DPMC's secret guide on how to be a minister

One of the common criticisms governments make of oppositions is that they're inexperienced, and have no idea how to be ministers or run the country (so its better to stick with the status quo). But why don't they know? Changes of government are and ought to be a regular feature in a parliamentary democracy like ours, but weirdly there's no real preparation for them for the people concerned. There's no training course on "how to be a minister" for MPs, for example - even though it would seem to be an obvious necessity which would help improve governance overall. While the Cabinet Manual is public, there isn't a public "how-to" guide so would-be Ministers can prepare themselves for the job and see what it entails.

There is however a private one. DPMC publishes an Induction Handbook for New Ministers, outlining basic constitutional responsibilities, the nuts and bolts of a ministerial office, and how to do the job. I heard about this earlier this year, and requested it under the OIA. DPMC initially released a redacted version, but after a complaint to the Ombudsman, you can read the whole thing here:

What did DPMC try and hide? The anodyne introduction, basic explanations of the role, an obvious statement about social media and hats, basic HR and time management advice, a sentence telling ministers to ask their agencies if they got along with Treasury, and some basic stuff about setting policy priorities and compromising on them. All of this was withheld as "free and frank", with an implicit claim that its release would inhibit similar advice in future. Which both suggests a fairly extreme level of paranoia and self-consciousness about even the most banal advice, but also a complete failure to consider the public interest. There are no deep, dark secrets here. Instead, DPMC seems to have complete contempt for the public, and believe that we have no right to know even the most basic and obvious information about how this country is governed.

(They also tried to withhold the fact that no cellphones are allowed in the cabinet room, something we all knew anyway, as prejudicial to national security...)

As noted above, I think this sort of information being public would be hugely beneficial to governance in this country, and help ease changes of government. It would also help the public understand how our government actually works, and what actually goes on in a minsiterial office, and what they can and can't do. I am shocked that it is not prominently and proactively published. Who does DPMC's policy of secrecy serve, other than officials wanting to "break in" and dominate new and inexperienced ministers?

Oh.

Anyway, it's public now, and hopefully MPs will use it in future to prepare themselves for office. While they're at it, their staff might also want to look at DIA's Ministerial Adviser Deskfile, which is a similar guide for new Ministerial Advisers.

Nothing has changed II

The IPCA report into the (non)-investigation into Jevon McSkimming found that it was undermined by senior members of the police executive working to protect McSkimming's career prospects. Then-Commissioner Andrew Coster apparently wanted McSkimming to succeed him as Commissioner, and so wanted everything swept under the rug.

...which immediately made me think of a past IPCA report from 2021. The report found a toxic culture and pervasive culture of bullying within the police, including:

intolerance of questioning or dissent; favouritism and protectionism; marginalisation and ostracism; abuse and intimidatory conduct; sexist and racist behaviour; inappropriate office culture, and lack of empathy and caring.

[...]

"Given the reported intolerance of diversity of thought and the existence of cliques based on loyalty, it is not surprising to find that almost all interviewees complained that [appointment] processes are biased and unfair.

"More generally, we were told by many people that in particular workplaces, including Police National Headquarters, everyone knew who was going to be appointed to the majority of positions before they were ever advertised, and there was no point in applying for a position unless you had already been 'shoulder-tapped' for it.

"Senior positions are believed to go to favoured people, regardless of actual or potential skills in leading and managing people.

...which is exactly what was going on here. Coster wanted his mate McSkimming for the job, and was willing to overlook anything including allegations of sexual assault to get him there.

And what happens if you try and change this, or if you're not part of the in-group? This. The boy's club protects its own, and tries to drive out anyone who is not one of them.

The IPCA talks more in the McSkimming report about the problems of police culture, of groupthink and cliques and loyalty, the "Them and Us" mentality, and the resulting tolerance for unethical behaviour. It thinks that things have changed since 2007. it is clear from its more recent reports that they have not. The police culture is still utterly toxic. It is still clique-based and stresses internal loyalty over professionalism and adherence to the law. And that is completely unacceptable.

Nothing has changed

In 2004 the government was forced to launch the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct after allegations of rape and sexual assault by high-ranking police officers. The inquiry found that police systematically disbelieved victims and covered for their own. It recommended significant changes to the Independent Police Conduct authority and police integrity system, and a decade-long monitoring program to ensure the changes stuck.

Twenty years later, and we learn that once again a high-ranking police officer has been accused of sexual assault and corruption. And the IPCA found that the police's response was not just to disbelieve the victim, but to prosecute her, while systematically covering for their own in order to protect their chances of promotion. The cover-up was enabled by those at the very top of the police: then-Commissioner Andrew Coster, two Deputy Commissioners and an Assistant Commissioner, as well as by numerous underlings. It only fell apart because the perpetrator - who Coster clearly wanted to succeed him as Commissioner - had his computer searched, resulting in a sudden prosecution and conviction for knowing possession of child pornography. A bunch of senior police officers have already quit, the IPCA has recommended beginning employment proceedings against others, and former Commissioner Coster seems likely to lose his cushy retirement job as the regime's "social investment" czar. The IPCA has also recommended significant changes to the police integrity system, including independent review of police employment and prosecution decisions, and the regime seems to be taking this seriously.

All of which is good. But is it enough? Because it is clear from all of this that despite the Bazeley inquiry, nothing has changed. The police are still a deeply corrupt institution, which covers up serious criminal offending by its own, allows them to act with impunity, and even tries to promote them into senior roles. It's still a boy's club, it's still rotten, even after the past changes and a decade of monitoring. And the worry is that no matter what changes are made, the police will make the right noises, pretend to go along with it, and then go right back to their business as usual of raping and abusing and lying and covering up. Behaving exactly like the gangs they pretend to be fighting. And its hard to see how the organisation can retain any public confidence whatsoever after this.

As other people have said, when the tree is producing this many bad apples, you don't just throw them away one by one. You cut off the whole branch - or cut down the tree, tear up the roots, and start again from scratch. And maybe we need to do that with the police.

A murderous policy

When the police relaxed pursuit policy in 2023, allowing them to go back to chasing people like mad dogs regardless of the supposed offence committed or the risk to the public, they were warned that people would die as a result. Two years on, the numbers are in, and the warnings were correct:

The research, which has yet to be peer reviewed, showed while the raw crash numbers didn’t show an obvious drop, once underlying trends were factored in, the 2020 policy was linked to about 19 fewer crashes a month than would otherwise have occurred.

[...]

The result of that 2023 policy U-turn? “A large, immediate increase in crashes” of roughly 74 a month, based on modelling.

“The finding is stark,” the study concludes: “The reversal of the restrictive policy did not simply return the situation to the previous status quo; it was associated with a far greater number of crashes than had existed prior to 2020.”

There were at least 11 fatal crashes associated with the new policy. Those crashes - and the associated deaths - were completely avoidable. But its clear that the police would rather behave like mad dogs, and endanger everyone, rather than simply doing the safe and sensible thing of arresting people later. Which says something about the relative values they put on our lives and their (Cartman voice) "authority".

Bulldozing the fast-track

When National rammed its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law through Parliament last year, they expected it to be a rubber-stamp. Developers would donate "apply", committees would approve, and the public would be bulldozed out of the way for their bold new projects which would revitalise the economy.

It didn't work out like that. Rather than just blindly rubber-stamping things, the EPA and the approval panels actually tried to do their jobs properly, rejecting applications, inviting comment from affected parties to supplement the (often incomplete) information on environmental impacts, and imposing conditions to address them - as required by law. The regime is not happy with this. So they've introduced an amendment bill to increase ministerial powers, prevent court challenges, and cut the public out of the process even more. They rammed it through the House yesterday and sent it to select committee - which has allowed just ten days for submissions. Why? The submissions page notes that:

The Chairperson intends to discuss the bill timeline with the Members on the Environment Committee, with the aim of reporting back to the House by early December 2025. If the committee agrees, public hearings are likely to take place in the week of 24 November 2025.

The regime has a majority on the committee, so "committee approval" means a partisan vote to shorten the process and cut the public out. They're basically bulldozing the fast-track.

And they're abusing parliament to do so. Bills are meant to be sent to committee for four to six months - and this one was. The House can shorten that process when it sends the bill to committee, but that's a "debatable motion", imposing a cost in parliamentary time. The Minister responsible for the bill filed no such motion, and made no mention of the planned shorter timeframe - so he nakedly lied to the House. This regime lacks the courage to do its dirty deeds openly.

Why the rush? Because the regime knows they are going to lose the election. So they have to try and get this through, and get projects approved to pay off their donors as quickly as possible. Normal parliamentary timeframes won't let them do that, so they're stomping all over our democracy to enable their corruption.

(This BTW is why a mere normal repeal of fast-track is not enough. It must not just be repealed, but all outstanding applications need to be dumped in the bin, and any consents purportedly "granted" by this corrupt abuse of process need to be legislative cancelled, with no compensation to the donors. We can not allow corruption to be rewarded. It is that simple.)

Given the importance of the bill, I really should submit on it. But given the abbreviated timeframe, I won't have time to gather evidence or craft arguments, and it is clear that the regime does not want me to. So instead I'm simply likely to say "I oppose this bill", and criticise their process while I'm at it. Anti-democrats like Rimmer and James Meager will no doubt sneer at this as a "low-quality" submission which adds nothing new. But they can hardly complain about a lack of real submissions if they don't give people the time to make them. And fundamentally, neither the regime nor parliament nor the committee are taking the process seriously, so I don't see why we should either. The only submission this bill - and this regime - deserves is "fuck you!". But of course it would be "unparliamentary" to say it so clearly.

Why fake breath tests are a problem for police

Last Friday we learned that over a hundred police officers were being investigated for faking over 30,000 non-evidential breath tests. Subsequent stories have revleaed that the faking was done in a similar manner to the massive breath-test fraud in Victoria, and likely for similar reasons: to meet productivity targets. But none of the staff have been suspended, and the police just don't seem that concerned that a huge number of their staff have been implicated in a nationwide pattern of fraud (meaning: they were likely sharing information about how to do this), or why it may have happened.

Which is typical of the police as an institution. But it is a problem, and the reason why ought to be obvious to everyone: because none of these officers can do their jobs effectively any more. They've shown they are liars. And having lied about something for trivial reasons - to apparently meet management targets - who's to say that they won't lie for more important reasons as well, such as securing convictions?

The fact that a police officer has done this automatically impacts their credibility in court, and taints every piece of evidence they have ever given or managed or collected. They can't give evidence in court, they can't manage a chain of custody, they can't even be allowed at a crime scene, because who's to say they didn't plant something now? (its not as if it hasn't happened before, after all...) Any competent defence lawyer will be asking whether anyone involved in a case has ever faked a breath test (or been investigated by police for doing so), and using that to undermine the police's case or build a case for appeal. If the police can't see this, they are stupid, arrogant morons.

Meanwhile, RNZ has talked to a couple of employment lawyers, who are shocked by the scale of deceit, and draw the obvious conclusion that there is a problem with management and culture. But they also talk about how the police may be reluctant to fire people for this as being fired for deceit in a position of public trust would mean they would never be able to work in such a position again. But that's what should happen! We certainly shouldn't keep untrustworthy people in such positions to avoid people recognising that they are untrustworthy! But at the end of the day, the police will protect their own, and management will protect themselves. Holding people accountable will mean answering serious questions about why this happened and the role of police management and culture in encouraging it. Besides, the police have a target to increase numbers by 500 officers. Sacking a hundred would blow a huge hole in that. So its easier for them if its all just swept under the carpet. And if that means turning a blind eye to a bunch of untrustworthy, corrupt cops, that's a price they're willing to make Aotearoa pay. The question is whether we let them...

Climate Change: A death cult regime

The UN reported today that the world will fail to prevent dangerous levels of climate change, and is instead on track for a catastrophic 2.5 degrees of warming by the end of the century. Which means fires, floods, famines, and whole parts of the globe becoming uninhabitable. meanwhile, the national regime is gutting our climate change laws, weakening targets, severing the connection between the ETS and our international target, cutting the independent Climate Commission out of the policy process, and pushing back the target for a carbon neutral public service by 25 years. They're also removing consultation requirements, to prevent the public from demanding that they act. And of course all of this is going to be rammed through under urgency.

The message is clear: National does not think climate change is a problem, and certainly not one worth doing anything about. And they're doing this just a fortnight after (another) giant weather disaster which caused enormous disruption and millions of dollars of damage. They're naked climate deniers, determined to kill us all.

This death cult regime has to go. And when we've kicked them out, the next government is going to have to mash the "revert" button and undo all this bullshit, and then move on to real climate change policy: fully-priced agricultural emissions, no pollution subsidies, a phase-out of fossil fuels and other dirty technology, and prosecution of climate criminals and ecocidaires. We have the technology to live cleanly; it just means huge economic losses for the status quo. But they should not be allowed to put their wealth and greed above our lives. Make them pay they way, and give them a choice: clean up, or go out of business!

38,000 unemployed under National

The September labour market statistics are out, showing unemployment has risen again to 5.3%. There are now 160,000 unemployed - 38,000 more than when National took office.

National's response to this disaster has been to throw people off benefits in a desperate effort to cut costs. But that doesn't actually help people get work - it just makes them suffer more. But what would a Minister on a $304,800 a year salary and an enormous tax-free pile of hoarded houses know or care about that?

More racism from the regime

Another day, and more racism from the regime:

The government's decision to axe schools' obligation to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi has shocked groups representing school boards, teachers and principals.

The government had been moving to change the emphasis on the requirement in the Education Act, but on Tuesday announced it would remove it altogether.

Education Minister Erica Stanford said the treaty was the Crown's responsibility, not schools'.

Except schools are agents of the state, and the law is how the state meets that responsibility. So what does repealing it - and all the other similar laws by which the state implements that specific responsibility - tell us about the state's future intentions towards meeting its obligations?

(Hint: look at climate change policy pre-Zero Carbon Act, where we had promises, but no implementation or accountability. Yeah, that...)

Worse: Rimmer says this will be enacted "by the end of the year". Which means no real select committee process or consideration, let alone public consultation. I guess their experience with the Treaty Principles and Regulatory Standards Bill has led them to double down on stomping on our democracy as well...

Which just means that this law is illegitimate, like the regime which passed it. And its just another thing which will have to go into the Treaty Restoration Bill which will have to be passed by the next government under all-stages urgency as its first order of business. Because we have an "undo" button too, and we will need to use it.

Sometimes you win

I'm a regular submitter on legislation, and one of my pet topics is transparency. A lot of recent laws propose secrecy clauses - excluding particular information from the scope of the Official Information Act, or creating new, bespoke statutory barriers to release, usually after whining from some industry lobby shocked at the existence of a constitutional law that has been on the books for 40 years. But there are also cases where some body, whether unintentionally or by design, is excluded from the OIA.

One of these bodies was the Valuers Registration Board, the body which is meant to register and discipline valuers (the people who decide how much land is worth, for example if you're a Prime Minister who wants your holiday home valued at a lower level so you can pay less rates). It was created by a 1948 law, and viewed as a mostly private institution, so its absence from the Act wasn't surprising. But the law is being updated by the new Valuers Bill, which weirdly had failed to add it in. So I did a quick submission, copying the boilerplate from the last time I'd done this, pointing out that attitudes to transparency had significantly shifted since 1982 (when presumably someone made a decision not to include it), and in particular it seemed odd that a publicly-owned and funded, ministerially appointed body for registering and disciplining valuers would be treated differently from similar bodies overseeing teachers, builders, architects, plumbers, and security guards. And rather than feeding the submissions to an AI and then saying "fuck off, peasants!", the committee actually listened:

On balance, we consider that the Board plays a public role, given the importance of valuations to property markets and property rights. In our view, the Board meets key criteria for being subject to the OIA. We also heard that applying the OIA would not place an unreasonable administrative burden on the Board.

We recommend amending Schedule 4 of the bill to insert the Valuers Registration Board into Schedule 1, Part 2 of the Ombudsmen Act. We note that an organisation named under Schedule 1, Part 2 of the Act is subject to the Official Information Act.

So that's a win. Now if only they'll listen when it comes to the Commerce Commission or Shane Jones' secrecy shield for fishers...

Rotten to the core

There's not one, but two police corruption stories today. In the first, the police are refusing to say how many staff they are investigating over their internet use in the wake of Jevon McSkimming's prosecution for possessing objectionable material. In the second, over a hundred officers are being investigated for faking breath-test results, which from the timing was done in an effort to meet new Ministerial targets. Which is troubling for two reasons. Firstly, because the police received millions of dollars in incentive payments on the basis of those fraudulent tests (isn't there a name for that?) And second, because police who will lie to meet a breath test target will lie about other things as well - like who committed a crime, or whether they have a reasonable basis for that search. It calls their basic organisational honesty into question.

It is clear from this that the entire police force is rotten to the core. It needs a thorough cleanout, from the top down.

Luxon is a poster boy for greed

Yesterday, when talking about his proposed capital gains tax, Labour leader Chris Hipkins pointed out an unpleasant truth about the Prime Minister:

"He sold four houses last year and made more money, tax free, from doing that than he made in the prime minister's salary, which he paid tax on every dollar of.

"Why should he be able to make more than $600,000 in one year from flipping properties whilst the people who go out and work hard every day for a living pay tax on every single dollar that they earn?"

He made more from flipping houses than he did from his huge prime minister's salary, as much as a dozen of us would earn in a year. But unlike those dozen median income earners, he didn't pay any tax on his side-hustle income. It is simply obscene.

Luxon thinks this is unfair, but its not. Luxon is emblematic of a social problem in our country: that the rich are thieves. They steal from us, they do not pay their way, and they write the rules to ensure that that theft is legal. Luxon, a rich-lister worth between $20 and $30 million, is basically a poster boy for what is wrong with our society, a perfect illustration that you don't get rich (or stay rich) by living honestly. He chisels us at every opportunity, demanding to be paid to live in his own house, demanding cuts to his rates, and now demanding that we all ignore his greed and tax cheating. We should not ignore it. Instead, we should throw this rich prick out on his arse, and tax his capital gains and his wealth so that he pays his fair share and no longer distorts our society. And if he doesn't like that, he used to run an airline, so I'm sure he knows what to do.

Still useless

So, Labour has finally, shambolically, released its capital gains tax policy, and as signalled it is a weak extension of the bright-line test, covering only non-residential property (but not farms), pre-compromised into oblivion in a desperate effort to avoid offending anybody. When they teased this idea back in September, I said that they're going to pay the political price of a CGT, in order to not raise enough money to do anything useful. All cost, no benefit. That hasn't changed. About the only thing going for this policy is that it can be implemented quickly, within a year of an election. And it can be extended later to cover the things Labour has excluded, like farms and shares and other financial instruments, some of which might require tricky policy work. But Labour isn't talking about that, so they're not even teasing incrementalism here. So even if you have an optimistic view that this is part of a secret plan to incrementally impose a comprehensive CGT one sector at a time, Labour simply can't be trusted to follow through on it.

(As for their quid pro quo - three free GP visits a year for everyone! - they've lumbered it with a pile of NeoLiberal rationing and a de facto universal ID card. Which is just intrusive, pointless waste. FFS, just fund health...)

It is clear that the state needs money to pay for the things we want it to do. It is also clear that we need to arrest inequality and the political power of the ultra-rich, by taking money away from the wealthy and using it for public purposes. Labour's bullshit half-measure doesn't really do any of these things. So I won't be voting for them. Instead, I'll be voting for a party which promises an actual wealth tax, which whacks the rich and raises enough revenue to actually fix things. I encourage everyone on the left, who wants proper public services and hates billionaires, to do the same. Labour's half-measure is OK as a transitional step towards a real wealth tax. But its not enough - and looking at their institutional culture of complying-in-advance with the demands of the rich, nothing from them ever will be.

We should be celebrating democratic engagement, not limiting it

This parliamentary term has seen a succession of deeply unpopular legislation, leading to an unprecedented number of select committee submissions as people take the only opportunity they've been given to tell the regime that they hate its agenda. Given that we're supposed to be a democracy, you'd expect the government to be celebrating this massive increase in democratic engagement. Instead, they want to limit it:

The MP in charge of handling record-breaking submissions on the controversial Treaty principles bill says politicians may need to think about requiring proof of identity or citizenship if a surge in feedback is not kept under control.

[...]

“While it is natural for controversial legislation to draw wider engagement, the rise of coordinated, largely online campaigns risks undermining the committee’s ability to identify and consider substantive, good-faith submissions.”

Meager said MPs could need to consider whether organisations should be allowed to submit on behalf of others, or if individuals should have to submit their own views.

With few restrictions in place on making a submission, it was possible proof of identity or citizenship could be necessary to guard against abuse of the select committee process, including any use of artificial intelligence tools to generate submissions on behalf of fake people.

“I do not think that is a road our Parliament wants to go down, but it is a very real and possible consequence of recent submission campaigns,” Meager said of implementing additional verification processes.

Which I think again shows the anti-democratic instincts of this regime. Not content with election rigging and suppressing protest, they want to stop us from telling them (and each other) what we think of their bullshit laws. We should not stand for it. A parliament which walls itself off from the people ceases to be a representative body - with all that that implies for its legitimacy and durability.

Ironically, one reason submission numbers are so huge is precisely because of the contempt the regime has shown for the normal democratic process by avoiding the normal consultation and policy development process. If they'd followed those processes, people would likely have had their say earlier, and ideally the regime would have got the message that we hate them and their laws and backed off a little. So maybe its a case of "we'll be less activist if you'll be less shit"...

Drawn

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

• Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill (Laura McClure)
• Social Media (Age-Restricted Users) Bill (Catherine Wedd)

So double social media bills. Joy. While the first may be justified, the second has huge privacy risks, and just smacks of another attempt at censoring the web for young people to stop them from finding out who they are. The good news is that its unlikely to make it to a third reading vote before this dogshit zombie parliament will be dissolved for the election next year.

There were 76 bills in the ballot today.

Strike day

Today is strike day. Teachers, nurses, doctors, and assorted other medical professionals and public servants are all on strike today. Its the largest strike since the 1970's, and in numbers it exceeds the Great Strike of 1913 (though that went on for months, not just a single day. Still, early days yet...).

The regime says they don't understand what the strikers want. This is bullshit. The teachers, nurses, doctors etc have all been crystal clear: a decent, above-inflation pay rise, rather than effective pay cuts. Safe staffing, so they're not being overworked and those in their care are not at risk. No erosion of conditions. If the regime can't or won't understand that, that's on them. Likewise if they claim to "have no money" because they gave it all away to landlords, rich people, and the cancer industry.

Unsurprisingly, the public overwhelmingly supports the strikes. The regime needs to listen to that, and start making offers public servants can accept. If not, we'll just have to de-elect the selfish pricks, and get a government which will.

The Right to Repair Bill and parliamentary cooperation

Marama Davidson's Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill was due for its second reading today, but was instead discharged without a vote. Why? Because when the time came, Davidson was not in the House, so the chair dumped it and moved to the next item of business (conveniently, a National member's bill).

Watching the video, this all happens very quickly. Pugh announces the end of the previous item of business, the clerk fluffs reading the bill's name, Pugh looks around, and immediately calls Nationals' Tom Rutherford. Who gets as far as saying "she's not here", and the camera pans across - and Davidson is in her seat (she wasn't ten seconds ago). So there's definitely some eagerness from the chair to move on there. At the conclusion of that piece of business, Davidson politely rises and asks for leave for the bill to be reinstated, which National denies.

Interestingly, in between those two events, the Speaker had taken the chair at the end of the dinner break and asked the House for leave to alter proxy limits to enable MPs to flee back to their electorates and avoid the bad weather. This was of course granted. And maybe the Greens were assuming that having cooperated in the management of the House, the House would cooperate with them. If so, they were played for suckers.

It was clear long ago, but this is another reminder: there is no benefit to cooperating with this regime. And therefore opposition parties should not do it. If the regime asks for leave, even over something like letting their MPs go back to their rural electorates in an emergency, the response should either be "concessions in advance" or "go fuck yourselves" (or, in this case: "you'll get your leave when we get ours"). And if the regime doesn't like that, they can either waste parliamentary time on a pointless vote, or they can restore the cooperation required for parliament to function easily. Because at this stage, with the way they are doing things, there is no point in anyone cooperating. And for those of us outside parliament, there's no point pretending that the House is anything other than a dictatorship for the regime, and no point respecting an obviously rotten institution.

But the thing the regime has forgotten is that they will not be in power forever. The zombie house has less than a year to run, and then there will be an election, and hopefully the boot will be on the other foot. And when it is, I hope National is given a fucking good kicking with it, to remind them of why they should play nice.

Raupatu

That is the only way to describe last night's passage of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Bill. Drafted in a response to a Māori court victory over the foreshore and seabed, the bill changes the rules, making successful claims all but impossible, and forces already determined cases to be reheard under the new test. It is simply a confiscation. it is a violation of te Tiriti o Waitangi, the ultimate law of this land. It is immoral and it is wrong.

Like all raupatu, it must also be reversed. To their credit, the opposition are making the right noises about this, and you would hope that they will make it (and the reversal of National's other odious, Tiriti-violating legislation on Māori wards, section 7AA, the elimination of Treaty clauses, and the "de-Māorification" of the health and education systems) a high priority. Of course, mere reversal will not be enough: any cases reheard under National's racist new rules will need to be reheard under the proper ones. But that waste of judicial resources is squarely on the present regime, who apparently could not tolerate Māori winning in court even once.

Meanwhile, in another test of how racist the colonial parliament is, Speaker Gerry Brownlee is again threatening Te Pāti Māori for burning a copy of his regime's racist bill on Parliament steps. Which is interesting, because when Rimmer drove a land-rover up those same steps, Brownlee said he could do nothing. It simply was not a violation of Parliament's rules. Those rules have not been changed, so either Brownlee is going to have to invent some in order to punish his enemies in a nakedly arbitrary and racist way, or he will have to admit that what goes for the white supremacist also applies to Māori representatives.

Sadly, the former path can't be ruled out under this Speaker. But if Brownlee wants to set fire to Parliament's legitimacy and social licence, then I guess he can. And all future governments will pay the price for that.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. First up is the committee stage of the of the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill. Following that are the second readings of Marama Davidson's Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill and Carl Bates' Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill. If the House moves quickly it may make a start on the first reading of Cameron Brewer's Life Jackets for Children and Young Persons Bill, but given how they dragged stuff out last time that may be a forlorn hope.

This regime is a failure

When running for election in 2023, National's key promise was simple: "we will lower the cost of living". They've repeated that mantra every day since. Last week in question time, they were gloating about "lowering inflation" in a desperate effort to bat away the regime's terrible record on unemployment and economic growth. So how's that working out for them? Badly:

Inflation has edged to a 15-month-high on the back of higher rents, rates, electricity, and food, touching the top of the Reserve Bank's target band but unlikely to prevent further rate cuts.

Stats NZ said the consumer price index rose 1.0 percent in the three months ended September, pushing the annual rose to 3.0 percent from 2.7 percent, the highest since June last year.

The 11.3 percent rise in electricity prices was the single biggest contributor to the annual increase.

"Annual electricity increases are at their highest since the late 1980s, when there were several major reforms in the electricity market," Stats NZ senior manager of prices Nicola Growden said.

In other news, rent is unaffordable, butter is unaffordable, meat has become unaffordable, while the regime tries to suppress wages to keep profits high for its donors and cronies. No wonder people are angry!

This regime is a failure on its own terms. They set themselves a simple target, and they blew it - ruining countless lives in the process. The sooner we kick them out on their arses, the better.

Trumpism in Kaipara

Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson is known as the "Trump of the North" due to his racism and authoritarianism. And now he seems to be mirroring his idol's contempt for democracy, calling an emergency meeting of the Kaipara District Council in an effort to overturn the election results:

Craig Jepson, the outgoing mayor of Kaipara, has called an emergency meeting for Thursday evening challenging the results of the district and regional council elections.

Jepson had endorsed his deputy Jonathan Larsen to succeed him, but on the preliminary vote Larsen is just five votes ahead of challenger Snow Tane. And Newsroom has been told that Tane is set to overhaul him, when election officials announce the special votes tomorrow.

Councillor Pera Paniora, whose Māori ward seat will be disestablished from Friday, says many older Māori and other voters had cast special votes for Tane.

They were dismayed at moves by Jepson and Larsen like banning karakia at council meetings, and disestablishing the Māori ward, she says.

The Local Electoral Act includes provisions allowing candidates or electors to apply for a recount or challenge election results. None of them require a council meeting. Jepson is either attempting to bypass them (and try and illegally direct the local electoral officer to apply instead, and prevent results from being published), or they are trying to get the council to spend public money to support the appeal of his favoured candidate. Neither is acceptable.

Jepson claims there was misconduct in the election (signage for a different election which may not be illegal and which he thinks may have affected Kaipara's). If so that question can be determined by a judge. But in the meantime, he just looks like an outgoing mayor trying to use the council to put his thumb on the scale and overturn a vote rather than accept the will of the people.

Against uniforms in Parliament

On Tuesday, in an act of peak petty tory vindictiveness, Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee threatened to retaliate against Te Pāti Māori for being Māori by revisiting the question of Parliament's dress standards and forcing everyone to wear ties again. Which is about what you'd expect from a former schoolteacher at a stuck-up toff school. Today, the Greens' Ricardo Menéndez March has pointed out the obvious problem with this:

"I do caution against any one Speaker trying to be the fashion police because we do have an intergenerational parliament with several cultures and backgrounds and trying to conform to a very specific dress code will only diminish that representation."

"If voters don't like how a party is presenting, they can punish us on election day," he said.

Menéndez March said any changes to the rules will need to be clearly spelled out, and putting someone in a tuxedo was no guarantee of improved behaviour.

And he's right. Aotearoa has changed massively since Brownlee was born. And because we changed our electoral system, the people represented in Parliament have changed to, to better reflect our society. Our Parliament should reflect those changes - at least if it wants to remain relevant to and legitimate in modern Aotearoa. And that means accepting that not everyone in Aotearoa, or everyone elected to parliament, is a white man who wears capitalism's uniform of a suit and tie. But then, part of the problem is that a significant faction - let's call them "National" - refuse to accept those changes, and also think that it is OK to force everyone to wear their uniform regardless of political belief. That we should all be forced to display allegiance to values and culture we do not share, to conform to their way of doing things.

The polite thing to say here is that that is not appropriate in a liberal and democratic society. But I'd rather put it another way: fuck that, and fuck them. If they wan tto wear a foreign uniform to show that they're good little serfs, then that's up to them; but no-one else should be forced to dress like a bootlicker.

And if Brownlee goes through with his threat, Menéndez March has shown us the perfect way to protest it: wear top hats and tails like its 1910. Make parliament look as ridiculous, irrelevant, and out-of-touch as Brownlee is. Malicious compliance all the way. Which should also include constant points of order complaining that the Speaker is not wearing a wig and robes like he should be, or that his tie is crooked, or tied with the incorrect knot, or that the Prime Minister and his cabinet are wearing ill-fitting blue sacks. Parliament can waste a lot of time on that bullshit if Brownlee wants it to. and he is absolutely asking for it if he pushes ahead on this.

Or, he can just leave people the fuck alone and stop trying to police their clothing choices, like a normal person. His choice.

The obvious question

Stuff has a story about ACC lying in an OIA response, and how it was exposed by a whistleblower under the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Act 2022. Its the usual story: journalist hears about expensive party, sends in an OIA request, is pressured to agree to limit scope to parties which cost over a certain amount in an effort to prevent disclosure, then when it turned out that it did cost more than that due to travel costs, they decided they were really travelling for "other work" so they could pretend those costs didn't count. And everyone involved knew it was wrong:

Another staffer disagreed with the manager.

Their message said: “‘other work’ This is wrong. Fundamentally wrong.”

In the discussions, ACC staff had said they did not believe that all of those 11 staff would have flown to Wellington had the farewell function not been held.

The manager admitted it was dodgy. “Everybody knows that,” they said. They then said they would personally sign off the response.

That statement indicates a willingness to take responsibility for the illegal decision. Which raises the obvious question: have they? Have they faced an employment process over it? If not, why not? Because knowingly violating your legal obligations as a public servant is the very definition of "serious misconduct". And people should be fired for it.

Palmerston North keeps the cookers out!

Local body election results were announced on Saturday, and it seems that Palmerston North has kept the cookers out! Mayor grant Smith was handily re-elected, and while progress results showed the Greens' Kaydee Zabelin losing her council seat to Labour's Zulfiqar Butt, the preliminary results (which included Saturday-morning voters) reversed that. Of course, it could change again in the final results as preferences shift on the specials, but its a good place to be in. Meanwhile, no outright cookers were elected (though cooker queen Jackie Wheeler is next in line and could still get in on special votes). But the council has shifted slightly right, with retiring leftish councillor Patrick Handcock replaced by keep rates low loonie Hayden Fitzgerald.

On Māori wards, its also good news, with Palmerston North voting decisively to say "fuck you" to the regime and keep its Māori ward. Horizons was looking like a failure on the progress results, but the preliminaries have reversed that, with "keep" now enjoying a 120 vote lead. So its going to come down to the special votes, due out at the end of the week.

Climate Change: The end of bipartisanship

National has historically been a climate denial party, first refusing to recognise the reality of climte change, then refusing to recognise the reality of its impacts and what we needed to do to stop it, all in service to its farmer-polluter backers. Still, by 2017 that position was no longer tenable to any party which wanted to be thought of as normal, and so in 2019 they were forced into a bipartisan deal to support the Zero Carbon Act. As part of that deal, both the goals and mechanisms of the Zero Carbon Act were weakened, but it was believed to be worth it to finally get stability in climate policy, and break the cycle of setting targets but doing nothing which led to failure.

Except that now National has torn up that deal and taken a big stinky shit on it, with their plans to lower the methane target to a level inconsistent with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees:

The government has announced "science-based" biogenic methane targets for 2050, which it says will provide exporters with a clear pathway to reduce emissions while maintaining productivity and trade competitiveness.

The target would be set at a range of 14-24 percent below 2017 levels by 2050, reflecting the findings of the independent Methane Science Review released in 2024, it said on Sunday.

They've also committed to not pricing agricultural emissions - meaning 53% of our emissions will be effectively uncontrolled, and making it impossible to meet even our 2030 target of a 50% reduction. They say this is because agricultural emissions reduction technology is just around the corner - as it has been for the last twenty years - but with no policy to force its adoption, that technology is effectively an irrelevant fantasy. Technology which will never be used simply does not exist in a real sense, except as a rhetorical shield for inaction.

The regime says their new lower target is "science-based", as Newsroom's Marc Daalder points out, this is technically correct, in that

...the Government asked scientists, “What target would be required to ensure New Zealand’s agricultural sector provides no contribution to solving climate change?” and then selected the number the scientists replied with.

This is shameful backtracking, which will condemn kiwis and their children to a worse future. It may violate our FTA with the European Union. And it is certainly illegal, in that in July the International Court of Justice ruled that the 1.5 degree target was binding and states have an obligation to meet it. So hopefully the EU will begin sanctions, and some small, sympathetic nation will sue us for compensation for the extra climate damage we will be causing.

But while its shameful, it may not last: National seems to be on the way out at the next election, and the next government can and will have to fix this, simply to restore international credibility and avoid those suits (and because the Greens, who will be running their climate policy, won't stand for anything less).

And it is an opportunity. Because having repudiated bipartisanship, National can no longer complain when the next government does the same, legislates stronger targets, immediately brings agriculture into the ETS at the processor level with no subsidies, and pushes hard for herd reduction to limit the environmental damage caused by the polluting dairy industry. Because if National / Federated Farmers won't keep their deals, there's no reason for us to either, especially when they are so obviously harmful. Climate policy needs to be stronger, and farmers need to finally pay their way. The next government should make sure that happens.

Reported back

When Rimmer pushed his Regulatory Standards bill though its first reading back in May, he recommended a report-back date of 23 December. That was subsequently brought forward to November, but that doesn't seem to have been quick enough. So now it has unexpectedly been reported back, with of course a select-committee rubberstamp recommending its passage. it's almost as if the "independent" select committee took their marching orders from National's quarterly KPI list or something...

166,300 people submitted on the bill. 98.7% of them were opposed, and only 0.7% in favour. That's 5% of the people who voted last election - a huge amount, and you'd think a democratic government would pay attention to it, given how hard it is to mobilise people to submit normally. But of course they haven't. Instead, the committee majority seeks to minimise the number of submissions, saying that

from additional analysis, 1,317 submissions were identified as containing detail or unique arguments, and were considered to be “substantive” on this basis.

So apparently 165,000 people - 5% of the electorate - don't count. Hopefully the regime will learn the error of that at the next election.

Labour has already committed to repealing this shithouse bill in its first hundred days. So its basically a dead letter, ideological posturing by a dying regime. If ACT is successful in ramming it through, then I look forward to its immediate repeal by the next, democratic, government.

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, 62 still permit routine capital punishment. Today is the day we work to change that.

This year's theme is the same as last year's: the misconception that the death penalty makes people safer. Murdering people does not deter crime. It does not make people safe. If we want to do that, we need to deal with the underlying causes: poverty, inequality, exclusion, discrimination. Build a more just society, and crime will reduce. The purpose of the death penalty is therefore to maintain an unjust society, through terror, oppression, and murder.

While no states abolished the death penalty in the last year, Vietnam removed it for a number of crimes, which should reduce its use. Which is small progress, but still some.

Legalising lawlessness

Back in 2021, RNZ exposed the systematic police practice of coercing "voluntary" photographs from young Māori on the street, leading to a joint IPCA / Privacy Commission report exposing illegality, systematic racism, and widespread ignorance among police officers of the limits on their behaviour, and a formal compliance notice to force them to stop and delete it all (something they still haven't done). This was followed earlier this year with the Supreme Court's ruling in Tamiefuna v R, which upheld the ruling of the Court of Appeal that the police photographing people in public places is a "search" in terms of the BORA (meaning any interference with a reasonable expectation of privacy), and was both unlawful and unreasonable. The police immediately started whining about how it would be impossible for them to do their jobs if they had to actually obey the law, and so predictably the regime ahs announced that they will legalise their lawless behaviour:

Police Minister Mark Mitchell said on Thursday police had been left uncertain about taking people's photos and recording their images in public places.

"Recent court decisions have created uncertainty around police's ability to record images in public places for lawful purposes," he said.

"The proposed amendments will reaffirm the prior common law position, making it clear that police can collect and use images in public spaces, and in places where police are lawfully present, for all lawful policing purposes.

"This includes intelligence gathering and crime prevention and other policing functions and associated activities."

They weren't "uncertain". It was crystal fucking clear that they could not, unless they had a warrant. As the Court of Appeal noted, "there is a reasonable expectation that a person’s photograph will not be deliberately taken and retained for identification purposes by police without a good law enforcement reason", and that seems entirely appropriate. But the police want to be able to spy on us without any restrictions whatsoever, and database us for life, in the absence of any criminal suspicion whatsoever. And that is the attitude of a fascist surveillance state, not the police force of a democratic state which respects privacy and human rights.

Oh, also, the police will be given more powers to "temporarily close areas in response to antisocial behaviour or public safety risks" - which means a blank cheque to shut down protests. So more anti-democratic moves from the regime.

The good news is that "[l]egislation will now be drafted, and the changes will go through a legislative process in due course." Hopefully that process will take as long as possible, so it can be shitcanned by the next government. The regime's cuts to the overworked justice portflio won't help here, and I'd hope that public servants who care about human rights will ensure that it is fully and thoroughly and repeatedly reviewed for BORA compliance. After all, we wouldn't want the regime to get another embarrassing declaration of inconsistency, would we?

Custodes se ipsos non custodient

We give our police significant powers in order to (supposedly) protect the public. But these powers are meant to come with oversight to prevent abuse, either from the judiciary (when issuing warrants), or from parliament and the public (due to annual reporting on their use).

Now capitalism has given them the ability to sidestep that oversight through contracts with private surveillance companies like Auror. And there's significant evidence that police are abusing that capability, and violating their own restrictions on their use. So are the police actually checking? Of course not!

The police say they have not been looking into deliberate misuse of vehicle-spotting cameras by officers despite reports suggesting there had been some, perhaps even tracking, that broke the rules.

Police use of privately-owned automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems jumped almost 50 percent in the year to mid-2024, to over 500,000 times.

Over 8000 officers can access the two systems, which when they enter a number plate can return up to 60 days of footage of the vehicle caught on ANPR cameras.

Newly released internal reports showed "significant" use by staff indicating they were putting the same number plate in again and again.

"This may circumvent the platform's normal controls for the use of ANPR in a tracking context," Police's chief assurance officer Mike Webb warned a camera technology assurance committee meeting last November.

Its almost as if they're deliberately looking the other way, to allow circumvention and abuse by their own.

Its a perfect example of why we need greater controls on private surveillance, and the ability of government agencies to access it. Because the police being able to track people in real time and uncover every aspect of your personal life is a very different thing from an advertiser doing it. The latter can only try and sell you shit; the former can assault, arrest, imprison, or even kill you. The best move would be to outlaw such invasive private surveillance, but if we are not going to do that, we should absolutely forbid its use by state agencies without a warrant, a criminalise the "leaking" of data to them. As the above shows, our watchmen aren't going to watch themselves. So its time we did it for them.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. First up is the second reading of the Auckland Council (Auckland Future Fund) Bill. Following this is the committee stage of Deborah Russell's Companies (Address Information) Amendment Bill, the second reading of Marama Davidson's Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill and the first reading of Cameron Brewer's Life Jackets for Children and Young Persons Bill. If the House moves quickly it may make a start on Julie Anne Genter's Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Coal Mining) Amendment Bill. There should be a ballot for a single bill tomorrow.

Pointless cruelty

That is the only way to describe the regime's sudden policy to apply a parental income test to 18 and 19 year old jobseekers. Legally these people are adults, and their parents have no legal duty to support them. But apparently now they will be made dependent.

The ostensible purpose for this policy is to encourage 18 and 19 year olds to work. That's bullshit, and everyone knows it. The simple fact is that, thanks to National's engineered recession, there are no jobs. And even the people who Chris Luxon thinks 18 and 19 year olds should be working for say so.

(The real reason is to juke the stats so National can meet its self-imposed target to cut jobseeker numbers by 50,000. They can't do it by getting people into work, so they'll just throw them off benefits instead. And they will call this "success").

Cutting benefit eligibility when there are no jobs does not incentivise anything. It is nothing but an exercise in pointless cruelty. But it is so very, very National, isn't it? Its what they always do: blame and victimise the young, rather than admit that they fucked things up.

More attempted voter suppression from National

Back in July, National introduced its Electoral Amendment Bill, containing the widest attack on the right to vote seen in Aotearoa. Rather than following the long-standing policy of wanting people to cote and so making it easy for them, National wanted to make it harder - and especially harder for people less likely to vote for them. And while they clearly felt they couldn't get away with American bullshit like voter ID, they went for widespread voter suppression by closing the roll early. The supposed justification for this was that it would lead to a quicker vote count, but the Electoral Commission has said that's bullshit. The real reason is to eliminate left voters from the voting pool and so rig the election in their favour - just like their American masters do.

That stinks, its undemocratic, and it will destroy public faith in free and fair elections. And now we find out that it could have been even worse: National wanted to prevent people from voting outside their electorates completely:

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith marked the idea of banning people from voting when outside of their electorate “worth exploring” - before ultimately not pursuing it.

This would stop anyone who was working, studying, or on holiday outside of their electorate during the election from casting a vote.

Goldsmith was exploring ideas for cutting down on the number of “special” votes in order to speed up the final count of votes.

You might think that the long advance-voting period would mitigate this, and those expecting to be away on holiday or business could just vote earlier. But the empirical evidence from the last few elections shows that that's not the case: we still get plenty of special votes from those who are casually out of their electorates on election day. Meanwhile, there's a significant group which would be effectively disenfranchised by the move: students. Lots of them enrol when living with their parents, then move away to university, and never update because the move is "temporary" - meaning they are registered in a completely different electorate to the one they actually live in. And this group also tends not to back the current government. So its partisan voter suppression in the name of "efficiency".

Fortunately, they didn't go through with it. But the fact they even considered it shows how desperate National is to rig the election and prevent their enemies from voting - and how convinced they are that they will lose if everyone gets to vote.

We need to defend our democracy from these tyrants. And that starts by throwing them out on their arses next year. But we also clearly need greater constitutional protections for electoral law, to prevent this sort of fuckery in future. And if National won't agree to add further clauses to the reserved provisions, then the next government should push them through by referendum.

Fuck one-way "bipartisanship"

When National came into office, it went on vandalism spree, smashing everything and repealing policies simply because they had been passed by the previous government. Climate change policy was a prime target, with the regime repealing all effective policy and reneging on the bipartisan deal over the Zero Carbon Act, which saw targets and policies watered down in exchange for its supposedly ongoing support. Since then, they've repealed the offshore gas exploration ban - and now they're demanding that Labour commit to not reinstating it, in the name of "bipartisanship":

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has written to Labour leader Chris Hipkins asking him to commit to supporting offshore exploration for natural gas for at least the next 10 years.

In the letter, seen by RNZ, Luxon said if Labour reinstated a ban on offshore gas exploration, it might pose an insurmountable barrier for some investors.

"You have said previously that, if elected, Labour will not spend its time 'pausing, cancelling, and reviewing everything'. But bipartisanship must be more than a political slogan," Luxon wrote to Hipkins on Monday.

"Hence, I am writing to seek a commitment from the Labour Party to support offshore exploration for natural gas for at least the next ten years.

Hipkins has already said "fuck that", and rightly so. If National wants to make deals, they have to keep them. They haven't, so no deals can be made. Their one-sided version of "bipartisanship", where they get to do whatever they want, and everyone else has to simply accept it, is a mug's game.

A policy of murder

Unreinforced masonry buildings killed 40 people in the Christchurch earthquakes, and as a result owners were required to fix their deathtraps. Except they didn't. Instead, they whined and dragged their feet and asked for more time and more time and more time - and now, National is letting them off the hook:

The government says a new "risk-based" approach to earthquake strengthening will save building owners more than $8.2 billion across New Zealand, and reduce risk from derelict empty buildings.

The Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said the current 'New Building Standard' used by engineers was too broad and inconsistent and would be scrapped.

[...]

Replacement standards, called the Earthquake Prone Building system, will mean unreinforced masonry buildings with unsecured facades and walls facing public areas or above neighbouring properties will be deemed earthquake prone.

However, those under three storeys and in towns with under 10,000 people would no longer need strengthening, remediation or warning notices - and could be removed from the earthquake-prone register after having the facade secured.

So, provincial New Zealand will be allowed to keep using its deathtrap buildings, and people will almost certainly die as a result. And when they do, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk will have murdered them. It is that simple. They have decided to put rich people's money ahead of human lives, and that is simply murder.

National wants to eradicate Māori from the law

One of the major legal changes of the last fifty years has been the increasing recognition of te Tiriti o Waitangi and tikanga in law, both through statute and caselaw. The present white supremacist regime, with their Treaty Principles Bill, Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Act, and plans to repeal Treaty clauses, have made it clear that they want to remove statutory recognition. And now they're going after caselaw as well, threatening legislation to simply overturn decisions they don't like:

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the judiciary is creating a “bespoke” legal system that’s not internationally transferable and could deter foreign investors.

These comments – made to an audience of lawyers at a Law Association function last week, and first reported by Law News – came with a commitment to create legislation that would essentially overwrite certain judicial decisions where tikanga and te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations are involved.

The Government is already doing exactly this in regards to its Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Amendment Bill, which seeks to tighten the law around Māori claims to customary rights following significant court decisions.

And according to the Law News report, Goldsmith revealed at last Wednesday’s breakfast event that he planned to go further.

Which you'd think would be an even bigger threat to the legal system and deterrant to foreign investors than the "problem" Goldsmith purports to be solving. After all, a government which overturns decisions which benefit Māori could also overturn decisions which benefit foreign investors. But weirdly racists never think they'll be the victim (because white supremacy).

Not that there is actually a problem here to solve at all. A "bespoke" legal system? You mean a country's laws reflecting the society and historical circumstances of that country, rather than a foreign one on the other side of the world? Quelle horreur! And yet people have no problem accepting this when talking about the USA, or France, or Germany, or Canada, or pretty much anywhere else. It is only when they're only talking about Māori that it becomes a problem. And we all know why.

But Māori are the first people of this country, and tikanga is its first law. Under accepted and completely orthodox legal principles, that law remains until extinguished. And it is a matter of historical fact that parts of it have not been extinguished, and therefore effectively remain in force, to influence the rest of the legal system. This may offend the sensibilities of richwhite lawyers from the fancy suburbs of Auckland, but the fact remains. And if they don't understand it, maybe they should adhere to their professional responsibilities and learn, rather than seeking to eliminate it.

(As for Goldsmith's threat, if this gets to the stage of legislation and passes into law, it just goes on the list of things to be immediately repealed under urgency by the next government. We have a revert button too, and we will use it, so if you want "stability", then stop fucking around and let the judges do their job).

Shameful and cowardly

That is the only way to describe the regime's refusal today to recognise Palestine. Faced with a clear moral test - an illegal occupation and an ongoing genocide - they blew it. They'd rather toady to fascists and génocidaires than do the right thing.

The message is clear: if we want a government which will (eventually) follow the world and do the right thing, we need regime change. Bring on the election, so we can vote these genocidal chickenshits out.

This corruption has to stop

Two weeks ago, we learned that National MP Carl Bates had hidden his interest in 25 properties from parliament's register of pecuniary interests, using the time-honoured technique of pretending that he didn't have an interest in them because he had hidden them in a trust (and while voting to give money to landlords, screw over renters, and of course reduce the bright-line test - all clear conflicts of interest). Today the Registrar of Pecuniary Interests announced an investigation into Bates' false declaration:

Labour MP Glen Bennet wrote to Sir Maarten Wevers, Parliament’s Registrar of Pecuniary Interests, asking him to investigate whether Bates had broken the rules by not listing interest in those 25 properties.

On Thursday, Wevers confirmed he would investigate.

“Having conducted a preliminary review of the request, the Registrar has determined that an inquiry is warranted,” a spokesperson said, in a statement.

If Wevers finds Bates was misleading, the issue will be sent to the Privileges Committee. Which raises the obvious question: will the penalty that body hands out for effectively trying to defraud the public be anything like that handed out to Te Pāti Māori MPs for being Māori? And if not, what does that say about "our" parliament, its legitimacy, and the behaviour it accepts and that it condemns?

Meanwhile, this issue keeps cropping up. Our political class seems fundamentally incapable of being honest with us or behaving with an appropriate degree of probity. Which in turn creates suspicions of corruption and brings the entire institution of Parliament into disrepute. Stronger measures are called for: MPs must be required to completely divest themselves of all assets beyond their homes and interests in Māori land, and shove the money in an index fund or government bonds upon election, just to ensure their minds aren't focused on enriching themselves. If they don't like that, they shouldn't pursue a career in public life.

Of course, they won't do that. Which leaves the alternative. MPs who lie about their interests are deliberately attempting to defraud the public. And they should be criminally prosecuted for it.

Still wibbling

On Monday, Australia, Canada, and the UK finally recognised Palestine. Today, France followed suit. Meanwhile, New Zealand is still wibbling:

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has refused to be drawn over whether New Zealand will join nations taking steps to formally recognised a Palestinian state.

[...]

Peters said there were many days to go, and he planned to spend those days "finding out all the facts".

"We've been waiting 80 long years for an answer here, and a few days finding out all the facts will not be wasted."

Asked what information he was searching for while in New York this week, Peters said "we're here to listen, hear all the arguments, all the facts as best known, and when we have them, we will finalise our decision".

I assume the "facts" he is waiting to hear are his marching orders from the fascist regime in Washington. Because he is clearly not interested in what is happening on the ground in Gaza - genocide, a crime against humanity - or in the views of fellow UN member-states, 80% of whom recognise Palestine. Let alone those of New Zealanders, 40% of whom support immediate recognition (vs 22% who oppose it).

Once upon a time, Aotearoa stood up for what was right on the international stage. This regime clearly will not. If we want a government which reflects our values, they have to go.

(Of course, recognition is only the first step. We need full sanctions and a trade-ban on Israel, an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for genocide and war crimes, and an international effort to identify, locate, and arrest them).

Unravelling the Zero Carbon Act

For twenty years, Aotearoa's climate change policy went through a continuous cycle of governments making big promises, then doing nothing at all to meet them, resulting in targets being unmet and problems getting worse. But in 2019, in a rare act of bipartisanship, Parliament passed the Zero Carbon Act, which was meant to break this cycle. Governments would have to be upfront about what their targets were and how they planned to meet them. And to keep them honest, an independent Climate Commission - He Pou a Rangi - would advise them and review their work, making it clear to the public whether the politicians were doing enough.

Unfortunately, the current regime are climate change deniers who want to revert to the old way of doing nothing. And so they plan to end He Pou a Rangi's watchdog role over their emissions reduction plans:

Climate Change Minister Simon Watts repeatedly adamantly denied any plan to remove the Climate Change Commission's role in advising on emissions reduction plans, only for his office to two days later confirm the Government was considering exactly that.

1News can reveal the Government was weighing up whether to remove the Climate Change Commission's role in advising on emissions reduction plans — a move the Green Party says would undermine independent scrutiny of climate policy.

The proposal was part of a broader review of the Climate Change Response Act, which requires the Climate Change Commission to provide independent expert advice on the Government's five-yearly emissions reduction plans.

The 1News story focuses on the Minister's deceit, and that is bad - Ministers should not lie to the media and the public like this. But the policy effect of removing He Pou a Rangi's advice on emissions reduction plans will be to enable the government to lie to the public about the effects of its policies, while reducing a key accountability mechanism. Which obviously suits the current regime - which has removed all effective climate policy, and whose emissions reduction plan therefore will not meet its legislated targets - very well. But it seems actively harmful to us, the public.

The other lesson in this of course that there is simply no point seeking consensus or bipartisan agreement with national on this or any other issue, because they have clearly demonstrated that they are cheats and liars who will play you for a sucker. The next government should take this lesson to heart, ignore the wailing from National and its polluting, ecocidal backers, and legislate for real climate action, which drives said backers out of business and ends their destructive pollution as quickly as possible. As National has shown, its easy to smash things. So lets start smashing.

Who to vote for in Palmerston North 2

Palmerston North held a mayoral candidate debate last night, and based on the Substandard's writeup, I've finally figured out how I'm ranking the candidates.

My first preference goes to Michael Morris, who's big pitch was being vegan. He's also the only candidate to fully back the Featherston Street remodelling, saying that "if the city was serious about sustainability, health and inclusivity it had to look beyond giving priority to people driving motor cars." He's also Green-affiliated, so that puts him to the top.

Number two is incumbent Grant Smith, who has been a pretty good mayor, and (from once being a Nat IIRC) now describes himself as "centre-right with a green tinge" (which is accurate, given his record). Both he and Mickalad had second-thoughts about the design of Featherston Street, but not the goal, which is not a terrible position to take.

Number three is Orphée Mickalad, who played up his National Party affiliations (so fuck him), and whose main pitch just seemed to be "a new face".

Not preferenced: Caleb Riddick, whose answers were all danger-signs: rabidly anti-Featherston Street, self-described "independent", no real platform. I'm not saying that he's a cooker - but from his statements and the complete lack of public information about him, I can't rule it out either. And that's enough to chuck him in the bin.

So, I've now finally filled out my form, and its just a matter of finding a big orange bin to dump it in.

Climate Change: Beaten by Australia

Australia has just announced its new climate target: a 62 to 70% cut in emissions by 2035:

Australia will vow to cut its emissions by 62 to 70 per cent by 2035, lifting its sights further as the world strives to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government had listened to the Climate Change Authority's advice.

"It's the right target to protect our environment, to protect and advance our economy and jobs, and to ensure that we act in our national interest and in the interest of this and future generations," Mr Albanese said.

"It's based upon the science, and it is independent advice to the government."

Compare this to National's pathetic, unambitious, irresponsible target of a 51 to 55% cut, which was pulled out of Rimmer's arse and explicitly ignored the expert advice of He Pou a Rangi. Thanks to National, we're going to be beaten by Australia, one of the most fossil-addicted countries in the world.

its completely pathetic. The only good side to it is that National's NDC is so unambitious as to likely be illegal, and the next government will inevitably have to increase it. And Australia has just set a clear bar for us to beat. But the struggle now is to ensure that there is a "next government" to do that; to throw these bums out at the first opportunity.

Israel is commiting genocide in Gaza

Its official: a UN independent international commission of inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza:

The COI, set up by the UN in 2021 and staffed by three independent experts, cited the killing of civilians and children in a “scorched-earth military strategy”, starvation and deaths caused by restrictions on food and medicines, mistreatment of detainees, forced displacement and the physical devastation of much of the territory to support its finding.

The COI also accused Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister who has been accused of war crimes by the international criminal court, and other senior Israeli leaders of incitement of genocide, and said there was clear evidence of their genocidal intent, a key legal requirement.

“The commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent … The commission also concludes … that genocidal intent was the only reasonably inference that can be drawn from the totality of the evidence,” Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, told reporters.

As they point out, all states have an obligation under international law to use all means reasonably available to them to stop genocide. We're a small country on the other side of the world, but the very least we can do would seem to be sanctioning them like we sanction Russia, cutting off the hundreds of millions in trade which genocide-enablers are currently profiting from, supporting an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible, and a global intelligence and law enforcement effort to identify, locate, arrest, and deliver them for trial. Plus of course recognising Palestine.

But realistically, Rimmer - who at this stage is just a local agent for far-right foreigners - isn't going to permit any of this. And while he's nominally only deputy prime minister, Luxon's utter spinelessness has left him de facto in charge of our government. So if we want justice for Gaza, we're going to have to throw these bums out to get it.

"Laser focused"

When the regime was elected, they claimed to have a laser focus on bringing down the cost of living. So how's that working out for them? Badly:

Food prices are rising much faster than wages, putting more pressure on household budgets and creating a squeeze that's feeling worse for some than the global financial crisis, one economist says.

Stats NZ data for August shows prices were 5 percent higher than a year earlier.

Depending on how wage growth is measured, incomes are growing by as little as half that.

[...]

Higher prices for the grocery food group, up 4.7 percent, contributed most to the annual increase in food prices.

That was largely down to the increase in milk, cheese and butter. Milk was up 16.3 percent to $4.72 per two litres, cheese up 26.2 percent to $12.89 for a kilogram block and butter was up 31.8 percent year-on-year to $8.58 per 500g.

Meat, fruit, and vegetables are also all up. And what's the government's answer? Nothing. Oh, they'll tinker around the edges and wish for a deep-pocketed competitor to enter the market, but they won't actually do anything. They won't make a KiwiKai to provide competition, or forcibly break up the oligopoly which gouges us. And the Prime Minister's response to basic food prices being so high is to blame "international markets", without once asking why kiwis, the people who subsidise food production and bear its environmental costs, are paying those prices, or why food producers are allowed to export in preference to feeding us first. Because asking those questions would be very bad for the people who fund this regime, and who profit by gouging us.

But if this regime doesn't have an answer, then voters can and should look for one at the ballot box. Price gouging does terrible things for your social licence, and its time we reminded our grocery oligopolies of that. Regulate them properly, force them to sell to us first at a fair price before they export anything, and make it clear that their primary purpose is to serve the New Zealand market, not foreigners. The problem with having a food industry which exports 90% of its output is that they don't have to care about us; so maybe we need to challenge the problem at its root, stop those exports, shrink the industry to something more manageable (and less environmentally destructive), rather than letting them impoverish us economically, socially, and environmentally for their own profit?