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".