And still paying for it

In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and no toilet paper. Over 200 people were treated like this, all for a minimum of 2 weeks, and some for years. The BMR was eventually ruled to violate the right to be treated with humanity and dignity, and in some cases to constitute cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe treatment or punishment, in violation of both the Bill of Rights Act and the Convention Against Torture, and the Supreme Court ruled that damages should be paid to its victims.

That was in 2007. And now, 13 years on, we're still paying for it, with over $820,000 offered in settlements (and probably many times that in legal fees). What's appalling is that it has taken this long - Corrections apparently refused to even consider settling until last year. And meanwhile, none of the Corrections managers who oversaw the BMR have faced any employment consequences, despite their clear malfeasance and its huge public cost. There has not even been an inquiry. Its as if Corrections thinks it should be allowed to torture prisoners, ignore the courts, and face no accountability for it whatsoever. And we really need to ask why successive Ministers have let them get away with it.

This doesn't sound like exoneration

The SFO has finally reported back on NZ First's dodgy foundation, and charged two people with "obtaining by deception". They're at pains to say that neither of the people charged (who have name suppression, but we can all guess who they are, even if we cannot say publicly) is a "Minister, sitting MP, or candidate in the upcoming election (or a member of their staff), or a current member of the New Zealand First party". As one commenter said, this means they probably resigned their party memberships this morning. If they'd never been members of NZ First, then the SFO would have said so, so their choice of language is damning in itself.

The choice of charges is interesting, and I guess it means that NZ First said the Foundation was nothing to do with them, and they took the party at their word. But it sounds like Winston has basicly thrown them under the bus

Meanwhile, Winston is claiming to have been exonerated, and suing the SFO for being "unreasonable" in investigating a credible allegation of donation fraud. The aim is clearly to create enough outrage and smoke in the hope that none of the stench sticks to him. But really, I don't think anyone will be more likely to vote for NZ First knowing that the two people charged are not "current" members of his party. And we all still need to ask: if the Foundation really had nothing to do with NZ First, why was it paying their bills?

The transport policy we need

Transport was responsible for 21% of our greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. Its our second-biggest source of pollution after agriculture. And the Greens have just announced a serious policy to tackle it:

The Green Party wants to make public transport free for under-18s, ban petrol car imports from 2030, and create a $1.5 billion "Cycle Super Highway" fund to build five-metre-wide cycleways.

A bolstered rail system with trains travelling more than 100kmh between major towns, and inter-city light rail in both Auckland and Wellington feature in the party’s transport plan, announced by Greens co-leader James Shaw in Auckland, in Tuesday.

This is the transport policy we need. All of these policies will get fossil cars off the roads, reducing emissions. The 2030 sunset clause on petrol cars will also give the market certainty about investing in EVs, and help drive the required shift. Not mentioned in the article but in the actual policy document is shifting heavy freight to zero emissions / renewable fuels by 2050 (its a harder problem ATM, so gets more time).

Meanwhile, Labour is promising the status quo, and National is promising more roads and worse public transport. Neither seems to have any commitment whatsoever to solving this problem, and National would actively make it worse. As usual, it seems that if you want a liveable future, you need to vote Green.

Spain is (still) not a democracy

The list of Spanish abuses of Catalonia's democracy is long. When Catalans voted for independence, Spanish riot police seized ballot boxes and beat them in the streets. When they elected leaders to represent their views, Spain refused to allow them to take their seats, or jailed them for "sedition". And now, their supreme court has deposed Catalonia's elected president and barred him from office. His crime? Allowing a banner calling for freedom for political prisoners - the official policy of the Catalan government - to be hung on a government building:

Spain’s Supreme Court confirmed on Monday that Catalan president Quim Torra should be removed from office as he is guilty of disobedience for displaying signs in solidarity with the jailed pro-independence leaders on public buildings during an electoral period last year.

In dismissing Torra’s appeal, the top court upholds a previous verdict banning the Catalan head of government from holding public office for 18 months — the second time in three years that a Catalan president is sacked.

Later in the afternoon, the Catalan High Court enforced Torra's disqualification and ordered vice president Pere Aragonès to move forward in replacing him. By 5 pm, Torra had been personally notified of the ruling.

The decision is set to anger pro-independence supporters in Catalonia, who will all but certainly see the ruling as Spain’s umpteenth attempt to undermine their political aspirations by prosecuting their leaders.

Torra is the second Catalan president in a row to be removed from office by Spain - his predecessor Carles Puigdemont was overthrown by the imposition of a state of emergency and the imposition of direct, colonial rule. It is clear that Spain will not allow Catalans to rule themselves, or to peacefully and democraticly express their views, and will remove any elected leader who represents them. Which makes it crystal clear that Catalonia needs to be independent, simply in order to enjoy basic democratic rights. By denying those rights, Spain makes it clear that it is not a democracy.

Racism loses in Switzerland

Over in Switzerland, the racist "People's Party" tried to have a Brexit-style referendum on ending freedom of movement with the EU, so they could stop the "flood" of foreigners. But the Swiss people said No:

Swiss voters have resoundingly rejected an attempt to tear up the country’s agreement with the EU on the free movement of people, in a referendum that echoed the Brexit vote.

The largest party in the Swiss parliament, the rightwing, anti-immigration Swiss People’s party (SVP), called the referendum, arguing that the country must be allowed to set its own limit on the number of foreigners coming in to work.

However, the initiative – opposed by government, parliament, unions, employer organisations and all other political parties because it would put Switzerland’s overall relations with the EU in jeopardy – was rejected by 61.7% of voters, final results showed.

The EU had made it clear that freedom of movement was indivisible from the rest of their relationship, and that ending it would also mean ending trade, research and transport treaties, just as for the UK. Swiss voters clearly value those. And hopefully, it'll mean a fall in the fortunes of the People's Party as well.

International Right To Know Day

Today, 28 September, is International Right To Know Day (or, as the UN puts it, the "International Day for Universal Access to Information"). The Ombudsman is celebrating with a poll showing that while most people don't know about their freedom of information rights, those that use them mostly get what they ask for. Meanwhile, here's the reality of freedom of information in New Zealand:

• Agencies lie about proactive release: Two weeks ago, the Electoral Commission told me that their advice on the shifting of the election date would be proactively released "in the next week". It still hasn't been, and they haven't responded to the query I sent them about it.
• Agencies abuse eligibility to deter requests: The police have been doing this for a long time, despite being repeatedly told not to by the Ombudsman. Now the Ministry of Health is following suit, adopting a policy that any request made via the FYI platform is by default ineligible, and demands people expose their private information on the web, or shift the request out of the public view.
• Secrecy is expanding: Secrecy clauses, exempting certain agencies or types of information from the OIA, keep appearing in legislation and keep being passed. Sometimes, these are driven by a distrust of transparency. Mostly, they're driven by dysfunctional agencies distrusting each other, and making us pay the price for their dysfunction.
• Major agencies are still cloaked in secrecy: The Official Information Act does not apply to Parliament, or the Governor-General. Overseas jurisdictions happily include their equivalents.
• Parliament is uninterested in reform: Despite being some of the heaviest users of the OIA, MPs have taken no real measures to fix it to prevent or reduce abuses. They made no substantive reforms in response to the Law Commission's review of the Act in 2012, or to its review in 1997, or in response to repeated requests by the Open Government partnership's independent reviewers in recent years. In fact, they have made no substantive changes since 1987, despite well-reported and well-known problems with the OIA regime. While the current government has promised to "re-write" the Act if re-elected, it won't tell us what it wants to do, or even commit to a public consultation process. And given how they planned to run their previous review - in secrecy, with handpicked experts and stovepiped results - we can't have any real confidence they're not planning to make things worse.

So, while we have some things to celebrate, we also have a lot that needs fixing. Here's my suggestions for where we need to start.

One way or another, we're paying for this

Back in July, when foreign polluters (and archaeological criminals) Rio Tinto announced they planned to close Tiwai Point, I was dancing on its grave. Why? Because the carbon subsidies alone were more than enough to fund alternative jobs - or even just to pay everyone dependent on it a reasonable wage to do something else with their lives. Plus of course there's the flow-on effect of releasing 13% of the country's electricity supply, meaning lower prices and an easy push to shift South Island industry off coal. So naturally, political parties lined up to insist this would not happen - and now Labour has joined them:

Labour would negotiate to extend the life of the Tiwai Point Aluminium smelter by three to five years if elected, it says.

Party leader Jacinda Ardern and energy spokesperson Megan Woods announced the plan today, with negotiations focused on establishing a fair price for the transmission costs paid to Transpower by the smelter.

The party said it would require work on remediation, maintaining employment, and working with the government on future use of the site as conditions for the pricing, and would maintain the government's stance - in place since 2013 - of not directly subsidising the smelter's owner Rio Tinto.

And no doubt there will be a free pony too. Which we will all pay for. Because while the government is ruling out direct subsidies, they're very carefully not ruling out indirect ones. Like picking up the tab for their waste in Mataura. Or giving them more free carbon credits. Or just by subsidising Transpower instead (since they've promised that lower costs for Tiwai won't mean higher costs for everyone else). But we'll be giving them money one way or another, which is exactly what Rio Tinto wanted when they threatened closure in an election year. And meanwhile, the promises of a transition away from their dirty, rent-seeking business model will be forgotten in the interim, nothing will be done, so when they stick their hand out again in three years time, the government will have no option but to give them more.

But I guess its just another example of Labour's real underlying philosophy: the time is never right for change.

Predatory delay

Farmers are whining again about being expected to clean up their act:

Canterbury farmers want politicians to stop painting them as climate change villains, listen to their needs and allow them more time to boost environmental standards.

[...]

“The targets are necessary for the environment, but do we need to achieve everything in the next two years? Probably not.

“Slowing things down a little would be good for farmers, and for the whole economy generally as we come through this recession.”

This is pure predatory delay: demanding "just a bit more time" so you can keep on polluting (and then demand "just a bit more time" again). But farmers have already had 15 years of "just a bit more time" - first as an exemption from even paying for researching emissions reductions during the "fart tax" fiasco, then in the form of an exemption from the ETS, which has been extended and extended and extended. If they were smart, they would have used that time to change their practices and prepare for the day when they will inevitably have to pay the full costs of their emissions. If they haven't, they have no-one to blame but themselves. And its a similar story on water: strong signals that they need to change, with repeated delays in following through. They've had more than enough time to adapt on both, and its time they finally did.

As for being painted as climate change villains, this is an industry which has repeatedly spewed climate denial while publicly and vigorously opposing any action. Perhaps the public would have a different view of them if they hadn't done that. But as it stands, it seems they have only themselves to blame. And if they want a better reputation, they need to start with actual change, not just petulant whining.

This is not what accountability looks like

When someone commits trespass, assault with a weapon, and kidnapping, you'd expect them to be prosecuted, right? But apparently the rules are different if you wear a blue uniform:

A police investigation has found officers in Northland trespassed on a man's property, then unlawfully pepper sprayed him and arrested him.

"Police found that the use of OC spray against the complainant was unlawful, because the officer was trespassing at the time; he should have left the property immediately instead of using force against the complainant."

The officers then left and came back with their supervising officer and unlawfully arrested the man for assaulting police.

"The arrest was found to be unlawful because officers were trespassing when the alleged assault occurred, and were therefore not acting in the lawful execution of their duty at the time.

The fact that these purported uses of power were unlawful makes each of them a criminal offence. But rather than being publicly prosecuted, the officers involved were dealt with by a "confidential employment process". So we have no idea if they were charged, or even fired. They could still be with the police, waiting to trespass, assault, and kidnap someone else.

This is deeply unsatisfactory. Public confidence in the police requires public accountability for their actions. And that means we have a right to know what the police did about this, so we can judge whether it was sufficient, or whether the institution itself needs to be held accountable for inaction. Of course, the latter is precisely what the police wish to avoid. But by covering this up, they have once again undermined the public trust they depend on to do their work, and encouraged people to view them as just another gang with a fancier uniform.

The coming US shitshow

Today President Trump once again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the US election. Coincidentally, The Atlantic has a long article on exactly what that means, from voter suppression by armed thugs in the name of "ballot security", to refusing to allow the vote to be counted, all the way to getting Republican state governments to over-rule the voters and simply appoint Trump electors themselves - effectively using the electoral college to overturn the will of the people. And you can probably bet that whatever they've thought of, Trump and his Republican cronies will do worse, and harder.

Reading it, I get the impression that US democracy is basicly doomed. Not just because one political faction is open about not wanting people to vote and not respecting the results if they do, but ultimately because both factions view democracy as a game to be litigated, rather than the bedrock of their legitimacy. And things there are going to have to change in a major way before they can be said to be safely democratic again.

And I'm once again thankful for our electoral system, where elections are run by a central, neutral, independent body rather than partisan local hacks with an interest in putting the thumb on the scales; where there is widespread public understanding (fostered by that neutral body) of the count process, so that everyone knows that nothing is final until the special votes come in; and that politicians accept and respect the judgement of the people, rather than trying to litigate or game it. The idea that a Prime Minister would say (repeatedly) before an election that they would refuse to accept the result if it went against them is both unthinkable here - and a guaranteed way to ensure that it does. That's something we should all be glad of - and something we all need to protect.

A moral void

That's the only way to describe the SIS, who - like their British counterparts - decided to look the other way on child abuse:

The SIS knew a young woman was being sexually abused by her father but failed to lodge a complaint with the police, effectively allowing the abuse to continue for years, a former spy says.

The ex-SIS agent said he was involved in a covert operation in the late 1980s and early 1990s that involved entering a home where evidence of the abuse was found.

He took numerous photographs showing sexual abuse was occurring.

The former agent said he was rebuffed when he told his supervisor at the time that the SIS should involve the police.

It was the mid-1990s before the police talked to the victim and it wasn't until years later that the man was convicted for sex crimes, including rape, against his daughter.

Sure, like the embassy break-ins, it was a long time ago, and the SIS was different then. The problem is that when the whistleblower went to the Inspector-General about it, the SIS threatened to prosecute them. Which seems to be a perfect illustration of the mindset of hostility to whistleblowing and oversight discussed here - not to mention perversion of the course of justice. And that suggests that, when it comes down to it, nothing has really changed after all, that "security" bullshit still trumps any sense of ethics within the organisation. And that being the case, we should defund it and shut it down permanently.

This is bullshit

On March 13, three plainclothes police officers kicked in Breonna Taylor's door under a no-knock warrant targeting another person. When a person inside reasonably assumed they were home invaders and (this being America) started shooting, they shot up the place and everyone around them - killing Taylor. Today, one of them has finally been charged - but not for killing her:

A police officer has been charged over the narcotics raid that resulted in the fatal shooting of a black woman at her home in the US state of Kentucky.

Breonna Taylor, 26, a hospital worker, was shot multiple times as officers stormed her home on 13 March.

Brett Hankison has been charged, not with Ms Taylor's death, but with "wanton endangerment" for firing into a neighbour's apartment in Louisville.

Two other officers who were involved have not been charged.

So why aren't they being charged with manslaughter, or murder given the depraved indifference required for the "wanton endangerment" charge? Apparently, because in America, "self-defence" means you get to kill everyone around you, whether they are an actual threat or not. Trained police officers acting in the course of their duties apparently cannot be expected to distinguish between those breaking the law, and those who are merely bystanders, and must be allowed to murder who they please, with no oversight.

This is bullshit. And it shows that America's "justice" system is fundamentally incapable of providing justice against even the footsoldiers of those in power. And that being the case, I'm not sure why people should even pretend to engage with it, rather than seeking justice by other means.

Climate Change: China steps up

China has increased its climate change ambition, and set a target to be carbon-neutral by 2060:

China will reach carbon neutrality before 2060 and ensure its greenhouse gas emissions peak in the next decade, Xi Jinping has told the UN general assembly.

“China will scale up its intended nationally determined contributions [under the Paris climate agreement] by adopting more vigorous policies and measures,” the Chinese president said, calling for a “green recovery” from the coronavirus pandemic.

The unexpectedly forthright commitment will give fresh impetus to the UN’s efforts to galvanise action on the climate crisis, which has been flagging as the coronavirus has wreaked havoc on the world’s societies and economies this year.

Its a decade later than the 2050 date set by most industrialised countries (including New Zealand), but that's what "common but differentiated responsibilities" means. Historically, China was less industrialised, and polluted less; while they've pretty much caught up, an extra decade to sort out their mess recognises that.

And now the USA really has no excuse whatsoever not to adopt a climate neutrality target. If they refuse to, then they are the common enemy of all humanity, and we should treat them as such.

Climate Change: Moving faster

Back in 2017, the UK announced that it would ban the sale of new fossil fuel vehicles by 2040. Its a basic climate change measure, aimed at reducing emissions by shifting the vehicle fleet to cleaner technologies. Now, in the wake of the pandemic, they're planning to bring it forward to 2030:

The UK is poised to bring forward its ban on new fossil fuel vehicles from 2040 to 2030 to help speed up the rollout of electric vehicles across British roads.

[...]

The government has previously consulted on plans to bring forward the deadline on sales of new polluting vehicles from 2040 to 2035. It is now expected to take a more ambitious stance following assurances that the UK’s infrastructure will be ready to cope with the shift to electric cars.

The decision to end the sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030 would put the UK ahead of France, which has a 2040 ban in the pipeline, and in line with Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands. Norway will bring in a ban in 2025.

Meanwhile, New Zealand doesn't even have an electric vehicle policy, instead relying on the market (and a patheticly low capped carbon price) to drive the shift. And so, as the rest of the world electrifies, we're going to get the dirty fossil fuel vehicles they're dumping. Its a perfect example of what is wrong with climate change policy in this country: the government is unwilling to do anything which might disrupt the dirty, unsustainable status quo.

The Australian courts have had enough of refugee detention

For the past decade, Australia has had a racist, anti-refugee policy. Those claiming refugee status are imprisoned without trial and left to rot in the hope they would "voluntarily" return to be tortured and murdered. When the courts have granted them visas, the government has immediately revoked them on racial "character" grounds, so they never leave detention. Now, the Australian courts have finally had enough of this bullshit:

A Syrian man who has spent the last six years locked up in Australian detention centres after his visa was revoked is free after a landmark legal ruling.

Lawyers for the man, who has lived in Australia since he was 13, successfully argued that he was being held unlawfully because nothing had happened on his case for a year, and no attempt had been made to return him to his war-ravaged homeland.

His solicitor Alison Battison said it was the first time in Australian legal history that someone has been freed from detention under the ancient writ of habeas corpus, which puts the onus on the state to prove a valid reason for imprisoning someone.

As in New Zealand, the courts have ruled that the purpose of detention is to enable a decision or deportation. If there is no decision or deportation process, then the detention serves no purpose and is illegal. The twist in this case is that, because the Australia government has refused to even consider granting a visa, the courts have said that it doesn't matter: the man is free, they can't detain him for immigration purposes, and if they try and arrest him for being unlawfully in the country then that will be contempt of court. The next step is of course a civil claim for damages for false imprisonment, as well as multiple cases applying the same logic to every other long-term immigration detainee.

How will the Australian government respond? Based on their past behaviour, probably with more tyranny. But removing habeas corpus rights is a big step, even for a racist tyrant like Peter Dutton. And hopefully the Australian Senate will refuse to go along with any such attempt.

This is not kind

New Zealand has a serious homelessness problem, due to skyrocketing rents and a lack of state houses. One of the ways we stick a band-aid on it is to put people up in motels. Previously, they were charged full commercial rates, saddled with odious debt due to the government's failure to provide the services it promised. When public outrage over that cruel policy grew too much, the then-National government was forced to provide emergency housing for free. Which then exposed that the crisis was much bigger than they thought, as demand grew without the threat of eternal debt-slavery to WINZ. Now, the Labour government - one which was supposed to "bring kindness back" - is returning to the policy of charging people for the government's failure:

Now the Labour-led government is pushing ahead with a plan to charge families like hers 25 percent of their income for staying in these emergency motels.

The change was announced in February, set to come into place in March, but was delayed due to Covid-19.

Now it will come into effect on October 19 - two days after the election.

The Government argues it is a question of fairness along with a much-needed incentive to get people out of emergency housing and into private, transitional or social housing.

While income-related, this is still a fundamentally flawed policy, in that no amount of money can incentivise people to find homes that (due to government policy failure) don't exist. Instead, what it will incentivise them to do is not apply for assistance to avoid debt. And that I suspect is the point: discourage applications, get the statistics "back under control", and make the problem "go away" - by sweeping it under the carpet. But in reality, the people deterred from applying will still be living in cars or garages, not the warm, safe homes the government is meant to be providing for them.

This isn't "kindness" - its exactly the same NeoLiberal viciousness practised by National. And we should not accept it. These people need homes. It is the government's job to provide them. If the government can't, then it - rather than its victims - should pay the financial penalty for that failure. It is that simple.

Climate Change: Climate injustice

Who's causing our skyrocketing emissions? As with most of our other problems, It's the rich:

The wealthiest 1% of the world’s population were responsible for the emission of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorer half of the world from 1990 to 2015, according to new research.

Carbon dioxide emissions rose by 60% over the 25-year period, but the increase in emissions from the richest 1% was three times greater than the increase in emissions from the poorest half.

[...]

“The global carbon budget has been squandered to expand the consumption of the already rich, rather than to improve humanity,” he told the Guardian. “A finite amount of carbon can be added to the atmosphere if we want to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We need to ensure that carbon is used for the best.”

The richest 10% of the global population, comprising about 630 million people, were responsible for about 52% of global emissions over the 25-year period, the study showed.

When it comes to a question of improving life for the poor, or enabling the 1% to take frivolous holidays, the answer is a no-brainer. Which is why we need policies like frequent flyer taxes and SUV tariffs to crack down on this conspicuous and destructive over-consumption. We simply shouldn't allow the rich to burn the planet for their own entertainment.

But this also shows the obligation on those of us in the global 10% - which includes most middle-class kiwis - to do what we can to limit our emissions, and to lobby our governments to enact strict policies and strong emissions cuts. We are responsible for this problem. Therefore we have a responsibility to help solve it.

Good riddance

The border closure and resulting lack of foreign slave-workers is driving the fishing industry out of business:

One fishing company is effectively out of business while others are bracing for large financial hits as the deepwater New Zealand industry, unable to get skilled foreign workers into the country, have begun tying up vessels.

At least three New Zealand-flagged big autonomous trawler reefer (BATM) deepwater vessels associated with Canterbury-based Independent fisheries have been tied up at Lyttleton as it repatriated its Russian and Ukranian crew following the end of their visa periods.

Nelson-based fishing company Sealord is likely to follow suit by October 1 with its Ukrainian and Russian crews of Meridian and Profesor Aleksandrov heading home after working in New Zealand since November.

Good riddance: fishing is a criminal and environmentally destructive industry which ignores the law while corrupting our democracy. Its reliant on foreign workers because (like farming) it is an industry no-one wants to be a part of, with low pay and appalling conditions - basicly, you don't get to have a life, or a family, and the wages come nowhere near compensating for that. We shouldn't shed a single tear over it, and if we're lucky, these troubles will kill off some of the current players and allow them to be replaced by more ethical and sustainable competitors.

Why we need cameras on boats

In case anyone needed further convincing, there's another example today of why we need cameras on fishing boats: reported seabird bycatch doubled during a camera trial:

Commercial fishers operating off Auckland's coast around vulnerable seabirds are twice as likely to report accidentally capturing them when cameras are on board.

That's according to a trial where bottom-longline fishers voluntarily carried cameras on their boats to see how practices affected the nationally vulnerable black petrel - the species most at risk from commercial fisheries in New Zealand.

A Fisheries NZ report on the trial, over 2016/2017, found seabird captures on the pilot fleet, operating in the Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Plenty, was around twice as high when the vessels had cameras on board than when they were without cameras.

It is highly unlikely that these boats were accidentally catching seabirds twice as often only when cameras were on board. Instead, it seems more likely that they were always catching this many, and simply not reporting it. Which is a crime, and something we should be trying to prosecute them for.

Opportunistic looting

The National Party has spent the last six months acting horrified at the cost of supporting people through the pandemic and banging on about how the debt must be repaid. So what was their economic policy released today? Massive tax-cuts for the rich, of course!

National has walked back on its controversial debt target, promising big tax cuts and a much looser debt target in its alternative budget.

[...]

The big sweetener is a temporary tax cut. This is achieved by lifting each of the tax thresholds on December 1. The 10.5 per cent threshold would rise from $14,000 to $20,000, with the 17.5 per cent threshold lifting to income between $20,001 and $64,000.

The 30 per cent threshold would apply to income between $64,001 and $90,000 and the 33 per cent threshold would apply to income above that.

But these cuts would be temporary, expiring before the next election, so its hard to see them as anything other than an shady election bribe. And naturally, the biggest beneficiaries will be those on the highest incomes, with someone on $90,000 getting over seven times as much as someone on $30,000. Meanwhile, they'll be paying for it with massive cuts to public services, slashing the health system which has saved us all during the pandemic. And they have the gall to call this "Responsible economic management". Its not. Instead, its just more opportunistic looting by National for the benefit of its rich cronies.