Winston: Supported by Nazis

The Herald's Kirsty Johnston spent months infiltrating the online discussions of New Zealand's "alt-right" Nazis. And unsurprisingly, they love Winston Peters:

Secondly, a week later, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters visited Victoria University in Wellington. During his speech to students he questioned the media's role in causing the [Auckland University European Students Association] group to shut down. He accused journalists of suppressing dissenting voices, and on his way out, unashamedly signed a cartoon of a frog named Pepe - the most popular symbol of the alt-right.

Peters' actions set the New Zealand 4Chan boards alight.

"Guess who just got my vote!!" one user wrote. "Winston is based". (Based, loosely, means good).

"Absolutely BASED," said another. "Winnie has my undying respect."

"Winston is /ourguy/, right?" another asked. "I want someone to get rid of the Indians and Chinese, those f****** are stealing our country right out from under us."

In addition to the hype, users began earnestly discussing the importance of helping Peters win.

They also apparently talked about getting involved in Young NZFirst in order to have a greater influence on the party. So, they're not just directly supporting him, but his party is rotten with them (and it really makes you wonder how many of them are going to be on his party list).

And then Winston gets all high and mighty when called on his racism? Please. Nazis know a racist when they see one, and that's why they support Winston. But the result is that no-one else should.

(Not that this is any great surprise: the National Front - actual, open Nazis - publicly endorsed Winston in 2005, and in 2011, and in 2014 reminded him that "We have had NF supporters working hard for NZ first from its beginning". So alt-right support for NZFirst is absolutely consistent with the positions of both groups).

National's new Muldoonism

What's National's plan for the economy? Apparently, it is to suspend all environmental law for their cronies:

Forest & Bird can reveal that for 18 months, the Government investigated creating ‘Special Economic Zones’ to push through contentious developments, including coal mining on the Buller Plateau.

Special economic zone legislation would give the Government powers to take conservation land and private land, provide tax breaks for favoured developers, and override overseas investment and immigration controls.

“We’re talking about zones where normal environmental, social and democratic safeguards don’t apply,” says Mr Hague.

National has already pulled this stunt once, with "Special Housing Areas" giving free licence to property developers (who then sat on the approvals and didn't build anything, or if they did build something, sold it all to speculators). But SHAs only short-circuited the usual RMA process. SEZ's go much further, and effectively equate to a total suspension of all law which might interfere with business. The protections of the Conservation Act, Reserves Act, National Parks Act and Crown Minerals Act against mining on protected land? Gone. RMA requirements to consider and mitigate adverse environmental impacts? Gone. Ignoring the Immigration Act (which prevents people from simply importing a cheap workforce from overseas) or Overseas Investment Act (preventing investments by foreign criminals and money launders) is just the icing on the cake.

Back in the 80's, Muldoon passed special enabling legislation for the Clyde Dam, his pet project. But this goes much further. It's Clyde Dam 2.0, a general framework for central government to support the projects of favoured projects in defiance of the law. And it shows the same arrogance and disregard for the environment and the rule of law as piggy did all those years ago.

As for those wondering (as National pollster DPF mischievously did yesterday) why the Greens can't work with National, this is why: because at its core, the National Party is an anti-environment party, dedicated to destroying our natural heritage and impoverishing future generations for the profit of their cronies. And until that mindset fundamentally changes, no party dedicated to protecting the environment can possibly work with them. It is that simple.

Australia committed war crimes in Afghanistan

The ABC has a major leak showing Australian special forces repeatedly committed war crimes in Afghanistan:

Hundreds of pages of secret defence force documents leaked to the ABC give an unprecedented insight into the clandestine operations of Australia’s elite special forces in Afghanistan, including incidents of troops killing unarmed men and children.

The ABC can reveal that some of the cases detailed in the documents are being investigated as possible unlawful killings.

This comes a day after the ABC revealed the alleged cover up of the killing of an Afghan boy and another alleged incident in which a father and son were shot dead during a raid.

The documents, many marked AUSTEO — Australian Eyes Only — suggest a growing unease at the highest levels of Defence about the culture of Australia’s special forces as they prosecuted a bloody, secretive war against insurgents across a swathe of southern Afghanistan.

One document from 2014 refers to ingrained “problems” within special forces, an “organisational culture” including a “warrior culture” and a willingness by officers to turn a blind eye to poor behaviour.

Hands severed as "trophies". Murdered prisoners. Dead civilians. These are the signs of a military out of control. And they need to be reined in, and hard, with prosecutions and sackings. And if they're not, I guess then the Defence Minister gets to join their soldiers in The Hague...

Climate change: The bad news

Today's must-read: The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells in New York magazine. It looks at the expected consequences of climate change and points out just how fucking awful its going to be, just how badly our parents and grandparents have screwed us. If current trends continue and emissions continue to rise, great chunks of the world are going to become uninhabitable, while major urban areas like New York will become the sort of places people can only survive with air-conditioning and never going out during the day (ironicly, a shutdown of the Gulf Stream might be the only thing which saves them). And that's the least of it. We're also looking at global famine as current food-production areas become less productive in higher temperatures; at forgotten diseases bubbling out of the permafrost; at a significant increase in war as countries and people struggle over these challenges; and economic collapse from the damage all of this causes. And of course a mass extinction of the world's wildlife... which might potentially include us if things go very badly.

Some of this is preventable if emissions drop sharply. But its a real question now of how much climate change is already baked in, and how much our past stupidity has committed us to. We are probably already in the situation, to steal a phrase from Kim Stanley Robinson, of bolting the stable door after the four horsemen have escaped. But we probably still have a short window to avert the worst. Probably.

This ought to be a call to action. We need a government which will set us on a rapid path to decarbonisation, and which will push hard for global efforts to do the same. National won't do either (neither, I should add, will NZ First - they're still in the denier / do nothing camp). We need a change. Otherwise, we may all burn.

The rich vs families with kids

That seems to be the choice we're going to get this election, with Labour announcing its new "families package":

Labour is promising to scrap National's Budget tax cut plan.

Instead it will funnell the cash into higher Working for Families payments and extra help for those with young children.

It's a package it says will deliver up to $48 a week extra to middle income families.

It would also reinstate the independent earners tax credit, which was dumped in the May Budget, but keeps in place National's big boost to the accommodation supplement.

National's tax-cuts tweaked thresholds - meaning that they only benefitted those above them. And as usual, the rich got the most. Labour reverses that, and puts the money towards helping those further the income pyramid - though not those at the very bottom or without kids. Still, its a different focus, and while its merely tinkering around the edges, a better one overall, which puts resources more where they're needed (rather than where they're not).

At the same time, it also shows the narrowness of New Zealand politics, because for all Labour tries to tart it up, this is primarily an argument over tax-cuts vs targeting as a delivery mechanism. Meanwhile, our low-wage economy is still failing to deliver to a huge number of people. I guess the real difference is going to be in what goes with this policy: Labour has already announced employment law reforms which should allow workers to better fight for pay rises, and they're also likely to run a monetary policy which pushes unemployment lower rather than higher. National, OTOH, wants a low-wage, high unemployment economy, because it means higher profits for them and their cronies. And that I guess is the real choice we're looking at.

A verdict without credibility

An NGO sues the government in an effort to force it to adhere to the laws. The public evidence suggests strongly that the government is openly flouting its own rules, but the government is allowed to present evidence to the judge in secret, without the other party having any chance to challenge it. Naturally, the judge rules for the government.

A tale from the old Soviet Union or some shitty third world despotism? No, its just the UK again:

The Government is not breaking the law by continuing to sign off the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, the High Court has ruled.

Activists from Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) had brought a legal challenge against the department in charge of arms control after British arms continued to flow to the autocracy despite it conducting a bloody military campaign in Yemen.

[...]

The court heard both closed and open evidence over a period of three days earlier in the year. The judgment issued by the Court on Monday suggests that evidence given by the Government in closed court – and thus not made public – was crucial to the final decision. The Court said the evidence “cannot be referred to in open court” for “national security reasons”.

This secret evidence presented by the Government is said by the court to have included Saudi Arabia’s “fast-jet operational reporting data”, “high-resolution MoD-sourced imagery” and “UK defence intelligence reports and battle damage assessments”. The judgment summary said the MoD and FCO’s analysis “has all the hallmarks of a rigorous and robust, multi-layered process of analysis” and that the evidence presented by the campaigners was “only part of the picture”.

But of course, that's a one-sided assessment, because the secret "evidence" could not be effectively challenged. It was kept secret from the other party, with only a "Special Advocate" - a security-cleared member of the establishment who was forbidden to talk to the people they were ostensibly working for - there to argue it. Which is simply a mockery of the judicial process. The net result is that this verdict has no credibility whatsoever.

But the UK government clearly doesn't care about credibility anymore. It cares only about preventing peasants from effectively challenging their actions in court (as seen in another case ATM about British complicity in rendition and torture). Simply banning such cases would be too overt, so they strap the rules instead - just like any other shitty little tyranny.

More Wind

Tararua Wind Power's proposed wind farm at Waverley has been finally granted resource consent:

Permission has been granted for the construction of Taranaki's first windfarm.

Tararua Wind Power Ltd now has resource consents for 10 years to begin work on a $325 million, 48-turbine wind farm on the coast between Waverley and Patea, if it decides to go ahead.

A decision was announced on Friday by the trio of independent commissioners who heard submissions for and against the plan by the firm, (formerly Trustpower), in May.

This is good news. Generators had stopped seeking consent for new capacity a few years ago in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis and uncertainty over long-term electricity demand. But now they seem to be back at it. And if the previous focus on renewables keeps up, we should see a real shift in New Zealand's energy emissions.

The Greens vs Winston

There was a minor political spat over the weekend, with Green co-leader Metiria Turei calling NZ First racist, and Winston getting upset about it. Meanwhile, Labour is stuck in the middle desperately trying to demand that their two pathways to power pretend to get along.

Fuck that. NZ First are a racist party and always have been. They've consistently run on a platform of whipping up hatred against others - initially Asians, then Muslims, and now its back to Asians again. Whining about this truth being spoken is like bigots whining about being called on their bigotry. And my response is the same: if you don't want to be called a racist, don't be a racist.

What this does expose is how tenuous Labour's pathway to power is. Depending on the votes of two parties who basicly hate each other to form a government and pass policy is not a recipe for coalition success - especially when the decision of one of those parties is in the hands of its members, not its MP's. It's Labour's fault they're in this position: they've done precisely squat to increase their vote since last election. But now we all have to deal with it. And with Winston threatening to lock the Greens out of government again, Labour is effectively presenting its voters with two alternate coalition choices. Which means that if you want Labour to work with the Greens, you need to vote for the latter to strengthen their hand.

Good news for a change

The world seems to be turning into a darker place at the moment, with endless war in the Middle East, and Donald Trump threatening to start even more of them. But over the weekend, there was some light, with the UN formally adopting a treaty to ban nuclear weapons in international law:

More than 120 countries have approved the first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons at a UN meeting boycotted by all nuclear-armed nations.

To loud applause and cheers, Elayne Whyte Gomez, president of the UN conference that has been negotiating the legally binding treaty, announced the results of the "historic" vote - 122 nations in favour, the Netherlands opposed, and Singapore abstaining.

"We have managed to sow the first seeds of a world free of nuclear weapons," Whyte Gomez said. "We (are) ... saying to our children that, yes, it is possible to inherit a world free from nuclear weapons."

The treaty is simple, committing its parties to being nuclear free: they won't develop, manufacture, test, transfer, use, or even allow the stationing of nuclear weapons within their territory. And while no nuclear-armed state has joined (and NATO, as good little US vassals, refused to participate), they can, by renouncing their weapons and conducting an IAEA-verified disarmament process. While that probably won't happen soon (again, Trump: an aggressive US makes disarmament less likely), it leaves the door open for gradual denuclearisation. Meanwhile, by establishing a clear prohibition in international law, the treaty has effectively redefined every great power as a rogue state, while reducing their operating scope and providing a basis for future sanctions against them.

New Zealand has been at the heart of this struggle, and we're expected to be one of the first states to sign and ratify it (the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 means we're already compliant). Its an actual foreign policy success! Not that National seems proud of it - they blocked a motion in the House to celebrate it last week. But formally prohibiting nuclear weapons in international law is a major achievement, and one all kiwis can be proud of.

A sign of failure

Wellington has a new children's hospital:

Wellington is to get new $50m children's hospital paid for by millionaire property developer Mark Dunajtschik.

The philanthropist will pay for, build and gift the hospital to Capital & Coast District Health Board (CCDHB).

Almost 30 years' old, the current children's hospital has been deemed not fit for purpose

Which is great news for Wellington kids. But its also a sign of the failure of National as a government. Building hospitals is a core function of the state in New Zealand, so having to rely on charity to do it means the government is simply failing to do its job. Ultimately, this comes back to taxes: National's obsession with cutting taxes for its rich mates starves the government of the revenue needed to perform core functions like schools, hospitals, and state housing. If we want these services - and kiwis overwhelmingly do - we need to elect governments who will do what is necessary to pay for them. Otherwise we're going to see more of the slow decline into US-style public squalor that this generous donation represents.

"Surplus"

Housing New Zealand waiting list quadruples in Palmerston North, Stuff, 5 May 2017:

The waiting list for Palmerston North's state homes has quadrupled for the second year in a row.

There were 193 applications on the Housing New Zealand waiting list in March. A year ago it was 44, and two years ago there were only 10.

Manawatu Tenants' Union co-ordinator Kevin Reilly said the union was dealing with people struggling just to get a roof over their heads.

For the past few years, the cost of living – the amount needed to cover essentials such as food, rent, and electricity – had increased faster than incomes, he said.

Almost 40% of Manawatu schools report operating deficits, Manawatu Standard, 25 June 2017:

Almost 40 per cent of Manawatu schools outspent their income during 2015, data shows.

The figures back up what many principals are saying – schools are struggling to make ends meet with current funding, Central District Secondary Principals' Association chairman Peter Brooks said.

'Cruel' ministry rejects Canterbury's 'urgent' mental health funding plea, Stuff, July 4 2017:

The Government has rejected an "urgent" request for millions of dollars of additional mental health funding for Canterbury.

A Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) member has labelled the rejection "brutal, cruel, unfair and wrong" and warns mental health staff are under such pressure that "we're heading towards a service failure".

CDHB chief executive David Meates told the Ministry of Health in March about a proposal to request "urgent additional mental health funding of $7.2 million to address increasing demand", documents obtained by Stuff reveal.

Director general of health Chai Chuah responded in a letter to CDHB acting chair Mark Solomon that such a proposal for additional funding was "inappropriate" as it was the responsibility of the board to ensure the provision of services for its resident population.

Govt surplus beats expectations, Radio New Zealand, 6 July 2017:

A higher tax take and lower spending has helped boost the government's coffers.

Excluding investment gains and losses, the operating surplus stood at $4.49 billion for the 11 months to May, compared with the $2.9bn surplus that had been forecast.

[...]

Expenses came in below expectations, at $69.3bn.

[Emphasis added]

So, the government apparently is rolling in money, while health, education, and state housing are all chronicly underfunded. This isn't a "surplus" - or if it is, its the "surplus" you have when you haven't paid for rent or food and are putting off that visit to the doctor. In other words, not a surplus at all. In reality, our government is deeply in debt: a social, infrastructural, and health debt, accumulated over thirty years of NeoLiberalism. But because that misery is not counted on the government's books, it doesn't exist in government thinking, and so it's "yay, tax cuts", rather than "we need to fix this".

This is simply not sane. Our government is like a drunk, ignoring basic costs in order to feel rich and splurge on its mates. And that is not "good economic management".

New Fisk

The Qatar crisis has nothing to do with Al Jazeera and everything to do with the war in Syria

Climate change: Ending oil

Fossil fuels are the primary cause of climate change. A significant chunk of those fossil fuels are burned in cars, so if we want to beat climate change, we need to stop doing that. And today, the French government signalled that it would do just that, announcing that it would ban the sale of petrol and diesel-fuelled cars by 2040:

Nicolas Hulot, the country’s new ecology minister, said: “We are announcing an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040.” Hulot added that the move was a “veritable revolution”.

He said it would be a “tough” objective for carmakers but France’s industry was well equipped to make the switch. “Our [car]makers have enough ideas in the drawer to nurture and bring about this promise ... which is also a public health issue.”

This is exactly what governments need to do to end the oil age and stop us destroying the world: send a credible signal to fossil fuel-intensive industries that their era is over, giving them time to come up with solutions. Though there are real questions as to whether France's 2040 target is ambitious enough - both in terms of what needs to be done to decarbonise the economy, and because in France, electric cars will likely have taken over well before then. But hopefully, they'll find they're able to advance their deadline by five to ten years, depending on how well their car-makers rise to the challenge.

The rest of the EU is likely to rapidly follow suit on this. Norway has already set a 2025 target (though they will allow hybrids), and Germany is considering a 2030 target. And with major car manufacturers giving up on fossil fuels, governments might be behind the curve.

It does raise new problems: how to power all of those cars without burning fossil fuels in power plants. In France, their answer is probably to burn uranium instead (they seem quite happy to run the risk of poisoning themselves and their neighbours). Though at the rate solar and wind are going, it might be less of a problem than expected.

Meanwhile, there is the obvious question: where's New Zealand's target? Is our government also going to commit to ending the age of oil, and by doing so, spark the necessary infrastructure changes? Or are we going to leave it all up to the market again - and essentially commit to failure?

If you don't fight, you don't win

There are op-eds in both the Herald and Stuff this morning calling for a leftward shift in New Zealand politics. In the Herald, Toby Manhire argues that the Greens should unleash Metiria Turei's radical side to "mak[e] the progressive case for the environment, the economy and society" properly - loud and in-your-face. And in Stuff, Andrew Dean argues that in the face of enormous public dissatisfaction with the political system, Labour and the Greens' pre-election commitment to NeoLiberalism is not just wrong, but a mistake:

Even on their own terms, though, the budget responsibility rules are misguided. They commit our two largest Left parties to continuing policies that have resulted in such dissatisfaction. The running down of public infrastructure – schools, healthcare, state housing, public transport, tertiary education, and so on – that has occurred over decades of restricted government spending, is of course very much central to this.

Those who are unhappy with the political system know what restricted budgets look like: lack of state houses; long waiting lists for services of all kinds; stratified and increasingly segregated schools; welfare and tax credit cuts. It means it is hard to make rent and get food on the table.

And the obvious question is, why vote for a left party if all they're offering is the same old shit with more sincere sounding excuses. Hell, if that's all government can offer, why vote at all?

We need change. Thirty years of NeoLiberalism have left us poorer, robbed of both our wages and our public services. Meanwhile, the rich are laughing all the way to the bank (and getting us to bail them out and fund their fucking MoneyBoat as well).

Fuck that. If left parties aren't going to end that, or at least make a credible effort, then what is the fucking point of them?

If Labour and the Greens want to win this election, they need to actually offer something. Mere managerial politics - Grant Robertson and Gareth Hughes getting Ministerial salaries rather than Nick Smith and Anne Tolley - does not cut it. It does not inspire support, because at the end of the day it makes no difference, means nothing to us.

As for what to offer: at the heart of the government's problems lies thirty years of starvation thanks to NeoLiberal tax cutting. So end that. Tax the rich, with a new top tax rate on high-income earners like MP's, and tax wealth with a land tax. And make polluters pay, with a real carbon charge and a resource rental for irrigators and industrial water users. And use that to fund the public services we need and have been denied by successive governments who care more about the rich than the people who elect them.

It might not work. But if you don't fight, you don't win. And OTOH, in the current climate, where two-thirds of us think the economic system is rigged for the rich, taking up a solid position on the side of the many against the people who are fucking us over doesn't seem like it will hurt. And at the least, its a better setup for next time than more failed managerialism.

Climate change: The big danger

If you've been watching the news, you'll be aware that a huge iceberg is about to calve from the Larsen C ice shelf, potentially destabilising it and causing it to collapse. But as an article in The Conversation points out, the danger isn't the ice in the shelf - that's already floating. Instead, its the ice in the glaciers behind it:

The calving itself will simply be the birth of another big iceberg. But there is valid concern among scientists that the entire Larsen C ice shelf could become unstable, and eventually break up entirely, with knock-on effects that could take decades to play out.

Ice shelves essentially act as corks in a bottle. Glaciers flow from land towards the sea, and their ice is eventually absorbed into the ice shelf. Removal of the ice shelf causes glaciers to flow faster, increasing the rate at which ice moves from the land into the sea. This has a much larger effect on sea level than iceberg calving does.

Basicly, take out the cork, and all the ice flows down into the sea, raising sea levels due to buoyancy (and then eventual melting). In the case of Larsen C, that would raise sea level by 10 cm over a decade or two. Which doesn't sound like much, but the problem is that Larsen C is only one (smallish) ice-shelf. I'm currently reading Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140, which is set in a future where climate change continues and a whole bunch of them go. And the result is 15 metres of sea level rise in a couple of decades - which is enough to trash every coastal city in the world, put entire countries underwater, and cause hundreds of millions of people to become refugees. And that's... not going to be pleasant. Just on a local scale, it means the CBD's of Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and half of Auckland will be under water. You can imagine the disruption that would cause.

If we want to avoid this, the world needs to decarbonise quickly, and we need to do our bit. But our government simply doesn't seem interested in that. Which means we need to replace them with one that is - and the sooner, the better.

National's priorities

Government puts up starter $5 million to America's Cup defence, Stuff, 3 July 2017:

The Government has put an early $5 million envelope on the table so Team New Zealand can retain its talent.

The early funding boost is similar to what the Government provided in the immediate aftermath of the disastrous 2013 America's Cup Challenge, to give TNZ breathing space while it worked to secure funding for its next bid.

It was a "no-strings" commitment, however the Government's resolve to be more involved in a defence, given the likelihood it would be held at least in part, on New Zealand waters appeared to be far stronger than four years ago.

Women's centre funding 'whisked away' by government, Radio New Zealand, 5 July 2017:

Thousands of people may lose support after two women's centres lost government funding, the centres say.

The Auckland Women's Centre, which has provided support services to tens of thousands of women since 1975, has been forced to turn to the community for support after a massive cut to its funding.

It supports about 4000 women including those suffering abuse, eating disorders, health issues and those needing parenting support.

It was receiving $100,000 from government a year but as of this month it will not get anything.

So there's money for sport for millionaires, but no money for basic support for women. Those are National's priorities. Remember them on September 23.

"Net conservation" is unlawful

Today the Supreme Court delivered its judgement on the Ruataniwha Dam land swap - and found it to be unlawful:

The Supreme Court has ruled conservation land cannot be destroyed for the Ruataniwha Dam.

[...]

In its decision, the court said the Conservation Act allowed the responsible minister to revoke protected status "only where its intrinsic conservation values no longer warrant such protection".

"The Court of Appeal was right to conclude that the revocation decision was unlawful because it was driven by the [Department of Conservation] Director General's view that there was net benefit to conservation ends to be obtained from the proposed exchange, which could be implemented only if protected status was revoked.

"That did not justify revocation under [Section 18(7) of the Act]."

This is obviously good news in the battle to protect Ruahine Forest Park, and its hard to see how the Ruataniwha Dam can go ahead now. But the case goes much wider than that. DoC has used this idea of "net conservation gain" - of allowing protected land to be bulldozed provided they get something else, somewhere, which also needs to be conserved - as a fundamental part of its business model, and has used it to enable everything from ski-fields to coal mines. But that entire approach has been ruled illegal. Which means that all those proposed coal mines and dams which rely on a compliant Conservation Minister signing away the conservation estate for magic beans are simply not going to happen. And our environment will be much better for it.

The interesting question now is the status of past land swaps. After all, if the decision was illegal, they should be reversed. But the environment may have been so degraded in the interim as to destroy the conservation value of the land in question, making a return pointless. But I guess that's going to depend on the specifics of the case - and on whether anyone wants to go to court to reverse something already apparently settled.

A better way to deal with drugs

There's a major symposium on drug laws happening at Parliament this week. As part of this, the New Zealand Drug Foundation has stepped up where politicians fear to tread, and proposed a major reform of our drug laws: one based on harm-minimisation and treating drugs as a public health problem, rather than a crime:

The first part of our model drug law is based on the Law Commission’s 2011 recommendations – which proposed a model of health referral instead of criminal convictions and of removing any legal barriers to innovative harm-reduction practices – and the Portuguese model of reform. All currently illegal drugs would be decriminalised. If police find a person in possession of drugs, they would issue a ‘mandatory caution’ which includes health information and legal advice.

After one, two or three cautions (depending on the drug), the person would be required to attend a brief intervention session to assess whether further health assessment and treatment is needed. If so, a range of non-compulsory treatment options would be available. To ensure the focus remains on improving health outcomes, any legal penalty for not attending the intervention session would be restricted to an option to reschedule or a low fine.

They're also proposing a regulated cannabis market, a commercial supply model aimed at preventing the formation of a powerful industry lobby group (as has happened with alcohol and tobacco), and much more money for drug-related health issues (funded by the savings on the current pointless enforcement costs). All together, it seems like a much better way to deal with drugs than at present: one which recognises the reality of the failure of the war on drugs, respects freedom (at least much moreso than at present), and ensures that people who need help get it (while those who don't don't get harassed and criminalised). The question is whether our politicians will take this opportunity to fix a law which obviously isn't working - or whether their prejudices will cause them to keep on making the same cruel and expensive mistakes they are at present. Sadly, I think we all know which option they'll choose.

Good riddance

It appears that even National's weak reforms of trust laws are too much for foreign trusts:

The number of foreign trusts registered in New Zealand has plummeted by about three-quarters since a clampdown was ordered in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal.

Inland Revenue said fewer than 3000 foreign trusts met a deadline last week for them to provide more information about their structures and activities.

There were 11,645 registered in April last year, in the immediate aftermath of the hacking of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

About 3000 trusts had told Inland Revenue they didn't want to be part of the new regime, a spokesman said, and the tax department hadn't heard from the balance of about 5000 trusts, meaning they also could no longer legally operate in New Zealand.

All National requires of these trusts is a declaration about ultimate beneficiaries and annual financial statements. And if that's too much for them, then the natural conclusion is that the money flows they are hiding are not legal, and that they really are just vehicles for tax evasion, money laundering, and concealing corrupt payoffs. And if that's the case, we are well rid of this industry, and should have evicted it sooner.

Australia is now trying to deport its own citizens

Not content with detaining thousands of refugees in Pacific Island concentration camps, the Australian Border Force is now shipping Australian citizens to its gulags:

Australian Border Force illegally detained two Australian citizens and sent them to Christmas Island in an episode reminiscent of the Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon cases of more than a decade ago.

Guardian Australia understands the two men are New Zealand-born but hold dual Australian citizenship.

The government detained the men under section 501 of the Migration Act, which allows for detention and deportation if the minister or a delegate judges that a person who is not a citizen fails the “character test”, usually because he or she has committed a criminal offence. When the error was realised the men were released from detention.

Not mentioned: how long it took the ABF to realise their mistake, and whether there will be an apology and compensation. Also not mentioned: whether anyone in ABF will be held accountable for what is essentially an illegal kidnapping. Because this sort of shit is simply not acceptable, and if ABF staff are allowed to get away with it, then it will just keep on happening.