Stomping on democracy

That's the only way to describe National's actions in appointing a crown observer to the Wellington City Council. Wellington didn't vote for National. They elected a council which supports public transport, housing intensification, and making Wellington a nicer place for people to live (rather than landlords and house hoarders to bank capital gains). So they've started the process to overthrow that council, using the disruption created by National's own proxies on the council as a justification. Which sounds an awful lot like Putin's tactics of using "instability" caused by local proxies to justify invasion...

But its not just Wellington. The Otago Regional Council is trying to pass a land and water plan which will protect its rivers. The government has just decided to legislate to stop them from doing so - and of course it will have retrospective effect (a favourite tactic of this government). In Auckland, they're trying to over-rule the Auckland Council's commitment to safe speed limits, so they can hoon to the airport in their government limos. In Canterbury they seem to be gearing up to overthrow local democracy to steal the water again. And then there's all those councils who want to keep their Māori wards...

it seems that rather than being committed to localism, National wants to micromanage our councils from Wellington. And if voters disagree, well, they'll just stop us from voting. Which probably sounds fine to them - except (so far) we can still vote in 2026, and we should take the opportunity to vote these anti-democratic authoritarian tyrants out on their arses.

A violation of law, justice, and decency

This morning, in a desperate effort to distract attention from the suppurating sore of contempt that is Andrew Bayly, National announced that it would be bringing back its "three strikes" regime. The policy never worked and had no significant quantifiable benefits; but National doesn't care, despite a commitment in both coalition agreements that policy would be "evidence-based". Instead, they seem to think the reason it didn't work was because they simply weren't vicious enough. So this time round, they'll not only be lowering the threshold for a 'strike" - they'll also be imposing them retrospectively:

The regime would also be retrospective, capturing all the strike convictions in the old regime that would count in the new one.

This is despite officials warning this would “contravene a fundamental justice right only to be subject to penalties that were in place at the time of the relevant offending (Bora section 26)”.

Murder Minister Nicole McKee disagrees, which I think shows her complete lack of understanding of not just the BORA, but of justice. The right to the lesser penalty has been black-letter law in this country since at least 1980, thanks to s22 of the Criminal Justice Amendment Act 1980, and I suspect it goes back much further in caselaw (the law codifying practice rather than creating a new principle). We're committed to it under Article 11 of the UDHR and Article 15 of the ICCPR, so National's tyranny will put us in breach of our international obligations. And as we are subject to universal periodic review as well as an individual complaints mechanism, they will be called on it.

But National doesn't care about any of that. All they care about is the sugar hit of "tough on crime" headlines. And as with their prisoner voting law or their climate change policies, complying with our international obligations will be a problem for the next government (which National will of course criticise them for).

What National thinks of us

A "what the fuck" moment for National: Andrew Bayly went round calling a worker a "loser" on an official visit:

The worker explained their interaction with Bayly, and said once the pair were introduced, Bayly asked them why they were still at work.

“Take a bottle of wine and go home, go on, go home ... take some wine and f*** off,” the complainant wrote that Bayly said.

“What followed next was both shocking and humiliating. He called me a ”loser“ repeatedly, saying the reason I was still was work was because I am a ”loser“.

“He turned to the group of people with him at the time, including my boss, the minister’s assistant and marketing staff, and ... employees and formed an ‘L’ with his fingers on his forehead.

Again, what the actual fuck?

There's a suggestion that Bayly was drunk; alternatively, it may just illustrate the attitude of Ministers on $304,300 salaries towards people who actually have to work for a living: they're all just "losers" who should have become Cabinet Ministers. Whether either is the sort of behaviour acceptable for a Minister is left as an exercise for the reader.

Unexpected support

When the Education and Workforce Committee reported back on Camilla Belich's Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill and recommended that it not be passed, I'd assumed it was doomed. The right-wing coalition government supports employer exploitation of workers, and certainly doesn't see why intentionally and systematically conspiring to not pay them or demand free labour - an actual business model for some employers - should be a crime, or why the current law which views employers as "persons in special relationship" towards their employers, but not vice-versa - could be considered unfair and asymmetrical. So I was quite surprised when, last night, NZ First voted for the bill, getting it over the line to its second reading.

During the debate in Parliament, NZ First MP Mark Patterson said his party hadn't been part of the select committee that investigated the bill, but had listened carefully to both sides.

"It is the view of the New Zealand First caucus that this bill is not without some merit," he said.

But he wasn't guaranteeing support all the way through.

"New Zealand First will be supporting this bill through to the committee of the whole House stage.

"We, however, have listened carefully to the concerns on this side of the House. So there are some things that we want to see examined further through that committee stage."

...Which suggests that this isn't actual support, but just a weapon in some internal coalition power-play. Still, maybe they're pissed enough at ACT or National to support it all the way, if they get a token amendment to let them claim a victory. Which would be well worth doing if it doesn't further gut an (already pathetically weak) bill.

But if it passes, this bill will establish a principle: that wage theft is theft. And it means that a future government can then amend it to actually treat it as such, with an identical penalty.

We need more judicial power, not less

The Herald is reporting on yet another reporting from the ATLAS-network-linked "New Zealand" Initiative, this one complaining of a creep towards judicial supremacy, and calling for the powers of judges to interpret the law to be reined in. It seems that the billionaires who fund ATLAS and its local collaborators want to be sure they get what they pay for when they buy politicians, and don't want judges souring the deal or interfering with corporate power, even when the law requires that they do so. Hence the short-sighted enthusiasm for arbitrary executive despotism. Meanwhile, for people who aren't billionaires or shilling from them, and who actually live in Aotearoa and pay attention to our democracy, its clear that we need more judicial power, not less.

The most obvious reason for that is the current government, whose naked corruption is exactly the sort of thing judges were invented to prosecute. But beyond that, there are also long-term reasons. Parliament has been a terrible guardian of our human rights. It does not even pretend to do the job properly. Remember Hilary Calvert's absurd third-reading speech on the prisoner disenfranchisement law? That's the standard of "care" our politicians bring to our laws. That abdication of responsibility produced a constitutional backlash: the first ever declaration of inconsistency, and a law requiring Parliament to formally take notice of them. But that law did not fix the problem: the current government is ignoring formal declarations of inconsistency, and Parliament is still routinely passing laws which violate human rights. And now the present lot are taking that attitude and applying it to te Tiriti as well, on the weird belief that their private coalition agreement amongst themselves trumps the foundation of our constitution and state legitimacy. Which is in turn inviting a constitutional backlash in that area as well...

Again and again our parliament has shown that they cannot be trusted to make laws responsibly. Our judges, OTOH, seem to be responsible custodians. They take their duties seriously, provide real reasons for their decisions (which are in turn tested and scrutinised by others), and unlike politicians, have not institutionalised bribery as part of their culture. The balance of power between legislature and judiciary is a slider we can move. And the sheer irresponsibility and corruption of the former is inviting voters to shift it further towards the "judicial" end. And when we do, the present advocates of "parliamentary supremacy" will have no-one to blame for it but themselves.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. First up is the third reading of Deborah Russell's Family Proceedings (Dissolution for Family Violence) Amendment Bill, which looks like it will pass unanimously. This will be followed by the committee stage of Katie Nimon's Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (Improving Mental Health Outcomes) Amendment Bill and the second readings of Camilla Belich's Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill and Rima Nakhle's Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill. If the House moves very quickly it will make a start on Tracey McLellan's Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill, which would mean a ballot tomorrow, but that seems unlikely.

What if you run a transparent process, then ignore it?

On Friday I blogged a news story about Paul Goldsmith's appointment of terf and genocide supporter Stephen Rainbow as Chief Human Rights Commissioner, and how it appeared that he had ignored the recommendations of the appointments panel to shoulder-tap a preferred and unqualified candidate. The Spinoff was on the story as well, and has done their own piece drawing the same conclusions. And better: they've now confirmed them with a leak:

Update: The Spinoff has viewed documents with fewer redactions that show Rainbow was specifically noted as “not recommended” by the panel following his interview. Pacheco was listed as “highly appointable”. Two of the candidates for race relations commissioner (neither of whom were Derby as she was not initially interviewed) were graded as “highly appointable” by the panel.

So, just to make this clear: Goldsmith pretended to follow the Paris Principles by pursuing a transparent and independent selection process, seeking nominations from human rights groups and civil society and appointing a highly-qualified independent panel to assess them. He then took that panel's recommendation, threw it in the bin, and appointed completely unqualified candidates for reasons which have been kept secret (likely because they are embarrassingly inadequate, and possibly unlawful). Obviously, this is not how appointments to quasi-constitutional offices should be made. And again, the next government should respond to this violation of our constitutional norms by sacking the unqualified cronies the moment they take office.

A moral void at the heart of our establishment

Back in July, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care delivered its report, detailing a horrific litany of abuse for which the government was ultimately responsible. The report found that a long list of government ministers and officials had allowed, failed to stop, and effectively covered up that abuse. Today, Newsroom has started a major new series on how that happened, and how the state turned on its victims.

Reading it, what's stands out is how it all comes down to the framing. Right from the outset, officials saw this not as a crime which demanded justice, but as a fiscal and reputational risk to the New Zealand state - and advised Ministers accordingly. Which is an example of the banality of evil, how bureaucracy rots the conscience. But what's also striking is that for over two decades, no Minister seems to have pushed back against that framing. No-one - not Bill English, not Wyatt Creech, not Helen Clark, or Annette King - seems to have gone "hang on a minute; this isn't right". And while Ministers can not and should not direct police investigations, they can start inquiries (like the one which led to those findings), listen to victims, and arrange compensation schemes before everyone is dead. And none of them did that. None of them apparently even tried. And neither apparently did any of their Cabinet colleagues on the multiple occasions when details of the allegations and the government's proposed response (deny liability and wait for them to die) went to Cabinet.

What this inquiry has exposed is not just torture and abuse and institutional cover-ups, but a complete moral void at the heart of our establishment. If our political class aren't soulless husks bereft of any shred of conscience, they've done such an impressive job of faking it as to make no difference. And the obvious question that raises is: are these really the sort of people we want running our country?

Goldsmith's "transparent" human rights appointment process

Back in August, National sabotaged human rights by appointing terf and genocide supporter Stephen Rainbow as Chief Human Rights Commissioner, and terf and white supremacist Melissa Derby as Race Relations Commissioner. The appointments seemed calculated to undermine public confidence in the Commission, and there were obvious questions about how they happened. So I asked, using the OIA. I got the response back today, and its crystal clear that Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith did not follow a proper appointments process, instead parachuting his preferred candidates in to the interview process, then appointing them - possibly explicitly against the advice of the independent panel he had appointed to do the job.

The full documents are here. Note that they are incomplete, and fail to include panel reports on the successful candidates. My request was also poorly phrased, and did not ask for Goldsmith's communications around the appointment, but there were obviously several important ones. But judging from the documents, this is what happened:

• In December 2023, the Ministry of Justice advised Goldsmith on the need to appoint new EEO and Race Relations Commissioners, and the upcoming need to appoint a new Chief Commissioner. They remind the Minister of the Paris Principles, which require that there is a transparent process for appointments and that an independent review panel advise the Minister. They recommend the appointment of such a panel.
• Later in December, they do a followup briefing about the need to advertise the positions. They also suggest writing to government caucuses. Goldsmith does so.
• In February 2024, he appoints an independent panel, consisting of retired judge Terrence Arnold, former Attorney-General (and National MP) Chris Finlayson, human rights lawyer Paul Rishworth, and iwi chairs representative Lorraine Toki to assess the applications. They do their job properly, and in March they report back with a shortlist (p30). Neither Rainbow or Derby's name appears on it.
• Despite this, later in March Rainbow appears on the interview list. It appears that Goldsmith wrote him in, and bumped another candidate to do so. The recommendations of the panel are (of course) redacted, but if they'd recommended his appointment, they wouldn't be.
• Sometime after this, Goldsmith "asked for the panel to interview Dr Melissa Derby for the position of Race Relations Commissioner" (p46). The panel's views on her are not included.
• In June the appointment goes to Cabinet's Appointments and Honours Committee. The Ministry of Justice's briefing on this (p44-45) and recommendations (p46) suggest strongly that Rainbow was not the candidate recommended by the panel (if he was, then his name would be recommended on p46, and there would be no redaction). Instead, he seems to be recommended as a second-choice because of some redacted objection to the recommended candidate.
• And just like that, Goldsmith's two preferred candidates are appointed!

As noted above, we don't know what Goldsmith said to the panel, and we don't have their recommendations. I can go to the Ombudsman, and if I'm successful, we might know in a year or two. But one thing is clear: rather than run a transparent, independent process as required by the Paris Principles, Goldsmith simply appointed a pair of hatemongers, apparently against the explicit recommendations of the appointments panel. And when we're talking about our chief human rights body, that simply isn't good enough. having seen this appointments process, i stand by what I said in August: these people are unable to credibly perform the functions of the office. And the next government should simply sack them.

10/10: World Day Against the Death Penalty

Today, October 10, is the world day against the death penalty. Out of 195 UN member states, 63 still permit routine capital punishment. Today is the day we work to change that.

This year's theme is the misconception that the death penalty makes people safer. The use of the death penalty in "security" cases, which relies on an inherently political narrative of who is a "threat" and who is not. So its not about "safety", but just another tool of oppression. But even in ordinary cases, the regular execution of the innocent in death penalty states shows the same problems. If we want to make people actually safe, we need to deal with the root causes of crime and conflict - not use the state to murder people.

While no states abolished the death penalty this year, Zimbabwe's government agreed in principle to do so, and legislation is pending. Hopefully that will pass before the end of the year.

This is what corruption looks like

One of the risks of National's Muldoonist fast-track law is corruption. If Ministers can effectively approve projects by including them in the law for rubberstamping, then that creates some very obvious incentives for applicants seeking approval and Ministers seeking to line their or their party's pockets. And its a risk that seems to have been realised, with $500,000 in donations associated with fast-track projects:

Companies and shareholders associated with 12 fast-track projects gave more than $500,000 in political donations to National, Act and New Zealand First and their candidates, RNZ analysis shows.

The projects include a quarry extension into conservation land and a development whose owner was publicly supported by National MPs during a legal battle with Kāinga Ora.

[...]

An RNZ analysis of donations shows entities and individuals associated with 12 of the 149 projects that will be written into the Bill donated to National or its candidates in 2022 or 2023. These projects will be assessed by expert panels as to whether they proceed through the fast-track process.

Two also donated to NZ First or Shane Jones, and two donated a total of $150,000 to Act within the same period.

Note that this does not include donations given through NZ First's secret bribe trust or equivalent vehicles.

The government says this is all OK because the donations were declared. They would never, never be so foolish as to take a donation in exchange for favours when everyone could see what was happening. The problem is that no matter how often they say this, the public simply does not believe them. We know that people (and especially companies, with statutory duties to pursue profit) do not give away such vast amounts of money for nothing; we know they want something in return. And Jones and Bishop seem to be giving them something. If they're not corrupt, they're trying very hard to give us that impression, and they have only themselves to blame if we draw the obvious conclusion.

Which is another reason why the next government will need to not just repeal this outrageous law, but revoke and review every single consent granted: as a basic political hygiene measure. Because corruption cannot be allowed to pay, ever.

But beyond the bill, this again shows the need to outlaw political donations, for full public funding of political parties, for lobbyist regulation, and for the creation of an independent anti-corruption commission to go over every past and future donor, minister, and governing party with a microscope to see if favours were ever traded for money or other reward. National's open embrace of naked bribe-taking is hugely damaging to public trust in our political system. If we want to restore it, we know what needs to be done.

One cheer for the Samoan citizenship bill

Back in April, Teanau Tuiono's member's bill to undo a historic crime and restore citizenship to Samoans stripped of it by Muldoon unexpectedly passed its first reading and was sent to select committee. That committee has now reported back. But while the headline is that it has unanimously recommended that the bill proceed, that masks a very ugly compromise.

The purpose of the bill was to undo Muldoon's historic crime. Lest anyone forget, in 1982 the UK Privy Council - then our highest court, because colonialism - ruled that Samoans born in Samoa between 1924 and 1949 were and always had been New Zealand citizens (and therefore could not be deported). Muldoon's response was to pass a law - under urgency of course - stripping them of that citizenship, unless they were presently in New Zealand. Tuiono's bill was meant to undo that: not just the effect, but also erase the infamous law from the statute book. While its effects would continue, but be ameliorated by a grant as of right, that evil law declaring Samoans to never have been citizens would be gone.

But that was a bridge too far for the political establishment. So instead, a bill aimed at erasing a crime will now perpetuate it, by explicitly retaining Muldoon's racist law while amending it to add the grant provision and a reference to it. The citizenship gained will very explicitly only apply from when it was granted (rather than being recognised as having always been held and never removed), and unlike "normal" citizenship, won't be able to be (and, more importantly for the government, will not have been) passed on to children born outside Aotearoa. Its explicitly called a "citizenship of special nature" for Samoans; a second class of citizenship, if you will. And of course New Zealand can't be expected to make even this limited restitution for our crimes for free, so every single person who wants this second-class citizenship will have to pay for the privilege - albeit at the reduced price of $204.40. The Department of Internal Affairs has to cover its costs, you know! But given the number of surviving victims - maybe 3,400 still alive - the amount of money is utterly trivial to the government: less than a million dollars. They could simply appropriate it and cover the costs as a goodwill gesture. But like full, uninterrupted citizenship, even that was apparently too much for the racists in Parliament.

Both the Greens and Labour wanted the bill to go further, repealing Muldoon's racist law (the diplomatically important section 7 could simply have been moved to the Citizenship Act, where it belongs), eliminating fees, and extending eligibility to descendents born before Samoa became independent in 1962. But NZ First, whose support provides a majority for the bill, said no. The resulting compromise is an improvement on the current situation - some people will have a form of citizenship recognised! Huzzah! - but its also ugly, nasty, and petty. Rather like NZ First, really. It is a long way from what we ought to do, or what submitters expected. About the best that can be said for it is that its something that can be improved upon in future. And that's... not enough.

So, its one cheer for Teanau Tuiono and his bill. I'm sure this is the best he can do at the moment with the Parliament we've got, but no-one should pretend that this is decent, or honourable, or enough. Like everything else happening this term, the next government will have to fix this. Fortunately, Labour has publicly committed to a position. Now we have to hold them to it.

"The party of personal responsibility"

When National decided to shovel $24 million of public money to a charity run by a donor and chaired by the son of a National MP, on the "independent" advice of a former National PM, they proudly stated that it was because it was in the coalition agreement. Now, the Auditor-General has found that the decision did not comply with public procurement rules, which exist precisely to stop Ministers from giving public money to donors and cronies. The government's response? Blame the Ministry:

Doocey was not available to be interviewed but in a statement a spokesperson said any faults with the procurement process lay with the Ministry of Health.

"While the decision to fund Gumboot Friday was a decision made by the government, how this commitment was implemented was a decision for the Ministry of Health.

"Throughout the process, the minister has sought, and received assurance from officials that the implementation option chosen by the Ministry of Health is compliant with government procurement rules," the spokesperson said.

Of course, those officials gave that advice because the Minister made it clear that he wanted it, and the Ministry is there to serve and provide post-hoc justifications for whatever mad scheme Ministers cook up. And there is no simply employment upside for telling a Minister that their plan is illegal and corrupt.

The bottom line here is that this was the Minister's crooked scheme. It may have been imposed on him by NZ First, but he was proud to own it back in May when he announced it. But suddenly he's pretending it was nothing to do with him. Whatever happened to being the "party of personal responsibility"?

Climate Change: The same problems everywhere

Here in Aotearoa, our right-wing, ATLAS-network-backed government is rolling back climate policy and plotting to raise emissions to allow the fossil fuel industry a few more years of profit. And in Canada, their right-wing, ATLAS-network-backed opposition is campaigning on doing the same thing:

Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The culprit? A federal carbon levy meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

In the House of Commons this month, the Tory leader said there was only one way to avoid the devastating crisis: embattled prime minister Justin Trudeau must “call a ‘carbon tax’ election”.

Unlike our ETS, Canada's carbon tax is fully and directly rebated - meaning most people actually profit from it. Like our (sadly repealed) clean car discount, its the polluters that pay. But Canada's Conservatives and their far-right fossil think-tank backers have used waves of misinformation to pollute the infosphere and try and hide this fact. If they succeed, not only will Canada fail to meet its climate targets - most Canadians will actually be financially worse off. But you wouldn't know it from the institutional liars on the right.

...and all so a dying industry can eke out a few more years of profit. But technology change - solar and the electrification of transport - is going to bury them eventually, if policy doesn't first. The problem is that that may be too late to avoid horrific damage.

The corruption list

Yesterday the navy lost one of its newest ships in an accident. And so obviously, National used it as cover to release its list of projects to be rubber-stamped under its corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law. When the list of invitees was released, I called it "a who's who of New Zealand's dodgiest companies". The final list is a who's who of our most corrupt. Those willing to bribe ministers or simply trample all over our democracy is order to get their projects (briefly) approved.

Trans-Tasman Resources is there, with their seabed mine which has already been rejected by the Supreme Court and which would prevent the construction of a vital offshore windfarm. As is the South Island garbage incinerator, Oceana Gold's giant Waihi gold mine, and a host of other dirty mining and irrigation projects. Plus a bunch of housing developments to pay off the property developers. All wrapped up with a tiny amount of infrastructure and renewable energy projects for PR purposes (except: there's NZ's dodgiest solar farm company's Warkworth project; and a bunch of projects in the Mackenzie Country, which independent panels have already decided is not an acceptable place for solar farms; and a bunch of the wind projects are already consented).

Some of these filler projects might gain consent through the normal RMA process. The fact that their promoters have chosen to piss in our faces and shit on our democracy by pursuing fast-track authorisation tells us something ugly about them and their corporate mindset. And they need to be punished for that choice. So I'm not in favour of drawing any distinctions when the next government inevitably revisits this. Repeal the law, revoke all their consents without compensation, and make them do it properly or not at all.

The good news is that while the bill will be law by the end of the year, and the government thinks it will have the first approvals early (really mid) next year, there's really only an eighteen-month window for construction and profit before the next election and a potential change of government and policy. Every month of delay due to legal action, protests etc against these projects narrows that window. And if its narrowed enough, it will become too risky to start for fear that consent will be revoked and money wasted. So, we may not have to do too much against the worst of them to stop them - provided the left wins the next election.

I've posted before about the legitimising effect of the RMA process. Given the potential for protest, occupation etc, whether these projects proceed is ultimately a matter of public consent. But by choosing to pursue this process, these companies have basically surrendered any prospect of that. I hope they are made to regret it.

Taking the piss

When cancer minister Casey Costello convinced Cabinet to give her mates at Philip Morris a $216 million tax cut, she did so in the face of departmental advice that there would be no benefits and that Philip Morris' "heated tobacco products" were more cancerous and toxic than cigarettes. But she told her fellow Cabinet Ministers that it was fine because she had received "independent advice" that they were effective as an anti-smoking tool. Yesterday, she finally produced that "advice". And it was simply laughable:

The Associate Health Minister Casey Costello's "independent advice" on heated tobacco products is five articles that are either about different products, outdated, or only offer weak support for her view.

The five documents are not decisive on the benefits of the products.

They're also published in dodgy scam-journals and potentially funded by the tobacco industry. As Ayesha Verrall points out, it looks like she just did a quick google and grabbed whatever came up. It is certainly not the level of evidence you would expect to support a $200 million government policy, and not the level of care we should expect from a government minister.

At this stage it is clear that Costello is simply taking the piss. We deserve a better standard of government than this. Its long past time Luxon sacked her. And if he can't or won't, maybe we should start recognising that it is Winston who is really Prime Minister and deciding who is in cabinet...?

National's democratic suppression fails

Last week, National rammed its destructive offshore gas-drilling legislation through to select committee under urgency, and then gave submitters only four working days to have a say on it. The goal was clearly to stifle opposition, but it appears to have failed spectacularly:

Despite being given only 3½ working days to make a submission, 5600 people and organisations lodged written submissions on the legislation, with 392 asking to be heard by the committee.

That's not a record number of submissions, but it is a large one, and incredible for only four days. And an overwhelming number of them oppose the bill, with only a few self-interested lobby groups and industry shills in favour.

We know who the government will listen to, of course - but the purpose of submitting isn't to change their mind or to fix the bill: it is to convince the opposition to promise immediate repeal and revocation of all permits issued without compensation, and so deter the investment National hopes to encourage. The Greens are on-side with that, because they recognise the stakes here. The question is whether Labour will listen, or whether they'll again tell everyone they are useless chickenshits unworthy of your vote.

National wants to loot the health system

Hot on the heels of their cancellation of Dunedin hospital (meaning a cut to health services in half the south Island), National has revealed the next part of their agenda: the outright privatisation of the health system:

The health agency is suggesting the Government to consider allowing private companies to build – and potentially run – the country’s public hospitals.

[...]

Earlier this year, Health New Zealand told ministers given the scale of investment required, "a range of options for different financing and commercial arrangements may be needed".

Build and leaseback arrangements, where private companies own the buildings, would help free up funds.

They also floated "Public Private Partnerships", and said they are widely used overseas.

Health NZ chief infrastructure and investment officer Jeremy Holman said PPPs are "a whole spectrum of how the private sector could work with the private sector from that side of it so there are many different options in there".

They're also hugely expensive, wasteful, and inevitably corrupt. You just need to look at Transmission Gully or the UK's Private Finance Initiative to see what a disaster they are for the public. But the contract providers laugh all the way to the bank.

National seems intent on destroying our entire society - the schools, the hospitals, te Tiriti, our democracy - in favour of an economy focused on corrupt capitalist extraction and rent-gouging. All that will be left will be motorways leading to airports and gas wells (at least until rising sea levels wash them all away). As for what to do about it, as with everything else this government is doing, the opposition needs to be crystal clear: this will be repealed on day one. Contracts will be legislatively revoked, with no compensation to contractors, and the health system returned to public ownership and control. Those who steal from us will not be allowed to profit from it.

Luxon just became a poster boy for taxing the rich

Whenever our politicians are caught with their hand in the till, they loudly proclaim that their theft from the public was "within the rules". The problem is that they are the ones writing the rules, and there's a certain suspicion that they write them to suit themselves. And so their their legalistic defences simply add to the stench of self-interested corruption from our political class.

That's bad enough when it comes to rorting perks and getting paid to live in your own house. But Prime Minister Chris Luxon has taxen it to a new level, apparently scamming $70,000 from a tax break he gave himself:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon narrowly avoided paying what might have amounted to a large tax bill on the sale of his Wellington apartment thanks to changes brought in by the Government.

Luxon sold his Wellington apartment and moved into the Prime Minister’s official residence, Premier House.

[...]

Because Luxon bought and sold the apartment within five years of purchase and he bought the apartment after the introduction of the five-year test, he would have been required to pay tax under that test at a rate of 39% - equating to a maximum tax of $70,200.

However, on coming into office, Luxon’s Government scrapped both of Labour’s extensions of the bright-line test, shifting it back to two years as of July 1, 2024. That means Luxon avoided being caught by the five-year test by just over two months and saved himself $70,200. If he had sold the apartment in February, when he declared he would move into Premier House, he would likely have been required to pay the tax.

Obviously, Luxon didn't change the rules solely so he could profit from it. But he did nakedly profit from the rule-change he wrote. And that's... unseemly. A "bad look". A bit stinky.

But I guess that's just who our political class are now: not normal people, but people with huge portfolios of hoarded houses, and the rapacious, grasping, self-interested attitudes to match. According to his Gospel of Prosperity, Luxon saw an opportunity and took it, and that's why he's "wealthy and sorted" and the rest of us are just struggling peasants. And because we were fools enough to give him power, we deserve to be exploited in this way. But while that may sound great in the weirdo fundamentalist circles Luxon moves in, to the rest of us, it just looks like a greedy arsehole abusing his power to rip off the public. And it makes some form of wealth tax a necessity. Because its no longer just a fair way of giving the state the resources it needs to pay for the services we need - its about making sure rich arseholes like Luxon don't get to rort us while laughing at us.

Climate Change: Fossil fuels versus free trade

One of the arguments against National's gas fantasy is that it breaches our environmental commitments under various free trade agreements, including the NZ-EU FTA, which requires us to meet our Paris commitments and not weaken our environmental protections. And it turns out that MFAT agrees:

Legal advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade states the Government’s plans to repeal the 2018 ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration will “likely” breach New Zealand’s obligations in recent free trade agreements.

Deals with major trade partners such as the European Union and the United Kingdom prohibit New Zealand from reducing environmental protections to encourage trade or investment. Though officials said the risk of a country taking a case against New Zealand was low, the policy was “likely” inconsistent with these provisions.

National apparently doesn't care, leaning heavily on that low chance of anyone bringing a case. Which I guess shows how committed they are to the "rules-based international order" they keep talking about. But we're a pretty poor international partner if we only keep our commitments if they are actually enforced against us, and I think most kiwis would expect better from our government than that. We've made promises, and we should keep them. Only business weasels and sociopaths would try and cheat.

But also, it seems that if we want the direction of this government to change, we should be doing our utmost to ensure that these countries do take action. After all, National has said its the only thing they'll listen to. We should take them at their word. And if it results in sanctions on the dirty dairy industry, so much the better.

Climate Change: The end of coal in the UK

It's official: coal has been eliminated from the UK's electricity system:

Britain’s only remaining coal power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire will generate electricity for the last time on Monday after powering the UK for 57 years.

The power plant will come to the end of its life in line with the government’s world-leading policy to phase out coal power which was first signalled almost a decade ago.

The closure marks the end of Britain’s 142-year history of coal power use which began when the world’s first coal-fired power station, the Holborn Viaduct power station, began generating electricity in 1882.

Good. Coal has been a significant source of greenhouse gases, and its elimination from global energy systems is vital if we are to get climate change under control. So its a huge positive step from a historical polluter.

Sadly, here in Aotearoa, Shane Jones is trying to push us back onto coal, taking us in entirely the wrong direction in service to his fossil fuel masters. So much for trying to do our bit. Tim Winton is right: our leaders are collaborators with the fossil fuel industry. And if they don't like that word, or the public anger that comes with it, then maybe they should stop collaborating in our destruction.

A tipping point?

The National Party has been promising Dunedin - and the lower South Island - a new hospital since 2008. Despite those promises, the Key government did nothing during its nine years in office, and it was left to Labour to actually start the process in 2017. National promptly criticised them as moving too slow, and continued to promise Dunedin a new hospital. They repeated the promise during the 2023 election campaign. So it was a bit of a shock when on Thursday, they suddenly declared it was "unaffordable" and announced they weren't going to build it after all. And Dunedinites were Not Impressed: 35,000 of them - a quarter of the city - turned out to show their disagreement:

Dunedin's Octagon packed with people on Saturday calling for the government to keep its promise to build the new Dunedin Hospital with no cuts.

[...]

Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich called it the biggest protest in the city of about 134,000 in years.

"Today up to 35,000 people from across the South have come together on Dunedin's streets to express their outrage at proposed cuts to our new regional hospital," he said in a statement.

Its easy to see why: this is vital infrastructure, which serves half the South Island. Downgrading it will mean a permanent reduction in the quality of health care for people in the South. And since everyone needs hospitals at some stage in their life, this is going to hit very close to home for a huge number of people (including people in "safe" National seats in Otago and Southland). Calling it "unaffordable" while dishing out billions for landlord tax cuts, truck motorways in Auckland, or a mega-tunnel in Wellington solely so Luxon doesn't have to see people giving him the finger when he is driven from the airport is a fundamental misunderstanding of the public's priorities, a failure to read the room.

And its not just about Dunedin. With its mantra of "unaffordable" for everything outside Remuera, what National does to Dunedin could be coming to your city. If you live in Hastings, New Plymouth, or Palmerston North - or their catchment areas - you can just see National sharpening the knives for your local health system. And it will hurt you or someone you love.

This should be a tipping point for the government. When 40,000 people marched down Queen Street to oppose the Key government's plans to mine our national parks, the government got the message and backed down. But the first-term Key government wanted to be re-elected. And I'm not sure that that's actually true of the current government. Quite apart from ACT and NZ First, who do not care about anything other than their corrupt donors, Luxon's National Party is not the Key National Party. Key still had a fair whack of pragmatic conservatives (hence also their desire to seek coalition with Te Pāti Māori and work with them on the foreshore and seabed). But those have now been replaced with crazed ideological glue-sniffers and religious weirdos, who seem to want to wreck our society and burn shit to the ground as quickly as possible. I'm not sure that they will listen, even to mass protest. But if they don't, then they should be a one-term government. The only question is how much damage they will do before being defenestrated by the voters.

Another abuse of democracy

This week National introduced its long-threatened bill to repeal the offshore drilling ban and promote the fossil fuel industry, and rammed it through to select committee. Today the select committee opened for submissions. If you have an opinion on this corrupt, ecocidal legislation, you will need to speak up quick - because the committee has decided that submissions are due by Tuesday, 1 October, just four days away.

Submissions can be made using the form above. On the one hand, it is clear that the committee is not interested in listening to the public; the donors and lobbyists have already spoken. But it is still worth submitting. Not to change or improve the bill - that is a waste of everyone's time, and the more uncorrected mistakes in it, the better - but to influence the opposition members of the committee, and encourage them to publicly commit to a policy of immediate repeal.

As for how to do this, I would suggest focusing on the projected emissions impact of the bill (as laid out in MBIE's Climate Implications of Policy Assessment statement) and their utter inconsistency with both our emissions budgets and our domestic and international emissions reduction targets. If these projections are remotely accurate, then a future government which wants to meet those budgets and targets will need to repeal this bill as quickly as possible. Insofar as permits represent a commitment to emit, they will need to be revoked as well (and basic political hygiene - ensuring that there are no profits from corrupt lobbying - means such revocation will have to be without compensation).

Submitters could also mention the impact of the short submission period, the effect of these continued abuses on the public legitimacy of Parliament as an institution, and the terrible message it sends about the effectiveness of pursuing change by parliamentary methods rather than by other means.

I expect the major environmental groups will set up web forms and submissions guides; I'll update with links as I see them.

Update: Environmental NGOs have a submission guide here. Ngaa Haumi has one here.

Climate Change: We can't afford the gas industry

Yesterday, National finally introduced its long-threatened bill to repeal the offshore drilling ban and promote the fossil fuel industry to the House. They'll be ramming it through its first reading under urgency this afternoon, and while it will go to select committee, they will almost certainly try their usual stunt of an undemocratically short submissions period in an effort to limit opposition.

The Greens have made it quite clear that they will be reinstating the ban and revoking any permits granted in the interim, but Labour are being their usual chickenshit selves, and refusing to commit to that. Which makes them fools as well as cowards. Because permits represent extra emissions, which we simply cannot afford. The government's own modelling shows that their policy will increase emissions by 14.2 million tons to 2035, and 51.6 millions tons to 2050. Which is a cast-iron commitment to breach not just our first two emissions budgets, but all future targets as well.

No party which pretends to be committed to climate action can accept this. So Labour has to choose: do they want to maintain credibility with the public, or suck up to ecocidal big business polluters? Because they can't do both.

Meanwhile, what this bill and this climate assessment shows us is that we cannot as a society afford the gas industry. It has to be destroyed. And currently, that's on-track to happen: high prices and shortages are driving industrial users to electrify, the electricity sector is going to be hit by a flood of solar and batteries which will drive gas out of the system, and Methanex - the customer which fundamentally drives demand and effectively underwrites all future development - is shutting down two of its three plants. This is exactly the managed decline we need to see. The gas industry and their corrupt stooges in National hate it, and so we have this desperate rearguard action in an effort to pretend that gas still has a future. But it doesn't and it can't. All we need to put the final nail in the coffin is for Labour to publicly commit to that. But I guess the question here is: when has the NZ Labour party ever done the right thing voluntarily?

How to complain about a delayed OIA release

A few years back, Te Kawa Mataaho / Public Service Commission started releasing OIA statistics, on the theory that this would allow failure to be identified and managed, and so improve performance. It may have done so initially, but then the iron laws of bureaucracy (and specifically, Goodhart's and Campbell's) took over, and underresourced agencies began to game them in order to improve their "performance". So we had a flood of bullshit extensions, as agencies tried to scam extra time while claiming responses were "timely". When the Ombudsman stomped on that, they started responding that the information would "soon" be "publicly available" (when "soon" meant "when we feel like it" and "available" meant "with whatever we want redacted"). The Ombudsman has stomped on that too, and so the latest tactic to pretend a response is timely for statistical purposes while scamming extra time is "delayed release": a response claiming that a decision has been made, but information will be released later (sometimes with a date, sometimes without, sometimes after a long delay). Et voila! A timely "decision" which can be used to make the stats look good, while giving as much extra time as an agency wants to actually do the work.

The problem of course is that - absent highly unusual circumstances - this is simply illegal. The OIA requires that decision and release both be made "as soon as reasonably practicable" (ASARP). When a decision has actually been made, then release should be immediate unless it is not "reasonably practicable" to do so. Unless an agency gives a specific reason why that is the case, a delay is illegal (and, under s28(5) of the Act, an effective refusal).

What should you do if you receive an OIA response like this? The first step is to look for the reason justifying the delay. If there isn't one, reply immediately asking exactly what circumstances make it impractical to release the information immediately. There may be a reasonable explanation! But if there is not, or they say "we need more time", or "it is still at the Minister's office", or "it is still under review", or they don't respond at all within 48 hours, then its on to step two: complain. You can use the online form here, or just email it to complaint@ombudsmen.parliament.nz.

What should you say in your complaint? After laying out the circumstances of the request ("on $RequestDate I filed a request with $agency. A response was due by $DueDate. On $ResponseDate the agency responded, saying that it had made a decision on my request, but that release of the information would be delayed..."), ask that the response be investigated, and say something like:

the response has been unduly delayed, and therefore (following s28(5) of the Act), effectively refused. While the Act permits a delay between decision and release, this requires unusual circumstances...

At this stage either give the agency's explanation (if one has been provided), and say that it does not seem to make immediate release impractical, or say that no explanation has been provided. Either way, go on and say:

This seems to be a failure to meet the "as soon as reasonably practical" standard demanded by the Act.

Additionally, if the response does not provide an actual release date, or indicate what specifically will be released, or if it does not include any withholding grounds, note this, and question whether it is actually a "decision" under the Act. In a past ruling on this sort of response (587412), the Ombudsman said:

To constitute a valid decision under the OIA, a response must be very clear as to whether a request is granted, in full or in part, as well as confirm if information is intended to be withheld, and provide the reasons for the same. I would expect an agency to have identified the specific information within the scope of the request, collated and reviewed this information, and set specific criteria for determining which information (if any) is to be withheld.

Many "delayed response" "decisions" fail to meet these conditions, and are thus not "decisions" at all.

A complaint will take a while - possibly six months to a year. You will likely receive your information long before then. But it is still important to complain. Complaints have stopped routine forms of OIA abuse in the past. With enough complaints, we can stop this one.

Priorities

Back in 2018 the then-Labour government legislated formal targets to reduce child poverty with the Child Poverty Reduction Act - and took actual steps to achieve them, with a $5.5 billion families package to boost incomes and a school lunches scheme to ensure kids didn't go hungry. While a lot of work needed to be done, it made a good start. And then National came along and gutted the targets, replacing them with more "achievable" ones. Why? Because they didn't want to spend the money required to met them:

Documents showed year-on-year progress was not on track and meeting the targets "would require investment in the region of $3 billion per year".

Officials presented Upston with two alternative targets for 2028 that they believed could be achieved.

However, Upston told RNZ the government "disagreed with the advice and this approach, as it would further entrench long-term welfare dependency and the number of children growing up in benefit-dependent homes".

Instead, the government spent $3 billion on landlord tax cuts, effectively deciding to give to the greedy, not to the needy (they also scrapped the survey tracking child poverty, to prevent any evidence of failure). Its a stark illustration of National's priorities, and who they favour in society.

As for child poverty, Upston thinks it will be solved by "growing the economy, improving health and education outcomes, and getting more households into work... rather than welfare payments and tax credit changes". In other words, the usual capitalist magical thinking that if you make rich people richer while shitting harder on the poor and gutting health and education, everything will magically get better. National applied such cruel "solutions" in both of their previous times in government, in 1991 and 2012, and their efforts are why we have a child poverty problem in the first place. Do they seriously expect us to believe it'll be third time lucky? Or are they just spewing bullshit to cover for the fact that they do not give a shit about anyone other than the ultra-rich?

And round we go again...

One of Labour's few achievements last term was to finally move on RMA reform. Following an independent review and a select committee review of an exposure draft, both aimed at ironing out bugs and producing a compromise most people could live with, Labour passed the Natural and Built Environments Act just before the 2023 election. And then National immediately repealed it. Since then they've been picking holes in the legacy RMA regime to advantage their donors and cronies. And now they've announced grand plans to replace the entire Act again:

The Government has revealed its plans for a permanent replacement for the Resource Management Act, the 1991 law that has, for more than a decade, been a piñata of blame from politicians who accuse it of failing to adequately protect the environment while stifling development.

[...]

The coalition Government resurrected the RMA last year and today announced plans to kill it once again and replace it with two new pieces of legislation, which will be focused on allowing people to enjoy property rights. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Under-Secretary to the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Simon Court said the replacement would be passed before the next election.

Which probably sounds great to them and their donors and cronies. The problem is that the next government, can, will, and should immediately repeal it and revert to the old regime, just as National did. The development focus and the obvious role of corruption in the process makes its survival untenable, and its repeal by the next government a basic act of political hygiene.

(...and the same goes for practically every other significant policy of this government. Given its naked corruption, repealing everything they have done on day one and replacing it with SFO investigations into every donor and lobbyist who benefited is vital. Anything less sends a message that corruption pays).

If National wanted lasting policy change in this area, they'd be doing what Labour did, and setting up a multi-year programme of review and inquiry and compromise to build consensus. Instead, they're just pulling some rabid propertarian weirdo shit from a bunch of foreign billionaire-funded thinktanks and trying to impose it by fiat. Anyone who thinks such policy can or should last is either a fool, or trying to sell you something.

The Supreme Court stands up for fairness

National is planning to breach te Tiriti o Waitangi by amending the Marine and Coastal Area Act to effectively make it impossible for the courts to recognise Māori rights over the foreshore and seabed. But its also been playing dirty in other ways. Earlier in the year it announced changes to the funding regime for Marine and Coastal Area Act cases, cutting their funding in an obvious attempt to limit both claims and their success. A side-effect of this change - a total coincidence, I'm sure - was to cut funding for the claimants in the Edwards case (which had made it easier to recognise rights over the foreshore), who were attempting to defend their victory against the government in the Supreme Court. This is obviously an unjust abuse of power to strap the legal chicken - and now the Supreme Court has recognised it as such, issuing a rare prospective costs order against the government:

In a rare decision, heavy with judicial and political implications, the country’s top court has told the Crown it must give advance financial support to a group of hapū challenging it over the Marine and Coastal Areas Act.

[...]

The five-judge panel of the Supreme Court observed the Crown had previously been an interested party in the case.

Now it had become a direct party by appealing the Court of Appeal’s findings on customary marine title, raising the prospect of one party to the argument taking funding away from the other.

“This alteration represents a substantial disadvantage in effect now imposed by one litigant upon another, at the final stage of proceedings,” the Supreme Court found, “despite that litigant having previously recognised the responsibility to ensure all sides of the argument before the courts could be advanced with full and adequate funding.”

Effectively this restores the status quo ante of government funding for the case, undoing the harm of the government's cuts and allowing the case to be decided on its merits, rather than who has the biggest wallet. And despite the Court's disclaimers, its difficult to see this as anything other than a strong criticism of unfair behaviour and abuse of power by the government.

National has of course already pledged to overturn the judgement no matter what the court decides. Which shows what they really think of Māori rights and the rule of law. They may very well pass such legislation. But if they do, the next government will simply undo it. Which raise the obvious question: wouldn't it be better to avoid all that civil disorder and damage to both the Crown-Māori relationship and the legitimacy of the state, and simply let the court decide the case on its merits? Or would they rather destroy our society in order to cling to an outdated colonial mindset for a few more years?

Tax the rich!

We already know that the rich people aren't paying their fair share. But it turns out its worse than that: we're a tax-haven! Our rich people pay lower taxes here than in any comparable country:

Well-off New Zealanders are paying less tax than their peers in nine similar OECD nations, new research shows.

New Zealand had the lowest income tax rate, did not systematically tax capital gains, and did not have any other types of wealth taxes, the Victoria University study commissioned by Tax Justice Aotearoa found.

[...]

Using 2023 OECD data it found someone on a $330,000 income that was wholly taxed as a conventional salary, would pay income tax of $108,000, or 33 percent. This was the lowest income tax rate of all the comparable nations, which had rates ranging from 37 percent to 55 percent, said Victoria University senior research associate Max Rashbrooke, who carried out the analysis.

New Zealand and Belgium were the only two nations that did not have a capital gains tax, though Belgium had other wealth taxes, which New Zealand did not.

Which should put paid to the constant threats from the rich and their collaborators to leave if we raise taxes. Go ahead! Fuck off, if you want to pay higher taxes elsewhere. We'll be glad to see the back of these social scabs.

As for why this matters: our schools and hospitals are falling apart, our infrastructure is rotting, and we have homeless people living on the streets. Our government can't do the things we need it to, because it refuses to raise the revenue it needs to do them. Which makes sense from National - they work for rich people, and they want government to be broken and useless. As for Labour, they just are broken and useless - if not working for the same people National is. But if they want to regain power, they need to address this problem. Because if they don't, we can and will vote for a party which will.

Worse and worse

Cancer Minister Casey Costello is in trouble again over her secret, magically appearing tobacco policy document. The Ombudsman has already found that she acted contrary to law in refusing requests for it; now she has been referred to the Chief Archivist over a possible breach of the Public Records Act over her claim that it magically appeared on her desk and that she has no idea who wrote it:

Casey Costello has again been reprimanded by the Chief Ombudsman for her handling of a mystery document containing tobacco-industry friendly ideas, which she passed to health officials to develop policy.

[...]

Now Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has released a new investigation into Costello's handling of the document.

He says he is "concerned the associate minister was unable to produce any records about the provenance of the notes" and has "taken the rare step of notifying the chief archivist about the record keeping issues in this case".

The chief archivist has a range of powers to examine matters relating to record keeping, under the Public Records Act.

The Ombudsman refers a handful of complaints to the Chief Archivist each year, though referring a Minister is unusual. The penalties for contravening the Act are derisory, but reminding Costello and her staff of their legal obligations might be helpful.

...assuming its allowed to get that far. Because thanks to National's restructuring last time they were in power, the Chief Archivist is now part of the Department of Internal Affairs, and works for a Minister. While they have statutory independence in some areas, this does not seem to cover their investigative functions. Which seems deeply unsatisfactory when they're called upon to investigate Ministers. We will need to watch carefully to ensure there is no Ministerial fuckery from National over this.

A constitutional shitshow

Last month, we learned that the government was half-arsing its anti-gang legislation, adding a significant, pre-planned, BORA-abusing amendment at the committee stage, avoiding all the usual scrutiny processes. But it gets worse. Because having done it once, they're now planning to recall the bill in order to add another such amendment:

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith's office confirmed on Tuesday night the government would be sending the bill back to Parliament to ensure it includes gang patches and symbols being displayed in cars, as whether the bill as it stood would in fact cover them was in dispute.

"There was some debate around whether gang insignia being displayed from inside a car would be covered by the ban. We decided to clarify, and make sure it was covered completely. We make no apologies for getting tough on gangs."

The bill had only been waiting for the final, third-reading, stage before getting the Governor-General's signoff - but now will be sent for a second Committee of the Whole House stage. The amendment will ensure the ban does affect insignia displayed from vehicles.

Regardless of what you think of the merits of the amendment, this is a fucking shitshow. It is not how laws should be made. It is a constitutional abuse. And the blame for it can be laid squarely at the feet of the National government, and their preference for rushing legislation through to meet arbitrary deadlines, leaving no time for the required policy advice and drafting (and their "back office" cuts, which mean there's no-one left to formulate that advice and draft the law anyway). So we get messes like this, where law is being written literally on the floor of the House, so National can tick the box on its latest quarterly plan.

This is not a style of government we have seen in a long time - not really since the Douglas / Richardson Revolution of the 1980's and 1990's. Back then the executive treated the legislature as a rubberstamp, to be mushroomed and bullshat and jerked about to ram through its agenda as quickly as possible, before the public could catch on and oppose it. MMP was supposed to put an end to that. But we have a coalition apparently composed entirely of crazies high on their own power, and lacking a single party or Cabinet Minister with a commitment to good policy or proper lawmaking to keep the radical weirdos in check. And the result is half-arsed law, rammed through without proper scrutiny. The sooner it blows up in their faces with an embarrassing hole or a messy court-case, the better.

A dysfunctional watchdog

The reality of any right depends on how well it is enforced. But as The Post points out this morning, our right to official information isn't being enforced very well at all:

More than a quarter of complaints about access to official information languish for more than a year, as the OIA watchdog fails to keep up with high complaint numbers.

[...]

In 2023/24, the Office of the Ombudsman completed just 37% of OIA complaints within three months. Four out of 10 complaints took longer than six months ‒ similar to when Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier took over in 2015, promising to fix the “bugbear“ of long waits for resolution.

On average, OIA complaints took 244 days to complete, while Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) complaints took 261 days.

And as the article points out, its actually worse than that because the Ombudsman is juking its stats, trying to get people to abandon their complaints (I can confirm that strategy), then counting them as "completed". And this accounts for a quarter of all "completed" complaints.

This matters. Many OIA requests are time-sensitive - seeking information while an issue is still in the news (rather than merely being a historical curiosity), or in order to participate in government consultations and select committee processes. The denial of information thwarts that. And the failure of the Ombudsman to enforce the Act and investigate and make decisions on complaints in a timely fashion thwarts it still further. Their juking the stats to make the situation appear better than it is is simply icing on the cake.

How do we fix this problem? Better resourcing and better triaging of complaints to focus on the right to participation is part of the solution. But ultimately, the Ombudsman is a mediator, not an enforcer, predicated on an utterly outdated and colonial model of government where everyone is a good chap who will be reasonable if another chap tells them to. Our government structure hasn't worked like that for decades, if it ever did; nowdays that model seems positively prehistoric, and completely unsuitable.

We know how to properly enforce rights; through the courts. And that means replacing the Ombudsman with a UK-style Information Commissioner, with appeal rights through the judiciary, and decisions enforceable by court order. The problem is, why would Ministers, who currently get to laugh while their pathetic "watchdog" dithers and "recommends", vote for that?

Climate Change: The threat of a good example

Since taking office, the climate-denier National government has gutted agricultural emissions pricing, ended the clean car discount, repealed water quality standards which would have reduced agricultural emissions, gutted the clean car standard, killed the GIDI scheme, and reversed efforts to reduce pollution subsidies in the ETS - basically every significant policy to reduce emissions. And now they're plotting to end the carbon-neutral public service policy:

New documents show the government is considering removing its goal of carbon neutrality across the public sector by 2025.

Released to the Green Party under the Official Information Act (OIA), the advice to Climate Change minister Simon Watts was redacted, but the file name was left on the PDF: "[REDACTED] BRF-3950 Briefing Note - Removing the 2025 neutrality goal of the Carbon Neutral Government Programme and reviewing programme setting". <

[...]

Watts confirmed in a statement he had requested advice on how the programme aligned with his government's climate strategy, but no decisions had yet been made, with advice from a number of agencies due back in October.

The public service is not a huge source of emissions, and this is small potatoes compared to the other policies National has ended. At the same time, the article makes clear that the policy had been effective at reducing emissions by removing dirty coal boilers, upgrading government vehicles to EVs, improving energy efficiency, and reducing flights. More importantly, doing all of this shows that it can be done, giving the lie to the climate deniers who constantly carp that it's all too hard and emissions can't be reduced. National clearly can't tolerate the government being a good example, so they’re going to stop it. Just another example of the sheer pettiness of National's climate denial policies...

Dangerous ground

The Waitangi Tribunal has reported back on National's proposed changes to gut the Marine and Coastal Area Act and steal the foreshore and seabed for its greedy fishing-industry donors, and declared it to be another huge violation of ti Tiriti:

The Waitangi Tribunal has found government changes to the Marine and Coastal Area Act are characterised by a blind adherence to pre-existing political commitments at the expense of whānau, hapū, and iwi.

[...]

The tribunal found the government dismissed official advice, failed to consult with Māori and breached the principle of active protection and good government by failing to properly demonstrate "Parliament's original intent" and seeking to amend the act before the Supreme Court could hear the matter.

The report said the Crown's consultation with commercial fishing interests, while failing to consult with Māori, was a breach of the principle of good government

The Crown exercised kāwanatanga over Māori rights and interests without providing any evidence for one of its key justifications - namely that the public's rights and interests require more protection beyond what is already in the act - the report said.

They recommend killing the bill and engaging with Māori in an effort to identify and address an actual policy problem, rather than unilaterally attempting to eradicate their rights.

Combined with similar reports on Oranga Tamariki, Māori wards, and the Treaty Principles, and you're left wondering if there's any significant national policy regarding Māori which isn't a flagrant breach of te Tiriti. And looking back at those reports, they all identify the same underlying problems: National putting its obligations under its coalition agreements above the state's obligations under te Tiriti; a refusal to consult; and the systematic abandonment of good government practice and ignoring of evidence in order to ram through its policy. it seems that the government no longer recognises its Tiriti obligations, particularly the principles of active protection and partnership, and is actively reneging on our founding agreement, with all that that entails.

...And the Tribunal recognises this. It ends its letter of transmittal with a clear warning:

At present, the Crown’s actions are such a gross breach of the Treaty that, if it proceeds, these amendments would be an illegitimate exercise of kāwanatanga. We caution the Crown that, on the strength of the evidence we have received, to proceed now on its current course will significantly endanger the Māori–Crown relationship.

[Emphasis added]

Which is as clear a warning as you can get that the government is on very dangerous ground here. Te Tiriti is the foundation of our constitution. It effectively gives the government its right to exist. The government messes with that at its peril.

Climate Change: National wants to cheat on Paris

In 2016, the then-National government signed the Paris Agreement, committing Aotearoa to a 30 (later 50) percent reduction in emissions by 2030. When questioned about how they intended to meet that target with their complete absence of effective climate policy, they made a lot of noise about how it was a "responsibility target", and that we would pay other countries to do it for us. But now they're back in power, they're openly talking about refusing to meet that commitment:

Since 2015, Aotearoa has pledged to purchase additional overseas mitigation to meet the target, most likely from developing nations, as domestic reductions were considered too expensive.

But [Climate Change Minister Simon] Watts told the Climate Change and Business Conference on Tuesday that purchasing mitigation offshore would be unpopular with the public.

“When I stand up and say, ‘Guess what, I'm going to write a cheque for $4 billion in your taxpayer money to some country overseas,’ you know people go: 'I sort of want my hospital and I want my health care over that. You know, I love it, but I sort of want other stuff.'”

The problem for Watts and National is that while climate denial and abandoning Paris is a shibboleth of the international right (see Peter Dutton in Australia, Poilievre in Canada, and of course former president Trump in the US), abandoning your international commitments has consequences. And not just diplomatic ones. Notably, the NZ-EU FTA commits us to meeting our Paris obligations and not doing anything which undermines the agreement. So if National refuses to meet them, their farmer base may find themselves locked out of European markets. And since they're both the biggest polluters and the biggest deniers in the country, that will be a little bit of justice for these environmental criminals.

Of course, if Watts doesn't want to pay other countries to reduce emissions for us, he has another option: he could reduce them here, and build a better, cleaner, healthier society in the process. Labour had a plan to (sortof) do that; it wasn't enough, but it was a solid foundation to build from, and was actually working - and overachieving. Of course, National repealed all that the moment they got into power, leaving them with a de facto policy of "economic collapse" as an emissions reduction strategy. And the less they do, the harder it will be for the next government to make up the ground, and the larger that 2030 bill will be. But clearly, National doesn't think it'll be their problem. And rather than doing anything to meet our obligations long-term, they're going to wreck everything, openly talk about cheating the world, so they can snipe from the sidelines when the adults have to clean up their fucking mess. They're saboteurs and criminals - not a responsible government.

A government-funded hate campaign

Cabinet discussed National's constitutionally and historically illiterate "Treaty Principles Bill" this week, and decided to push on with it. The bill will apparently receive a full six month select committee process - unlike practically every other policy this government has pushed, and despite the fact that if the government is being honest in its intentions, it will then be immediately voted down. Its clearly intended to be a six month-long anti-Māori hatefest. And it will cost us millions:

A conservative estimate suggests it will cost about $4 million to progress the controversial, and doomed, Treaty Principles Bill to a second reading at Parliament.

The estimate, calculated by Council of Trade Unions (CTU) economist Craig Renney, suggests just 12 people would have been working to create the bill since the government was formed in November last year, and includes the legislation passing through a six-month select committee process.

It does not include costs such as contractors, consultants and lawyers, or any involvement from Crown Law, the Waitangi Tribunal, or the Human Rights Commission.

Rimmer of course calls this the cost of "democracy". What it actually is is a government-funded racial hate campaign. It is disgusting and illegitimate, just like the racists pushing it. And by proceeding with it, National will bring both Parliament, and the New Zealand state, into disrepute.

National's automated lie machine

The government has a problem: lots of people want information from it all the time. Information about benefits, about superannuation, ACC coverage and healthcare, taxes, jury service, immigration - and that's just the routine stuff. Responding to all of those queries takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. But now National has a solution: it will simply get a computer to lie to them:

The Government is venturing into the world of artificial intelligence, launching a virtual assistant dubbed Gov-GPT, modelled on Chat-GPT.

Technology Minister Judith Collins announced the new tool at the Aotearoa AI Summit in Auckland on Wednesday morning.

Callaghan Innovation will run a pilot of the chatbot, designed to help Kiwis easily find information about the government and its agencies.

"GovGPT is an exciting first step towards a vision of a 'digital front-door', where individuals can find answers to their questions about government in a convenient and timely way," Collins said.

The problem, of course, is that "AI" doesn't help people easily find information, or answer people's questions. Instead, it produces plausible information or answer-shaped objects, based on its input data. And whether those answer-shaped objects are actually correct is entirely a matter of accident. Which can have catastrophic consequences. In this case, it is likely to lead to people not getting benefits or entitlements they are entitled to, not doing things they are supposed to do, and (in the latter case) potentially going to jail. It is likely to have catastrophic consequences for people's trust in government. But Judith Collins clearly doesn't see that as her problem, and may view it as an advantage, another way of saving money.

The problem for the government is that once it has built an automated lie machine, people may wonder why we are paying our political class enormous amounts of money to lie to us on a daily basis, when such lies can so easily be generated by a machine. But Judith Collins has an enormous parliamentary pension package, so she probably doesn't see that as her problem either.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. First up is the third reading of Dan Bidois' Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill, which will be followed by the committee stage of Deborah Russell's Family Proceedings (Dissolution for Family Violence) Amendment Bill. This will be followed by the second readings of Katie Nimon's Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (Improving Mental Health Outcomes) Amendment Bill (which will whizz through) and Camilla Belich's Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill (which National will vote down because they love wage thieves). If the House moves quickly it will make a start on Tracey McLellan's Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill, and if it gets that far, there will finally be a ballot tomorrow.