Member's Day

Today is a Member's day, though likely to be a boring one. First up there's the second readings of a couple of private bills: the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill and the Trust Horizon (Trust Variation) Bill. These private tweaks to the law are unlikely to be contentious, so I expect them to whizz through. Following that there's the remainder of the first reading of Stuart Smith's Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill, an attempt to rein in local authority chief executives and put elected members back in charge which will at least go to committee. Then its the committee stage of Shane Reti's Life Jackets for Children and Young Persons Bill, which is supported by every party but ACT (who think parents should be free to drown their children). If the House moves quickly it will make a start on the second reading of Laura McClure's Employment Relations (Termination of Employment by Agreement) Amendment Bill, which is another ACT attempt to strip basic employment rights from workers and impose a US-style fire-at-will culture. There will be no ballot tomorrow.

This may be the last actual member's day in the term. While looking at the sitting calendar suggests two more (August 26 and September 16), the first is likely to be pushed back or eaten by urgency for the regime's anti-environment bills, and the last sitting block is likely to be eaten entirely by urgency for the end-of-term "wash-up" (in which parliament tries to pass all the normal, uncontentious, keep-the-law-up-to-date legislation its been ignoring in favour of National's culture-war bullshit). Which, allowing for post-election commencement debates, means we might not see another one until February.

49,000 unemployed under National

The June labour market statistics are out, showing unemployment has risen again to 5.6%. There are now 171,000 unemployed, 49,000 more than when National took office.

The next - and hopefully final for this regime - set of unemployment statistics should drop right around election time. But we're basically looking at a regime which has deliberately increased unemployment by 40%, by slashing public service jobs and demanding the reserve bank focus strictly on inflation (meaning that it throws people out of work whenever rich people's money starts to evaporate). And that is an absolutely toxic legacy which should see them de-elected by an angry electorate. If we fail to do so, we have no-one but ourselves to blame when they fuck us over even more.

NZ First's Nazi problem

Over the weekend The Post had a piece about Nazis finding a home in NZ First. The initial article exposed two "Remigration NZ" activists, one of whom is a former member of Action Zealandia. For those who don't know, Action Zealandia are Nazis linked to a spate of crimes, while Remigration NZ demands that migrants or the descendents of migrants "go back to where they came from" (white people, of course, are not migrants in their ideology, but somehow belong everywhere). With Winston demanding the same thing, its pretty clear that their ideas are finding fertile ground in the party.

Today's followup exposes a senior member of the party's youth-wing as an outright Nazi:

Nicholas Newport, 23, was named as a member of the executive of Young New Zealand First in late 2024, and last month spoke at the party’s national convention.

Under a former name, Nicholas Wells, he appeared at two protests involving far-right activists and was linked to accounts expressing support for the National Socialist Network (NSN), an Australian neo-Nazi organisation that later rebranded as White Australia. The Australian Government designated White Australia a prohibited hate group in May.

The accounts repeatedly posted “Hail Hitler”, used slurs against non-white and gay people and made derogatory comments about women. One invoked a claim commonly circulated by Holocaust deniers. Another described its user as a Nazi.

Winston has responded with bluster, claiming it is all a media smear. But its all verifiable. And you have to wonder why Winston is going into bat for a Nazi, when most political parties when confronted with something like this would at least attempt to plead ignorance, drop the person like a hot rock, and try and cauterise the wound. And the natural conclusion is that he at the least thinks there's nothing wrong with Newport's views, or explicitly agrees with them.

Hopefully the media will now start asking other NZ First MPs and candidates how they feel about Nazis in their party, whether they agree with their views, and (if necessary) whether they are Nazis themselves. And we're definitely going to need proper due-diligence on any NZ First candidates for Nazi links.

Meanwhile, the real question is how voters feel about voting for a Nazi party...

His place is in Parliament

Its 100 days to the election, so NZ First is going all-in on gutter racism to whip up its base of racist zombies. First, we had Winston Peters telling Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan to "go back to your own country", and now we have Shame Jones saying he should "know his place". Both of which are just fucking boggling. Xu-Nan has lived here since he was eight, and is a New Zealand citizen. Aotearoa is his country. He belongs here just as much as any other kiwi. As for Winston's suggestion that he opposes democracy because of his ethnicity, I think he's shown a far greater commitment to it than the urgency-abusing, vote-suppressing, racist zombie currently serving as foreign minister. Not least because he's part of an actually democratic party, where power is held by the members, rather than one which is an autocracy where all decisions are made by a withered corpse smothered in hair gel.

As for "knowing his place", the implicit assumption here is that there is a natural hierarchy in Aotearoa in which some people are or ought to be in charge, and others should be subservient and not question them. And I think when you put it that nakedly, most New Zealanders would have a very simple response to that proposition: fuck that. And fuck the parties who advocate it. Lawrence Xu-Nan is a kiwi who was elected to Parliament by Green voters. His place is in the House.

The best "democracy" money can buy

The Justice Committee has reported back on the bill Fonterra and Z Energy bought from National to grant them impunity for their ecocide. After a bullshit process where the public were given only ten days to make submissions, the committee has obligingly rubberstamped the regime's constitutional atrocity.

93% of the 623 submitters were opposed, with only 2.6% (largely major polluters) in favour. National calls this "democracy". What it is in reality is corruption, the best "democracy" money can buy.

Labour and the Greens have promised to repeal the law if elected. They need to go further, with an independent inquiry into the corruption which created it, and prosecutions for those responsible. They also need to protect our legislative process against this sort of abuse in future, with restrictions on political donations, full transparency around lobbying, restrictions on the use of urgency, short submission periods and short report-back times. Because what this incident shows is that our entire political system needs to be cleaned out and cleaned up. And if Labour and the Greens won't deliver that, they're inviting much worse anti-establishment politics and growing public alienation from the political system.

No freedom to question power

That, apparently, the Free Speech "Union"'s definition of "freedom of speech":

The Free Speech Union ‒ which exists to defend free speech ‒ has attacked a journalist for asking Health Minister Simeon Brown questions over email, after it obtained questions sent by a Post reporter about one of his appointments.

On Monday, The Post’s national affairs editor Andrea Vance emailed a series of questions to Health Minister Simeon Brown about his appointment of Dr Manoja Kalupahana to the Medical Council.

The appointment was gazetted on Friday and put on the Beehive website on Monday morning.

Before an answer was received and within three hours of the query going to the minister, the Free Speech Union issued a press release attacking Vance for even asking the questions.

The context here is that Kalupahana is an unprofessional racist weirdo, and that seems to have been treated as a qualification for public office by Simeon Brown. Meanwhile, from their past record, the FSU seems to exist primarily to protect such repulsive people from the natural consequences of their actions (which include people naming and shaming them for being exactly what they are). And that now extends to attacking the media for trying to get a public explanation for why such weird appointments have been made (the answer to which is probably "the FSU talked to ACT, who talked to Brown, and suddenly someone gets a fat board salary and a platform to sabotage a public institution").

But whatever influence peddling is going on behind the scenes, its a pretty weird definition of "freedom of speech" which says that the media can't question those in power. Some might take it as suggesting the FSU wasn't interested in freedom of speech at all, but merely using it in bad faith as a weapon to wage their weirdo far-right foreign-funded culture war on the rest of us.

National's "promises" are irrelevant

Over the weekend, National announced its latest election promise: increasing paid parental leave from 26 to 30 weeks. Which sounds good, except that this is the party which over-rode parliament to veto an increase in 2016, which cut Best Start payments, and stole $13 billion from New Zealand women by abolishing pay equity. As with their sudden conversion to solar energy, their own record gives them a huge credibility problem, and creates immediate suspicion about their willingness to actually deliver.

But even if they were willing, it doesn't matter. Because the ugly truth is that, given its preferred coalition arrangements, National's "promises" are irrelevant.

Look at the current coalition. Elected without much of a plan, National signed coalition deals with ACT and NZ First which puts the latter two parties in the policy driving seat and lets them call the shots. And this is only going to get worse. All the polls show National will lose seats in the election, so even if the regime manages to retain power by election rigging, National will have less power in it than they do at present. Which means even more NZ First and ACT policy, and even less of National's.

In short, it doesn't matter what National promises this election. If they retain power, it'll be ACT and NZ First policy they're implementing. National's "promises" are simply irrelevant.

Drawn

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

• Crimes (Offence of Failing to Report Child Harm) Amendment Bill (Andrew Bayly)
• Building (Energy Efficient Office Buildings) Amendment Bill (Rachel Brooking)
• Accident Compensation (Extended Cover for FENZ Personnel) Amendment Bill (Kieran McAnulty)

So some more performative law and order bullshit, and some minor policy. The only notable thing here is that Bayly is leaving Parliament in November, and his bill may not get a first reading before then. Even if it does, and National sends it to committee, someone else may have to adopt it.

Climate Change: Failure

National's first act in power was to repeal all effective climate change policy. How's that working out for them? Badly:

New Zealand is at risk of missing all of its climate targets, and time to get back on track is running out, the Climate Change Commission says.

The commission says lagging progress on switching to low-emissions technology is no longer just a climate change problem: it's preventing households from saving money on energy costs.

Its annual emissions monitoring report said New Zealand's climate pollution had gradually decreased over time.

However, progress stalled in 2024, and the pace of reductions now needed to double to get back on track, it said.

If the government did not come up with new ways to save emissions within the next year or two, the country would not be able to meet some of its targets at all, the commission warned.

And that's after they twiddled the numbers by refusing to update the budgets to take account of methodological improvements.

The full report is here. The figure on p9 says it all:

[CC-BY He Pou a Rangi]

The regime's policies - such as they are - are failures, and unlikely to deliver the emissions reductions claimed. Even if they did, the regime would still fail to meet the 2031-35 budget. Which means they need to do more. Instead, they're weakening the Commission and removing its ability to advise on budgets, so it can't make politically awkward recommendations to strengthen targets, or even meet them. Which makes it clear that this is a regime of arsonists, who want to burn down the world.

This regime needs to go. Vote them out in November, so we can start saving the planet.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's day. First up is Tom Rutherford's Concealment of Location of Victim Remains Bill, a classic law and order / performative cruelty wank which (like other such wanks) violates the Bill of Rights Act. Following National's ritual "tough on crime" posturing, there's the second reading of Shane Reti's Life Jackets for Children and Young Persons Bill, which is supported by every party but ACT (who think parents should be free to drown their children). Then it will be the first readings of Tangi Utikere's Criminal Records (Clean Slate) (Additional Eligibility) Amendment Bill, which extends the highly successful clean slate regime to people who have served short custodial sentences and not reoffended, and Priyanca Radhakrishnan's Crimes (Virginity Testing Practices) Amendment Bill. If the House moves quickly (and I expect it to zip through the life jackets bill) it should get on to Stuat Smith's Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill. There should be a ballot for at least two bills tomorrow.

Bring on the legislative ping-pong!

In 2020 an independent review suggested a repeal and replacement of the RMA system. The then-Labour government spent years doing the right thing, consulting affected groups and developing consensus policy, before progressing two replacement bills (the Spatial Planning Act 2023 and Natural and Built Environment Act 2023) through parliament under the normal legislative process. They eventually passed right before the 2023 election. The radical far-right National regime immediately repealed them. National unveiled its own version late last year, including American bullshit like "regulatory relief" (a propertarian scam to fiscally intimidate councils against regulating), and of course cutting the public out of environmental decision-making completely so Shane Jones's donors can drive their bulldozers everywhere. It came back from select committee last week, and its now (somehow) even worse, with the regime planning to statutorily nullify existing Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements (agreements between iwi and councils to manage the former's statutory consultation rights under both planning law and Treaty settlements) and allowing Ministers to rubberstamp consents despite their being otherwise illegal. The latter is a giant Henry VIII clause, fast-track on steroids, and further entrenches the nexus of corruption which has proven so profitable to government ministers with the fast track law. It is a recipe for further naked corruption and environmental devastation.

This is not what the public wants. According to the bill's departmental report, 74% of submissions were opposed, with only 3.7% in support. But its what donors wanted, and that's who buys this regime. But such overwhelming public opposition is a licence for the next government to take a hatchet to the bill and change it - or simply repeal it outright.

Chris Hipkins has (sadly) ruled out the latter. Its disappointing - I want to see National's legislation, all their legislation, burned to the ground and the earth salted - but understandable. Starting from scratch will take them three years again, just in time for a potential repeal. Chopping the obnoxious features out can be done in one, with a full parliamentary process. Or, if they're in the parts of the bill which take effect immediately and do irreparable harm, it can be done in a day under all-stages urgency. The next government doesn't need to hurry, as if passed the law won't take effect until 2029, but it also shouldn't piss about. Getting it done quickly and embedding the changes in the new planning process so that they are difficult to unpick without everyone having to do a shitton of extra work needs to be a priority.

And sure, if the government changes again, National could just reimpose their radical propertarian bulldozer bullshit. But so what? Let them play legislative ping-pong trying to repeatedly impose their radical, unpopular, weird ideas - and make them pay the price for it. "Environmental law should actually protect the environment", "Ministers shouldn't be allowed to take bribes", and "No-one should be able to approve a nuclear waste dump, no matter how much money someone slips Shame Jones" are not unpopular propositions in this country. Every time National espouses those ideas is going to cost them, and hopefully lose them more support. So make them argue for those unpopular positions as often as possible. Don't let them win by default because labour was too cowardly to fight back.

A clear choice

New Zealand First held its party conference over the weekend, and among all the weirdo cooker shit and outright racism, Winston dropped another election policy: a billion dollar subsidy for gas exploration, lest we be left behind in destroying the planet.

And today the Greens offered their alternative: a billion dollar investment in renewable firming for the grid, to help our energy transition and keep power prices low:

The Green Party wants to use its ‘Super Rich Tax’ to establish a publicly owned renewable energy company called Kiwipower, to fill the gaps they say the market has failed to fill.

The party says Kiwipower could use a combination of pumped hydro, geothermal and batteries to backup more intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar, making them a far better investment.

The party’s freshly released energy election policy would also see the wealth tax used to put solar panels on more than half of all public homes within four years, give renters access to plug-in solar, and expand the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme for insulation.

It would also invest $200 million for community-owned renewable energy and commit another $80m to Māori housing.

NZ First naturally offered no clue as to where their billion dollars would come from. The Greens, after years of the media crying "how will you pay for it!?!", said so explicitly. But its also worth noting that Kiwipower is an asset, and so the "spending" is largely an exercise in moving money from one column of the government's books to another. Ditto the mass installation of solar on state houses. And given what we know about home insulation, the "spending" will be more than saved in reduced downstream health costs. What does NZ First offer us? At best, a billion dollars down a black hole. At worst, the continued destruction of the global climate, with ongoing increased costs for health and natural disasters.

There's a clear choice here, and it should be obvious which one is a better deal, both for us as individuals, and for Aotearoa.

Eating Labour's lunch

Yesterday the Greens announced a significant election policy: default union membership. New employees would automatically be enrolled in a "default union", but would be able to opt out. Unions approved, of course, but what did Labour, the supposed party of the union movement think about it?

Yes, they were "non-committal". The same way they're "non-committal" about anything actually left-wing these days (when they're not actively hostile to it, like taxing the rich).

Snark about Labour useless aside, this is actually good policy. It's a nudge towards union membership, making it frictionless to join, while still respecting freedom of association. People can easily opt out, and the first month of temporary membership will cost them nothing. The big question is how many will. Union membership dropped to about 20% after National's Employment Contracts Act, and has never really recovered. This will almost certainly see a significant increase, and provide a place to build from.

The core of the Clark government's industrial relations policy was "give unions the tools, and let them fight and win gains for themselves". That worked quite well. And it will work better with stronger unions. Membership by default will enable that, but also put real pressure on the unions to deliver real benefits for those new members, to demonstrate their relevance and utility - because people are not going to stay members if membership delivers nothing. Its a direct recipe for greater union power - a thing employers actually fear.

The Ardern government's alternative was to spend years building supposed consensus with employers for "fair pay agreements" - essentially a system of centrally negotiated industry-specific awards. These would supposedly deliver to workers regardless of union membership (if employers didn't drag out negotiations and litigate to prevent them from being completed). But then after all that work and despite that supposed consensus, the current regime simply repealed them. It turns out that the employers simply lied about supporting them. Who'd have thunk it?

The same can happen to any replacement system, or any legal tweaks a Labour-led government puts in (see National's reinstatement of the 90-day law, its removal of workplace protections for contractors, and what its doing to the Holidays Act). But the beauty of the Greens' proposal is that it is insulated against such moves. While a new government can repeal the law, union members will remain members until they decide not to be. So the boost to union power will survive a change of government, in a way that laws don't. And the concessions unions win in the interim, and the legal minimums they have written into their contracts "just for certainty" will survive too, and be that much harder to get rid of.

The Greens putting this out there puts the pressure on Labour to support it. And if they don't, or if they want to play silly buggers and pretend not to so they can "surrender" it in coalition negotiations, voters can vote for the party which will deliver the policy they like. If Labour doesn't like that, maybe they should start living up to their name, rather than being NeoLiberals in red ties.

Climate Change: Incoherent

Two weeks ago, Climate Change Minister Simon watts was sending shitty letters to local authorities warning they were doing too much to adapt to climate change. Now, he's introduced a law to require them to do so:

Councils will have to come up with adaptation plans for communities at high risk from climate change hazards, under a proposed law change.

The Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, introduced to Parliament on Wednesday, will require councils to plan at least 30 years into the future, and spell out the likely cost.

[...]

Climate Change minister Simon Watts said for the first time, councils would be required by law to plan how high-risk communities in their area will prepare for the impacts of climate change.

This is utterly incoherent with their previous warnings, and it suggests that the regime simply has no idea what it is fucking doing. And of course, they're still leaving the question of who will pay for this completely up in the air - while constantly criticising councils for raising rates to cope with regime spending demands. Instead, like many things, its just been punted to next term, in the clear hope that another government will take the hit for it.

But while this piece of law is welcome, the rest of it isn't. Other nasty changes in the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill include:

• removing consultation requirements for Emissions Budgets and Emissions Reduction Plans, allowing everything to be done in secret without public input;
• removing all policy requirements from Emissions Reduction Plans, removing He Pou a Rangi's role in advising on them, and weakening monitoring;
• allowing the government to dictate He Pou a Rangi's recommendations on ETS limits and price control settings;
• removing the requirement that emissions budgets and decisions relating to them and Emissions Reduction Plans be consistent with the Paris Agreement and 1.5 degree limit. This in particular is contrary to international law.

So, do everything in secret, cut the public out, and return to the "good old days" where the government promised action then did nothing - which is what the law was meant to end. This is a total repudiation of the Zero Carbon Act. It is also the end of any pretence of bipartisanship on climate change - instead, National has returned to soft denial (accepting the problem, but refusing to act). Which means that the next government should end that pretence as well, and just implement real policy. Make the polluters scream! The louder they scream, the more of them who go bankrupt, the better!

National's New Zealand

How bad are things under the Luxon regime? We already knew that we had the worst wage growth in the world, with wages 6.4% below 2021 levels - which shows the lie of National's "economic growth". But what does that mean in reality? The Press headline from today speaks for itself: "Police are dealing with a new type of shoplifter - ‘everyday people’ who just need to eat":

A year ago, Sergeant Melissa Shaw’s retail crime team was set up to curb retail theft in Christchurch.

Shaw expected to deal mainly with drug addicts who repeatedly steal to fund their next hit. And there have been those.

But then came the surprise: A growing cohort of thieves who were not drug addicts, not kleptomaniacs, not youths.

They were parents and elderly people with no criminal histories, without the money to keep up with rising living costs, who stole food and clothing for themselves and their families.

And that's where we are now: normal people having to steal to get buy, because National's "rockstar economy" doesn't provide for them, and instead funnels everything upwards into the pockets of Luxon and his mates.

We desperately need to get rid of this government. So in November, vote for regime change!

Climate Change: Fixing the climate won't cause economic argmageddon

Parliament is currently hearing submissions on the regime's corrupt bill to protect polluters from liability for the damage their pollution is causing. Z Energy - one of the bill's instigators, whose lobbying efforts were unlawfully hidden by the Prime Minister's office - is doing some pretty heavy PR on this, in a desperate effort to convince people that this law benefits the public rather than just those polluters. As part of this, they've released the obligatory lobbying document promising economic armageddon!!!! unless they are immediately granted full and complete immunity for their crimes:

Three of the defendants - Z Energy, Fonterra and Genesis Energy - commissioned a report by an independent economist, Dr Niven Winchester.

It examined the potential economic and emissions impacts of legal remedies sought in the case.

Winchester concluded if an immediate cessation order was applied to the defendants in the case, GDP would decline by $21.9b (0.9 percent) over five years (2028-2032), with 2028 alone seeing a $7.5b (1.6 percent) fall.

The full report is here. The relevant table, on p12, is reproduced below:

The first think to note from this is that the $21.9 billion figure is cumulative economic impact, the sum of all the projected "losses" over 5 years. The actual figure for 2032 is $2.3 billion, or 0.5% lower than the projected base case. The second thing to note is that the report helpfully includes tables showing projected emissions reductions (table 4) and carbon prices (table 3), and when you do the maths, it turns out that the avoided emissions, if priced at the prices provided, offset 80% of that cumulative loss, and over 90% in early years ($7 of $7.5 billion in 2028; $5.2 of $5.7 billion in 2029; $3 of $3.5 billion in 2030; its frontloaded because prices decline as emissions return towards the projected path). The maximum projected net "loss" is $1.2 billion in 2032 - about 0.25%.

Plus of course there is the obvious: GDP is currently $450 billion. It is projected to be higher than that in all but the first years of the projected DFA scenario, and even that qualification disappears once the price of avoided emissions is included. In other words, this report shows that we can take radical action to rapidly cut our emissions, using the harshest method imaginable - an immediate, court-enforced order for large polluters to immediately reduce their pollution to net zero - and still be better off than we are now.

I do not think that is the optimum pathway; I prefer a managed transition. But in the absence of proper government policy, its the pathway we have left. And it still works. Its very bad for Fonterra, Z, and Genesis, of course, which is why they're lobbying so hard against it. But the rest of us are still massively better off because of it.

Unmentioned in this analysis of course is the cost of the storms, floods, fires, and other disasters, which are only growing to go worse if Fonterra, Z, Genesis etc continue polluting. But they only affect actual people, not suits and corporate bottom lines, so of course the ghouls ignore them. But you don't need to hire expensive lobbyists to tell you that the weather is now an ongoing shitshow, and we need to do what we can to stop it getting worse. And if making major polluters liable for the damage their pollution causes is what it takes, I am all for it.

Another outrageous abuse of the OIA

Two weeks ago the Ombudsman released his final opinion on the Prime Minister's unlawful hiding of information around his corrupt climate impunity law, and he was not impressed. As a followup, The Post filed another OIA with the Prime Minister, seeking correspondence between the PM, his "forgetful" adviser, and the Department of Internal Affairs (which hosts Ministerial Services and his his nominal employer). But the regime clearly wants to bury this information, because they have extended the request for 64 working days:

However, it was not until last week when branch performance director Penny Langley wrote back to extend the statutory timeframe by 64 working days.

Langley said “the consultations necessary to make a decision” meant DIA could not reasonably respond within the original deadline.

The extension, dated July 3, means the request is not due to be answered until October 7.

...which means that when they are inevitably late, or announce that a decision has been made but release will happen later, there will be no time to force release before the November 7 election.

This is an outrageous abuse of the OIA. It is also prima facie unlawful. The OIA is clear: extensions must be "for a reasonable period of time having regard to the circumstances". what's "reasonable"? The Ombudsman is equally clear:

Where Parliament has specifically mandated third party consultation on OIA requests, those parties have been required to respond ‘within 10 working days’. In its review of the official information legislation, the Law Commission suggested a minimum 5 working days’ notice. From this, it can be inferred that 5–10 working days would generally be regarded as a reasonable period of time within which to provide comment.

While the Ombudsman notes that more or less time might be appropriate depending on the circumstances, it is difficult to imagine circumstances which would justify 64 working days, and those which can be imagined - the person simply being unavailable for a protracted period of time - would also make it perfectly reasonable for the agency to simply make the decision itself without consulting at all.

DIA of course refuses to provide any justification for its decision, which in itself seems to be a violation of s23 OIA, and invites the natural suspicion that there is none (or rather, none which would withstand public scrutiny).

The Post has no doubt complained to the Ombudsman already about this, but for the rest of us its a reminder of how extensions are routinely abused, and how you should immediately complain about them. And if you're not sure about what to say, I have specific guidance for extension complaints here.

The bidding war on solar

Last month National announced its solar power policy. It was the bare minimum, a version of the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme expansion advocated by Rewiring Aotearoa, but with the problem that no sane person would trust them to actually deliver on it. Because while they want the positive PR from announcing a solar policy, they don't actually want to spend any time on implementation when they could be doing more important things, like climate change denial and culture war bullshit, instead.

Today it was Labour's turn. And they've announced the same core policy - the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme - backed up with additional loans through lines companies, support for community batteries, and support for renters to get plug-in solar. Which is all good, and unlike National there's no doubts about implementation. Labour will actually do what it promises, at least if there's still a public service to do it with. Not least because their expected coalition partners, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, will hold them to it (and push it further).

Speaking of the Greens, while they haven't yet announced their solar policy, their 2023 version was twice as generous as Labour's. I'd expect them to be starting from that baseline, and then adding on extra support for renters and community ownership. In the meantime, they're pointing out that with the three largest parties in parliament all supporting the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme, the House can and should just legislate the required tweaks to allow it to be used for solar, rather than making people wait until after the election. But then, that might make National actually deliver on their promise, rather than treating it as a meaningless soundbite.

In a democracy, everyone gets to vote

Its election year, so Winston is back on his bullshit, spewing racism in an effort to pander to his voting base of mostly old, mostly white racists. His latest idea? That only citizens should be allowed to vote:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has announced a policy to restrict voting rights to only those with New Zealand citizenship.

Peters announced the policy at a public meeting in Warkworth on Sunday afternoon.

Currently, legal residents living in New Zealand continuously for a year or more, and whose visa does not require them to leave within a certain time are eligible to vote.

Announcing his new policy on Sunday, party leader Peters said voting "should be a privilege of those who have sworn allegiance to New Zealand, and who have made the commitment to make New Zealand their home and their future".

"If you haven't made that commitment or sworn that allegiance, we are happy to let you live here permanently, but why should you get a say in how this country is run or governed?" he said.

To which the short answer is "because they live here, you disgusting zombie".

The longer answer is that Aotearoa has a long tradition of recognising that everyone who lives here should have a say in the future of this place. Its been the case for over 50 years now, and its part of our democracy. And one of the reasons for it is that we were late to establish our own citizenship, and thus had to deal with a huge population of migrants from the old imperial center, who had made lives here, belonged here, but never had to do any formal paperwork to do so. And so, when we had to seriously grapple with that in the 1970's (thanks to Britain deciding that people it had invaded and oppressed and passed laws saying they were British whether they liked it or not, suddenly weren't British after all, especially if they might actually want to exercise their right to live in Britain), the easiest way of doing so was simply to delete the words "He is a British subject" from the 1956 Electoral Act, reducing the qualification to simply being "ordinarily resident in New Zealand" (plus the usual stuff about living here for a year and in the relevant electorate for a month etc). And then, once we'd passed our own citizenship legislation, the law assumed the form we know today, recognising voting rights for New Zealand citizens as well as permanent residents.

Ironically, the group protected by that transition - old British migrants who came here in the 1950's and 60's - are one of the cores of NZ First's support today. And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some of them still aren't citizens (because they have never had any need to be; they live here and they belong here).

The other irony is that when Winston talks about how voting "should be a privilege of those who have sworn allegiance to New Zealand", he would effectively exclude almost all native-born New Zealanders from the electorate. Because if you were born here, you've never had to do anything of the sort! The only people who have actually "sworn allegiance to New Zealand" (in reality, to a foreign monarch who lives on the other side of the world) are immigrants who have made a conscious choice to become citizens, and weirdos (soldiers, police officers, and MPs). That might be Winston's vision of a perfect democracy, but it isn't mine - or, I think, Aotearoa's. In a democracy, everyone gets to vote. Its that simple. And people who try and undermine that need to be de-elected.

More lightning legislating

The House has been in urgency this week, as the regime struggle against the clock to pass its agenda. In addition to the inherent abuse of urgency, this has led to other abuses, with parliament once again returning to being "the fastest legislature in the west" to ram things through. And now there's another one: National has rammed its corrupt bill to protect polluters from liability for the climate change they are causing - the same bill a Ministerial Adviser violated the Public Records Act and hid the lobbyists' draft of from the OIA - through its first reading and sent it to committee. The committee report back date? 30 July. So the committee will have less than a month to "consider" this corrupt atrocity against the rule of law, turning it into little more than a rubber-stamp for Cabinet.

Submissions are open, and due by 9.00am, Monday, 13 July 2026 (note the dirty time chosen; you need to have this in by 12 July to be safe). So we have less than ten days to submit on this corrupt violation of constitutional norms. And this is what National calls "democracy".

The opposition has committed to repealing the bill if it becomes law, so any benefit Fonterra and Z Energy get from their corrupt lobbying will be transitory, lasting only until the repeal bill is passed and Mike Smith (or someone else) files a new case against them. Its probably worth supporting that in your submission, so Labour knows they're doing the right thing. Again, National's over-reach and abuse of power creates the potential to push back, and so we should push back hard, and demand not just repeal, but that polluters have absolute liability for the damage caused by their pollution. Fonterra and Z and their polluting mates have undermined our democracy to protect their profits. We need to punish them harshly for that, just so they don’t do it again.