Climate Change: Beyond irresponsible

Back in November, He Pou a Rangi provided the government with formal advice on the domestic contribution to our next Paris target. Not what the target should be, but what we could realistically achieve, by domestic action alone, without resorting to offshore mitigation. Their answer was startling: depending on exactly how it is measured, He Pou a Rangi's central projection was for an emissions reduction of 55% to 60% by domestic action alone, with ambitious policy able to push that to 70% to 75%. Which means its rather disappointing to see National's announced 2035 target:

The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says.

New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035.

[...]

“Meeting this target will mean we are doing our fair share towards reducing the impact of climate change, while enabling New Zealand to be stronger and thrive in the face of a changing climate.

The latter of course is pure bullshit. He Pou a Rangi has also provided advice at various stages on what a fair target would be, assessed by various frameworks such as equal per capita emissions, ability to pay, historic responsibility for warming, and the right to sustainable development. Under all of these measures, we need to be doing much more than we are at present (which is why their latest advice recommends strengthening our 2050 target). National has instead shrugged its shoulders, and gone "yeah, nah". It is beyond irresponsible - it is profoundly immoral and selfish, and arguably criminal. And the current cabinet, who have set this target, are very clearly betting that there won't be any criminal trials for ecocide in their lifetimes. Given the way things are going, that seems... courageous. Or maybe just shortsighted, unimaginative, and stupid.

Of course, they won't be the government forever, and we've been here before: in 2015 the then-National government set a similar "yeah, nah" target of a 30% reduction in emissions by 2030. So the next government simply had to strengthen it. The next government will have to do the same, if it wants to retain any international credibility whatsoever. And the by-then-opposition National Party will no doubt accuse them of doing too much - just as they did last time.

It would be nice if one of our major political parties wasn't trying to play such transparent and childish games with our most pressing policy challenge, but that's just who they are: childish little sociopaths. We deserve better than that. And the sooner we vote them out and get a responsible government, the better.

The SIS and the "mosaic effect"

Back in 2022, when the government was consulting internally about proactive release of cabinet papers, the SIS opposed it. The basis of their opposition was the "mosaic effect" - people being able to piece together individual pieces of innocuous public information in a way which supposedly harms "national security" (effectively: correlating the contents). DPMC was eventually forced to release further information on the SIS's opposition, in which they offered to brief other government agencies on this risk, and also attempted to weaponise the OIA's outdated eligibility requirement to oppose the entire concept of proactive release. In the process, they made a specific claim that proactive release could result in information being released which "would be of no interest to someone who meets the requestor criteria, but may be of interest to a foreign state."

I was interested in this claim, so I asked the SIS for guidance they have about the "mosaic effect", as well as for evidence of their claim. Their response is here. It includes SIS/GCSB guidance on the use of "neither confirm nor deny" responses under the OIA and Privacy Act, and an internal memo on "The mosaic effect in the context of official information release". The latter is quite interesting, in that its primary evidence is from privacy researchers attacking the concept of "anonymised" data (though they are also agitated about the work of the UK's Undercover Research Group, which helped expose widespread police spying on civil society groups and identify its perpetrators and forced an ongoing public inquiry into police wrongdoing). It also rehearses some rather novel OIA withholding arguments, the use of which is something to keep an eye out for in the future. Along the way they also make a somewhat startling claim that:

some individuals have used information gained through the Privacy Act improperly (i.e. taken information provided to a separate individual, or sought to suborn an individual to make a Privacy Act request under genuine auspices.

...which sounds like they're annoyed that their past victims and relatives of their past victims have been pooling their information to assemble a pretty damning picture of the SIS's historic wrongdoing.

So, what about the specific claim they make about information being released which is "of no interest to someone who meets the requestor criteria, but... of interest to a foreign state"? What evidence do they have that this is actually a problem (and a problem sufficiently threatening to justify undermining our freedom of information rights under s14 BORA)? The SIS won't say. While they claim this is because of "national security", as in the case of Ahmed Zaoui, the natural suspicion is because whatever "evidence" they think they have would not withstand public scrutiny. What does speak volumes is that while they offered to brief other government agencies on the mosaic effect "threat", they didn't actually give any briefings. Which I think tells us how serious it really is: not at all.

A disrespectful foreign policy

The first item I remember on RNZ news this morning was that Winston is threatening to cut all aid to Kiribati because they wouldn't meet with him. Of course, there's more to the story than that - Kiribati's president had a pre-planned and significant historical event - but clearly Winston thinks that he should drop everything to give him his vital "I visited every Pacific country" photo op. Meanwhile, Judith Collins makes the colonialism and white supremacy even more explicit when she says "we can't have a disrespectful relationship". Quite. But who's disrespecting who here?

Which also makes me think of yesterday's international mess over Trump threatening Colombia (a friendly nation and an American ally, which had asked that its people be treated respectfully when being deported, and was threatened with tarriffs and sanctions in response). There was some commentary on BlueSky from @Pwnallthethings about how such spats tend to have uncertain and long-term diplomatic consequences, and how they are felt and remembered very differently in the metropole than in the small nations they are bullying (the obvious local examples of this are how we kiwis still remember American bullying over nuclear ships, and French terrorism against Greenpeace, and this still influences our relationships with both countries).

To bring it back to Kiribati: regardless of whether aid is ultimately cut or not, the fact Winston made this threat, over something so small, will likely be felt and remembered there for a very long time. Winston's petty tantrum may have poisoned our relations with Kiribati for a decade, and (since Judith Collins seems to care) may help push them closer to China. Whoops. Maybe we shouldn't have a thin-skinned petty old colonialist with an outsized sense of victimhood running our foreign policy?

Drawn

A ballot for two member's bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn:

• Crimes (Coward Punch Causing Injury or Death) Amendment Bill (Paulo Garcia)
• Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill (Carl Bates)

So a harmless bill and some "tough on crime" bullshit.

There were 75 bills in the ballot today, including another one to ban prisoner voting. This is a law which has been found to be inconsistent with the BORA by the Supreme Court, and yet some national backbencher - with the approval of the National caucus - is trying to push it through again. Which is another data-point on the anti-constitutional anti-human rights radicalism of the current National Party. Maybe some journalists should be asking pointy questions about this?

The orcs are back

Last time National was in government they tried to pillage the conservation estate and open our national parks for mining. But we told them to go fuck themselves, and they slithered off. Unfortunately, Minister for Corruption Shane Jones, who shamelessly takes "donations" from mining companies, didn't get the message:

New Zealanders need to “get over ourselves” and identify which areas of the land administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC) can be used for economic purposes, including mining, Resources Minister Shane Jones says.

[...]

Jones said he would be making a “major speech” about the mining industry and related economic matters in Waihi next Friday.

He would be saying: "We have an inordinately large DOC estate, much of which is overrun with weasels and rats and stoats and noxious weeds,” Jones told Newstalk ZB on Friday.

"Weasels and rats and stoats and noxious weeds" sounds more like a description of the current cabinet.

Kiwis of all political persuasions value the conservation estate, and understand that it is for conserving, not exploiting. If National doesn't want its own "blue green" supporters to abandon them again, it needs to tell Jones to shut the fuck up, and rule out any mining on the conservation estate (including any recategorisation of conservation land to enable it). As for the other parties, the best way to kill this idea dead is to deter investment, by making it crystal clear that any mining or exploration permits granted will be legislatively revoked, with no compensation, and that any investment made will be lost. Its worked well against the oil and gas industry; now the opposition needs to apply the same tactics to defend our natural taonga.

We deserve to know who chose this bullshit

Oral submissions on National's racist, ahistorical Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill are being heard today, and in addition to the expected iwi, academics, lawyers, and constitutional experts calling bullshit, there's been a succession of racist, swivel-eyed loons spewing hate. You might think that that's the luck of the draw, but it wasn't. Submitters in the first week were specifically chosen by the political parties:

In a press release yesterday, the committee confirmed it will hear 80 hours of oral submissions across four weeks. A full day of oral hearings will be held on January 27, with a further two hours being heard on January 30.

Submitters in the first week will be nominated by the members of the committee, which features politicians from all six of the parties in Parliament. It’s understood each party will be able to pick 25 submitters each.

So when you see some racist conspiracist fruitbat using the committee hearings as a platform to monger hate, keep in mind: some party chose them. Some party thought their constitutionally and historically illiterate contribution would be "valuable". Someone thought their voice needed to be heard more widely. And we deserve to know who, both so we can ask them what the fuck is wrong with them, and judge them at the ballot box.

Justice for Afghanistan?

The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants against senior members of the Taliban regime on the grounds that their persecution of women is a crime against humanity:

The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor has requested arrest warrants for the Taliban’s supreme leader and Afghanistan’s chief justice on the grounds that their persecution of women and girls in Afghanistan is a crime against humanity.

It marks the first time the prosecutor has built a case around systemic crimes against women and girls, legal experts say. It is also a rare moment of vindication for Afghan activists, who over the last three years have often felt abandoned by the international community even as Taliban oppression deepened.

[...]

Karim Khan, the ICC chief prosecutor, said in a statement that the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, are “criminally responsible” for ongoing persecution of girls, women, the LGBTQ+ community and their allies.

Good. And not just because of Afghanistan. There's also Iran and Saudi Arabia, and of course the US is increasingly going full-Gilead. And while none of those countries are parties, establishing a principle in international law that gender persecution is a crime against humanity will still enable their regimes to be held to account in future under other legal jurisdictions. Members of the Republican Party might not be able to take European holidays ever again.

Fixing science?

Aotearoa's science sector is broken. For 35 years it has been run on a commercial, competitive model, while being systematically underfunded. Which means we have seven different crown research institutes and eight different universities - all publicly owned and nominally working for the public good - fighting over the same fixed pool of funding, leading in turn to a huge amount of competition, duplication, and wasted effort. We also have 15 different CEOs, all trying to empire-build and make their balance-sheets look big so they can move on to the next, bigger job. Which leads to a certain amount of institution dysfunction.

Today, the government announced its "solution" to this: a partial re-merger of the CRIs, into four new "public research organisations". Which means years of restructuring, layoffs, and chaos, all of which will affect the ability of these organisations to actually do science. Not mentioned in the announcement: any change to funding, either the amount or the model. Which means it only (partially) fixes part of the problem. Because if funding remains fixed and on a commercial model, then the new PROs will simply engage in the same inefficient, pathological behaviours as the old CRIs, because that's what the funding system incentivises.

Interestingly, the Science System Advisory Group report which underlies all of this recommended going much further, with a complete re-merger of all CRIs into effectively a new DSIR, plus a lot of changes further up the chain to reduce duplication and ensure coordination across government and with universities. Its unclear how much of that is happening, though the government has seized on the recommendation for a new agency to try and attract venture capital and multinational research efforts.

Whether this ends up as yet another expensive, failed, pointless restructuring done just to give the impression of Doing Something remains to be seen. Funding decisions are the key, and there's meant to be another SSAG report on them due out sometime. But if they do this restructuring without changing funding, then I think its really just a wasted effort.

How is this legal?

Leo Molloy's recent "shoplifting" smear against former MP Golriz Ghahraman has finally drawn public attention to Auror and its database. And from what's been disclosed so far, it does not look good:

The massive privately-owned retail surveillance network which recorded the shopping incident involving former MP Golriz Ghahraman is able to be searched by police even when no complaint has been made, the company co-ordinating it has confirmed.

[...]

But Auror, which hosts the surveillance network covering 90% of New Zealand retailers, has confirmed information recorded by its retail clients is available to police.

“By using Auror, retailers choose to make this information available to law enforcement and also have the option to directly report to them via the software. Retailers determine what information they enter,” a spokesman said.

This has led people to ask the obvious question: how the fuck is this legal? And its a good one. Because while the purpose of collection and general idea of tracking information on shoplifters and disclosing it to police for the purpose of prosecution seems to comply with the information privacy principles, there are clear questions around the fairness and intrusiveness of the method of collection, not to mention disclosure. Because cameras which spy on you every time you go shopping, linked to facial recognition and ANPR to ID you, all of which spy on everyone regardless of guilt or innocence seems a bit over-the-top. And while disclosure for the purposes of investigation or prosecution is legal, disclosure for any other purpose is not. And where a retailer has decided not to prosecute, then that decision undermines the entire purpose of collection and retention, and renders any subsequent storage and disclosure illegal.

The Privacy Commissioner urgently needs to investigate Auror, to ensure that they are complying with the law. And if they are not, they need to be brought into compliance or shut down.

But its not just a problem for Auror - its also a problem for police. Because using Auror's database is very clearly a "search" in terms of the BORA: people have a reasonable expectation that they won't be spied on and databased when going about their daily business, even in public places. The fact that this spying is done by a third party is irrelevant - the moment the police access it, the BORA is engaged, and they need to meet a test of reasonableness. And permitting casual searches, without any reasonable causes, clearly violates the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. As the article points out, the police have already had this problem with Auror's ANPR database, and been forced to impose reasonable cause requirements on searching it as a result. They will need to do the same for the retail database. The problem is how to incentivise that. There's obvious scope for a BORA class action by everyone they've unreasonably searched, but the problem is getting them to admit doing so in the first place...

Finally

Back in March, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier resigned after hitting the age limit for his office. And now, almost a year later, parliament has finally gotten around to appointing a replacement:

John Richard Allen is likely to take over the role of chief ombudsman from Peter Boshier, who still has the job despite a law requiring his resignation at age 72.

Boshier resigned after his 72nd birthday on 16 March last year, but was asked to stay on while a replacement was found.

The Officers of Parliament Committee had recommended Allen as a replacement in the role, which was an independent position tasked with investigating complaints about administrative actions at all levels of government and ensuring proper public access to official information.

The committee is made up of MPs from all parties in Parliament, and Allen's appointment had unanimous support.

Which is good, but the obvious question is "what took them so long"? Because while Boshier's statutory retirement apparently took the whole political system by surprise, resulting in policy by panic, the officers of parliament committee began its inquiry back in March. They should have had a suitable candidate in September. Instead, with, we've gone almost a year with only a "pretty legal" temporary appointment to one of our core constitutional offices. The public deserved better than that.

The good news is that unlike many of National's recent appointees Allen isn't a crony or obviously unsuitable for the position. Hopefully he'll do the job well.

Sabotaging te Tiriti

The Waitangi Tribunal has been one of the most effective critics of the government, pointing out repeatedly that its racist, colonialist policies breach te Tiriti o Waitangi. While it has no powers beyond those of recommendation, its truth-telling has clearly gotten under the government's skin. They had already begun to sabotage it, with a crony appointment of racist former ACT leader Richard Prebble in October. And on Friday they gutted it completely, replacing almost the entire membership:

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka has confirmed a major refresh of the Waitangi Tribunal, as he replaces half of its members.

The coalition Government started a major overhaul in October, appointing former ACT Party leader Richard Prebble to the Tribunal alongside Ken Williamson, whose background is in insurance and corporate leadership.

On Friday, Potaka confirmed sweeping changes to the Tribunal’s membership. He announced another eight new appointments, and said he was renewing the warrants of just five existing members.

Those new appointments included political pundit Philip Crump and former NZ First minister Ron Mark.

The latter makes it crystal clear what is going on: qualified academics and historians are being replaced with corporate shills, racists, and swivel-eyed weirdos. Its the same tactic they have used to sabotage human rights. And the solution is the same in both cases: the next government should immediately sack National's unqualified cronies, for being unable to properly perform the functions of the office.

Once that is done, there is a clear need to insulate the Tribunal against further fuckery from future right-wing governments. We already do this for judges: their independence is guaranteed by lifetime appointments, protections against removal, and protections against defunding. The Waitangi Tribunal is effectively a constitutional court, embodied to rule on the ongoing partnership which founded our nation. Once constitutional normality is restored, its members deserve the same protection.

300,000!

Over the holidays, there was a rising tide of calls for people to submit on National's repulsive, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, along with a wave of advice and examples of what to say. And it looks like people rose to the occasion, with over 300,000 submissions received so far:

Initial estimates showed that over 300,000 submissions have been lodged online. The committee said more than half of those submissions came on Tuesday, which caused the site to crash.

The previous record for submissions was just over 100,000 on the conversion therapy legislation in 2021.

Assuming that they're all kiwis, and not foreign MuskBots, that means more than 5% of the population of Aotearoa felt strongly enough about this bill to speak up about it. Which is a massive level of mobilisation.

We don't know yet - and won't know for months, given the numbers - whether the balance of submissions favour or oppose the bill. But Luxon's hopes of being able to vote this down at second reading and put the issue to bed quietly are clearly dead. No-one is going to be talking about anything else for as long as this bill is before the house, and even once it is voted down or voted through, people are not going to forget. Especially if it is voted through, because there's clearly enough of a motivated base of activism here to drive a significant anti-government protest movement if National passes this law, and to push for it to be reversed (I'm less concerned about the other case, because while there are clearly some motivated racists - the National and ACT caucuses, for a start - its not like there were a hundred thousand of them in front of parliament calling for the Treaty to be abolished).

Given the numbers - three times the previous record - its no wonder the parliament website melted under the load. The good news is that the Justice Committee has done the right thing, and extended the submission deadline for another five days. So, if you haven't already, Submit!. History is watching, and like the Tour, people in twenty or forty years time will want to know which side you were on. Are you going to do your part, or stay silent in the face of white supremacy?

Submitted!

Submissions on National's racist, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill are due tomorrow! So today, after a good long holiday from all that bullshit, I finally got my shit together to submit on it.

As I noted here, people should write their own submissions in their own words, so I'm not going to post the thing. But in keeping with the idea of not wanting to waste my time on what is essentially a disgusting ACT trolling exercise, or in trying to compete with recognised Tiriti and constitutional experts who will say things better than I ever could, I kept it short. My key point was that the bill effectively unilaterally abrogates te Tiriti without consultation with the Tiriti partner, let alone negotiation or agreement, and that this is deeply dishonest and dishonourable. Sadly, I failed to include a Darth Vader reference, but that's probably for the bests. ACT would probably think being compared to one of SF's most notorious villains is cool, because like sad little incels they took all the wrong lessons from those movies.

I also pointed out that Parliament has shamed itself and undermined its own legitimacy by even considering the bill, and that it needs to make restitution for this. Most obviously, this means killing the bill dead. But they need to do more: apologising to Māori and the people of Aotearoa for even considering this bullshit, publicly censuring the Minister for bringing the bill to the House, and putting safeguards in place to prevent similar actions in future. I suggest a BORA-style mechanism to help prevent unwitting Tiriti breaches, as well as legislation similar to Tākuta Ferris' Treaty of Waitangi (Empowerment of Waitangi Tribunal) Amendment Bill (currently in the biscuit tin) to ensure Parliament is well-informed and prevent executive interference in the Tribunal's functions. I don't expect the current pack of racist arsehats to consider either option - but hopefully the opposition will be more committed to protecting the basis of our constitution from racist meddling.

2024 OIA stats

Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine:

• 82 OIA requests sent in 2024
• 7 posts based on those requests
• 20 average working days to receive a response
• Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, with 7 requests (mostly about secrecy clauses)
• Of 74 requests which have received responses: 41 received responses before the due date, 22 on the due date, and 11 were late (8 are still pending, but none of them are due till January).

I also have stats on my complaints to the Ombudsman:

• 28 complaints filed in 2024
• 22 complaints resolved in 2024 (17 from 2024, the others from earlier years)
• 186 days on average for a resolution
• Of the 22 resolved complaints, 15 were successful, 4 partially successful, 1 unsuccessful, and 2 were withdrawn.
• 1 complaint resulted in a published casenote.
• Every "process" complaint (delays, extensions, charging) filed was successful.

The big question is whether any of those successful complaints will result in the agencies concerned changing their behaviour...

Climate Change: A perverse incentive

The government published its first Biennial Transparency Report under the Paris Agreement yesterday, and the media has correctly noted that it is missing any plan to actually meet our target. While it hypes domestic emissions reductions so far - which have been good, but will likely get worse thanks to National - there's an 84 million ton gap between our expected emissions and our Paris NDC. The report doesn't say how we're going to fill this, merely noting that the government is "exploring options for international cooperation".

Why so vague? And why haven't these "explorations" (which they've been doing for years) resulted in any agreements? Other countries have been signing them, after all, and while the previous government was rightly picky about whether foreign "credits" were real, I don't expect any such pickiness from National. They'll happily accept cheap fraud, if it means they get to tick the "target achieved" box, and dealing with the consequences will be Somebody Else's Problem.

A possible answer may be buried near the bottom of that RNZ article:

Also in the background, Treasury had advised Ministers Watts and Nicola Willis that if the government made a statement to the effect that it had signed a deal or made a firm commitment to do so, the $3-23 billion estimated cost of purchasing offshore credits between now and 2030 could start appearing as liability on the government's books.

So, if they take even baby steps towards meeting our obligations, then that's the "demonstration of intent" to meet the NDC that Treasury has been refusing to recognise, the entire obligation becomes real in accounting terms, and the government gets hit with a $23 billion future liability. Normal people might think that recognising an actual obligation is good, and that including the cost also reifies the cost of inaction and so incentivises fixing it. But all the government sees is "books look bad; bad headline". And so we have a perverse incentive: only by denying the problem and refusing to do anything about it can the illusion of fiscal probity be maintained.

It would be nice to have actual adults running climate policy. But that's not going to happen until we throw out this government and get a new one.

Open Government: The joke ends

Correction: This story is fortunately incorrect. While Te Kawa Mataaho repeatedly advised the government to quit the OGP, Ministers rejected the idea, and it never went to cabinet. For some reason, this fact was not mentioned in the OIA response the post was based on. Its one of those cases where I'm glad to be wrong, and hopefully the government will now commit to using the OGP to push our public service for real change.

The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent Reporting Mechanism, to ensure they do what they promise and that it has the effects they want.

New Zealand joined the OGP in 2013. We were a late joiner, and from the start it was treated as a PR scam - "we're good at open government, and this is a free headline, hur hur hur". And this showed: its first "action plan" was developed internally with a mockery of consultation and consisted entirely of lazy, business-as-usual goals which the government was doing anyway. And from the outset, it was criticised heavily by civil society groups and the OGP's Independent Reporting Mechanism. Fast-forward a decade, and we're now on our fourth action plan. Over the last four action plans the government has done sweet fuck all, eschewing real change (like beneficial ownership registers, or rewriting the OIA, or requiring real participation in policymaking) in favour of business-as-usual and meaningless "reviews" which are then thrown in the bin. While they've started to do a better pretence of "consultation", there's no real effort at co-creation, priorities are all set by government, for government, and nothing has really changed. Which is why major civil society groups have given up entirely on the process (I gave up after 2016). Our participation was simply a bad joke.

So I'm not entirely surprised to see today that the government has sought advice on withdrawing from the OGP. It hasn't bought them the benefit they wanted (positive headlines), and instead just gets them criticism for failing to meet even the low targets they set themselves. At least by withdrawing they're being honest about their lack of commitment to OGP values, and their preference for the classic Tory values of secrecy, unaccountability, and democratic isolation. (Oh, and naturally they kep the whole idea secret, until it was exposed by an OIA request).

And yet, its disappointing. By requiring formal consideration of open government issues every two years, the OGP could have driven real change in Aotearoa. Instead, the timidity and resistance of officials and a lack of commitment from Ministers buried it, and destroyed any goodwill from civil society for future efforts.

MFAT thinks the risks of OGP withdrawal "can be appropriately managed". I guess its the job of civil society groups now to make those costs as high and severe as possible, to remind the government that it shouldn't cheat wither the international community or the public on transparency.

Can the government change its mind on the ferries?

The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, and not just for the government. Quite apart from the facts that the ports need to be upgraded anyway and new ferries will be far more expensive than the price Labour negotiated, pursuing a cheap-arse no-rail option will mean clogging the roads with megatrucks, and higher freight costs for everyone. And it makes you wish they could just change their mind again and go back to the original plan.

And it turns out that that may in fact still be an option. Because while National has repudiated the contract, negotiations over the exit price are still ongoing. The information is buried in a provisional opinion from the Ombudsman (which has now become final, so I can talk about it). I'd requested the iReX contract, and KiwiRail had refused, citing prejudice to negotiations. The Ombudsman upheld that decision, but in explaining their reasoning, described the negotiations:

The negotiations involve numerous parties, including KiwiRail, Hyundai, and external counsel. KiwiRail is represented in the negotiations by counsel based in the United Kingdom, as the contract is based in English law. The parties are meeting on an at least weekly basis for negotiations. Information about the negotiations and the contract is treated confidentially and tightly held. KiwiRail staff who require access to the information are required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

The negotiations are highly complex and detailed. They involve Hyundai submitting information to substantiate the costs incurred in various areas relating to the ship build. There are also numerous subcontractors to Hyundai who are making similar submissions, and this contributes to the complexity. KiwiRail has specialist external lawyers, ship architects and ship brokers assisting its verification of the claims.

KiwiRail has provided me with information about the tenor of its relationship with Hyundai. Unfortunately, I am unable to detail this specifically as doing so has the potential to undermine the interests which section 9(2)(j) is intended to protect. However, what I will say is that the nature of the negotiations, including their stage at the time of your request (and now), suggests there is a reasonable likelihood that they would be prejudiced if the information was released.

[Emphasis added]

That opinion was released to me yesterday, and became final today. While the time-lags involved in Ombudsman's decisions may mean the information relied upon is a month old, taken at face value it suggests that contract negotiations are still ongoing. And you'd expect the government to have announced if they'd concluded.

The fact that negotiations are still ongoing also suggests that there may still be space for the government to change its mind, and decide that actually, they'd like those ferries after all. That will not be free. Quite apart from any penalty payment for dicking them around, its clear that the whole negotiation process has cost a lot of people a lot of money, which the government should rightly pay. But their decision is so disastrous that this might still be the cheapest option. Sadly, the unwillingness of politicians to admit they have ever made a mistake means they probably won't take it.

(Meanwhile, the lesson from all of this is to request major government procurement contracts the moment they are announced, and before political interference screws them up and allows the holders to claim “negotiations” as a withholding ground...)

Member's morning

Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of Rima Nakhle's Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill, which, having got this far, is destined to pass. Following that are the first readings of Catherine Wedd's Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill and Cameron Luxon's Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill. If the House moves quickly it might make a start on Marama Davidson's Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill, but given that its the last day before the holiday adjournment, its more likely they'll take an early lunch. There will be at least two free spaces on the ballot, but I'm not sure when they will be filled.

Corrections is torturing prisoners again

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. If this sounds like cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, you're right - the Supreme Court found that it was, and the government had to pay out nearly a million dollars in compensation. No-one in Corrections ever faced any employment consequences for this (let alone criminal ones) - which might be why, twenty years later, its all happening again:

The Chief Ombudsman says the Department of Corrections must stop the way it’s running the Prisoners of Extreme Risk Unit (PERU) because the unit’s prisoners are being ill-treated.

Peter Boshier has released a report that outlines serious concerns about human rights abuses at the unit which is based at Auckland Prison.

“The conditions and treatment in the PERU are cruel, inhuman and degrading and in breach of the United Nations Convention against Torture,” Mr Boshier says.

The full report is here. It details "prolonged and potentially indefinite solitary confinement" (which international law recognises as torture), "oppressive living conditions", "disproportionate use of force", and "excessive and unjustified" searches and surveillance. All run by a semi-autonomous unit within Corrections with little oversight and poor reporting and record-keeping.

These are the exact problems found with the BMR, and they likely mean significant liability for the government. The Ombudsman has recommended that the entire regime be stopped immediately, but that's not enough - because this isn't just a matter of civil liability; it is a crime. Torture is a crime. Assault is a crime. Failing to keep proper records is a crime. Our prison guards are criminals. And it is time they were properly held to account.

"Better economic management"

At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms:

The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term as a big dent in the tax take and higher expenses deliver continued budget deficits.

But the government has adopted a new measure of its finances, excluding the impact of ACC, which it said has distorted previous forecasts and had the potential to affect spending decisions.

[...]

Using the established measure the deficits would rise more than expected in the budget and a surplus was not expected in the forecast period to 2028/29.

The reason for this of course is austerity, which has seen core government services cut and 11.6% of all the workers in wellington sacked in a single year. Meanwhile, they're grinding down ordinary people with sub-inflation increases to the minimum wage and 0% pay offers to public servants (so: pay cuts in real terms). And all of this flows through to the rest of the economy. The only people doing well are landleeches, who are gouging us for an extra 6.9% this year. But then, that's who National works for, isn't it?

If this is "better economic management", I'd hate to see what worse looks like.