidies aren't about economics, but about corruption and cronyism, and I expect they'll be more than willing to throw away hundreds of millions of dollars rather than publicly admit failure.

Even so, we are going to have a huge hole in our carbon budget. National won't want to do anything about it, because they clearly don't plan to be in government then to be held accountable for their failure. But the opposition needs to be planning now for how they're going to plug that hole, and drawing up policies to quickly reduce emissions by the required amount. And the ideal one, with some excellent knock-on effects for both reduced subsidies and destroying the gas industry, is to shut down Methanex permanently...

Maybe Little should actually win the election first?

So, Andrew Little thinks the Wellington City Council should cancel its plans for the Golden Mile, because there's an election in five months:

Andrew Little told Nine to Noon he'd be disappointed to see the council march ahead with the plan, given local body elections are to be held in October.

[...]

He said he'd repeat his message to the council - asking them to pause on signing more work contracts for the Golden Mile.

"Given that there is going to be a change of mayor after 11 October - and there'll be a new line-up in council - I don't think it's ethically correct for this council to be signing off significant new contracts that will bind the next council at a time when things are so sensitive for the Wellington economy."

...which is assuming a whole lot, not the least that Little will be elected as mayor, and that the future council will be as anti-redevelopment as he is. Meanwhile, the actually existing council were elected to serve a three-year term, which won't end for five months, have consulted repeatedly on this project, and many of them were elected on a platform of doing it. But apparently all of that counts for nothing against the whims of an unelected dude who feels entitled to power.

There's an obvious comparison here with US Republicans who refused to allow Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court, on the basis that their dude - Trump - would win the next election. And its as ugly and entitled and undemocratic from Little as it was from them

But then, ugly and entitled is Little's campaign to a t, starting from the moment he shoved Tory Whanau aside. The problem is that he needs Whanau's progressive urbanist pro-Golden Mile project voters to win. And if they correctly conclude that he is offering them nothing, and don't turn out for or second-preference him, and he loses, he will have no-one but himself to blame.

Brownlee stands up for democracy

Yesterday, parliament's white privilege committee recommended that three Te Pāti Māori MPs be suspended for up to three weeks for opposing the racist Treaty Principles Bill with a haka. The penalty is outrageous and antidemocratic - and surprisingly, even National's Speaker agrees. At the beginning of question time today, he denounced the recommendation as unprecedented and unfair, made the point that it could be amended, and effectively invited the opposition to filibuster and hold the Budget hostage to force the government to do so:

[T]he committee's recommendation was adopted by a narrow majority. That is an important point when the effect of the recommendation would be to deprive members of a minority party of their ability to sit and vote in this House for several days.

As the committee's report states, the Speaker has a duty to protect the rights of members of all sides of the House. In particular, there's a longstanding convention for Speakers to safeguard the fair treatment of the minority. I intend to honour that convention by ensuring the House does not take a decision next week without due consideration. In my view, these severe recommended penalties placed before the House for consideration mean it would be unreasonable to accept a closure motion until all perspectives and views had been very fully expressed.

[...]

As with many other situations when proposals are made to this House, it is not an all-or-nothing decision. I also note Standing Order 129, which provides that when an amendment has been moved, a member who spoke before the amendment was moved may speak again.

Just to spell that out: privileges committee reports trump all other business, and if everyone gets a 10-minute speaking slot, that's up to 1240 minutes - 20.6 hours - if everyone speaks once for their full time (550 minutes / 9 hours if only the opposition speaks, and 210 minutes / 3.5 hours if just the Greens and Te Pāti Māori do). And if an amendment is moved, everyone gets to speak again. There are 6.5 hours in a normal sitting day (less an hour for question time), and there are only two of them before the government wants to present its budget (and it wants to do some legislating before then, and hold a member's day). So if the government doesn't agree to vote for a more appropriate penalty (say, one day), this debate will drag on, eat their carefully-planned legislative calendar, eat Member's Day, and ultimately prevent their budget from being presented on schedule, disrupting their big PR setpiece.

So, I guess National gets to choose: do they want vicious racist vengeance and to undermine the legitimacy of their parliament? Or do they want to have the budget as normal?