Maybe the regime isn't united on tyranny?

When the regime introduced four tyrannical bills last week, I joked that the reason for the theme was that it was one of the few things the coalition could agree on. But it turns out that maybe they don't? RNZ's Phil Pennington has a piece on the Policing Amendment Bill today, focusing on the surveillance aspect rather than the protest-suppression clauses. Which it turns out were opposed by both the Ministry of Justice and the Privacy Commissioner as overly broad and lacking safeguards. Opposition parties are jumping on that and wanting changes, which is good. But the problem for the regime is that ACT also agrees:

ACT's Todd Stephenson gave qualified backing to [the bill].

"This bill does clarify and expands the police's power to collect, record and use information, including images, sounds, for lawful policing purposes," he said in the debate.

But with a kicker.

"Our support is conditional on ensuring that there is strong privacy protections and safeguards against mass surveillance powers."

So maybe the regime isn't as united on tyranny as they appear...?

My own thoughts on the bill are here. Unless safeguards are added, it will give the police power to shut down any protest, and to engage in mass or targetted surveillance without any need for a warrant - overturning both fundamental constitutional principles and long-settled law. These are not things we should accept.

If you'd like to have your say on the bill, you can submit on it here. Submissions are due by 1.59pm, Wednesday, 22 April 2026.

Payment for services rendered

Back in 2021, in the wake of the Tamarind disaster, the then-Labour government passed the Crown Minerals (Decommissioning and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021, ensuring that the oil and gas industry was responsible for its own cleanup costs. The industry of course hated that, so when the new regime was elected in 2023, they started lobbying hard for its repeal. The regime obediently brought a bill to Parliament to reduce the liability, and got it to the verge of enactment, but it didn't go far enough for the gas industry. After further lobbying, they forced the regime to recall the bill to committee and amend it to lower liability even further, allowing the gas industry to walk away from its mess and leave us with the costs again. And that law eventually passed in July last year.

The gas industry was pleased. So pleased that Greymouth Petroleum, one of the chief lobbyists for the change, has just given $100,000 to each coalition party though one of its subsidiaries, GMP Environmental. Why did they launder the donation in this way? I guess because seeing a gas company giving huge amounts of money to politicians would make it just a little too obvious what was going on. But its no great effort to use the companies register and follow ownership up the chain to see who is really paying - or to consider the legislative history to see what they're paying for.

And that's what this regime means: naked corruption. Bribery. Law for sale.

Its not enough to throw them out of office. We need to ban large donations, get money out of politics forever, and break the power of the rich over our political parties. Otherwise, no matter who we vote for, we'll get the laws the billionaires want. And that's not democracy, but plutocracy.

ACT supports slavery

Good news today, as a coalition of Labour and National MPs have teamed up to bypass the biscuit tin and force legislation against modern slavery onto the order paper. Its the first time that particular mechanism has been used, but its unusual that its been used for this issue. Chris Luxon has said this is a personal priority of his that he would "march in the streets" for, and the New Zealand government has promised legislation targeting it in both its UK and EU free trade agreements. Yet nothing has been done. Why not? Because regime coalition partner ACT, which holds the "workplace relations" portfolio, has consistently opposed it. In 2024 they disbanded the government working group on the issue, and their opposition around the Cabinet table prevented government action. A former ACT leader has also written in support of historic chattel slavery - with whips and chains and rapes and murders - which tells you that this support for the most abusive forms of exploitation is built into the DNA of the party. For them, anything goes, provided a rich person can make a buck out of it.

So, we have a member's bill instead, so it'll get done, though slower than it should. Meanwhile, the ACT party has really shown us what it stands for. And having done that, it should be driven out of our society permanently. Slavery is a crime against humanity, and slavers are our common enemies. There should be no place in our politics for supporters of this atrocity.

Coalition of cronyism

Another day, another naked crony appointment from the regime. This time its gun minister and former gun lobbyist Nicole McKee appointing fellow gun loonies to the Ministerial Arms Advisory Group:

The search for two new members took place last year after four MAAG members came to the end of their three-year terms. McKee decided to reappoint two (Shayne Walker and Debbie Lamb) and cut two (Yasbek and Helene Leaf).

McKee also agreed to the Ministry of Justice seeking nominations through “agencies, ministers, Cabinet, caucus and interested groups”, according to a ministry briefing in July, released under the Official Information Act (OIA).

A week and a half later, she changed her mind when the ministry sought permission to invite nominations from groups including the police, Te Puni Kōkiri, the Māori Firearms Forum, MAAG members and the Arms Engagement Group. The ministry should only proceed if there were no nominations from her coalition colleagues, McKee’s private secretary told the ministry.

According to the OIA documents, McKee, who is an Act MP, then told two people she wanted for the group (Mike Spray and Michelle Roderick-Hall) to send their CVs to the Act Party’s chief of staff at the time, Andrew Ketels, who nominated them.

Who are her preferred nominees? Both gun nuts, one has worked directly for McKee's company Firearms Safety Specialists NZ Limited, and the other has worked indirectly for her through an organisation FSS founded. So its naked cronyism.

This isn't a statutory position, so the appointments can't be declared unlawful (unlike the regime's unlawful crony appointment to the Human Rights Commission). But its morally no different. And it makes it clear that this government is about abusing government to hand out public salaries and policy influence to its mates.

This has to change. The culture of crony appointments has to stop. That's not just a matter of de-electing this regime, because Labour is no different. Instead, all government appointments, whether statutory or ministerial, need to be taken out of the corrupt hands of politicians, and be made by an independent appointments body. The politicians have shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted to apply the law correctly when jobs are involved. Time to give the job to somebody else instead.

Reported back

When Rimmer pushed his Regulatory Standards bill though its first reading back in May, he recommended a report-back date of 23 December. That was subsequently brought forward to November, but that doesn't seem to have been quick enough. So now it has unexpectedly been reported back, with of course a select-committee rubberstamp recommending its passage. it's almost as if the "independent" select committee took their marching orders from National's quarterly KPI list or something...

166,300 people submitted on the bill. 98.7% of them were opposed, and only 0.7% in favour. That's 5% of the people who voted last election - a huge amount, and you'd think a democratic government would pay attention to it, given how hard it is to mobilise people to submit normally. But of course they haven't. Instead, the committee majority seeks to minimise the number of submissions, saying that

from additional analysis, 1,317 submissions were identified as containing detail or unique arguments, and were considered to be “substantive” on this basis.

So apparently 165,000 people - 5% of the electorate - don't count. Hopefully the regime will learn the error of that at the next election.

Labour has already committed to repealing this shithouse bill in its first hundred days. So its basically a dead letter, ideological posturing by a dying regime. If ACT is successful in ramming it through, then I look forward to its immediate repeal by the next, democratic, government.

Killing the alternative

During the debate over ACT's hated Regulatory Standards Bill, many professional submitters (such as the law Society) have pointed at the existing Part 4 of the Legislation Act 2019 as an alternative. While it has not been brought into force, this would replace the existing grace-and-favour Departmental Disclosure Statement system with a statutory scheme, requiring all government bills to be accompanied by a report on their unusual features and departures from accepted - as opposed to propertarian weirdo - legislative and constitutional norms.

So naturally, the government is repealing it. The Legislation Amendment Bill, which began its first reading yesterday, includes a section repealing all of part 4, which will come into force the day after it is passed. Why? The bill's explanatory note is for once crystal clear:

The Bill proposes to repeal Part 4 of the Act before it comes into force. Part 4 would impose disclosure requirements for Government-initiated legislation, which would duplicate key elements of the Regulatory Standards Bill being progressed separately by the Government. Existing Cabinet-mandated provisions for disclosure requirements for Bills will continue to apply in the meantime.

So, it's being killed just to ensure there is no alternative to ACT's weirdo Libertarian fetish bill. Which I guess just means additional work when the RSB is repealed by the next government.

ACT means secrecy

Back in April an OIA request exposed the absurd cost of ACT's charter schools - five times more per student than the government spends on public schools. ACT obviously didn't like that, but they have a solution: keep the number of students secret:

The seven charter schools set up at the start of the year have been told to keep their enrolments secret, by The Charter School Agency.

The organisation, which manages charter school contracts and funding, told RNZ it was not appropriate to share information about the rolls of the publicly funded private schools.

"The Charter School Agency does not intend to release the numbers of students currently enrolled at each individual school during the crucial establishment phase as this could undermine their commercial position and their efforts to build their roll and deliver quality education," it said.

...which means no more bad headlines about stupidly high costs per student. Convenient for a minister and an agency wanting to avoid criticism. But terrible for the public wanting to know whether these gold-plated luxury schools work or not, and if the cost is worth it.

(Of course, it's illegal: most of the schools in question are non-profit, and so cannot have a commercial position to protect, and for those that aren't, there's a clear over-riding public interest in transparency and accountability, in that student numbers are essential to determining whether the people of Aotearoa are getting value for money. But that would require a complaint to the Ombudsman, which would take a year or two, so the government wins simply by virtue of shit enforcement...)

There's an obvious parallel here with the government's boot camps - also run by an ACT minister - where after several high-profile failures, all outcomes were declared secret. And that's how this government prevents criticism: not by performing well, but by censorship and secrecy. Transparency? Our right to know? Not under this regime.

Dismantling the state

The New Zealand state has traditionally taken an expansive role in our society, providing health, education, and welfare systems to enrich and enable all our people. But ACT's weirdo radicals want to change that, and are directing the weak National government into enacting their agenda of dismantling the state. There's charter schools, obviously - publicly funded, at inflated rates, but not accountable; as well as funnelling public money into private schools to subsidise the rich. But today they've taken two other significant moves. Firstly, there's directing Te Whatu Ora to outsource all routine operations on ten-year contracts, intended to strip the public health system of capacity while granting windfall profits to the providers. And then there's "reviewing" - meaning cutting - ECE funding, while "making trade-offs between the quality of early learning and its cost" (meaning dumbing it down, deskilling the workforce, and turning it back into a high-profit, low-skill business for their donors in the kiddy-farm industry).

The latter is especially stupid. We've known for literally decades that arly childhood education is one of the best investments we can make in the future of our society, with enormous returns in future education, wellbeing, and earning potential (and savings on crime and welfare). It should be nationalised and incorporated in the state education system, to ensure everyone gets a good start in life. But National simply sees it as babysitting; a cost on the state, rather than a positive benefit. And their cheapness here is going to have long-term consequences for the future.

The good news is that their stovepiped "review" won't report back until this time next year, meaning there will be little time for them to do anything about it before we throw them out on their arses at the next election. As for the health system changes, if the contracts do not allow Te Whatu Ora to set the volume of operations and bring them back in-house, I would expect a future government to simply legislate them away. We should not let this temporary regime steal our health system from us piece by piece, for the profit of its private donors and cronies.

Today in dysfunctional government

The big news this morning was that the Prime Minister thought the government he leads was going to steal your sick leave. But apparently even the ACT zealots could see that that would deeply unpopular, so they've "clarified" that the Prime Minister was wrong, and really they're just going to steal the sick leave of those lazy, shiftless part-time workers instead. Given that ~20% of those with jobs work part-time, its unclear how this is really much better. But what it does tell us is that the government doesn't know what its own policy is - its just dysfunction all the way down.

Meanwhile, if you're worried about your sick leave being stolen, join your union. Union collective contracts usually include sick leave provisions, which are often more generous than the statutory minimum. And even if they simply restate the current law, its then in the contract, meaning it doesn't just disappear because some government minister had a brain fart or took a bribe (sorry, a "donation") to change the law.

The return of dirty politics

At the 2005 election campaign, the National Party colluded with a weirdo cult, the Exclusive Brethren, to run a secret hate campaign against the Greens. It was the first really big example of the rich using dark money to interfere in our democracy. And unfortunately, it seems that they're trying again, with the Sensible Sentencing Trust running deceptive billboards purporting to be Green party ads advocating for the defunding of the police.

[Photos by Johnny Cans]

While the ads carry an authorization statement, the use of Green Party branding in this way is clearly deceptive and intended to mislead people into thinking it is a real Green Party ad. It is likely a violation of rule 2(b) of the advertising standards code. More importantly, insofar as it might reasonably be regarded as encouraging or persuading voters to actually vote for the party - and there are people for whom it will - then running it without the permission of the party is an actual crime. Which is kindof ironic, given what the SST supposedly stands for.

(Of course, given its support of Bruce Emery for stabbing and killing Pihema Cameron, we know that the SST really only opposes some crimes: crimes committed by poor or brown people. Crimes by richwhites, especially against poor brown people, are OK.)

There are deep links between the SST and government parties. Winston Peter's current chief of staff, Darroch Ball, led the SST when he was kicked out of parliament. And former ACT politician and stealer of a dead baby's identity David Garrett was a lawyer for the SST before entering parliament. So you have to wonder about the level of coordination here (especially with the government also running a hate campaign against the Greens in question time), and whether we are once again seeing astroturf groups being used by the parties of the right to wage dirty politics campaigns and circumvent political spending limits.

ACT's problem is Luxon's problem

Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was unfair to voters, it was unfair to the party (which I assumed would want to dispel the inevitable suspicion that they knew or were careless about this historical offending), and it was unfair to all its candidates (some of whom may have wished to avoid the taint of representing a party which hosted a sex offender). And it was terrible for our democracy:

Because if the party ends up in government and helping to make justice policy after the election, and then suppression is lifted, voters will rightly feel that they have been defrauded at the ballot box and that the government gained power by covering up child abuse. Which is obviously horrific for its legitimacy, and for public confidence in our democratic institutions.

Now that his name suppression has formally lapsed, we are allowed to formally know that the man was Tim Jago, and the party which benefitted from this suppression is ACT. Who are indeed helping to make justice policy, and are currently trying to rewrite te Tiriti o Waitangi and core elements of our constitution. ACT is able to do this because a judge covered up these allegations, preventing reporting of the party's institutional cover-up (not to mention connecting the dots with sexual harrassment and sexual assault within the party, not to mention the dodgy attitudes of its previous leader), and thereby preventing voters judging them accordingly. So, we have an illegitimate rewrite of our constitution by a government whose support is based, in part, on a colossal act of electoral fraud. Yeah, that's totally legitimate, and I'm sure people will have huge confidence in the political system which enables it.

People need to be asking Christopher Luxon how he feels about depending on the support of a party which covered up for a child abuser, and what he's going to do about it. Because he chose his friends. He chose to lie down with that dog. If he doesn't want the fleas, he knows what he can do about it.

Will Luxon let ACT privatise the health system?

The racist piece of shit government is a year old this week, so there's a bunch of retrospectives and looking forwards and so on. Today it was Rimmer's turn - and in addition to gloating about how he's setting the policy agenda and making all the decisions, and about his racist attempt to repeal te Tiriti, he also dropped this:

And while it's not yet December he's already turning his mind to ideas ACT might push next year, hinting privatising the healthcare system would be one of them.

Seymour said a conversation about the future of the health system was needed as it was not working as is.

Of course, the sole reason it is not working is because of government underfunding, because small-government weirdos like Rimmer have been slowly drowning it in the bathtub.

We know what a privatised health system looks like: America, where any health problem costs you everything and drives you bankrupt. Rimmer may think that's a great idea (MPs get their health insurance subsidised, just so they're not in the same boat as the rest of us). But kiwis do not want to live like that. Not even National voters want to live like that. The question is will Luxon recognise this, or will he let Rimmer destroy our health system (and his government), the same way that he's letting him destroy our constitution and social cohesion?

Stephen Rainbow is ACT's crony

Back in August, National sabotaged human rights by appointing terf and genocide supporter Stephen Rainbow as Chief Human Rights Commissioner. The Spinoff has been digging into this, and they've uncovered new information: Rainbow didn't actually get the job - until suddenly he did:

“I didn’t get the HRC role but still very keen to help out,” wrote Stephen Rainbow to Act Party chief of staff Andrew Ketels in a text message on May 22 this year. Rainbow had applied for the position of chief human rights commissioner, after being nominated by Act leader David Seymour, and been interviewed for the job in March. He did not receive a text back from Ketels.

But nearly three months later, Ketels did text. “Congratulations!” On that day, Rainbow had been announced by justice minister Paul Goldsmith as the new chief human rights commissioner. “Thanks Andrew,” Rainbow replied. “Appreciate the opportunity to serve my country.” He is due to start in his role at the commission next week.

So, Rainbow was ACT's choice, and the natural conclusion is that they pressured Goldsmith to overturn the transparent and independent appointments process to shoe-horn their saboteur into office. A saboteur BTW who commiserated with ACT about the "challenging time for your office and David as you head into Waitangi Day"... which sounds just a little bit racist, and adds to the evidence that he is a completely unsuitable appointee incapable of properly performing the functions of the office, who should be immediately sacked by the next government.

More Sabotage

The Waitangi Tribunal has been one of the most effective critics of the National government and its racist, anti-Māori agenda. So naturally, they're sabotaging it with a crony appointment:

Former ACT Party leader Richard Prebble has been appointed to the Waitangi Tribunal.

Prebble, a Commander of the British Empire, is one of two new members to be appointed, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka said in a statement on Thursday.

Prebble is a former Cabinet minister who was originally a member of the Labour Party. He joined the newly formed ACT party in 1996, later becoming its leader until 2004.

Prebble is a racist. He opposed even limited recognition of Māori rights through the (now repealed, and disastrous in other ways) Foreshore and Seabed Act. He opposed recognition of Māori interests in water through Three Waters. He hangs around with racist people like Don Brash, Michael Bassett, and Rodney Hide. He has nothing positive to offer the Tribunal, and his appointment can only be seen as an attempt at sabotage, similar to Paul Goldsmith's sabotage of the Human Rights Commission by appointing racists and terfs. And to add insult to injury, we'll be paying for him to undermine them from within.

Our institutions deserve better from our government than this. We deserve better from our government. Their contempt for democratic and constitutional norms is another reason why they need to urgently be voted out on their arses.

As for Prebble, like Goldsmith's Human Rights Commission appointments, he appears incapable of actually performing the functions of the office to which he has been appointed. And like those other racists, the next government can and should simply sack him.

The cooker government

We know that the current National government is basically a government of and for antivaxxers and cookers, the people who rioted at Parliament and burned the grounds. But so far they've generally avoided explicitly identifying themselves as such. Until today, when Workplace Relations Minister dropped (or rather refused to wear) the mask, by claiming that the previous government was "anti-worker" because it supported vaccine mandates:

I don't agree with that statement because I believe, in fact, the most anti-worker Government we've seen in decades is the previous Government. It was the previous Government that ordered vaccine mandates for workers; never before had we seen the rights of workers across the country be eroded so swiftly. Not only did this erode workers' freedom of choice and bodily autonomy, so many people were forced out of their jobs because the Government refused to look at other options like rapid antigen tests. Rather than listen to those affected workers, the previous Government pushed them to the margins of society. The previous Government's legislative overreach led to ostracism and division that have hugely impacted our civil society and had a negative impact on the employment and earnings of Kiwi individuals.

ACT has form on hosting cookers, but previously they've tried to downplay it. Van Velden's stance suggests they're now nakedly trying to appeal to them. Meanwhile, we now have a Minister for Workplace safety who seems to be opposed to the whole idea. If she's unwilling to do the job properly, and commit to protecting workers from all workplace hazards (including disease as well as bad employers), she should resign.

This is what corruption looks like

One of the risks of National's Muldoonist fast-track law is corruption. If Ministers can effectively approve projects by including them in the law for rubberstamping, then that creates some very obvious incentives for applicants seeking approval and Ministers seeking to line their or their party's pockets. And its a risk that seems to have been realised, with $500,000 in donations associated with fast-track projects:

Companies and shareholders associated with 12 fast-track projects gave more than $500,000 in political donations to National, Act and New Zealand First and their candidates, RNZ analysis shows.

The projects include a quarry extension into conservation land and a development whose owner was publicly supported by National MPs during a legal battle with Kāinga Ora.

[...]

An RNZ analysis of donations shows entities and individuals associated with 12 of the 149 projects that will be written into the Bill donated to National or its candidates in 2022 or 2023. These projects will be assessed by expert panels as to whether they proceed through the fast-track process.

Two also donated to NZ First or Shane Jones, and two donated a total of $150,000 to Act within the same period.

Note that this does not include donations given through NZ First's secret bribe trust or equivalent vehicles.

The government says this is all OK because the donations were declared. They would never, never be so foolish as to take a donation in exchange for favours when everyone could see what was happening. The problem is that no matter how often they say this, the public simply does not believe them. We know that people (and especially companies, with statutory duties to pursue profit) do not give away such vast amounts of money for nothing; we know they want something in return. And Jones and Bishop seem to be giving them something. If they're not corrupt, they're trying very hard to give us that impression, and they have only themselves to blame if we draw the obvious conclusion.

Which is another reason why the next government will need to not just repeal this outrageous law, but revoke and review every single consent granted: as a basic political hygiene measure. Because corruption cannot be allowed to pay, ever.

But beyond the bill, this again shows the need to outlaw political donations, for full public funding of political parties, for lobbyist regulation, and for the creation of an independent anti-corruption commission to go over every past and future donor, minister, and governing party with a microscope to see if favours were ever traded for money or other reward. National's open embrace of naked bribe-taking is hugely damaging to public trust in our political system. If we want to restore it, we know what needs to be done.

Not getting the message

Yesterday almost all political parties attended the Koroneihana at Tūrangawaewae, and Chris Luxon and Shane Jones took the opportunity to make it crystal clear that the government's racist, divisive, Tiriti-breaching Treaty "Principles" Bill has no future. Which is good, but if they're not going to vote for it at second reading, why even go through the farce of giving it a first? Especially when the racist outpouring ACT and its white supremacist allies hope to whip up at select committee will inflict further damage on our society?

Meanwhile, Rimmer is simply not getting the message, and still seems to think he can persuade National and NZ First to vote for his steaming pile of racist horseshit. Which means he's either completely delusional, or he's planning to destabilise the government and sabotage the rest of its agenda, or even topple it, unless he gets his own way. And given what a fanatic racist he is, the latter can't be ruled out. Which means the opposition parties might want to make sure they have a plan for an early election next year, just in case...

Fucking useless

Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, being presumably too likely to assess them against the same standards as everyone else, or wonder where all the money is going). Rimmer would also allow his cronies to take over state schools - effectively privatising them. All of this is deeply contrary to everything the Labour Party has told us it stands for, and last time National did this, Labour immediately abolished their bullshit. So what was Chris Hipkins' response? To refuse to commit:

Hipkins wasn't sure what their fate would be should Labour be returned to power in the coming years.

"What we did last time is we integrated them into the state education system - some became integrated schools; some became designated character schools.

"It's too soon to say what we would do next time around because we don't yet know what the contracts are going to be, we don't yet know what the structure is going to be - but we do believe that schools should be part of the public education system," Hipkins said.

And this is why Labour only got 27% last election: because they have no spine, no principles. They're as useless as a proverbial useless thing. And why would anyone vote for that, when there are parties who clearly know what they stand for offering an alternative?

A clear warning

The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations towards Māori children, enabled partnerships with Māori organisations to provide support, and helped rebuild some of the trust Oranga Tamariki had lost. So naturally National and ACT want to get rid of all of that, as part of their uber-policy of being as racist as possible.

The Waitangi Tribunal has been conducting an urgent inquiry into the proposed repeal, and yesterday they issued an interim report. While they it makes no formal findings or recommendations, it clearly warns the government that continuing down this path will breach te Tiriti and cause actual harm to children. It also politely suggests that maybe pursuing a (required anyway) statutory review would be a better way to consider the issue. It is also absolutely scathing about the policy process and evidentiary basis "justifying" repeal:

To the extent there is any evidence to support the idea that section 7AA is causing unsafe practice, it is entirely anecdotal. We have seen none. Crown counsel and Crown witnesses have confirmed that the government’s decision to repeal section 7AA is not based on an empirical public policy case. The Minister’s repeal proposal as approved by Cabinet is said to reflect a political or philosophical viewpoint not reduceable to empirical analysis. Accordingly, officials were instructed to proceed in an instrumental way to give effect to the policy, representing as it does a commitment in the coalition agreement between the National party and ACT.

(So much for the "evidence-based decision-making” promised in the National-ACT coalition agreement...)

The problem for the government is that, as Ministers, their obligations under te Tiriti override any commitments made in a coalition agreement, as "once Ministers are sworn in and the government is formed, the executive so constituted are responsible for meeting the Crown’s obligations to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi". The Tribunal also notes:

It is a Treaty of Waitangi, not a proclamation of Waitangi, and the Crown does not have a unilateral right to redefine or breach its terms. The obligation is to honour the Treaty and act in good faith towards the Treaty partner.

...which sounds like a shot across the bow on ACT's efforts to unilaterally redefine te Tiriti with their "Treaty Principles Bill" as well.

Another point to note is that this interim report was released to get these findings out there, and prevent the government from silencing the Tribunal again by introducing a bill to deprive them of jurisdiction. Which is not the sort of relationship you normally see between different branches of government. But I guess its what you get when you have a government that believes "comity" is a one-way street, owed solely to them.

Of course, the government can ignore this report, as it has ignored many before it. But the cost of that is further delegitimisation. National and ACT might not care about that. But the rest of us should, and should be asking the other parties what steps they will take to undo whatever damage these racist vandals cause.

Government says "Fuck the poor"

One of the big achievements of the two previous Labour-led governments was regular, large increases to the minimum wage. These lifted incomes and helped drive wage growth for all workers, while incentivising employers to invest in productivity and technology rather than low-skilled production. Well, that's definitely over now, with the government ordering a sub-inflation increase:

Minimum wage workers will get a 2% increase from April 1, when the minimum wage rises from $22.70 to $23.15.

That is despite a warning from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment that an increase below the rate of inflation could make it hard for minimum wage workers to keep up with the cost of living.

Inflation was running at a rate of 4.7% a year in the 12 months to December.

And lest anyone forget, a sub-inflation increase is effectively a cut. So National is deliberately cutting the real wages of the poorest workers.

Reading the Cabinet paper its even worse, because employment minister Brooke van Velden wanted only a 1.3% increase, on the basis that it had increased above inflation since 2018. MBIE recommended 4%, to almost keep pace with the PREFU inflation projection. The overwhelming tone of that paper is of the Minister - a woman who is paid $296,007 a year plus slush - saying "fuck the poor". Which seems like a strong argument for Ministers to be put on the minimum wage, to see how much they like it.