The end of policing by consent

National has appointed a new police commissioner. And he explicitly rejects policing by consent:

Asked if he subscribed to policing by consent, he said he did not.

“I don’t talk about policing by consent. I talk about trust and confidence, and it is fundamentally important that the police have the trust and confidence of the public, and we’ve got some work to do at the moment.”

And just like that, nearly two hundred years of core police culture has been tossed out, in favour of an American model evolved from slave patrols and based on subjugating the population by force - everything that Peel opposed. Which is precisely why trust and confidence has plummeted.

As for the consequences, Peel rightly recognised that the cooperation of the public was essential for the police to be able to do their job. Now the police have abandoned that, I guess they can try doing that job without that cooperation - and see how far it gets them.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day, and a significant one: it should finally see the passage of Teanau Tuiono's Citizenship (Western Samoa) (Restoration) Amendment Bill. While the bill is an ugly compromise which is a long way from proper redress for the government's past crimes (oh that's a familiar story), it will help, and I will be glad to see it pass.

With the main event out of the way, there will be the committee stage of Rima Nakhle's Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill, followed by the first readings of Julie Anne Genter's Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill and Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill. If the House moves quickly, it may make a start on Catherine Wedd's Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill. There should be a ballot for two bills tomorrow.

Submit to defend te Tiriti!

The Justice Committee has called for submissions on National's racist and constitutionally radical Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill. Submissions can be made at the link above or by post, and are due by Tuesday, 7 January 2025. But I'd get in quick, in case National grows a spine and shortens the select committee period.

There are already template submissions floating around for this bill. Please don't use them. As people who have worked inside the sausage factory have pointed out, form and template submissions are grouped and ignored. You will have more impact and be more effective if you write your own. It does not have to be long, just a few sentences: who you are, your top reason(s) why you oppose the bill, and a request to appear before the committee (if you want to do that - and remember, it can be done by phone or zoom). If someone else - a big NGO, say - says something you agree with, then saying "I support the submission of [X]" (optionally, "on [issue Y]") is good - but make sure to also say something in your own words. Don't just crib and rearrange their language, because it is very obvious, and then your submission goes in the template bucket.

[This BTW is why I stopped posting my submissions here: people were just copy-pasting them, which undermined my impact and theirs]

There are many, many critiques of this bill which you can mine for ammunition. The Waitangi Tribunal reports, politicians' first-reading speeches, Helmut Modlik, Ngati Toa, senior lawyers, Geoffrey Palmer, Chris Finlayson, even Jenny fucking Shipley. You can pick one problem, try and cover them all, or just go with the general vibe that this bill misrepresents our history and would be (in the words of the waitangi Tribunal) "worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times". Just be polite, be brief, and above all, resist the temptation to tell the politicians what complete arsehats vandals they are for even considering this piece of shit law. (This is always the hardest bit for me. Submission voice is different from blog voice is different from Kikorangi voice...)

Rimmer will be looking for a big show of astroturfed support from Hobson's Pledge. It's our job to outnumber them, to bury them in opposition. The marchers showed that today with the hikoi (which is now being estimated at 40 or 50 thousand, with some estimates in the 80's); time to show it at select committee as well.

The hikoi

Like everyone else (everyone who wasn't there, anyway), I've spent the morning watching the hikoi march on Parliament. The pictures are astounding: parliament grounds and the surrounding streets are full, and there are still people backed up along Lambton Quay. The police are estimating 35,000 people, and that's a floor rather than a ceiling.

The challenge this poses to the National government is clear. Faced with a crowd half this size at the foreshore and seabed hikoi in 2004, Helen Clark infamously dismissed them as "haters and wreckers". Labour lost the Māori seats as a result, and Clark was denied a majority, forcing her into the arms of NZ First for her last lame duck term. And while ACT's racist hardliners will say that no-one outside parliament today will be voting National, no, they won't be - not any more. But its also not just them. For everyone marching today, there are ten or more who don't live in Wellington and couldn't make it and who think that National's bill is an atrocity. And they're not all on the left. When people like Chris Finlayson and Jenny fucking Shipley are denouncing your bill as divisive and "inviting civil war", then its a sign that you've lost even the most boring of conservatives. Which is what happens when you attack the very foundations on which our state is built.

So what should National do? Simple: kill the bill, and quickly. Don't let Rimmer have his six month racist hate-fest of a select committee process; instead cut it short, vote it down, and tell Rimmer to go fuck himself. And if he threatens the government's confidence, then tell him to bring it on - because National is likely to do better out of an early election in those circumstances than it would otherwise.

But I think we all know that mediocre manager man Chris Luxon is too spineless and chickenshit to do anything. The man never stood up for anything in his life, beyond his own aggrandisement. And sadly, he's unlikely to start now.

More lawlessness from National

On Tuesday, sick of government stonewalling, the Waitangi Tribunal issued a rare court order, ordering the Minister of Health to release unredacted documents within 48 hours showing its reasoning for disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. The government's response to the lawful order of a court? Yeah, nah:

The Health Ministry has only partially adhered to a Waitangi Tribunal order for unredacted information regarding the closure of Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority.

[...]

A Ministry of Health spokesperson confirmed it released a number of documents on Thursday night, but asked for more for “consultation” before releasing the remaining documents.

There's a name for this: contempt. And as a standing commission of inquiry, the Tribunal has the power to punish it. And they should. While the penalty of a $1000 fine is derisory, Ministers need to learn that they are not above the law. And the shame of a conviction might focus his mind on proper comity towards the judiciary.

Of course, instead Ministers are again threatening to "reform" the Tribunal. Which sounds like a classic case of perversion of the course of justice to me.

National's tyrannical "foreign interference" law

Yesterday, under cover the the biggest political fight of the year, National quietly - covertly, even - introduced anti-foreign interference legislation. The bill is the product of a years-long work-program aimed at countering shit like this and this, and there's unquestionably a need to do something to counter foreign states' attacks on the democratic rights of kiwis. Unfortunately, the government's preferred solution - the creation of two very vague new criminal offences - goes too far, and will criminalise basic democratic activity such as protests. And under a straight and direct reading of the law, it would have criminalised most of our historic protest movements.

Much of the bill is unproblematic, if a bit weird. Tweaking the law of parties in relation to espionage offences to fill a gap? Fine. Changing existing offences around wrongful retention and corrupt use of official information to refer to "relevant information" instead so as to cover bodies excluded from the OIA? Fine, but there was another solution to that - include those bodies! - which of course the government didn't even consider. Amend the definition of "information" so that it "includes information about military tactics, techniques, or procedures"? Weird status-driven flex, but as those things are information and so already included in the definition, harmless as well as pointless. And the new offence of "commission of imprisonable offence to provide relevant benefit to foreign power" seems to target exactly the sort of problems linked to above, and not be problematic (it may be pointless, because foreign agents won't be deterred in the slightest by it, but the existence of the law isn't a problem).

The problem lies in new section 78AAA, improper conduct for or on behalf of foreign power. This makes it an offence to engage in improper conduct for or on behalf of a foreign power when you know (or in the government's opinion, ought to know) that you are acting on behalf of a foreign power, with the intention of or being reckless as to whether it compromises a "protected New Zealand interest". If that sounds vague, it gets worse when you start unpacking the definitions:

• "Foreign power" means essentially a government or agency, so that at least is OK. Neither the UN or Amnesty International are "foreign powers" in terms of the law. But...
• "acting for or on behalf of a foreign power" includes doing things that are merely "instigated by" or "with the agreement of" a foreign power. Does the government believe that all protest stems from nefarious foreign actions? Did a foreign PM give your protest photo a "like" on Facebook? Congratulations, you a criminal! (more on this later);
• "protected New Zealand interests" include not just important things like lives and public safety, the functioning of our elections and government and the democratic and human rights of our citizens, but also state bullshit like "international relations" and (more worryingly) "the economic well-being of New Zealand". Does your protest offend a foreign government, or a powerful industry lobby group? You're compromising those interests, and a potential criminal.
• "improper conduct" isn't just criminal or corrupt (indeed, actual crime seems not to be part of its definition at all), but instead conduct which is "covert", "deceptive", or "coercive". And here's where it gets nasty, because the Regulatory Impact Statement implies that merely holding confidential meetings or using encrypted communications falls within the definition of "covert" (and its excuse is that its not a problem because usually "the purpose of the activity is not to harm designated interests"). Do anything without inviting the police or SIS or narks to spy on you and read all your stuff? Covert! "Deceptive" means hiding or obfuscating consequences, or lying, or even "omitting any material particular"; what's a lie or an omission is of course entirely in the eyes of the state here, but the scope there seems very broad. Writing anonymously or under a pseudonym is absolutely covered. And "coercive" includes not just intimidation and threats, but also "enabling the denial or restriction of access to property or services that another person would otherwise be entitled to access". Did a fragile white incel feel "threatened" by your protest? Was someone late to work? Congratulations, it's coercive!

The latter point of course covers a huge swathe of legitimate democratic protest. Occupations and blockades are a normal part of the push and shove of democratic society. This law would define them as "coercive".

But wouldn't they only be illegal if they compromised protected New Zealand interests on behalf of a foreign power? As noted above, those interests include "international relations" and "economic wellbeing", while links to a foreign power can be highly tenuous. We've seen protests blockade streets and buildings, occupy land, ships and oil rigs, and the targets of those protests - the dairy, oil, and weapons industries - have all claimed that it threatens "economc wellbeing" (they've even called it "economic treason"). And the government and SIS of the day have slandered virtually every major protest movement in our history - the union movement, the anti-war movement, the anti-apartheid movement, the anti-nuclear movement - as a tool of foreign interests.

Essentially, this law allows the government to criminalise people based on its own misconceptions, conspiracy theories, and outright fantasies of their motivations (and its belief that we "ought to know" about their weirdo fantasies). It would have allowed Muldoon to jail John Minto and all of HART for 14 years for being foreign agents. It would have allowed them to jail every anti-nuclear protestor who blocked a street or rowed a canoe in front of a ship, and everyone who wrote a letter to the editor under a false name advocating against nuclear ship visits. It potentially - depending on what weird fantasies the SIS and Federated Farmers have - allows them to jail every member of the climate, environmental, and indigenous rights movements.

This is massive over-reach. And it being done in the name of "protecting" our rights adds insult to injury. As noted above, foreign interference is a threat. But the real threat here seems to be our own government, and its contempt for basic democratic rights.

Can this bill be saved? Removing s78AAA entirely would fix it. Alternatively, it could have an "avoidance of doubt" clause protecting protest, advocacy, dissent, and strikes, as used in the Terrorism Suppression Act might work. But I suspect that the government would view that as undercutting the core purpose of the bill: an all-encompassing criminalisation clause, with no loopholes for foreign agents to wriggle through. The problem is that that purpose criminalises us. And while the government will no doubt say "trust us, we wouldn't prosecute you", their record on this shows that they simply cannot be trusted. This law needs to be gutted. And any MP who votes for it in its present state needs to be voted out on their arse.

D-day for the government

The government's Treaty Principles Bill is up for its first reading today - bought forward in a rush in a desperate effort to avoid the hikoi which is currently marching on Wellington. But the Prime Minister won’t be there for it – he’s literally running away to Peru! But he took the opportunity to denounce his bill as he was fleeing:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has given a scathing appraisal of the Treaty Principles Bill on the day of its first reading, saying the legislation has been unhelpful to his mission of getting the country back on track.

[...]

Luxon will miss the parliamentary debate - enroute to Peru for the APEC summit instead - but he called a morning media conference where he criticised the legislation in perhaps his strongest words yet.

"You do not go negate, with a single stroke of a pen, 184 years of debate and discussion, with a bill that I think is very simplistic."

Luxon is clearly unhappy with his bill sucking all the oxygen out of his government. But he knows the solution to that: he can vote it down today - or just encourage 6 National MPs to "rebel" and do so. Either would be nuclear for his coalition - but so clearly is supporting the bill. National is going to bleed and bleed over this, and even if Rimmer lets them vote it down when it gets out of committee in six months, the stench of having supported it in the first place isn't going to go away. National will bear the taint of being the racist party which tried to destroy our constitutional foundations. And that's something which is going to be impossible to live down.

Luxon could end all that today. But he won't, because he's a chickenshit, too cowardly even to face up to what he has agreed to. As for the National Party, by supporting this they will make it clear that there is no such thing as a "good Nat" - they're all racists, all the way down. And we should not let them escape that judgement.

(And for people who want to nitpick and say that this isn’t Luxon’s bill: he agreed to it, so he owns it. MMP may mean coalitions, but it does not mean you can escape responsibility for your choices.)

Injustice for torture

Between 1950 and 1993 the New Zealand government tortured and abused up to 250,000 children in residential care facilities. Yesterday, following formal findings from a royal commission, it finally apologised for that abuse. The next step is redress and restitution - compensating the surviving victims for the appalling harm they have suffered. But it turns out that maybe not every victim is going to get compensated, with the government refusing to say if it plans to exclude gang members:

Asked on Wednesday whether gang members would be eligible for redress, the relevant minister, Erica Stanford, declined to say.

"I have not made any decisions and neither has Cabinet. All of these things have to go to Cabinet," Stanford said.

"I'm not going to tell you today what's in and what's out and how much, because we haven't made any of those decisions yet."

Pressed again, Stanford said the question of whether gang members would be eligible was "one of the things that we have to be looking at".

So, they're considering it (and the fact that she refuses to say and hides behind cabinet confidentiality tells us that). So the position of at least some parties in this government is that the government can torture and abuse people, ruin their lives, and that if it decides it doesn't like you, they can refuse to compensate you. That is unjust. it is indecent. And it makes a total mockery of yesterday's "apology".

As the royal commission found, "Gangs provided survivors with the care (that is, attachment and belonging) and protection that state and faith-based institutions should have given." If abuse victims turned to gangs as a response to abuse, that seems to be the government's fault; and maybe it neds to think about compensating those institutions for the care they gave, and that the government did not.

Jagose doesn't get it

The government held a formal apology ceremony this morning to victims of child torture and abuse-in-care. One of those "apologising" was Solicitor-General Una Jagose, who had played a key role in devising and implementing the government's legal strategy of aggressively minimising its liabilities, slandering its victims, and waiting for them to die. Was she actually sorry for this? Of course not! - her "apology" was a masterclass in minimisation, diversion, and misdirection - and it was greeted with a chorus of boos and heckling as a result. And when she was questioned about this afterwards [in liveblog, at 12:04PM], it was clear that she didn't get it:

Solicitor-General Una Jagose said she understood the reaction she received from survivors at this morning's event.

Jagose was met with boos and calls for her resignation, as she delivered the apology on behalf of Crown Law.

"I understand that wero, and I understand people see the lawyer that acts on government instruction and takes cases defending governments as the person in the way. So I understand why I might be seen as the barrier."

So, it's "befehl ist befehl". She was "only following orders". Except that she wasn't some passive tool here - she was devising and recommending the very legal strategy she is hiding behind. her pretending to be a victim flies in the face of both the Royal Commission's findings, and common decency. But I guess you don't get to be a top government lawyer by having any of that, do you?

Jagose is fundamentally tainted by this.If she doesn't have the decency to resign, then she needs to be sacked. And if the government refuses to do so, then they can bear the taint of publicly protecting her.

National suppresses the media

The government is doing its formal apology to victims of abuse-in-care at Parliament tomorrow, along with introducing a (still secret) bill addressing restitution. It will obviously be a big media event. But Newsroom's Aaron Smale, a journalist who has played a key role in exposing crown failure and wrongdoing in this saga, will not be welcome:

Parliament’s Speaker has barred leading investigative journalist Aaron Smale from attending the official Crown apology at Parliament to victims of abuse in state care.

Smale, who has covered for eight years the abuse of children and others in state institutions, and the Crown’s legal strategy to exhaust survivors legally to save money and reputations, will not be accredited to report for Newsroom on Tuesday when the apology is made.

The decision has offended one prominent abuse survivor, known as Earl White, who says: “It is a disgrace that the Government is penalising someone who uncovered the fact that so many people in power covered up sexual abuse like my own.”

Smale had apparently offended National ministers by asking extremely pointed questions about whether Attorney-General Judith Collins and Solicitor-General Una Jagose would be held accountable for their role in the coverup, as well as whether they understood the link between abuse-in-care and the formation of gangs. So they got their rubberstamp Speaker to ban him. It's an outright case of media suppression, another example of the government's contempt for democracy and its fear of being held to account. But that's apparently how this government governs now.

So, if you see a National MP on the street: ask them: why did they ban Smale? And if they don't answer, ask them again. Don't let them escape the basic accountability we all expect in a democracy.

Climate Change: Raising the bar

One of the obligations of the Paris Climate Change Agreement is for every country to set a "Nationally Determined Contribution" - an NDC - of emissions cuts. The Key government initially set an unambitious NDC of a 30% cut (from 2005 levels) by 2030. The Ardern government later increased this to 50%, reflecting the need for greater ambition as well as greater opportunities for reductions. Unfortunately, they both expected to rely on "offshore mitigation" to meet a big chunk of those commitments - paying someone else to reduce emissions instead of reducing them ourselves, at huge expense (which makes you wonder whether we shouldn't just spend that money cutting emissions here...).

The Paris Agreement also requires parties to update those NDCs with more ambitious ones every five years. So the government asked He Pou a Rangi what it could realistically achieve domestically, as a factor in its decision. The Commission has reported back today, and based on its modelling, found that:

it would be feasible to achieve greater net emissions reductions in the NDC2 period (2031–2035) than the NDC1 commitment, through domestic action alone.

Depending on whether its set as a point or budget target, He Pou a Rangi's central scenario is for a 55% to 60% emissions cut from domestic action, with ambitious policy able to push that to 70% to 75%. So that's where NDC2 is going to have to start, with any contribution through offshore mitigation adding to that. And given that the current level of that is 15% to 20%, it looks like our overall target should be in the range of a 70% to 80% cut from 2005 levels - at least if we are to be consistent with our 2021 target.

The climate-denier coalition isn't going to want to do this. But other countries - and in particular, the EU, which has a climate clause in their FTA with us - have expectations. And maybe they'll just agree to it because it will be Somebody Else's Problem. And if they don't, and set a weak target, the next government can always simply raise it.

Drawn

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

• Employment Relations (Termination of Employment by Agreement) Amendment Bill (Laura Trask)
• Copyright (Parody and Satire) Amendment Bill (Kahurangi Carter)

The first is ACT bullshit aimed at undermining basic employment rights. The second would correct a long-standing hole in our copyright laws, and hopefully it will be passed.

There were 73 bills in the ballot today - the most in quite some time. Naturally, Chris Hipkins doesn't have one - he doesn't care about anything / is too good for actual work. And naturally, his deputy Carmel Sepuloni is pushing for a four-year Parliamentary term, which tells us that what Labour really cares about is job security and unaccountability for themselves.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. First up is the committee stage of Teanau Tuiono's Restoring Citizenship Removed By Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982 Bill. This will be followed by the second reading of Rima Nakhle's Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill. And then, finally, the House will get on to some first readings: Tracey McLellan's Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill, Camilla Belich's Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill, and (if the House moves quickly) Julie Anne Genter's Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill. Which means there will finally be a ballot tomorrow, for two or three bills. Which I guess is why the page of proposed member's bills is filling up with new ones...

End the government, not te Tiriti

For the last few months the Waitangi Tribunal has been holding an urgent inquiry into National's "Treaty Principles Bill". They've already issued one interim report, declaring it to be a steaming pile of racist horseshit, but the inquiry is still going on to determine just how big and how steaming and how shitty that pile is. This is obviously embarrassing for the government, so they decided to put a stop to it, with a plan to rob the Tribunal of jurisdiction by introducing the bill to the House early.

Obviously, it didn't work. The government's lawyers immediately told the Tribunal (as they were obliged to do under their duty of candour to the court); the Tribunal immediately passed this on to claimant's lawyers (ditto); and then it produced an interim report (it being their job to do so), declaring the bill to be "worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times" which, if passed and not immediately repealed, "could mean the end of the Treaty/te Tiriti" (which is, sadly, the point; this white supremacist government wants to end te Tiriti, and that needs to be said loud and clear so we all know what is at stake).

And now Rimmer has the gall to be upset at the Tribunal for doing its job when he tried to stop it. Because apparently he thought he could rob it of jurisdiction and so prevent criticism of his white supremacist, anti-constitutional policy in secret, without anyone noticing or being allowed to do anything. Which just shows how utterly contemptuous of democratic norms this racist fuckweasel is.

Democratic governments don't try and undermine the foundations of their constitution. And they especially don't try and do it in secret, with a blitzkreig to prevent and limit opposition. That's Trumpist shit, and stuff we should not tolerate in Aotearoa.

Neither should we tolerate Rimmer's bill. Te Tiriti is the foundation of our constitution. While it is not the source of the government's sovereignty (because sovereignty was never ceded), it is one of the key sources of its legitimacy. It meddles with it at its peril. If the government wants to end te Tiriti and the crown-Māori relationship, then I think that many kiwis would rather end them and their illegitimate regime instead.

26,000 unemployed under National

The latest labour market statistics have dropped, showing another rise in unemployment. There are now 148,000 unemployed - 26,000 more than when National took office.

...which is what happens when you sack thousands of public servants and have the Reserve Bank crash the economy. This is apparently the most severe per-capita recession in our history, and its completely self-inflicted for purely ideological reasons. What's scary is that this recession will have a body-count, measured both in direct suicides as well as ill-health. We need some way of holding the murderers who have inflicted it to account.

National's privatised child-abuse camps

National has a hard-on for "boot camps" as part of its desperate attempt to grub "tough on crime" votes from sadistic geriatric pedophobes. That's bad enough, but its gets worse: the camps will be privatised. And they will be allowed to use force against children:

A leaked ministerial document from the Children’s Minister shows an admission that giving military-style academy providers the power to use force against children may be seen as “increasing the potential risk of abuse in custody”.

[...]

Cabinet agreed that military-style academy providers – including “third-party providers” – will have the power to use force against young people outside of a residence, such as on overnight camps or rehabilitative programmes. Currently, powers only exist when a person is at a residence.

Providers would be able to use physical force, no greater than reasonably necessary, to restrain a young person attempting to abscond or harm themselves or others.

The problem of course is that Oranga Tamaraki already treats those in its care as sub-human, and physically abuses them; private providers will likely be worse, and certainly be far less accountable. While Karen Chhour is denying it, this is a recipe to repeat the abuses of the past, and Chhour and National need to be held accountable for that.

Meanwhile, Luxon is all over the place about this, first pretending he "wasn't briefed", then, when it was pointed out that that made him look like a stupid fool who had no idea what was happening around his own Cabinet table, admitting that he was. Which I guess shows us the dishonesty of his claims to be "unaware" of things, and how he uses them to try and kill questions and avoid accountability.

Stephen Rainbow is ACT's crony

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

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

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

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

Sabotaging justice

One of the achievements of the Labour-led government was the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2019. After decades of high-profile miscarriages of justice, and judges looking the other way on state conspiracies of silence and each other's fuckups, we finally got an outside body to cast an independent eye over dodgy convictions, and refer them back for re-examination. But now, National seems to be trying to sabotage it, by their usual method of dubious appointments:

[L]ast week Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Hampton, CCRC head Colin Carruthers, KC, and fellow commissioner Virginia Hope their terms wouldn’t be renewed when they expired in December, despite them wishing to continue.

They have been replaced by two less experienced lawyers, with the chief commissioner’s job controversially going to retired judge Denis Clifford.

On Thursday afternoon, Hampton resigned from the commission with immediate effect, saying that allowed him to speak about his serious concerns with the appointments, and the the CCRC’s future.

Hampton said the changes at the commission effectively stripped it of anyone with experience in the commission’s core work of investigating individual miscarriages, which he and Carruthers had extensive involvement in, prior to the CCRC’s formation.

Moreover, it removed the only people who had significant backgrounds in criminal defence work, and added more commissioners who were previously Crown prosecutors, Hampton said.

So, rather than being an independent, outside view, it will be the system "re-examining" itself (in some cases, they may even be re-examining their own decisions). The foxes will be back in charge of the henhouse, able to go back to pretending there isn't a problem, just like they did before the CCRC was established.

Pretty obviously, this will undermine public confidence in the CCRC, and deter people from applying. And that's the point. Miscarriages of justice are expensive and embarrassing for the state. And so it has decided to limit its liability - just as it did with child torture. The rotten state doesn't want justice; it just wants its victims to shut up and go away.

As for how to fix this, as with the Human Rights Commission and Waitangi Tribunal, sacking National's saboteurs would be a start. But beyond that, the next government needs to amend the CCRC's legislation to ensure that New Zealand judges, prosecutors, and police officers cannot serve on the commission or taint its independence. If we want people to have confidence in the CCRC - and by extension, the entire justice system - we can accept no less.

The High Court says "Land Back"

Way back in 1839, the New Zealand Company bought the area that is now Nelson from local iwi and hapu. As part of the deal, they promised that Māori would retain their homes, fields, and burial grounds, and that in addition, 10% of the land in the planned township and surroundings would be set aside for them. A few years later, the New Zealand government, as part of its investigations into pre-Treaty land deals, effectively took over the arrangement. They then proceeded to break it: land which was meant to be set aside was stolen; promised land was never delivered; and what was given was stolen again for "government purposes". The local iwi have been fighting this ever since, and in 2017 won a major victory in the Supreme Court with a ruling that the government owed them a fiduciary duty and must honour the deal. They kicked it back down to the High Court to decide exactly what was owed, and after seven years of foot-dragging the court has finally ruled, deciding that the government must give them their land back:

Māori customary landowners in New Zealand’s oldest property claim, the Nelson Tenths, suffered a loss of land and are entitled to millions of dollars in compensation, the High Court has found.

In a decision released on Thursday, the plaintiffs, led by kaumātua Rore Stafford on behalf of the descendants of customary landowners, were found to be entitled to relief, which was likely to be “substantially less than $1 billion” but still a “significant sum”, the court found.

The sum could not be settled until the final acreage of land to be returned and other issues are determined, a press summary on the decision said.

...which the government will no doubt try and drag out for another seven years, as part of the same immoral legal strategy it used on the children it tortured. But the principle isn't in doubt: the High Court said "Land Back". And if they've already given it away, then they have to pay compensation. In addition, there's 180 years of back-rent, plus 180 years of interest. Its simple interest, not compounding, but: this is going to be hugely expensive for the government.

(Note that "given it away" apparently includes to SOEs and Crown Entities, which are part of the government. The government here is behaving exactly like a rich bankrupt who hides their assets in a trust: sure, they can use them, control them, even get money from them, but they're not "theirs", so can't be used to pay off their suckerscreditors. Whether this position meets the standard of ethical behaviour we expect from our government, or is consistent with its longstanding position that privatisation would not undermine Treaty redress, is left as an exercise for the reader...)

So, given the current government's anti-Māori agenda, the question naturally arises: will National once again abuse its Parliamentary power to over-rule the courts and prevent justice, as they are doing over the foreshore and seabed? Sadly, I don't think it can be ruled out. But if they try and go that way, it would be another ongoing Treaty breach, and basically blow up the crown-Māori relationship completely. National might not care about that: Māori don't vote for them. But the rest of us should. And we should not let it happen.

A collapse in police legitimacy

Last week, the government had a big wank about police raids in Ōpōtiki, crowing about "gangs" and "drugs" and "law and order". Unfortunately the police did exactly the same shit they did in the Urewera terror raids 17 years ago, dragging people off in front of their kids and terrorising the community (so much for their "apology"; sincerity requires change, and the police are just incapable of that). And it seems that the local iwi have had enough of that:

Māori community leaders Te Aho and Tame Iti attended a meeting in Ōpōtiki, the Eastern Bay of Plenty town, where locals outlined issues caused by the police raids where mokopuna were forced to watch as whānau were arrested by armed police.

“No more will we tolerate this.”

[...]

“If the NZ Police Head office or any other government agency like Oranga Tamariki think that they can do what they have done again in our district again then they have another thing coming.

“The other thing coming is that we will establish our own intelligence and surveillance of them. When an emergency is triggered we will blockade them at the houses that they raid and not relent until the rights of our people have been validated and our tamariki mokopuna.”

Its hard to see this as anything other than a collapse in police legitimacy. Police need the support of the community to do their jobs effectively, but in Ōpōtiki, the community is saying "nope". National likes to complain about "Labour's" policy of policing by consent (you know, the foundation of our entire model of policing); the above is a glimpse of what policing without consent looks like. While the police can (maybe) use force to carry out their raids and arrests, the cost of that is to further alienate the community they are ostensibly there to protect - which means a further reduction in cooperation, and possibly even more active opposition. And the police simply cannot function as police in the face of that. At least not in any way that we would recognise or accept.