The price of justice

Last year, the regime rammed through the Equal Pay Amendment Act under urgency, gutting pay equity laws, dumping all claims, and stealing $13 billion from New Zealand women. Labour wants to reverse that. So naturally, they're getting the usual bullshit question from the regime and its stooges: "how will you pay for it?"

The short answer to this is "who the fuck cares?" It is fundamentally immoral to pay people less because of their gender. The state has been committed to eliminating this form of discrimination for over fifty years. It is appalling that it has taken so long to do so. It is even more appalling to see people quibbling about the fucking cost. Do they think we should pay women less? This is justice; we pay whatever it costs. It's that simple.

And the substantive answer is that we could afford it up until last year. What changed then is the government's priorities: they decided to spend all the state's money on landlord tax cuts and stupid fucking roads, and that these things were somehow more important than justice. That was an appallingly immoral decision, which shows what disgusting sexist pieces of shit the present regime are. But a different government can change those priorities. It can not be sexist, and put justice ahead of greed and stupidity. So, it can "pay for it" by simply reversing National's landlord tax giveaway. Or maybe just by cancelling some stupid roads.

Either way, the people asking these questions should be asked one in return: do they think women should be paid less? If so, they're ghouls and weirdos who have no place in the modern world and can be simply ignored. If not, then why are they even asking? Either way, maybe they should be thinking about the values underlying the policy, rather than the details.

Crown solicitors deserve scrutiny

Graeme Edgeler had an interesting piece the other day advocating for crown solicitors to be subject to the Official Information Act. Uniquely in the western world, Aotearoa has privatised its most important prosecution decisions to private law firms. These make public decisions in the name of the state, decisions that if they were made by any other government functionary would be able to be scrutinised using the OIA. But because they are appointed by royal fiat, rather than simply a contract, they are not subject to the OIA:

This isn’t true of all prosecutions. The serious fraud office conducts prosecutions – including jury trials – of serious fraud. You can request information about these prosecutions under the Official Information Act. And when Police prosecute more minor offending, and Police prosecutors are making the same sorts of decisions around plea bargaining that Crown Solicitors make, Police are covered by the Official Information Act, and their decisions can be subjected to public and media scrutiny.

And the same goes for importation prosecutions by Customs, and fisheries prosecutions undertaken by the Ministry of Primary Industries, and District, City and Regional Council prosecutions, and even the exercise of prosecution powers by local Fish and Game Councils when people fish or hunt without a licence.

[...]

But, if that charge wasn’t fishing without a licence but was instead murder, the Official Information Act will not help you understand the decisions made by those prosecuting on behalf of the State, because the law says that there is no public interest in allowing OIA oversight of murder prosecutions.

This is, quite obviously, fundamentally wrong. And even the solicitors themselves recognise that! A 2021 investigation of crown solicitors by RNZ quotes one of them as being uncomfortable with the lack of scrutiny of their decisions not to prosecute (it also highlights other issues deserving of scrutiny: the lack of diversity, the level of expenditure, the way that these warrants have been held by the same clique of law firms for a century. Which just... smells. But the state protects itself from investigation by denying basic transparency...)

Not mentioned in Graeme's article: crown solicitors are subject to the Public Records Act. And the terms of their appointment state that all their information belongs to the state, and they must make it available to the Solicitor-General on request. Which simply reinforces his point: these are public officials, making public decisions in our name. As he says, "given the power Crown Solicitors possess, conducting the most serious prosecutions on behalf of the Government, there is no good reason not to subject them to the same scrutiny as Fish and Game wardens."

Graeme has set up a petition to parliament asking for the OIA to be extended to cover them. I've signed it. You should too. Because the people who make decisions about whether to prosecute rapes deserve at least the same level of scrutiny as fish and game wardens.

The alternative to pay equity legislation

Last year, the regime rammed through the Equal Pay Amendment Act under urgency, gutting pay equity laws, dumping all claims, and stealing $13 billion from new Zealand women.

Today, they got a taste of the alternative. Because before that law was passed, the College of Midwives started a class action on behalf of its members, alleging breach of a prior settlement, breach of good faith, and unlawful discrimination on the basis of gender. Today, the High Court issued its decision, finding for the midwives on those points, awarded (token) BORA damages, and required that they be restored to the position they would have been in had the breaches not occurred. Which means:

Held, fair and reasonable take home pay, as at 1 July 2020, for a notional LMC midwife working 1.0 FTE was $170,340. Figure to be adjusted for successive years based on Labour Cost Index.

Held, LMC midwives must be paid the fair and reasonable service price, backdated from 1 July 2020.

And "adjusted using the LCI, fair and reasonable take home pay was $200,275.59 in July 2023, and $206,946.03 in July 2024."

In June 2025 the take-home pay for an LMC midwife was $132,000. And that's after a substantial pay equity bump in 2023. In 2020, it was about $99,000. In other words, the court has ruled they've been underpaid by $70K a year for the last five years. Multiply that by 1500 claimants, and its half a billion dollars in midwives pockets.

The question is whether the regime will accept the ruling of the court, whether they'll appeal in a desperate effort to delay payment until its someone else's problem, or pass "fuck you" legislation to overturn the ruling. And with this coalition, the latter can't be ruled out. The sooner we have a new government, the better.

Unlawful appointments

Last year, the regime sabotaged the Human Rights Commission by appointing a pair of terfs and hatemongers as chief human rights commissioner and race relations commissioner. And when people dug into the appointment process, we found it to be the usual crony stitch-up: both candidates had been shoehorned in at the last-minute and were appointed against the recommendation of the independent panel (and in the case of for-the-time being chief commissioner Stephen Rainbow, because he was an ACT-party crony).

Now, the High Court has ruled that both appointments were unlawful, as Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith applied the incorrect legal test and ignored mandatory considerations in his decision-making. They have not overturned the decisions - Rainbow and Derby get to keep their jobs. But there's a clear statement that the Minister of Justice failed to do what was legally required of him.

What does this mean? Firstly, I've looked at a lot of government appointments over the years, and a lot of them follow this pattern. Some of them are potentially at risk of being overturned (for example, the 2024 appointments to EECA, or maybe this year's appointments to the Waitangi Tribunal). A big problem is that ministers shoehorn candidates in and appoint them and don't say why - because the "why" is unseemly and corrupt: "jobs for the boys" / getting your own people in regardless of merit to sabotage an agency. While Ministers can subsequently explain why in court of challenged, the court was pretty suspicious of Goldsmith's evidence, implying it was an ex post facto invention to fit the case, nad basically disregarded his bland statements that of course he followed the rules, because he provided no actual detail. The upshot: Ministers are going to have to provide a better documentary record of why they make appointment decisions, and exactly how candidates fit the statutory criteria, or risk having them overturned.

Secondly, of course, this obviously affects the mana of both the candidates and the commission itself. And given the centrality of mana to the work of the commission, a decent, professional person would recognise that this made their position untenable, and resign. It remains to be seen if either Rainbow or Derby are such people.

If they're not, well: from the outset I've said that as they did not meet the statutory criteria, and are unable to credibly perform the functions of their office, the next government should exercise their lawful powers under the Crown Entities Act and simply sack them. Now that there is an explicit ruling saying their appointments were illegal, that seems even more urgent. Unlawful appointments cannot be allowed to stand. it is that simple.

Finally: again, this highlights that the key problem in state appointments is corrupt Ministers, and the solution is to remove them from the process entirely. If we want independent, lawful, merits-based appointments according to statutory criteria, then we should give the job to a permanent independent appointments panel. We already use such a process for appointing the Government Statistician (with criminal penalties for any Minister who attempts to interfere in it); we should do the same for other roles, starting with constitutional appointments and independent crown entities and working our way downwards. Ministers cannot be trusted not to behave corruptly; we can fix that problem simply by taking the job off them.

A victory for Māori in Nelson

Way back in 1839, the New Zealand Company bought the area that is now Nelson from local iwi and hapu. As part of the deal, they promised that Māori would retain their homes, fields, and burial grounds, and that in addition, 10% of the land in the planned township and surroundings would be set aside for them. The New Zealand state inherited this deal, and proceeded to break it systematically, refusing to allocate the land promised, and stealing that which had already been allocated. In 2017 the Supreme Court ruled that the state must honour the deal, and last year the High Court found that the state must return land and pay compensation. And after a year of negotiations, they've finally done it:

In Wellington on Wednesday, Attorney-General Judith Collins and Conservation Minister Tama Potaka announced that an agreement had been reached.

Under the agreement, 3068 hectares will be returned to descendants of the original owners, including the Kaiteriteri Recreation Reserve and the Abel Tasman Great Walk.

The agreement also includes a $420 million compensation payment to recognise land that has been sold by the Crown since 1839 and in recognition of the lost earnings and land use.

Which is pretty cheap for 180 years of back-rent and interest. There's also the quirk that a lot of the land being returned is coastal, while the regime, though its climate change policies, is ensuring that it will be flooded. Which seems like they're undermining the settlement even before it was signed. But that's the "honour" of the New Zealand state, I guess.

End this outrageous prosecution

When the IPCA report into the Jevon McSkimming saga was released, we were all outraged to learn the depths of the police's depravity and the lengths they would go to to cover for one of their own. Not only had they systematically covered for abusive creep and child sex-abuse fan McSkimming, hiding the facts from the Public Service Commission and ignoring investigation guidelines to bury and railroad an investigation into allegations against him - they had also prosecuted his victim. And worse, they're still doing it:

Police are continuing with a prosecution against the woman who accused former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming of sexual offending in relation to charges of harassing another police officer and his wife.

A damning report released last month by the Independent Police Conduct Authority found serious misconduct at the highest levels, including former Commissioner Andrew Coster, over how police responded to the allegations.

The woman was charged in May last year with causing harm by posting digital communication in relation to over 300 emails she allegedly sent to McSkimming's work email address between December 2023 and April 2024.

The charge against the woman was withdrawn in the Wellington District Court in September because McSkimming did not wish to give evidence. But the woman remains before the court on two charges of causing harm by posting a digital communication in relation to another police officer and his wife.

At this stage, this looks like nothing less than a revenge prosecution. Fundamentally, Mrs Z's "crime" is to forcefully demand the justice the police should have given her in the first place, the justice police denied her for years because they were covering up for their Special Boy. Prosecuting her for that is immoral and unacceptable, and seems calculated to punish her for daring to stand up to police and deter allegations against police officers in future. Its just another part of the McSkimming cover-up, another example of the institutional corruption in the police force, the way they put protecting their own ahead of justice and enforcing the law.

This prosecution is not in the public interest. It further undermines public trust in police and damages their social licence. It is purely an act of official revenge. It should be dropped, and McSkimming's victim compensated for by police for her mistreatment.

Justice in Brazil

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

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

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

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

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

Chipping away at National's gang-patch ban II

The regime passed its racist gang-patch ban a year ago, with great fanfare. and since then, the police have used it with great enthusiasm, ignoring domestic violence and retail crime in favour of attacking funerals and kicking in doors to seize banned clothing, assert their dominance, and humiliate gang-members. Except the humiliation may be on them: a district court judge has ordered a seized patch to be returned (depaywalled):

Ultimately, the judge opted to give the vest back.

“Mr Leef made it very clear to the court when he pleaded guilty that he placed such value in his patch that there is no way that it would leave his house again.”

The judge noted the Gangs Act had only recently come into force on November 21. Leef would have been aware of it, but was unlikely aware that it could result in him permanently losing his patch.

There was no information in the summary of facts to suggest any member of the public was caused fear, intimidation or disruption.

“Mr Leef clearly places considerable personal value in his patch. It signifies, for him, a sense of belonging and family that he does not find in the community.

“While Mr Leef has previous convictions, he has not committed a serious offence since the 1990s. His offending more recently has been irregular and at the minor end of the scale.”

Which makes sense. The government told us that the purpose of the gang-patch ban was to prevent intimidation in public places. That's not inconsistent with returning forfeited items where there was no intimidation in the offence and where such intimidation seems unlikely in future. And in fact a rights-consistent interpretation of the law seems to demand it.

(The police were also forced to return two other items which they had seized, but not laid charges over - because only items charged for are forfeited. Which invites the question of how often this has happened, and how many times they have used one charge to cover the theft of multiple items...)

I expect the police and government to go apeshit about this, but its the law they passed, and they have to live with it. If they don't like it, they can of course amend it to require destruction without trial, on the say-so of a police officer, but I think the courts would take a very dim view of that too. You'd think the ACT Party might have a few things to say about it as well, being supposedly the party of property rights and the rule of law...

(There's another similar case from Palmerston North, with the added spice of excessive force, but I haven't seen any news on how that one has turned out yet).

Foreshore and seabed 3.0?

Back in 2003, in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, the Supreme Court recognised that the settler government had not actually stolen all the beaches, and that (depending on the specific history of specific areas) some of them still might belong to iwi and hapu.

Naturally, the government went apeshit, passing a law to confiscate any remaining Māori property, with consequences we are still living with today.

Fast forward 22 years, and, in a case about rights over a specific part of the foreshore, the Supreme Court has recognised that the settler government hasn't actually stolen all the riverbeds either. The law the government relied upon to claim that it had - section 261 of the Coal Mines Act 1979 - didn't mean what they claimed it did, and in fact had essentially the same wording as the law the government relied upon to claim it had stolen the foreshore and seabed (section 7 of the Territorial Sea, Contiguous Zone, and Exclusive Economic Zone Act 1977). The interpretation of that sort of law as not expropriating existing customary rights was settled by Ngati Apa, and it applies to purported expropriations of riverbeds just as it did to the foreshore and seabed.

Of course, whether any particular iwi or hapu still owns any particular riverbed is a matter of fact. But the government can no longer simply deny it as a question of law. I wonder how long it will be before they go apeshit and use it to open another front in their racist hate campaign against Māori? And will ACT, who back in 2003 claimed to be the "party of property rights" and opposed retrospective expropriation, support or oppose a racist law change?

"A review"

When the government passes legislation trampling on civil liberties it loves to insert - and crow about - "safeguards" which will supposedly prevent abuse. For example, when it passed the Gangs Act 2024, which enables the government to designate a group as a "gang", banning its insignia and enabling all sorts of additional search and harassment powers and other fuckery - the select committee responded to concerns that protest groups would be designated by inserting a clause stating that civil disobedience for the purpose of political activism did not qualify. They also responded to concerns that groups would be designated forever by inserting a clause requiring the list to be regularly reviewed:

To ensure that the list is regularly reviewed, we also recommend inserting clause 30(3A) and (3B). These would require the Minister to review the Schedule before making a recommendation to amend it, and every 5 years if no amendments were made.

The government accepted these changes, with Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith saying in the bill's second reading debate:

To ensure that the list remains up to date, the police will review the entire list each time an addition or removal is considered, and every five years if no changes are made.

The clauses were discussed in the bill's committee stage, where it was taken to mean that the minister must check that every gang on the list still meets the criteria, and remove any that do not.

So how much of a safeguard is this really? Earlier this year police minister Mark Mitchell designated two additional gangs. I was curious to see whether he had complied with his legal obligation to review the entire schedule, so I asked for the review. His response:

There is no standalone document specifically titled or formatted as my review of Schedule 2. The review was undertaken as part of the broader policy development process that informed the introduction of the Gangs Act 2024 and the subsequent Gangs (Identified Gangs) Order 2024. As such, there is no discrete document in scope of your request.

So, he didn't need to do a review because he'd passed the law (including a list of gangs, 11 of which were outdated and removed by the select committee) just a few months earlier (unfortunately, that's not what the law actually says). Instead, the Minister pointed me at the police's advice and the relevant cabinet papers on the matter - which are interesting reading. The police's advice makes no mention of the need to review the schedule, and does not consider any gang other than those targeted for designation. As for the cabinet paper, it includes this:

I have reviewed the list of identified gangs in Schedule 2 as required under section 32(5) of the Act before making a recommendation to update the list.

Given the (lack of) documentary record, I leave it for readers to judge whether Mitchell was being honest with his cabinet colleagues, or fulfilled his legal obligations under the Act.

Meanwhile, this shows the contempt the government - and the public servants who support them - have for safeguards for our civil liberties. And it shows why it is a fool's bargain to trust them.

Justice for Orgreave?

Forty years ago, during the UK miner's strike, Margaret Thatcher sent 8000 police to attack striking miners during the so-called Battle of Orgreave. 95 miners were subsequently charged with riot and violent disorder - only for the charges to be thrown out when the police were found to have systematically lied. The police paid nearly half a million pounds (in 1980's money) to settle the resulting lawsuits, but no officer was ever disciplined, and no-one was held accountable for the abuse of power. But now, the UK government is finally launching a formal inquiry into the police's actions:

More than four decades after the violent policing at Orgreave during the miners’ strike and a failed prosecution criticised as a police “frame up”, the government has established a statutory inquiry into the scandal.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced the inquiry having informed campaigners last Thursday at the site in South Yorkshire where the Orgreave coking plant was located.

The inquiry into the policing on 18 June 1984 and the collapsed prosecutions marks the culmination of remarkable persistence by campaigners, who argue that the miners’ strike remains an enduring source of injustice.

If run fairly and allowed to inquire fully (and if the files haven't all been conveniently “lost” or destroyed), the inquiry might actually get to the bottom of the systematic police misconduct during this part of the miner's strike, name names, and allow those responsible to be held to account - just like the similar inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster. OTOH, after 40 years, it is likely that many of those ultimately responsible - including Thatcher - are dead and buried, and the Establishment (which has refused justice and dragged its feet and whitewashed for the last forty years) will no doubt now argue that too much time has passed and nothing can be done - just as it has done over all its other crimes. Which just reinforces the need for that rotten institution to be ejected from power - permanently. The UK deserves democratic, accountable government, not a rotten system of lies and cover-ups which seems to exist primarily to protect itself from accountability.

Climate Change: Holding conservatives responsible

Last week the regime released its approach to climate adaptation: basically "you're on your own". The government won't use policy to manage retreat and minimise costs, but rather just let people keep building in stupid places where they will be flooded and eroded. But they won't bail people out for that either; at least, not after some transition period designed - as usual - to ensure the Boomers are protected while everyone else gets fucked. Basically, the worst of all worlds, with no responsibility by anyone for managing the effects of our biggest policy failure. And meanwhile the costs of the failure keep rising and rising and rising...

(Oh, but of course they bailed out the farmers, who caused this. So I guess not all of us are on our own...)

Over on The Spinoff, Max Rashbrooke asks a very good question: Where do I send conservatives the bill for climate change?. Because as they point out, it is conservatives, here and abroad, who have systematically thwarted efforts to reduce emissions and prevent this ongoing disaster. Internationally, conservative billionaires spent millions to build a vast network of denialist mouthpieces (and that was a decade ago; they've spent a lot more since). As for here, well...

As the documentary Hot Air reveals, in the early 1990s Simon Upton, the minister for the environment, wanted to introduce a carbon tax, but was thwarted by the likes of the New Zealand Initiative – in its former guise as the Business Roundtable – bringing in climate deniers to disrupt the debate.

[...]

[The Clark] government did introduce the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and if she didn’t go further, it was substantially because of opposition from – you guessed it – the right. Remember National MP Shane Ardern driving a tractor up parliament steps to protest against the ETS? That’s the story of this issue, over and over: left-wing governments trying to do more in the teeth of right-wing opposition, and right-wing governments doing very little despite being urged to do more by left-wing ones.

Basically, we are in this mess because conservatives, out of ideology, greed, partisan hostility, and a desire to protect their status quo, worked very hard to put us here. Its time we recognised this. But not just by making them pay - but by holding them criminally responsible for ecocide.

Stealing from their victims

Between 1950 and 1993 the New Zealand government tortured and abused up to 250,000 children in residential care facilities. Following decades of cover-up and denial, dragging out cases, slandering their victims, and denying redress, the government finally gave a two-faced "apology" last year. You might think that that would mean they'd finally provide proper compensation for their victims, but no - that would cost money. So instead, they're spending two-thirds of their announced $774 million package on "administration" - that is, on denying claims:

Less than a third of the government's $774 million abuse in care redress package will end up in the pockets of survivors.

Figures obtained by RNZ revealed only $205m was earmarked for paying new claims with $52m to go towards topping up previously closed claims.

In defence of the figures, Erica Stanford, the Minister leading the government's abuse in care response, said redress payments were not the most important thing for some survivors and some of the $774m in this year's Budget was going towards changing the care system and providing other supports.

However, $92m was for the civil servants who administered the redress funds and another $37m would pay for operating costs like premises and IT.

So basically they're stealing from their victims, while bundling up other costs to make a Big Number for PR purposes. Its revolting, the sign of a government driven more by austerity and PR concerns than by righting its past wrongs. And combined with the news that none of the public servants identified as being responsible will ever be held accountable, it makes it crystal clear that this government does not give a single sloppy shit about its victims.

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.

The rotten, unaccountable crown

Between 1950 and 1993 the New Zealand government tortured and abused up to 250,000 children in residential care facilities. They then proceeded to cover it up in order to minimise their liability, dragging out cases, slandering their victims and ultimately denying redress. In its final report, the Inquiry into Abuse in Care declared that this policy was wrong, and named specific public servants who were responsible. Some of those public servants - including Solicitor-General Una Jagose - are still employed in positions of responsibility. But now, the government has decided none of them will ever be held accountable:

After examining its own conduct, the state has decided it will not take any action against public servants named or implicated in the landmark Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.

[...]

Public Service commission deputy chief executive in charge of policy and integrity Hugo Vitalis told Newsroom he did not believe the behaviour of those identified amounted to ‘misconduct’ or ‘historical misconduct’.

“Nevertheless, in all cases the commission considered the commentary, discussed the matter with the relevant employer and was satisfied that no further action was required.”

I guess they've decided to accept Jagose's "befehl ist befehl" argument.

So, we have a huge crime by the state and its agents, and the state just washes its hands of it, holds no-one accountable, and refuses to compensate its victims properly. Apparently people are just meant to be happy with a bullshit, two-faced "apology". And then they wonder why public trust in them is declining. This is why. Because a state which outright refuses to hold itself accountable for torturing children is basically a criminal regime, and unworthy of trust or respect.

The dishonest crown

The High Court has just ruled that the government has been violating one of the oldest Treaty settlements, the Sealord deal:

The High Court has found the Crown has breached one of New Zealand's oldest Treaty Settlements by appropriating Māori fishing quota without compensation.

It relates to the 1992 Fisheries Settlement, commonly known as the Sealord Deal, which funded the purchase of a 50 percent stake in Sealord and protected Māori fishing rights and interests in perpetuity.

The court found the Crown had breached the 1992 settlement and by extension the Treaty of Waitangi.

The full ruling is here. The breach is due to the technical details of the government's quota management system, but it basically meant that Māori quota was stolen by the crown and reallocated to other fishing companies to pay off its debts. Its been going on for decades, so the amount of quota - and therefore money - involved is substantial.

But while the court has found a breach, it hasn't ordered any relief, so the obvious question is what the government will do next: enter good-faith negotiations to make good its breach and compensate for the wrong? Or pass "fuck you" legislation because they don't really think Treaty settlements are binding on them? And if the latter, what do they think it will do to all the other settlements - and their claims of being "full and final" - that they have passed?

How to deal with a kangaroo court

In November last year, Te Pāti Māori's Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke spoke for all of us when she led a haka against National's racist Treaty Principles Bill. National and its parliamentary patsies did not like that, so after kicking her out of the house for a day, they sought to drag her to Parliament's "Privileges Committee", the kangaroo court the government uses to persecute those who upset it in Parliament, in order to punish her a second time for the same offence. But Maipi-Clarke and the rest of Te Pāti Māori have told National's kangaroo court to go fuck itself:

Three Te Pāti Māori MPs who performed a tense haka in Parliament during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill last year say they are refusing to attend a hearing with Parliament's Privileges Committee over concerns their "fundamental" legal rights are being ignored.

[...]

In a media release, the party claimed that despite requests for a fair hearing, the Committee has denied key legal rights including the denial of a joint hearing, having their legal representation restricted, an expert testimony from Tā Pou Temara denied, hearing schedule conflicts being ignored and concerns Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke will face similar sanctions she got when the haka was performed.

Ngarewa-Packer said the decision to undermine basic legal practice perpetuates the "ongoing tyranny of the majority against Māori representation".

Te Pāti Māori are right. Denying those appearing before the committee legal representation and the right to call witnesses is a breach of fundamental rights. Section 27 BORA affirms the right of natural justice to everyone facing a tribunal or public authority with the power to make a determination about their rights or interests. That means fairness, impartiality, hearing both parties, and the right to legal representation when required. The Committee's actions fail to uphold those rights. But then, so does the Committee itself. Because the idea that a committee of MPs, on which the government has an automatic majority, which decides cases on partisan lines and which can impose arbitrary punishments is fair and impartial does not even pass the laugh test. Instead, it is a politicised pretence of "justice", specifically intended to persecute and punish anyone the government chooses. And anyone who pretends otherwise is trying to sell you something.

(And again, this government thinks they can be trusted with four-year terms when we have such a sore at the heart of our democracy. Again, they can get fucked).

So what's next? I guess the committee will reschedule, and hopefully in doing so they'll be reasonable. But even then, given their nature, there's simply no point in cooperating in any way with such a body. If they're going to disregard evidence to make a nakedly political decision, they should be forced to do so openly, rather than cloaking their persecution in a pretence of justice. And if they don't like being made to do so, well, maybe they shouldn't?

This is why we have juries

Back in October 2022, Restore Passenger Rail hung banners across roads in Wellington to protest against the then-Labour government's weak climate change policy. The police responded by charging them not with the usual public order offences, but with "endangering transport", a crime with a maximum sentence of 14 years in jail. Effectively they were being treated like people who had blown up a bridge or sabotaged a plane, simply for dangling a banner.

It was obvious police over-reach, and today a jury in Wellington told the police to go fuck themselves, acquitting one defendant, and refusing to convict the other three. A retrial has been ordered on the latter, but the question now is whether the police will actually go ahead with it, or give up rather than run the risk of another jury sending a stronger message.

And this is ultimately why we have juries: so we can tell the state where to get off when they go overboard. Because no matter what the law says, we can always simply say "no".

Judging their own case

Yesterday National announced plans to amend the Public Works Act to "speed up" land acquisition for public works. Which sounds boring and bureaucratic - except its not. Because what "land acquisition" means is people's homes being compulsorily acquired by the state - which is inherently controversial, and fairly high up the ladder on coercive uses of state power. Currently the law recognises this with objection and review processes, to ensure that such acquisitions are necessary, reasonable, and not exercised in a discriminatory manner (for example, by targeting Māori land - one of the government's go-to tactics for stealing Aotearoa from its original owners). But National plans to get rid of all that, and instead replace it with Ministerial fiat:

Landowners would no longer submit their objections to the Environment Court, but through the Minister for Land Information (Penk) or the local authority for faster resolution.

"Over the past 10 years, 49 objections have been received for compulsory land acquisitions just for NZ Transport Agency projects," Bishop said.

"The new accelerated objections process will mean we can work through any objections far more quickly. Then we can get on with delivering important infrastructure projects that will help grow our economy, so New Zealanders can get ahead."

So, the same Minister or local authority who decides they need your land for a public work will get to decide whether their decision is "reasonable". Which doesn't even pass the laugh test. It certainly doesn't seem to meet the natural justice requirements for public decision-making in the BORA, and for obvious reasons: it violates the fundamental rule that no-one should be judge in their own case.

But clearly National thinks that adhering to fundamental norms of justice means they might not get what they want. And that, right there, is why they shouldn't be allowed to do this.

A two-faced "apology"

Last month, the government formally apologised to victims of child torture and abuse-in-care. Part of the apology was meant to be for the state's long-standing policy of aggressively minimising its liabilities by dragging out cases, slandering its victims and ultimately denying redress. So you'd think that the state would actually have stopped that immoral policy, right? But of course not. In planning meetings leading up to the apology, it was continuing as usual:

Senior ministers raised concerns about the commitments the government made to survivors of abuse in care and the need to lower expectations, according to notes obtained by RNZ.

The comments came at a meeting on the eighth floor of the Beehive on 26 August, where ministers and government heads discussed what was needed for the formal apology for abuse in care on 12 November.

[...]

"AG [Attorney-General Judith Collins] reinforced concerns about setting precedents and being careful about what we commit to," Holsted wrote.

"Min Upston [Minister for Social Development Louise Upston] reiterated her concern about needing to lower expectations."

Because we wouldn't want to do the decent thing by properly compensating victims of state wrongdoing for the horrors inflicted on them and the damage done to their lives - that might "set a precedent". And we wouldn't want to suggest that we might, because that might led to "expectations" of both compensation, and future state behaviour.

Our Cabinet are monsters. They're doing exactly the same vicious, heartless shit which has denied victims justice and compounded the harm inflicted on them. In doing so, they've undercut the apology Luxon made, and made it clear that the state will never act in good faith over its crimes. Any meaningful apology would see these monsters gone.