Joel McManus writes:

It was a mess, and it speaks to the core of Whanau’s greatest weakness: she has terrible political instincts. …

Ironically, the airport sale may not have been needed at all if Whanau had been willing to scrap the $330m Town Hall repairs – or at least pause them until the central government came to the party or another funding source could be found. 

That would have been sensible. I am sure there is not shortage of local MPs who would have sponsored a local bill allowing the Town Hall to be demolished.

There are some parallels to another left-leaning politician with a history of saying weird stuff and making unforced errors: Joe Biden. While members of the Democratic Party felt deep loyalties to the US president, it eventually became clear that he was an electoral liability who needed to be replaced by a different candidate. Green Party members in Wellington must surely start asking the same question. 

Normally a Mayor would be happy to be compared to the US President, but in this case I doubt it!

CNN reports:

Self-service kiosks at McDonald’s and other fast-food chains have loomed as job killers since they were first rolled out 25 years ago. But nobody predicted what actually happened. …

Instead, touchscreen kiosks have added extra work for kitchen staff and pushed customers to order more food than they do at the cash register. The kiosks show the unintended consequences of technology in fast-food and retail settings, including self-checkout. Chains are now experimenting with artificial intelligence at drive-thru lanes, and the experience with kiosks holds lessons for them.

Today, instead of replacing workers, companies deploy kiosks to transfer labor to other tasks like handing off pickup orders, help increase sales, easily adjust prices and speed up service.

This makes sense to me. I always use a kiosk as I like to be able to browse what is available, without the pressure of having a staff member waiting for me. I often end up ordering more. So this creates more work for the store, and staff who once used to take orders, are now in the kitchen etc.

It its a good reminder that we shouldn’t fear automation and/or AI. It will impact jobs, but it will create jobs also.

Link here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=534247402295436

Tried to embed and failed.

Audio below – courtesy of “Ghost”.

The Herald reported:

The Green Party is clear to expel Darleen Tana from Parliament after the High Court declined Tana’s application for judicial review.

The decision paves the way for party delegates to meet and decide whether to use the waka-jumping law to oust Tana from Parliament, where she now sits as an independent MP.

This is as I predicted. It seems highly likely that the Greens will vote to expel her.

Personally I still want the law scrapped. If parties select dud candidates, they should bear the consequences of their laxity rather than being able to just shuffle them off.

Chris Bishop and Simon Court announced:

Two new laws will be developed to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA), with the enjoyment of property rights as their guiding principle, RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Simon Court say.

“The RMA was passed with good intentions in 1991 but has proved a failure in practice. 

Finally, there is hope. It has been clear for decades the RMA is extremely flawed. The only thing worse than the RMA was Labour’s replacement law in 2023 which was so terrible it made the RMA look great.

The 10 core design features on the new laws are:

• Narrow the scope of the resource management system to focus on managing actual effects on the environment.
• Establish two Acts with clear and distinct purposes – one to manage environmental effects arising from activities, and another to enable urban development and infrastructure.
• Strengthen and clarify the role of environmental limits and how they are to be developed.
• Provide for greater use of national standards to reduce the need for resource consents and simplify council plans. This would mean that an activity which complies with the standards cannot be subject to a consent requirement.
• Shift the focus away from consenting before activities can get underway, and towards compliance, monitoring and enforcement of activities’ compliance with national standards.
• Use spatial planning and a simplified designation process to lower the cost of future infrastructure.
• Realise efficiencies by requiring one regulatory plan per region, jointly prepared by regional and district councils.
• Provide for a rapid, low-cost resolution of disputes between neighbours and between property owners and councils, with the potential for a new Planning Tribunal (or equivalent).
• Uphold Treaty of Waitangi settlements and the Crown’s obligations.
• Provide faster and cheaper processes with less reliance on litigation, contained within shorter and simpler legislation that is more accessible.

The ones in bold are those especially important. If they can turn these principles or design features into law, that will be a very good thing.

Winston Peters announced:

New Zealand has voted for a United Nations resolution on Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian Territory with some caveats, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says.

“New Zealand’s yes vote is fundamentally a signal of our strong support for international law and the need for a two-state solution,” Mr Peters says.

The resolution is here. These are some of the countries that didn’t vote for it as they say it as unbalanced:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Austria
• Canada
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Denmark
• Georgia
• Germany
• India
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Poland
• South Korea
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Ukraine
• UK
• US

So we didn’t vote with them, but we did vote with China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria and Zimbabwe!

The Free Press reports:

For a quarter of a century, generations of young Spence women adored our “Madame Proto.” She spearheaded school trips to China and Japan, launched a language and culture institute, revived the Model United Nations Club, advised the yearbook staff, developed a debate team, and offered special “salon” classes to parents and alumnae. Part Vietnamese, part Greek, and part French, she speaks five languages. When I was at Spence from 2006 to 2019, there was no teacher I admired more. She was the only faculty member in the language department to receive three yearbook dedications and four recorded money donations to the school in her name.

But in February, she was fired. 

Why?

Protopappas’s firing stems from a May 2023 incident that took place in her Advanced French class, which was being taken by eight Spence seniors. Out of the blue, according to the complaint, one student asked, “Why did France ban the hijab?” 

Protopappas said she responded by thanking the student and then giving the class some background about why the French law banning hijabs and all other visible religious symbols in public K-12 schools was in accordance with the country’s belief in secularism, or laïcité. She said she invited the class to consider the pros and cons of this law, which came into being after a nationwide debate in which some Muslim women advocated to protect young students from family pressures to wear the veil.

She answered a question, and asked the students to consider the pros and cons of a law. Disgraceful. No wonder she had to go.

Louise Upston announced:

The Government is investing $16.8 million over the next four years to extend the Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) Longitudinal Study.

GUiNZ is New Zealand’s largest longitudinal study of child health and wellbeing and has followed the lives of more than 6000 children born in 2009 and 2010, and their families. The study is led by the University of Auckland. 

“The study’s work to date has been valuable for helping design services and policies to improve the lives of New Zealand families, and I want to see this work continue,” Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says.

These longitudinal studies are the platinum level of research. The data they give is so incredibly valuable. They allow spending to help those most in need to be well targeted.

Personally I would take at least 50% of the money spent on health research about telling people what to do (banning dairies etc) and give it all to these longitudinal studies.

The WCC website lists the Mayoral expenses for the Mayor of Wellington. They state that there has been $263,369.31 of expenses for the Mayor since October 2022, which is a staggering amount.

I do wonder if the WCC is including some stuff as Mayoral expenses that shouldn’t be there. They list $137,979.22 of Mayoral expenses for citizenship ceremonies. Is that just the Mayor’s expenses or the expenses for the entire ceremonies?

There is also $73,174.06 for events hosted by the Mayor. If these are official Council events, they should not be listed as a Mayoral expense.

The Government has published targets and minimum levels to be achieved for charter schools. A charter school that doesn’t achieve these minimum levels can have its registration cancelled, which is a type of accountability other schools do not have.

They are:

Attendance

• Target: 80% attending regularly (90% or more)
• Minimum fewer barriers schools 60%
• Minimum moderate barriers school 50%
• Minimum more barriers schools 35%

Reading

• Target: 80% at or above curriculum level (currently 47%)
• Minimum fewer barriers schools 67% (currently 57%)
• Minimum moderate barriers school 50% (currently 44%)
• Minimum more barriers schools 30% (currently 34%)

Writing/Maths

• Target: 80% at or above curriculum level (currently 22% for maths)
• Minimum fewer barriers schools 35% (34% currently maths)
• Minimum moderate barriers school 35% (20% currently maths)
• Minimum more barriers schools 25% (8% currently maths)

NCEA Level 2

• Target: 95% achieve NCEA Level 2
• Minimum fewer barriers schools 95% (85% current average)
• Minimum moderate barriers school 80% (78% current average)
• Minimum more barriers schools 65% (62% current average)

So these charter school are being set minimum levels which are higher than the current average for their type of school.

The Herald reports:

A woman who assaulted an NZME journalist outside a courthouse has been sentenced to 18 months’ jail, but is expected to be released almost immediately because of time served while awaiting sentencing.

Rosie Morunga – who is a person of interest in the killing of Baby Ru – last month admitted 18 charges including assault, theft of a cellphone, using a document, aggravated assault, wilful damage and shoplifting, between June 2022 and November 2023. She was also sentenced for one assault bringing the total number of charges for sentencing to 19.

18 months jail for 19 offences!

According to the summary of facts the assault occurred in November when Morunga was standing outside the Hutt Valley District Court. When the journalist, whose name is suppressed, began questioning Morunga she was spat on, her hair was pulled back and she was punched in the head multiple times. In the fracas the journalist dropped two cellphones containing three bank cards.

Morunga picked these up and visited a Lower Hutt liquor store where she used the cards to buy bottles of spirits and RTDs.

So she has literally just appeared in court, and then assaults a journalist and steal her bank cards to stock up on alcohol.

Judge Wills said the aggravating factors in the case included that the offending occurred while Morunga was on bail and, for part of the time, a sentence of intensive supervision.

She noted that Morunga had an extensive criminal history with 74 previous convictions, half for violent offending. There had also been nine assaults while in prison.

But she’ll be out very soon so she can crack the ton.

Reuters reports:

A majority of Gazans believe Hamas’ decision to launch the Oct. 7 attack on Israel was incorrect, according to a poll published on Tuesday pointing to a big drop in backing for the assault that prompted Israel’s devastating Gaza offensive.

The poll, conducted in early September by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), found that 57% of people surveyed in the Gaza Strip said the decision to launch the offensive was incorrect, while 39% said it was correct.

PSR’s previous poll, conducted in June, showed that 57% of respondents in Gaza thought the decision to be correct.

So support in Gaza for the terrorist attack has dropped from 57% to 39%. That is a small glimmer of hope. There will never be an independent Palestinian state (which I support) if a majority of the residents think what happened on October 7 was a good idea.

Just as the IRA eventually abandoned terrorism, hopefully the same will occur in Gaza.

Defenders of the massive 20% rates increase in Wellington would have you believe this has nothing to do with decisions made by Councillors, but it was instead just due to the need to spend more on water infrastructure etc.

So the next time you hear someone claim this, recall the following decisions made by WCC:

1. $593 million on social housing
2. $400 million for a sludge minimisation facility at Moa Point
3. $330 million on rebuilding the town hall so we have another music venue
4. $240 million on Civic Square
5. $236 million on food recycling
6. $189 million on Te Matapihi library
7. $180 million on the Takina convention centre
8. $160 million on cycleways
9. $139 million on removing cars and redeveloping the Golden Mile
10. $55 million to “upgrade” Thorndon Quay
11. $42 million on renovating St James Theatre
12. $32 million to Reading Cinemas (attempted but failed)
13. $13 million on a carpark building

This is why rates are going up 20%. That’s well over $2 billion in non-core expenditure which comes to over $25,000 per household.

After the jury note in the Polkinghorne Trial was read out, I commented on Twitter it is hard to see a guilty verdict based on it. In fact the nature of the question was so easy to answer, that I seriously think the jury may have in fact been sending a message to the public, not a question to the Judge.

The note was reported as saying:

“Most of the people on the jury do not think there is enough evidence to support Pauline having committed suicide. However, some people on the jury do not think that the Crown has supplied enough evidence that we can answer yes to the question, ‘Has the Crown made you sure that Dr Polkinghorne caused the death of his wife, Ms Pauline Hanna, by intentionally strangling her?’ Please can we have some direction.”

The Judge responded:

The judge responded by noting that each question in the question trail begins with “are you sure” and that the defence doesn’t have the onus of proof. “At the end of the day, it’s not sufficient for you to say that Dr Polkinghorne is probably guilty or even very likely guilty,” Justice Graham Lang repeated from his summing-up.

Now this is no surprise. One of the most basic points of law almost everyone is familiar with is that the prosecution has to prove guilt, the defence doesn’t have to prove innocence.

I find it difficult to believe the jury didn’t understand this, and needed direction. Unless Ron Mansfield is incompetent (which clearly he is not) he would have made this point many times. Unless Justice Lang is incompetent (which he is not) he would have stressed this in the summing up. The question trail ever made it clear.

What also strikes me as unusual is the jury indicated their thinking in detail, saying both that some though the prosecution had not made it case, and also most do not think it is suicide. I can’t recall a trial where the jury indicates their thinking in such detail, and the judge reveals it in public session. Off my lay experience, I can only recall situations where a jury was having trouble reaching a unanimous verdict that all they reveal is they are not unanimous. They don’t say the majority think not guilty and the minority guilty. Yet in this case they do give such details.

Also the view that the majority think it wasn’t suicide is superfluous. The test is whether the prosecution had established the facts beyond reasonable doubt. There was no need to offer their view on suicide.

It gets even more interesting when you consider the original note, as found by Steve Braunias:

After we spoke, I went back inside courtroom 11, that hothouse where everyone wilted these past eight weeks, to check on the jury’s document. A word had been crossed out. I wanted to take a closer look to see which word.

The foreperson’s handwriting was very nice and his spelling was immaculate. The word crossed out was “everyone”. It had originally read, “Everyone on the jury do not think that the Crown has supplied enough evidence.”

It was a prophecy of their verdict.

This strongly suggests that the vast majority thought the prosecution had failed to the make the case. Maybe even everyone thought that. But maybe they realised sending a note saying we all think the Crown has failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, would look ridiculous as it is so clear that means they need to deliver a not guilty verdict. So they downgraded “everyone” to “some”. That is also intriguing as they had previously said “the majority” in relation to suicide. Why did they go from “everyone” to “some”?

My theory is the jury think Polkinghorne did it, and wanted the public to know that. That explains the note. They had reached a stage where “everyone” thought the prosecution had failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. They knew they had to do their duty, but they didn’t like Polkinghorne, and that he would be officially declared not guilty. They thought it was more likely than not he did it, and by sending that note, they made sure the public knows that too. So their not guilty verdict is seen as a verdict of “not proven” rather than “innocent”.

I welcome feedback from readers, especially those with legal experience, as to how unusual it is to have a jury note like this one. To me I don’t think they needed direction at all. They just wanted to explain their verdict in the only way they could.

Stuff reports:

There are calls from some Wellington businesses for the Government to follow the lead of one of the world’s biggest companies – Amazon – and order workers to stop working from home.

It could be “the number one” fix for an economy that bankers in a recent Kiwibank report described as so low it was “icy”.

I know WFH has contributed to the problems some Wellington shops have. But banning WFH for the public service would be wrong. The role of the public service is to provide effective and efficient public services. It is not to create shoppers in Wellington.

If a public agency decides that they can best achieve their mission by allowing staff to work partially from home, then they should be able to do so. It also reduces congestion, transport costs and emissions.

I note the Government has said:

The Government wants to see more public servants come into their place of work each day and is taking steps to make this expectation clear to chief executives, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. 

“Updated guidance for the public service will make clear that working from home is not an entitlement and must be agreed and monitored,” Nicola Willis says.

“While carefully defined working from home arrangements can benefit workers and employers, if the pendulum swings too far in favour of working from home, there are downsides for employers and employees. That’s even before we consider the effects for the CBD retailers, restaurants and cafes.

I think it is far enough that WFH is not regarded as an entitlement, and should be monitored. But public service employers should be focused on whether WFH arrangements are good for them achieving their mission, not the impact on CBD shops.

Paul Goldsmith announced:

Capping the sentence discounts that judges can apply at 40 per cent when considering mitigating factors unless it would result in manifestly unjust sentencing outcomes.

This is much needed. Some offenders have had 85% discounts which just makes the starting point almost irrelevant. No matter what the starting point is, you end up with a short sentence or home detention.

One defence attorney even tried to claim cumulative discounts of 110%. Presumably that would mean they get not only zero sentence, but time off their next offence!

I do worry about the manifestly unjust exception though as an activist judiciary have changed this from something that used to be very rare, to very common.

Preventing repeat discounts for youth and remorse. Lenient sentences are failing to deter offenders who continue to rely on their youth or expressions of remorse without making serious efforts to reform their behaviour.

Yep, remorse shouldn’t apply more than once, and same for learning from a youthful mistake.

Encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed while on bail, in custody, or on parole to denounce behaviour that indicates a disregard for the criminal justice system, as committed to in the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement.

Great idea. Will judges ignore it though?

Implementing a sliding scale for early guilty pleas with a maximum sentence discount of 25 per cent, reducing to a maximum of 5 per cent for a guilty plea entered during the trial. This will prevent undue discounts for late-stage guilty pleas and avoid unnecessary trials that are costly and stressful for victims.

To a degree the judiciary already does this, but it varies from judge to judge. Having more consistency and certainty should be useful.

There is one problem with the proposal though. The proposed 40% maximum cap includes the potential 25% for pleading guilty. Now if the offender is likely to get a 40% reduction anyway due to youth and background, then they may calculate that there is no benefit in pleading guilty as they will get 40% anyway.

The way to solve this would be to remove the guilty plea discount from the overall cap, and reduce the overall cap.

So for example you could have:

• Maximum 25% discount for pleading guilty
• Maximum 20% discount for all other factors

I wrote this post before the jury delivered a verdict, but after the conclusion of evidence. It will only be published after the verdict is announced (which was just announced as not guilty).

Like many I have followed the media reports of the death of Pauline Hanna since it occurred. It is worth reflecting that regardless of the cause of death of Hanna, it is a very sad and tragic story. You had an incredibly competent professional woman in a top job, earning a high salary – yet she was in a relationship which saw her apologising for not paying enough for groceries, not always looking “good” enough, trying to please her husband through group sex etc. It was so sad having her life and insecurities exposed through her death. Regardless of the verdict, she is a tragic victim.

To a degree Polkinghorne is also a figure of sadness. He was one of the most respected eye surgeons in New Zealand, if not outside. He was earning $750,000 a year. He had an amazing wife and house. He was popular and had a wide circle of friends. It’s a life many would aspire to. But he was using P, addicted to sex, worrying about money and most sadly of all fell in love with his escort, mistaking a transactional relationship for a true relationship.

So before we get to the criminal side, it is worth remembering it is also a strategic story of two unhappy individuals, and how so many people have lives that appear perfect on the surface, but are deeply flawed underneath.

When Hanna first died, it was difficult to reach conclusions on what happened. The Police seemed to be very effective at leaking evidence to the media that portrayed Polkinghorne is a bad light. The rushing off to the arms of Madison Ashton made him look guilty, and the rumoured affairs and drug use made it look like a typical he killed the wife to get her out of the way.

But then more stories came out that Hanna knew of his outside relationships, and even took part in some of them. It didn’t appear she was going to leave him. Motive was less.

When the trial started I thought it was probably murder on the balance of probabilities. There didn’t seem to be much of a motive though. And then the opening statement for the prosecution was that he had pleaded guilty to P charges. To me this filled in a missing link. People on P can do insane things, go into a rage etc. It seemed very possible that he snapped under the influence of P. So at the beginning of the trial, I thought it was very very likely a murder, but not quite at the level of reasonable doubt. The rope evidence also pointed to a staged scene.

But as the prosecution went on, the case was underwhelming. Admittedly Ron Mansfield is stunningly good defence lawyer (can someone send me his cellphone number in case I ever get charged with murder), but the evidence was not overly strong. The lack of significant injuries on Hanna was a major factor. Now it is possible that Polkinghorne managed to kill her in a way that very cleverly left no evidence and made suicide plausible – but if he was high on P at the time and in a rage, how likely is it that he was coherent enough to cover it up so well.

The tech experts introduced more doubt, and the evidence on Hanna’s mental health was heartbreaking but made suicide more plausible. And the two Crown pathologists said they could not rule out suicide, which by itself seemed to be reasonable doubt.

So by the end of the (reporting of) the prosecution case, I was in the not guilty beyond reasonable doubt space – before even hearing the defence’s case. I just didn’t think the prosecution had eliminated reasonable doubt. I still thought on balance of probabilities he may have done it, but a long way from beyond reasonable doubt.

Then we had the defence case, and the evidence from the two defence pathologists was very powerful. Basically the only thing the four pathologists agreed on was that it could have been suicide, and they were split 2/2 on whether it could have been homicide. Again hard to see this being beyond reasonable doubt.

The defence also resonated with the lack of evidence for homicide compared to the evidence for suicide such as decades of anti-depressants, a previous failed attempt, the massive work pressures etc.

The summings up went the other way to how I saw the evidence. I thought the crown did a much better summing up than the defence. The defence was too focused on outrage that there was even a trial, and not enough on the numerous areas of reasonable doubt.

Anyway by the end of the trial, I now shifted on the balance of probabilities to it being suicide. I will be very surprised if he is convicted, but of course respect the jury’s decision as they heard all the evidence, and I have relied on media reporting.

By coincidence Martin Lally has done an intriguing bayesian analysis of the trial, and he concludes:

Fourthly, when applying a Bayesian analysis to the case, there are plausible combinations of
views about the evidence that lead to a high probability that the case is a murder, of 87% in
Table 11, but there are also plausible combinations of views about the evidence that lead to a
very low probability that the case is a murder, of 0.7% in Table 10. If one took the view that
the parameter values underlying Table 11 were correct, one would be at or close to the point
where reasonable doubt about guilt did not exist. Alternatively, if one took the view that both
tables 10 and 11 deserved some weight, and further weight on other possibilities between them,
such a person would have reasonable doubt about guilt.

I’ve never seen this approach to trial evidence before, but it is sort of what juries are meant to do – look at the evidence as a whole, not just as individual strands. Lally finds the most favourable interpretation of the evidence is an 87% chance of murder (which would still be reasonable doubt) and the least favourable is a 0.7% chance.

An interesting article in Nature about the impact of Nature endorsing Joe Biden in 2020.

Overall, the study provides little evidence that the endorsement changed participants’ views of the candidates. 

So they didn’t have any impact on the candidates.

Those who viewed the endorsement also rated Nature significantly lower as an unbiased source of information on contentious or divisive issues. 

So the endorsement didn’t help Biden or damage Trump, but did damage Nature.

Zhang also found that viewing Nature’s political endorsement reduced Trump supporters’ willingness to obtain information about COVID-19 from Nature by 38%, when compared with Trump supporters who saw the formatting announcement. This finding echoes other work on how partisanship influences interest in scientific information⁵. Furthermore, Trump supporters who viewed the endorsement also rated US scientists, in general, as much less well informed and unbiased than did Trump supporters who viewed the formatting article. 

So basically an own goal.

There’s been quite a lot of attention on the September 2024 Taxpayers’ Union – Curia poll that showed a significant dip for Chris Hipkins as Preferred PM, and with his favourability.

Now it is only one month and one poll, and my advice is to always look at the average of all the polls, and the trend over many months.

Individual polls can bounce around due to sampling probability or sampling error. So I thought I would have a look at the cross-tabs of the poll to see if they explain why Hipkins dropped. Maybe it was just a sample with fewer Labour voters in it?

Well I dive into the details on Patreon (paywalled) but the short answer is Labour voters are the reason Hipkins dipped. Not that there were too few of them, but that they were less favourable towards him.