Climate Change: Will NZ end fossil fuels?

Good news: New Zealand apparently signed up with other countries to set an end date for fossil fuels:

A group of countries at the COP26 climate summit have committed to setting an end date for oil and gas exploration and extraction.

The alliance is led by Costa Rica and Denmark, and includes Ireland, France and Greenland.

New Zealand has joined the alliance as an associate member, as has the US state of California.

Aotearoa cannot have core status because of the ongoing provision of on-shore drilling permits, especially in Taranaki.

This sounds good, except just yesterday we had the unpleasant sight of James Shaw saying that the UN's call for countries to come back with more ambitious climate pledges next year somehow didn't apply to us - a statement which saw him win a well-deserved Fossil of the Day. So it's unclear if this is a real commitment, or just more PR from a duplicitous, fossil fuel-addicted government.

But what if it was real? It would mean we'd need to legislate to immediately stop issuing new exploration, prospecting and mining permits for fossils fuels, and to sunset existing permits (and the sooner, the better). There's a stab at what such legislation would look like here. Any MP serious about ending the fossil fuel industry in Aotearoa is welcome to put it in the ballot.

Good riddance

After four years of dragging its feet, the government has finally introduced legislation to repeal the shameful "three strikes' law

Justice Minister Kris Faafoi is pushing ahead with moves to repeal the "three strikes" law, saying it is an anomaly in the justice system that has led to "absurd and perverse" outcomes.

The law currently requires judges to impose the maximum sentence for offenders who commit a third serious, violent crime.

Faafoi this morning said the government would introduce the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill, as promised in the lead-up to the election, with a first reading expected next week.

Good. This law was manifestly unjust, and led to disproportionate sentences. While one of these was recently overturned by the Supreme Court, that still saw a mentally ill man serve five years in prison for an offence the court said he should have been imprisoned for only six months for. But while the bill will repeal the law and prevent any more such sentences, it won't allow re-sentencing of those already victimised under it. That needs to be corrected. Or is the government not actually interested in justice?

Climate Change: Support for native forests

While the ETS has many, many flaws, one way it is working properly is encouraging displacement of unproductive agriculture by carbon farming. On current carbon prices - and indeed, anything over ~$20 / ton - its is more profitable to plant trees and collect carbon credits than farm sheep and beef cattle in much of the country. This change is one we should welcome - it reduces emissions, while replacing less profitable economic activity with a more profitable one - but it has led to a lot of angst from old farmers worried about land being taken out of production and communities being destroyed.

The trees planted are mostly pine, because that's what is used for forestry, and because it soaks up a lot of carbon. The Climate Change Commission doesn't like this, and would rather see more native forests (which soak up more carbon because they are longer-lived, and have greater biodiversity benefits as well). But movement in that direction is thwarted by the low rates of carbon absorbtion recognised in MPI's Carbon look-up Tables. Those values are based on regenerating indigenous shrubland, which is a low-cost way of restoring native forest and what people were doing in 2008 when the tables were calculated. But now work has been done on planted native forest, showing that carbon uptake is significantly higher, and comparable to pine after 50 years. They recommend that the look-up tables be updated to include an option for planted native forest.

This seems to be a good idea, and likely to help drive the change the Climate Commission wants. Pine will still be more profitable in the short-term (especially if harvested), but native forests will soak up farm more carbon (and therefore produce far more income from credits) in the long-term. And they can be planted on land unsuitable for forestry. While the work will no doubt need to be checked, and there's a process to follow to update the regulations, the sooner that process starts, the better.

Protected

The Health Committee has reported back on the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2), and decided to finally protect contact tracing information:

We recommend amending the bill by inserting clause 25A to include a provision as new section 34A, to clarify the privacy of contact tracing data. Information created or provided by members of the public through QR scans and paper-based forms for contact tracing purposes could only be used for public health purposes and could not be used by any person or organisation for any other purpose.

We also recommend inserting an offence for intentionally failing to comply with section 34A(1). An individual who was convicted would be liable for a prison term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding $12,000. For any other person, the fine could not exceed $15,000.

Good. While it hasn't happened here yet, police overseas had abused people's trust by using contact-tracing information collected for public health purposes in criminal investigations. In other cases, companies have abused them for marketing purposes. Both obviously create a disincentive for people for people to scan or sign in. Protecting this information will ensure trust in the system and encourage people to comply with this unfortunately necessary public health measure.

(Contact-tracing information collected by the Ministry of Health was already protected, but that didn't cover the records on people's phones or on sign-in sheets at businesses).

The police are identity thieves

RNZ this morning had another shocking story of police abusing their power to invade privacy and engage in online identity theft:

Police are trying to assume the online identities of suspects and defendants by taking over their social media and email accounts to gather information.

Defence lawyers concerned about their young and vulnerable clients alerted RNZ to a form the police are using, titled 'Consent to Assume Online Internet Identity'.

The form asks people to sign away their social media and email accounts, allowing the police to "take control of and use my internet online identities".

Those signing the document are asked to provide the passwords so that police can access the accounts and use the information stored on them.

[...]

Those signing the form "relinquish all present and future claims to the use of these accounts" and are told police will change their passwords so they no longer have access.

As with the police's acquisition of private personal information from banks, there's no statutory basis for this. And while they're claiming it is by "consent", the fact that they are focusing on young and vulnerable people to trawl and database their contacts and communications and impersonate them to their friends tells you everything you need to know. We saw exactly these tactics from police when they forced young people to "consent" to having their DNA taken, or to be photographed children for their racist databases, and the "consent" is about as meaningful here as it was then. Given the inherent imbalance of power with someone who can simply stick you in a cell, there can be no legal consent where police are involved unless you have a lawyer present.

I'll be filing an OIA to find out how widespread this tactic is, but I expect that, as with production orders, they conveniently won't know. Because if you don't want something managed, the best way is not to measure it.

Climate Change: Suing for a future

Back in May, the International Energy Agency, traditionally a pro drilling and digging organisation, called time on fossil fuels, saying that exploration must stop immediately and no new projects can be approved if we are to avoid burning the planet. Despite this, in June Energy Minister Megan Woods approved two more permits for oil exploration in Taranaki. Its an irrational decision completely at odds with the international advice on how to meet our climate change obligations. And now, a group of students are going to court to get it overturned:

Students are taking the Government to court for approving new oil and gas exploration.

A major energy report by the International Energy Agency says exploration permits must end immediately to keep global heating inside 1.5 degrees Celsius, yet the Government this year granted new onshore permits, saying it was fulfilling a promise made when it banned offshore exploration.

Students for Climate Solutions served Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods​ with the lawsuit, as the UN climate summit continued in Glasgow.

[...]

The lawsuit alleges the minister “erred in law” by granting oil and gas permits to Greymouth Gas Turangi and Riverside Energy.

The group hopes the court will declare the decision to grant the permits unlawful and quash them. In addition, they are asking the court to declare the minister acted unreasonably.

From the sound of it it looks like this will be relying on the Zero Carbon Act's clause allowing decision-makers to consider climate change. NZPAM's advice to the Minister to approve the permits purported to consider climate change, but actually took the piss, claiming that as any oil found would likely be burned offshore it wouldn't count and that our 2050 greenhouse gas target has nothing to do with emissions anyway. Which might sound fine to an agency totally captured by the fossil fuel industry, but to the rest of us makes it sound like NZPAM has been huffing their captors' product. Hopefully this poor quality advice will see the permits overturned; if not, at least it will raise the cost to the government and the industry of trying to drill further, while hopefully delaying any exploration until the politicians can just ban it.

Member's Day: Return of the second reading

Today is a Member's Day, and unlike the last month or so, where they have focuse don first readings, this one will be entirely given over to second and later readings. First up is the third reading of Andrew Bayly's shameful and racist New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill, which is aimed at locking migrants out of superannuation. Second will be Todd Muller's Sunscreen (Product Safety Standard) Bill, which is pretty uncontroversial. Third is Louisa Wall's Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill, and if the House moves quickly it might make a start on Wall's Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill. With the focus on later stages, there is unlikely to be a ballot tomorrow.

Farmers are killing us

A society is offered a choice: they can have prosperity (for some), but 40 people a year will be sacrificed to please the cow-god. No, its not a bad fantasy story - its what farmers are actually doing to us:

Up to 100 cases of bowel cancer, and 41 deaths, may be caused by nitrate-contaminated drinking water each year - with around 800,000 Kiwis exposed to levels that international studies deem a risk, new research finds.

The risk of nitrate contamination in the country's drinking water supplies has come under the spotlight over recent years, with some researchers suggesting the current maximum level of 11.3 milligrams of nitrate-nitrogen per litre (mg/l) is set far too high.

Nitrate leaching – much of which stems from urine patches in dairy farms - has increased substantially since 1990 and many groundwater sites continue to degrade.

This is a significant public health hazard, and one we were never offered a choice on. Its also easy to eliminate, by limiting stock numbers and banning the application of nitrogen-based fertilisers. Doing so would save up to 40 lives a year, as well as millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions. So, are we going to keep killing people to please the cow-god, or finally say "no"?

More Labour secrecy

The government introduced a new bill reforming oversight of Oranga Tamariki today. The bill establishes an "Independent Monitor of Oranga Tamariki System" with oversight functions, expands the functions of the Ombudsman in investigating complaints, and replaces the existing Children's Commissioner with a full Children and Young People’s Commission. These all seem to be good changes, but like so many other recent Labour bills, it includes multiple secrecy clauses.

The first is a direct amendment to the Official Information Act removing communications between the Ombudsman and child-support agencies from the coverage of the OIA. Not just investigation-related communications - they're already exempt - but everything, no matter how trivial. So for example if Oranga Tamariki (or whatever succeeds it) proposes doing something, and the Ombudsman says "don't do that, it would be a bad idea", it would not be "official information" and would effectively be secret forever. We wouldn't even be able to ask how many times an agency had sought or received guidance to see whether the new monitoring functions were working effectively. The effect of this on the public accountability of Oranga Tamariki for the routinely terrible policy decisions it makes is left as an exercise for the reader.

The second is a non-standard secrecy clause binding the new Children and Young People’s Commission to eternal silence, effectively its own little version of the old Official Secrets Act. This is very clearly modelled on the Children's Commissioner's existing secrecy clause, which might sound OK, until you realise that the Commissioner and the Commisison have very different functions. Most importantly, the Commissioner had an investigative function, to "investigate any decision or recommendation made, or any act done or omitted... in respect of any child". That function has been split off, and now effectively belongs to the Ombudsman. Instead, the new Commission's functions are primarily advocacy and awareness-raising. They can inquire into "any systemic matter", but its clear from context that this is about policy and legislation. Their role in investigating individual complaints has been removed. Which seems to remove any justification for a secrecy clause, predicated as it was on a semi-judicial function and the privacy of children.

But more generally, when legislation is reviewed and re-enacted, this should be taken as an opportunity to review secrecy clauses and decide whether they are really necessary. For example, does the proposed Children and Young People’s Commission really need to provide absolute secrecy over "national security" and international relations, Tokelau, or Cabinet deliberations? Is that actually a necessary part of their functions? Or is it just mindless copy-paste legislation thoughtlessly repeating a clause originally drafted in 1962? And if the latter, shouldn't Parliament actually do its job, and think before it legislates?

Climate Change: We need to actually act on coal

Yesterday at COP in Glasgow, Aotearoa joined an international alliance to phase out coal-powered electricity generation. Which is obviously a great headline, which is what the government was after, but raises the obvious question: are we actually going to act on it?

The Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement commits its parties to "transition away from unabated coal power generation in the 2030s (or as soon as possible thereafter)". Which is an easy, business-as-usual pledge as far as New Zealand is concerned, given that Genesis, owners of the only coal-fired power station in New Zealand, have said they plan to transition Huntly to dry-year backup from 2025 and shut it down by 2030. It also commits us to immediately cease issuing permits for new coal-fired power plants, which the government has been promising to do (but hasn't done yet) for four years already. So if the government is actually serious about this, we'll hopefully see thermal ban legislation reintroduced and passed rapidly.

But that still leaves the question of the speed of the phase out. 2030 is a long way away, and every year we let Huntly keep burning coal means another 2 - 4 million tons of carbon in the atmosphere. At which stage its worth highlighting the first, and most important, commitment: "to rapidly scale up our deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures in our economies". If the government took this seriously, it would mean a crash program of building wind and solar generation to allow a quicker shutdown of Huntly and to displace other fossil generation from the market. Will they do it?

I think they'd be stupid not to. As I've argued here, the government's internal carbon price of $150/ton means it is cost-effective to build new generation to replace Huntly and other fossil generation on carbon grounds alone. There are also wider social benefits in the form of lower electricity prices for all, as fossil generation currently sets the electricity price, so displacing it out of the market will see that price set by cheaper renewables. And its not like we can rely on the market to solve this - a recent analysis from the Electricity Authority found that the big gentailers are refusing to build in order to "maximis[e] returns on their existing assets" - that is, keep prices high. This is an obvious market failure, and clear grounds for the government to step in build what the market won't. And if it hurts the existing dirty generators, then good.

Naked corruption in the UK

A government politician is found to have engaged in corrupt behaviour and faces removal from parliament. But rather than punish them, the government shuts down the investigation process and places the investigator under review. Italy? Russia? No, Britain:

The Conservative MP Owen Paterson has escaped suspension from the Commons for 30 days, and a possible byelection, after the government intervened at the last minute to pause the process and review the watchdog that investigates wrongdoing in parliament.

The former cabinet minister was found to have committed an “egregious” breach of lobbying rules during meetings and conversations with the Food Standards Agency and the Department for International Development while he was being paid more than £100,000 by two firms – Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods.

However, an amendment to the motion to suspend him – proposed by the former Commons leader Andrea Leadsom – was backed by Boris Johnson, and whips told Tory MPs they should vote for it too.

[...]

The amendment means a new committee will be created, chaired by the Tory backbencher John Whittingdale, to look into changing the process under which MPs are investigated so that it is more considerate of “natural justice” by, for example, giving them the chance to appeal.

Its hard to see this as anything other than Westminster's culture of corruption - which had been put on hold after the parliamentary expenses scandal - reasserting itself, in a particularly vile fashion. And it speaks volumes that a quarter of the MPs voting to replace the Committee on Standards had been punished by it, which to outside eyes looks like a conflict of interest and naked revenge. And its another sign that Westminster is incapable of reforming itself and needs to be bulldozed into the Thames.

Climate Change: Hope from Glasgow

Among all the "blah blah blah", there's an actual hopeful point emerging from COP in Glasgow: for the first time, emissions pledges have us headed below two degrees:

The pledges on greenhouse gas emissions on the table at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow would limit global temperature rises to below 2C, the first time the world has been on such a trajectory, according to research.

Plans by India, the world’s third biggest emitter, have made a sizeable difference to the global temperature estimate, research by the University of Melbourne has found.

If its commitments and those of other nations at the talks are fulfilled, temperatures would probably rise by about 1.9C above pre-industrial levels. That would be lower than the 2C upper limit but higher than the 1.5C lower limit set out in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Of course, two degrees is still a disaster, which will see millions of avoidable deaths and millions more dislocated due to rising seas, famine, and ecosystem collapse. We need to flatten that curve even more, to get it below the safe(ish) threshold of 1.5 degrees. But this is a start, and it hopefully means we can use the Paris ratchet mechanism for deeper cuts in future. The question is if we can do it before its too late.

Climate Change: Freeloaders

Last night in Glasgow nearly a hundred countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030, and as expected New Zealand was among them. But will this result in any change in policy or increased emissions reductions? Of course not:

New Zealand has joined more than 100 countries pledging to reduce methane over the next decade.

Collectively, signatories to the pledge – officially launched Tuesday (Wednesday NZ time) – are aiming to reduce the greenhouse gas by 30 per cent by the end of the decade.

[...]

Climate Change Minister James Shaw​ confirmed that the Government would not introduce any new methane policies or targets as a result of the new initiative.

So we're planning to cut methane by 10%, or maybe 12%, around a third of what we've pledged. The government's excuse for this is that the target is "collective", across all parties. But think about what this means: we're signing up for something, with no intention of doing what is required, and instead we're expecting other countries to do the heavy lifting. We're freeloading off their efforts. Which makes it seem like the sole purpose in signing up in the first place was to generate positive "doing something" headlines for a government hoping that no-one would read the fine print (rather like their new emissions reduction target).

This is New Zealand's long-term climate change policy in a nutshell: sign up, do nothing, let emissions increase, use that increase as an excuse to do nothing in the future. We deserve better than that. We deserve a government which doesn't lie to us - and the world - to our faces. We deserve a government which will actually act and cut cow numbers. And we're clearly not going to get that from the current bunch.

25,000 employed under Labour

The quarterly labour market statistics were released this morning, showing that unemployment had dropped to 3.4% - the lowest in the 15-year data series (actually, looking at Infoshare, its the lowest all the way back to 1986). There are now 98,000 unemployed, 25,000 fewer than when Labour took office.

Record low unemployment in the middle of a pandemic is a triumph whichever way you look at it. But hopefully the bigger triumph will happen when it feeds through to wage increases, as businesses realise they have to compete for workers. Because isn't that what a "labour" government is meant to be about?

Have they considered not polluting?

DairyNZ has released a survey of farmers, and apparently calling them on their pollution is bad for their mental health:

More than half of those surveyed said they or someone on their farm had experienced a mental health issue in the last year.

The most mentioned reasons were government regulations, perception of dairying within the public and media and financial concerns. Labour shortages on-farm were another issue raised by farmers, with 62 percent saying that being short staffed was causing increased stress.

Obviously, we're meant to feel sorry for them and stop demanding that they stop destroying the planet so they can lead comfy lives. But I'm going to turn that around. After all, their two biggest "mental health issues" are caused by people's absolutely legitimate response to their dirty, polluting behaviour. So how about they stop that behaviour, accept regulation, cut herd sizes, and clean up their act? Doesn't that seem likely to improve public perception and so their mental health? And if its causing so much stress, doesn't refusing to change seem dysfunctional, an ongoing act of self-harm?

Honestly, its like bigots complaining about being called on their bigotry. And just like bigots, it seems that farmers, as represented by their industry groups, would rather play the victim than change.

Climate Change: Not a priority

When running for election in 2017, Jacinda Ardern famously proclaimed that climate change was "my generation's nuclear-free moment". So you'd expect her government to commit the resources to develop policy to reduce emissions and solve the climate crisis, right? Wrong:

Early this year, Climate Change Minister James Shaw warned ministers the Government did not have enough staff or funding to progress key parts of the climate change agenda - saying some policies would need to be dropped.

On the back of that meeting, Shaw wrote to Environment Minister David Parker in April saying that already-agreed Cabinet decisions "will not be able to progress as directed by Cabinet with this level of funding".

Despite securing additional funding in the 2021 Budget, Shaw had to work with Parker in June to "reprioritise" the climate change work programme to fit the Ministry for the Environment's (MfE) stretched staffing for climate change.

And its not just MfE - one of the reasons the "emissions reduction plan" was so laughable and full of decades old ideas is because the agencies which were meant to contribute to it were not funded for that work, and do not have people working on ways to reduce emissions (or, in MPI and MBIE's case, have people working deliberately to impede progress and keep the polluting industries which have captured them alive as long as possible). Work on one of our three biggest policy crises is being impeded by Labour austerity.

Governments show their true priorities in their resourcing decisions. What gets funded is a priority, what doesn't, isn't. So what this tells us is that climate change isn't actually that much of a priority for the government. Some "nuclear free" moment.

Climate Change: Spin and bullshit

Yesterday Climate Change Minister James Shaw unveiled a new climate change target at COP26 in Glasgow: we're now planning to cut emissions by 50% by 2030! Except that when you actually look into the numbers, it turns out to be the usual accounting tricks:

A 50 percent reduction sounds good, and it is a significant improvement on our current NDC. But it is not as good as it sounds. If we exactly meet this target in 2030 then, based on our calculations, New Zealand’s net emissions will only have decreased from 57.1 Mt CO2-e in 2005 to 44.7 Mt CO2-e (that is, a decrease of 21.8%).

The reason for this disconnect between the headline figure and the actual effect on emissions is that New Zealand has chosen two accounting methodologies for expressing our NDC which allow for a headline number which sounds much more ambitious than it really is.

The first technique is to express our NDC in gross-net terms. That is, the NDC sets a target for net emissions in 2030, but the target number is calculated by applying the percentage reduction to gross emissions in 2005.

They're also using their funny "target accounting", rather than the internationally accepted and comparable UNFCCC inventory accounting, which inflates things even further. And even then, they're still planning on "meeting" more than two thirds of the target by buying credits from overseas (which, based on past experience, will turn out to be pure fraud). And the reason they're doing that is a refusal to confront the dairy industry and force it to reduce its emissions like the rest of us.

And that's Jacinda's "nuclear-free moment": spin and PR and funny accounting. Not the honest, ambitious government we hoped for and need. We deserve better than this. The planet deserves better than this. But we are clearly not going to get real climate action under this chickenshit government.

Climate Change: New Zealand's biggest climate criminals

Today the Environmental protection Agency released its first ETS Participant Emissions report required by the Climate Change Response Act. Effectively its a list of New Zealand's biggest polluters, though because of the ETS sets the point of obligation - where people have to pay - very high up, it is mostly a list of oil, gas and coal companies (responsible for importing or mining fossil fuels). But we can learn some interesting things from the sections on industrial polluters, and on voluntary participants and removals. There's also some interesting data to be gleaned from the allocation decisions, though these are a) a year out of date; and b) frustratingly not aligned with emissions data - emissions run on June years, while free allocations are dished out for January - December. Still, there's some interesting data in there. For example:

• The agriculture sector are New Zealand's biggest climate scammers. 34,254,357 tons of monitored emissions in 2020-21, and they're not paying a cent for them. This includes over 12 million tons from Fonterra, nearly 4 million tons from Silver Fern Farms, 2.5 million tons each from Affco and Alliance, and a bunch of other million-ton companies (including of course climate villains Ravensdown, whose fertiliser pollution enables so much of the rest). They've got away with not paying for their pollution for nearly a decade - they were originally meant to be in the ETS from 2012 - and the market cost of their emissions is over $2 billion a year. Its time they paid their way.
• Methanex is New Zealand's second biggest climate scammer. We gave it 1,181,995 tons of free carbon in 2020, ostensibly on the basis that it turns gas into methanol, but then we also gave it 2,299,235 tons for exporting said methanol (which contains carbon). As noted above, those numbers are not quite aligned, but suggest we're giving it around 3 million tons a year, with a market value of ~$200 million (and a social cost of $450 million). Methanex values its contribution to the NZ economy at $84 million a year. The subsidy currently has a market value of just under $200 million, so over twice that (and more than five times as much using the government's internal carbon price of $150 / ton). The conclusion: we are better off shutting them down and keeping the carbon in the ground.
• Tiwai Point is New Zealand's third biggest climate scammer. We subsidised this by 1,558,268 tons in 2020, while its 2020-21 emissions were just 637,130 tons. So we're giving them 900,000 tons (about $60 million) more than we need to. The "justification" for this is to compensate them for the higher prices caused by the ETS - except they're not paying those prices, and instead the rest of us are collectively paying another $350 million a year to subsidise their power.

This is the crudest use of the statistics, of course. But next year we'll be able to go beyond just naming and shaming the biggest polluters, and start looking at who is reducing emissions and who is increasing them. And therefore, whether the ETS is working or not.

"Close to useless"

A while ago I pointed out how some government agencies are juking the OIA stats, abusing the power to extend requests to make it look like they are answering requests in a timely manner, when the reality is anything but. I didn't do the followup of trawling through estimates hearings to get the exact numbers, but Stuff's Nikki Macdonald did it another way, using the OIA itself. And her conclusion is that the statistics are close to useless:

The statistics tracking how long government agencies take to answer Official Information Act requests are “close to useless”, a Stuff investigation reveals.

The OIA generally requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 working days. However, the statistics count extensions as "on time" responses.

So some agencies who report 100 per cent compliance "within legislative timeframes" are actually extending half of their requests, or taking up to five times the 20-day timeframe.

An advocate for open government says the statistics incentivise extensions and are designed “for nice headlines for government, not better results for requesters”.

It is telling that neither the Public Service Commissioner nor the Ombudsman was willing to be interviewed about this. The conclusion is that they know the stats are cooked and the system is abused, and they'd rather hide than front up and be held accountable for it.

Some requests will need to be extended, but looking at the graph, that number seems to be about 20%. Any agency extending significantly more than that is probably cheating, and the GCSB/SIS (the worst offenders) certainly are - the Ombudsman recently found they had been pretending their normal signout process was "consultation" to scam extensions. I guess we'll see whether their behaviour has actually changed if Stuff does followup work next year.

Supposedly the statistics will be improved to include extensions in the future, but that's only half the problem. As long as agencies can get away with unlawful extensions, they will keep doing it. The way to improve their behaviour is to complain about it. Fortunately, extension complaints are easy (so formulaic in fact that I'm wondering if the process can be automated), and I have a guide to making them here. So the next time an agency extends your OIA request, complain.

Vaccine mandates and human rights

Yesterday the government announced a new vaccine mandate, requiring workers in high-contact industries to be vaccinated and allowing them to be fired if they refuse. This is obviously a prima facie breach of the BORA right to refuse medical treatment, and potentially an indirect breach of the right to be free from discrimination (on health and potentially religious and other grounds), and you don't have to be an anti-vaxxer to be concerned about that. But is it actually inconsistent? Not necessarily. The BORA allows rights to be limited by "such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". So the question is "is this a justified limit"? And the answer on that seems to be "yes".

The basic method of determining whether an infringement of rights is a justified limitation is to ask the following:

• Does the limitation serve an important public purpose?
• Is it rationally connected to that purpose?
• Is it proportional to that purpose? (Does it impair the right by no more than is reasonably necessary, and do the benefits outweigh the limitation of the right?)

And if you stop to think about it, the answers to those questions are yes, yes, and (almost certainly) yes. Preventing the spread of Covid-19 is an important public purpose. Vaccination prevents spread, and focusing those at highest risk is clearly a good way of doing that. Proportionality depends on the disease: what's proportional for a disease like smallpox which kills people is obviously overkill for a disease like the common cold which merely poses a mild inconvenience. But this is clearly on the killing people end of the scale, which justifies greater intervention. As for where the balance lies, the High Court looked at exactly this question in GF v Minister of COVID-19 Response [2021] NZHC 2526 (the anti-vax customs worker case) and concluded they were proportional. While the vaccine mandate is wider than that on border workers, I don't see any reason to think that basic analysis would change. While more details could emerge, at this stage it doesn't seem like an obvious infringement of human rights.

Update: Clarified that any discriminatory effect is indirect.