One of the major benefits of the fast track consenting law has been renewable electricity. Climate change activists should be praising the law. Here’s how much extra renewable has been consented:

• Kaimai (re-consent): Hydro, 42 MW and generates approximately 169 GWh per annum.
• Lake Pukaki: Hydro storage, 545 GWh of realisable energy available over 3 years
• Mahinerangi: Wind, 190MW and generate approximately 549 GWh per year
• Southland: Wind, 385MW
• Tekapo (re-consent): Hydro, 190 MW, 187- GWh per annum
• Waitaha: Hydro, 23 MW, 130 GWh per annum

These six projects between them can power almost 400,000 homes.

Stuff reports:

A former Lotto presenter who delivered six bars of gold bullion to the Comancheros’ “International Commander” in Turkey was suspended on full pay from his government job after he was arrested as part of a global FBI sting targeting organised crime.

Russell Harrison, 56, continued to receive his taxpayer funded Ministry of Justice salary for five years, tallying hundreds of thousands of dollars, until he pleaded guilty to a charge of money laundering a fortnight ago and his employment was terminated.

Unbelievable. The contempt for taxpayer money. No private sector employer would keep paying someone a salary for five years while they were up on serious criminal charges.

“From that point on, Mr Harrison was not permitted to work in his role. But because he was in [the eyes of the] law innocent until proven guilty, a decision about whether to terminate his employment needed to wait until the outcome of the charge was clear.

Nonsense. The Ministry of Justice seems to know nothing about employment law. It’s insane to think someone can work for you for a week and then they get arrested and you pay them five years pay on leave.

Harrison actually got paid more by the Ministry of Justice than the value of the gold he was laundering!

If an employee is charged with a crime, you do not have to wait for trial. You start an employment investigation.

NZ First announced:

New Zealand First has today announced that we will be campaigning to change the electoral law to ensure that only citizens have the right to vote.

Currently, any permanent resident who has gone through the normal process, after just two years living in New Zealand, can vote.

In addition, anyone who is here on certain visas that have no expiry date, are technically eligible to vote after just one year living in New Zealand.

I have supported and advocated for this change for 20 years or so. I think it is important that people become citizens of a country, not just reside there. Citizenship is important, and NZ provides very little incentive for residents to become citizens.

Around one in five people in NZ are not citizens. That is a very high proportion. I’d like to see it reduce. Not by having fewer immigrants, but by more of them becoming citizens.

In Australia and the UK only around 10% of residents are not citizens.

It is very rare for a country to allow non-citizens to vote. We are one of the few in the world, and our regime has been described as the most liberal in the world.

While I strongly back changing the eligibility from residents to citizens, I don’t like the idea of someone who has been eligible, losing their eligibility through no fault of their own. So I would grandfather in anyone currently on the electoral roll.

It is good to see NZ First promote this change. It should not be controversial.

Don Brash e-mailed:

Hobson’s Pledge has always stood firmly for the protection of private property rights. When a major infrastructure project directly impacts local communities or land, it is completely right for legitimate, proportionate claims to be recognised and mitigated.

But what is happening right now with the Port of Tauranga expansion is not a defence of property rights. It is something else entirely.

A Tauranga-based hapū, Ngāti Kuku, is reportedly demanding $19 million annually in compensation as a condition for not opposing a planned expansion project. While mainstream media are saying this could amount to between $335 million and $475 million over the 35-year life of the project, doing the actual maths ($19 million x 35 years) is more like $665 million! No matter the actual amount, every one of these figures is huge.

To put that in perspective, the Port of Tauranga has already put a substantial $7 million offer on the table to address cultural and environmental impacts.

The hapū is not claiming a loss of their own property rights in any proportionate way. Instead, they are using the current RMA consultation system to extract an astronomical sum simply as a condition for “not opposing” a planned wharf extension.

We should know how many millions of dollars are paid out to Iwi and other groups just so they won’t object to a development. I would support a law change that requires any organisation seeking a consent to file an annual report detailing payments made to any organisation with regard to resource consent applications.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

There are so many legitimate things you can attack or criticise Donald Trump over, but the media have to also find illegitimate ones.

An AP story carried by The Post complains that the Trump Administration is putting forest fires out, rather than letting them burn!!

They complain about this policy:

“Any wildfire that represents a threat to life, property, infrastructure or the environment should be extinguished as quickly as possible,”

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

250 years ago on the 4th of July 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted The Declaration of Independence and changed the world for the better. The delegates were committing high treason by adopting The Declaration, which was drafted by Thomas Jefferson.

It is one of the most beautifully crafted documents in history. You can read the full declaration here. The beginning especially is stunning:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The Declaration of Independence led to a form of government that is now the norm through the world – democratic republics. The debt we owe to the US founding fathers is immense.

Happy 250th birthday to the United States of America.

This week Erica Stanford made an announcement to expand a programme to enhance oral language skills in pre-school children. For those it will reach, it appears positive.

The issue is the “those it will reach” part.

From the article:

“In 2025, 36% of children aged 0-4 were in ECE, with participation rising with age; 83% of 4-year-olds attended ECE for 10 hours or more, with 43% attending for 20 hours or more.”

“That is one of the most difficult policy problems,” Stanford said.

“How do you influence parenting to make sure that you’re doing the single most important thing? Speaking to your child, using rich language, inviting a response, not using baby language, talking to them all the time.

“The more language that young people are exposed to, the more words they hear, the better their oral language skills will be, and they don’t even have to be able to talk yet.”

But there is no Minister for Parenting, nor is Stanford suggesting one.

“Every single mother and every single father wants the best for their children. They just don’t always know [how].

“How do we get that into homes is a tough one. I’ve got the compulsory education system, and what we’re doing with these reforms is the very best we can do when they walk in that front door at age 5.”

She has noted the issues:

– many children are arriving at 5yo developmentally well behind.

– parents want the best for their children but don’t know how.

– many children are no where near an ECE and it is also likely that many of those children will attend school poorly.

But she misses the most obvious and effective solution – we need a Crown Entity for Parenting to fully inform all parents of best practice so they do know how and all children can be reached. We have Ministries for Women, Pasifik Peoples, Ethnic Communities, Youth, Maori Development, Seniors but nothing for such a foundational, and problematic, part of our society.

Stanford noted:

“International assessment results from 2018, she said, showed New Zealand with “the strongest relationship between socio-economic background and educational performance of all of the English comparative-speaking countries – more than the US, more than Australia, more than Canada, more than the UK”.

“Things have been getting worse. That’s what we’re trying to address. But it’s going to take many, many years to turn this enormous ship around.”

Properly addressing and supporting parenting in NZ will be more effective and would not take “many, many years.”

[email protected]

The Free Press reports:

On Friday evening, California state senator and Democratic congressional candidate Scott Wiener was on his way to a trans-led Pride Shabbat service in San Francisco—an event he’s attended for 22 years. On his way in, protesters surrounded him, screaming: “We fucking hate you.” “You do not belong here.” And: “You stopped being queer the moment you started supporting Israel, you piece of shit.” Wiener is a Jewish gay man. He left the event, fearing that staying could endanger him or his staff.

One would struggle to honestly describe Wiener as an Israel supporter. He has accused the Jewish state of genocide in Gaza, and called for a ban on U.S. military aid to the country.

It’s a stark example of something increasingly difficult to deny on parts of the left: No matter who you are, how you identify, or what causes you’ve championed, if you don’t entirely fall in line with a hard-line anti-Israel stance, you risk being ostracized. And in Wiener’s case, it’s hard not to conclude that the fact he is Jewish is part of the reason he was targeted.

So Weiner has condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli’s Government’s war in Gaza, labelling it genocide. But even that isn’t enough to save him from the hard left. Unless you actually call for the destruction of the Jewish state, you are an enemy if you are Jewish.

Konstantin Kisin writes:

The other thing you need to know is we’ve gone from a 2 party system to a 5 party system where we have:

1. The Green Party which is a harmonious coalition of pansexual communists and hardcore Islamists.
2. The Labour Party which used to be the party of the working people and is now the party of the not working people.
3. The Conservative Party is to the right of Labour. At least in theory. Not so much in Government.
4. Then you have Reform, which used to be called the Brexit Party, which used to be called UKIP. They’ve had more name changes than Puff Daddy. Reform are considered super controversial but they basically just think Blair ruined everything and want to go back 3 decades.
5. And finally you have Restore which is just like Reform, except they want to go back 3 centuries.

Oh, and I forgot the Liberal Democrats… But then again hasn’t everyone?

Not a bad summary!

A guest post by Spartacus:

In the last few months for my sins, I have caught 5 minute scenes of British late-night programmes.

A Drama where the wife talks to her Husband (lets call him Fred) as he exits the shower, she grabs him by the willie, and says how about it? Nothing happens because the kids are calling and there’s the plans for the day, its all so busy and modern.

She said “we have dinner with the new neighbours tonight ones a Vicar”. Then we see him bundling the kids into the car, there’s a dead rat on the driveway, they all avoid it. Then the Man from next door, who is weird, picks the rat up by the tail and says his wife’s a vicar, and “I’m looking forward to dinner tonight where we can talk about Christ” (I’m paraphrasing}

The man drives off with his kids who he drops to school, then Fred goes to his therapist, says he hasn’t had sex for ages, says his wife confronted him about it that morning, that she grabbed him by the penis that was erect because he had been masturbating in the shower.

I changed channels

Then I saw a bit of a show where there were 2 men and 2 women, naked, and behind screens so that you could only see them between the knees and the Belly button. A women presenter took a black (of course) female Contestant? Person? Victim? around looking at the vaginas and Peni (ises?) joking about them “That vaginas very neat, very clean” “Ooh look, that Penis is bouncing”, as if they were looking at Kitchen appliances.

I changed Channels

Saw a Tattoo fixers thing. A skinny man with a tattoo of his previous girlfriend, her back was arched in extasy “Yeah she’s coming” he says, Laughs all around. I want that Tattoo covered because this is my new girl-friend he says motioning towards the grinning fat as hell bimbo beside him. Oh yeah, and she’s my cousin.  Again laughs all around.

I even saw a snippet a while ago “My massive Cock” where a dweeby Pom was complaining that his penis was too big.

This is tasteless stuff driven by a determination to break down social barriers. To show that “I’m so cool, liberal and advanced” that I can trample on all societal and moral norms.

I  laugh in the face of prudishness. 

Nothing is sacred, Its all product for consumption titillation and laughter.No wonder the Poms are being colonised.

Wayne Brown interviewed Carmel Sepuloni, and asked her why the Government doesn’t pay rates on land and buildings it owns. Her answer was “I didn’t know that this was the case”.

Amazing that such a basic piece of knowledge was unknown to Labour’s proposed Deputy Prime Minister. I think I have known that for 30 or so years. It is very common knowledge.

The answer incidentally is that the Crown set up local government by statute, so the Crown doesn’t pay taxes to a subsidiary body. It would also create perverse incentives if the Department of Conservation had to pay a massive rates bill on all the national parks it conserves. Then you would have real pressure to reduce, not grow, the conservation estate.

Stuff reports:

A Government ministry has taken the time to threaten legal action against Stuff, all over a photo of a 45-year-old magazine used in a Stuff Quiz.

On June 26, question five of the Stuff morning trivia quiz asked who appeared on the debut cover of Playboy magazine. To accompany the question, the quiz featured an archive image of a person reading Playboy.

That has offended a civil servant, who wrote to Stuff four days after the quiz was published threatening legal action on behalf of the Ministry of Health.

If Stuff refuses to comply with the ministry’s demands, it could face $2000 infringement fines followed by a $200,000 fine, the letter warned. …

It wasn’t the Playboy cover which caused offence. That was just promising to give readers “an irresistible survey of saucy sisters”.

No, it was the back page which led to the threat. That page, from an archive copy of Playboy, featured an advert for a cigarette brand.

Tell me again now how we can’t possibly survive with fewer public servants!

The quiz featured a historical magazine. It was not an advertisement. Does the Ministry of Health want us to burn all back copies of magazines that had a cigarette ad in them 50 years ago?

So so stupid.

NZ First have announced that Michael Laws will stand for NZ First in Waitaki.

The seat is a very traditional National seat. Last election they got 43% party vote (5% higher than NZ average) and NZF got 7% (1% higher than NZ average) . The majority is over 12,000.

Laws has been elected to the Otago Regional Council four times. His record is:

• 2016: Won final spot by just 5 votes
• 2019: Won top spot by 1,600 votes
• 2022: Won third (last) spot by 21 votes
• 2025: Won top spot by 2,300 votes

It will be an interesting seat to watch. Also interesting to see the NZ First party list when released.

The Court of Appeal has rejected every aspect of Kim Dotcom’s appeal against the decision of the High Court judicially reviewing the decision of the Justice Minister to extradite Dotcom. No doubt he will try to appeal this to the Supreme Court, but after that it will finally be over.

Apart from losing on every issue, Dotcom also got hit with a 50% increase in costs because of his attempt to adjourn the hearing the day before. The Court noted:

In our view, whatever the intentions were in seeking an adjournment, the fact remains it was sought. The respondents could not just ignore the application which was sprung on them at the very last minute. They were put to unnecessary expense in having to review the material and then respond to it literally overnight under urgency.

To suggest that the eleventh-hour timing was simply a function of when the Cox decision was released was a misleading explanation in so far as Mr Dotcom was suggesting he had only just become aware of the decision. The tweets indicated hehad in fact been aware of it and its claimed effect on his own case back on 27 March.

In short, the respondents were unreasonably taken by surprise.

It was a desperate attempt to get another delay, which thankfully the Court did not fall for.

Brian Tamaki was reported as saying:

In a video posted on Facebook on Wednesday, the Destiny Church founder accuses Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of purging Christians in the South Asian nation.

“He [Modi] is currently purging India of all Christians and burning church buildings down,” Tamaki said.

“I think we should reciprocate in kind. Let’s purge New Zealand of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. And, while we’re at it, if they’re burning churches down, why don’t we burn mosques and their temples down? Tit for tat.”

Tamaki explicitly said NZ should be purged of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, on the basis he doesn’t like what the leader of a foreign country is doing.

For those inclined to defend what he said, think about if he had said:

“Benjamin Netanyahu is currently purging Israel of all Muslims and burning mosques down. I think we should reciprocate in kind. Let’s purge NZ of Jews. And while we’re at it, if they’re burning mosques down, why don’t we burn their synagogues down”

Both statements are equally vile. He calls for a purge of New Zealand citizens based on their religion, and suggests burning down their places of worship. One can condemn what happens in India (which actually sees Muslims, Sikhs and Christians all targeted – not just Christians) without using it to condemn three entire religions. It is especially ironic that Muslims and Sikhs in India are also victims of Hindu nationalism, and Tamaki calls for them to be purged because I guess to him they’re all the same.

The statements do not necessarily meet the threshold for criminal prosecution, but they do meet the threshold to consider whether he should have the privilege (not the right) of owning guns. I prefer gun owners not to call for purges of religious minorities and burning down places of worship.

Ashley Church sets out why TOP is not a centrist party. The evidence is overwhelming:

• 38 out of 43 candidates come from left-wing backgrounds
• The general manager is a former Labour Cabinet Minister, who was in a business partnership with the fiancee of the Labour Leader.
• They are proposing the largest ever increase in tax and welfare spending in NZ history
• They want adults aged 25 and under to be tried in the Youth Court, which would see hundreds or thousands of serious violent recidivists walking free
• Over 95% of their policies fit comfortably with Labour and the Greens and Te Pati Maori

It’s not even close.

If TOP are in Parliament I would offer odds of 20:1 (if DIA allowed me) that they would support a Labour-Green-Te Pati Maori Government over a centre-right one.

When Damien O’Connor was standing on the West Coast, he was pro mining. He was even accused of being out of step with his party.

But now he has left the West Coast, he is now passionately anti-mining. The Post reports:

Senior Labour MP Damien O’Connor has made his party’s strongest comments yet in opposition to a controversial gold mine planned near Cromwell.

“I’m starting to appreciate the expanse and the unique and fragile environment that is Central Otago,” O’Connor recently told a gathering at the proposed mine site at Bendigo, south of Tarras.

“You can’t just come and put a mine in.”

Such a man of principle.

“You hear a lot of claims from mining companies how they’ll benefit the local community. The reality is that, in the short term, local people will be affected, and can I say I empathise with those local people living here, who are right at the forefront of this disruption.

“There’ll be some short-term gains, contractors get work, then the medium and the long term issues must be considered.”

Here is what is interesting. Mining is actually hugely popular in the communities that have mines.

In an April poll Curia did for the NZ Minerals Council, we asked if people had a positive, neutral or negative view of mining in NZ. Here’s the breakdown by area.

People in Wellington don’t like mining. People who live where the mines are, love mining.

Otago Public Health academics write:

Estimates of illicit tobacco use in Aotearoa New Zealand differ sharply. Although tobacco industry-funded studies suggest the illicit tobacco market is large and growing rapidly, independent research has consistently found much lower levels. 

However, evidence that border seizures have increased, alongside rapid growth in Australia’s illicit tobacco market, suggests Aotearoa must act now to prevent illicit tobacco from becoming established and undermining efforts to reduce smoking.

For years they have denied there is a problem, but finally the evidence is so overwhelming, they can’t deny it. This is progress I guess.

First, Aotearoa should accede to the World Health Organisation’s Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products. This requires parties to control the tobacco supply chain by licensing all importers, distributors and retailers, thus creating greater accountability throughout the supply chain.

Regulators would allocate licences after applicants underwent a “fit and proper person” assessment and licence holders would have to maintain detailed sales records, to enable monitoring. Licensing would enable regulators to manage the location and number of tobacco retailers, helping prevent clusters of outlets near schools or in lower-income communities.

This will actually grow the black market. The harder you make it for legal retailers, the easier you make it for illegal retailers.

Second, stronger regulation must occur alongside expanded border enforcement. Illicit tobacco threatens communities’ wellbeing and puts Aotearoa’s biosecurity at risk. Customs and the Ministry for Primary Industries need additional funding to support greatly expanded screening alongside investment in advanced detection technologies capable of identifying and intercepting illicit imports before they reach the domestic market.

Agree here.

Third, enforcement must include the domestic market. Reports of illicit tobacco sales through existing retailers, at pop-up stores, via in-person and online markets, and from private houses, suggest suppliers are already developing diverse distribution channels; these require a swift and decisive response to shut them down.

Also agree.

Fourth, penalties for non-compliance must increase. The reported low cost of producing illicit cigarettes, means laws need to be fit-for-purpose. Penalties for supplying illicit tobacco must be severe and Smokefree Enforcement Officers should have powers to impose store closure orders and large on-the-spot fines. Other penalties should include imprisonment and deportation, where appropriate.

Again I agree. Excellent.

Fifth, as well as integrating processes to detect and deter illicit tobacco trade, Aotearoa needs comprehensive surveillance of illicit tobacco activity, including ongoing analyses of border interceptions and domestic seizures, monitoring of social media marketplaces and research into purchase patterns. Regular monitoring of reported illicit tobacco use, including prices paid, products used and their sources, would help target resources and provide baseline data to evaluate measures taken.

Also fine.

Finally, and crucially, Aotearoa needs more effective measures to decrease smoking prevalence, including maintaining the high excise taxes that have reduced smoking prevalence and remain a key reason why people who smoke try to quit. Proposals to freeze or lower excise taxes will increase smoking rates; that may enhance tobacco companies’ profits, but it will lead to more completely avoidable deaths.

Here is where their ideology interferes. There can be no doubt that the massive increase in the cost of legal tobacco has fuelled the explosion in the black market.

Increasing the price through excise tax was once a very good measure to decrease smoking. Ten years ago I was saying that excise tax increases would be better than the unproven theory of plain packaging. And the excise tax increases worked – until they didn’t. There comes a price point where you have pushed out all the smokers who are price sensitive, and then you just have the hard core who will remain smokers regardless, and they swap to the black market.

This is common sense. Increasing a pack of cigarettes from say $10 to $12 didn’t fuel the black market, but having them go to $36 did. If the retail price was $100 do you think the black market would be more or less than today? More, of course.

Now I agree there is no point in cutting excise tax. The sad reality is that once you have pushed a huge number of smokers into the black market, a small reduction in legal price will not get them back. The damage done is not easily reversible.

But further increases to excise tax is a very dumb idea. It will drive more people into the black market where there is no regulation, no tax, no health warnings etc.

So their points 2 to 4 are fine. Their points 1 and 6 are ideology over evidence.

But credit where credit is due. Just having them acknowledge there is a problem is a big step forward to evidence based policy.