Policy No 3 is Animal Welfare. Some extracts:

• Ban cats from roaming outdoors (mandatory catios!)
• Establish a Parliamentary Commissioner of Animal Justice
• Limit the number of companion animals an individual can have at once
• Make it illegal to have just one guinea pig or rabbit
• Ban horse racing
• Ban rodeos
• Taxpayer funded spaying and neutering

Mosts of the costs here are societal, not economic. But the annual cost of taxpayer funded spaying and neutering would be around $25 million a year.

Banning the horse racing industry would cost around $1.9 billion to the economy and put around 15,000 people out of work. So not bad for one of their smaller policies.

Radio NZ reports:

New Zealand First will campaign on scrapping the Independent Māori Statutory Board (IMSB), which they say has significant influence over Auckland Council’s decision making.

In a statement, the party said a member’s bill had been written and introduced, which would see the unelected body that has “exercised significant influence” over council decision making since the creation of the Auckland Supercity in 2010.

It is worth remembering that the IMSB was a compromise, when the Auckland Council was formed. Some were pushing for two Maori Ward Councillors, and the IMSB was the alternative – representation on some Council committees, but not on the main Council.

The existence of the IMSB has made it easier to say no to having Maori Wards. Basically you can have one, or the other, but not both.

If the IMSB is abolished, then I would expect that there will be a move for the creation of full voting Maori Ward Councillors. Now under the current law this would need to go to referendum, but around half the recent referendums did pass, so it could happen in Auckland.

Jonathan Ayling writes:

To be clear, these bodies have legitimate roles, and their operational independence is important. No sensible person wants ministers deciding which professional should be disciplined or registered. Political control over individual professional decisions would be dangerous.

Regulators are independent when it comes to their individual decisions. That is how it should be. Ministers get no say in whether a doctor is found incompetent or a broadcaster is found to have breached broadcasting standards.

Operational independence is not the same as saying ministers should stand back while public bodies rewrite the rules, redefine their missions, and treat oversight as an affront.

Exactly. If the BSA decides it has the unilateral authority to regulate Internet based media outlets, they should expect a response from a Minister. Likewise if the Medical Council decides that doctor competence now includes affirming a left wing political ideology, of course they will get a response.

But ministers are not visitors to their own portfolios or regulatory bodies. They are accountable to voters for what happens inside them.

Of course, every individual is free to advocate for whatever view of the world they want. But they should do so as private individuals, not under the false pretence of state regulators, charging the cost of this activism to each one of us.

Push political views in your own time. Don’t do using powers of coercion as a regulator.

Radio NZ reports:

The Green Party has had to correct an error to its tax policy, which had put its costings out by $800 million.

The mistake involved extra funding for Inland Revenue being calculated as a revenue measure, rather than a cost.

The party then quietly re-uploaded the policy document with the correct figures after RNZ made enquiries.

It then released a press release saying there was a “typo” just after 12pm.

It wasn’t a typo. A typo is when you type in the wrong thing.

It was a fundamental error where they treated an expense and revenue. They stuck the $400 million in the wrong part of the spreadsheet, used it incorrectly in calculations and based a fiscal impact on it which was out by $800 million.

The Herald reports:

A former prominent sportsman has been discharged without conviction for drink driving and granted permanent name suppression. …

The charge arose following a situation last July that the police described as “morning-after driving”.

After Ubering home from a function the night before, the man slept. But when he got up and drove the next morning, he was stopped at a routine traffic stop.

The man gave a blood sample, which returned a blood alcohol level of 135mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. The legal limit is no more than 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

His lawyer, Lucie Scott, made lengthy submissions, outlining the efforts her client had made since the incident and the impact a conviction would have on him and his family.

I have sympathy for the argument that he shouldn’t get a conviction for “morning-after driving”. The argument is you did the right thing by. not driving home, and you just misjudged the impact it would have the next morning.

ChatGPT estimates he would have had 15 or more standard drinks the night before to have that high an alcohol level eight hours later. So you could argue with that many, maybe you should be aware.

But I could go along with him not getting a conviction, but I can’t see why you get name suppression?

But there is a further twist?

Given the sportsman had a 28-day disqualification from driving at the time of the offending the judge declined to further disqualify him, saying he was at a low risk of offending.

This changes things for me. If he was disqualified from driving, then he shouldn’t be driving at all, let alone the morning after a huge drinking session.

Duncan Garner got pinged for totally sober driving because he was five days away from having his licence back from some speeding demerits. Garner got his name prominently splashed over the media.

But this guy not only gets off for driving under the influence while disqualified, he also gets name suppression. It doesn’t seem right.

I note though the Police did not oppose it. So maybe there were special factors here, but overall doesn’t quite seem right.

UPDATE: The article implied the 28 days disqualification was in place at the time of the offending. I am told it wasn’t – it was an automatic disqualification from the offending. So this means he wasn’t driving while disqualified, which does make it less serious. So I’m okay with the lack of conviction, but still think name suppression shouldn’t have occured.

Radio NZ reports:

The Finance Minister has criticised Shane Jones for a $30,000 budget blowout incurred while attend a mining conference in Canada, saying he has made “significant errors”.

But Jones has immediately fired back, telling RNZ, Nicola Willis “must be in possession of information I don’t have, because to the best of my knowledge there were no errors made by my office”.

And New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is defending his deputy’s travel expenses including a private limousine on standby and an upgrade to business class flights, saying it’s “nothing out of the ordinary”.

The spending of $4,000 to have a limo on standby for three days is obscene. No one would do this with their own money.

I have no issue with Ministers flying business class. But you can’t get approval for premium economy and then just switch to business class without getting further approval.

A Minister should ensure that the cost of their trips is within the level approved by Cabinet. That doesn’t mean they personally monitor every cent. It means they instruct their staff to do it. It is a basic function of ministerial office staff to manage travel budgets.

The Post reports:

Wellington City councillors have voted not to continue with the controversial $139 million Golden Mile project.

The upgrade of the Golden Mile, which stretches from the Lambton Quay to Courtenay Place, sought to remove cars from the latter during the day, widen foot paths, create a cycle lane, and improve lighting.

At long last it is finally dead. No one is against enhancements such as improved lighting etc. But the proposed “upgrade” was actually a destruction of people’s ability to drive and park there, or nearby. I’d say 99% of retailers were opposed as they had first hand experience of what happens when people can’t access their premises easily. But the Council and activists were convinced they were all wrong, and that in fact it would be great for them.

Today’s vote passed 14 to 3, with Laurie Foon, Geordie Rogers and Rebecca Matthews those opposed.

No surprise.

Did you know that New Zealand now makes more money exporting gold than wine? Yep, that one metal now produces more export income for NZ than our entire viticulture industry (which is also great).

Where the price will go in future is debatable. The Post ‘reports:

Santana’s economist, Benje Patterson, provided a range of economic outcomes, based on average gold prices between US$2220 and US$4700 an ounce, suggesting the likely average for the mine’s life was around US$3100.

This seems pretty realistic. The average gold price for the last 10 years has been:

• 2016: $1,320
• 2017: $1,240
• 2018: $1,250
• 2019: $1,410
• 2020: $1,770
• 2021: $1,770
• 2022: $1,820
• 2023: $1,920
• 2024: $2,330
• 2025: $3,270
• 2026: $4,230

So they are saying the average price will be around 25% less than the current price (which is 13% down from a peak already)

Otago Regional Council economist Kirdan Lees accepted gold prices were “exceptionally volatile”. But he also believed prices would stay relatively high given factors such as central banks increasing the amounts of gold they held, with Lees saying the banks wouldn’t do this if they thought they would get burnt by the gold price falling sharply.

Again seems sensible.

However, Richard Meade, an economic expert for Sustainable Tarras, a group opposing the mine, said it was “utterly implausible” that gold prices would remain as high as Santana was predicting.

He said at no time in history has gold stayed over US$3000 an ounce for a sustained period, and he suggested the long-term average price would be between US$1850 and the US$2220 Patterson suggested as his low estimate.

That is a pretty brave prediction – that prices will fall up to 65% from its peak. That has never happened before. I have no economic expertise in this area. But an average price of 25% less than the current price seems a reasonable and even conservative assumption. A halving in price seems rather unlikely.

Time will tell!

Chris Luxon has announced National policy to make KiwiSaver compulsory if re-elected.

The Government has already lifted the minimum contribution rate from 3.0% to 3.5%, which 99.5% of default rate savers went with – only 0.5% went back to 3.0%.

Luxon announced four big changes to KiwiSaver:

• Making KiwiSaver compulsory from 1 July 2028 for employees
• A $1,500 KiwiSaver account for every baby born from 1 July 2027
• The Government to make employer contributions for parents on paid parental leave
• Extending matching employer contributions for KiwiSaver to those still working at age 65 and above.

The cost over time will be $360 million a year – funded out of the future Budget operating allowances.

I love the idea of every baby getting a KiwiSaver account. The cost is quite small (under $100 million a year) but fostering a savings culture in kids is so important. We have KiwiSaver accounts for our kids (and I do a matching contribution for what they save). A culture of self reliance is a core National Party belief.

This also sets the stage for a more sustainable NZ Superannuation scheme in future. If every New Zealander, over time, has significant private savings, this allows public superannuation to be set at a more affordable level at some future stage.

The Post announced:

Incoming editor-in-chief of The Post and the Sunday Star-Times, Matthew Hooton, has appointed Henry Cooke as political editor and Amelia Wade as Auckland editor.

“Henry Cooke and Amelia Wade are the best New Zealand journalists of their generation and they are only going to get better still,” Hooton said.

“Henry will lead The Post‘s press gallery team covering this year’s knife-edge election, fearlessly holding the political establishment to account and reporting fully and fairly on their plans for New Zealand, or lack thereof.

“Amelia will lead our coverage of New Zealand’s largest, most complex and most influential city, building a small, tenacious team to produce agenda-setting journalism, scrutinise its institutions and political leaders, and tell the stories that matter to Aucklanders.”

Both really good appointments.

Henry is even more nerdish than me when it comes to obscure Parliamentary trivia, use of data etc. This is a compliment. He often comes up with an analysis of an issue or policy, that you can’t get anywhere else. I am a huge fan of his work, and as it happens I was predicting to an acquaintance that he would become political editor a few hours before they announced he had been promoted.

Elon Musk in now the world’s first trillionaire, with his net work now estimated a US$1.3 trillion.

He did not inherit even 0.000001% of this from his parents. Instead he simply:

• Co-founded an online money transfer system (PayPal)
• Created the then world’s leading electric car manufacturer (Tesla)
• Founded a company that does more orbital launches than anyone else in the world (SpaceX)
• Created a company that now provides global satellite Internet to the world (Starling)
• Co-founded the leading artificial intelligence company (Open AI)
• Founded a company that develops brain-computer interfaces (Neuralink)

It’s so unfair he has got so wealthy. I mean anyone could found or create six globally successful and revolutionary companies.

Radio NZ reports:

The opposition party last week estimated a net cost of $65 million a year for its promise to cap fares at $20 a week in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and $10 everywhere else.

But economists Sam Warburton and Brad Olsen say a more realistic figure would be somewhere between $91m and $112m.

I would trust the analysis of either, let alone, both those people. So they are saying it will cost between 40% and 72% more than what Labour says.

Warburton has identified two errors Labour seems rot have made:

• The 6.4% increase in usage from an AT paper was for five months, not 12 months. So the actual annual increase would be around 13,5%
• Not understanding the difference between a 6% increase in patronage and a six percentage point increase in patronage

ACT announced:

“New Zealanders shouldn’t have to choose between their career and their right to free speech,” says ACT Public Service spokesperson Todd Stephenson.

“Today ACT is announcing a 2026 election policy to stop professional regulators acting as ideological enforcers. ACT will, if returned to Government, introduce legislation to this end. …

ACT will:

• Ban regulators from disciplining members for lawful expression outside their professional practice.
• Require regulators to remain institutionally neutral on political and ideological issues.
• Restrict mandatory training to matters directly related to professional competence and public safety, not affirmation of contested ideological positions.
• Strengthen judicial oversight so courts can properly rein in regulators that exceed their statutory authority.

“To be absolutely clear, professional misconduct will still be professional misconduct. If a nurse harms a patient, a teacher abuses a student, or a professional breaches their duties, regulators should come down hard.

“But if somebody expresses a lawful political opinion, supports a political party, signs a petition, attends a protest, or posts a view online in their own time, that is none of their regulator’s business.

Only a law change will stop the woke left trying to impose their political beliefs as a condition of registration on professions. If the Government isn re-elected, I hope ACT insists this is in the Coalition Agreement.

A guest post by a reader:

Without knowing anything about this project but having plenty of public sector experience with projects I can tell you exactly what happened here.

Firstly, the service was unable to say with precision what it wanted from this project because its own strategic and operational objective-setting was hopelessly immature.

Secondly, the service was supported by an immature procurement function which was unable to challenge this outcome vacuum resulting in both these functions (the substantive service-owner and the procurement function) looking to each other to provide clarity as they went to the market.

Thirdly, the project management staff were not project professionals but generic public servants who thought they’d like to have a crack at something else and lacked formal expertise in project methodologies and the subject-matter itself, and spent their time perpetually anxious.

Fourthly, the first three elements resulted in supplier-capture with the public servants deeply grateful to find a supplier able to meet their undetermined needs and also well-placed to both overcharge and underdeliver.

Fifthly, while there was a chart showing governance relationships and an identified project owner and sponsor neither of these positions had the skill, expertise or heft to effectively challenge the project or its supplier as it went wrong.

Sixthly, over time as funds were sunk and progress stalled, the paralysing public sector risk-aversion came to the fore making it extremely difficult for staff who were already out of their depth to screw up the courage to escalate.

Seventh, the project sponsor who as we have already remarked lacked the ability to turn the project around found it simpler and less threatening to distance themselves from the project in the hope that any adverse consequences would stick to those involved in day-to-day activity rather than those “sponsoring” it from the lofty heights of the executive office.

Finally, the collegial and comfortable public sector ethos of distributed accountability meant the governance group members never felt compelled to stick their heads above the parapet and call out the emperor’s nakedness.

I hope any reports cover the following:

1. Executive sponsorship means exactly that and if anyone is to hang, that is where you start.

2. Public service risk-aversion is a blight on everything they do (much of it driven by politics one has to admit) and staff need to be encouraged to call out failure loudly and early rather than let it drift for fear of being the bearer of bad news.

3. Generic skills do not qualify particular people to be procurement staff, project staff or subject-matter experts; the public sector needs to recruit to the level the complexity of its tasks demands.

Stuff reports:

Ginny Andersen appeared to subtly confirm a major Labour Party education policy at a conference last week, but her party says the policy had already been announced — it’s just almost no one had seen the announcement.

While speaking as part of a political panel beside education ministers Erica Stanford and David Seymour, Andersen said she would cancel “mandated testing” for primary-aged students.

Oh yes, let’s just give parents no information at all on how their kids are doing.

“Parents will receive that information in their next report card. Labour wants to take that away from parents,” she said, after the event.

She added, “Labour’s plan to scrap twice-yearly progress checks in reading, writing and maths shows they are out of touch with parents. Parents do not want less information about how their children are doing. They want more.”

Parents want more information than a 10 minute meeting twice a year. Now some schools are already very good at keeping parents informed, but many schools are not. A consistent standard of progress checks will mean all parents will be in the loop, and have clear and consistent information on their child’s progress.

Chris Bishop announced:

More than 150 outdated and obsolete laws are likely to be repealed as part of the Government’s statutory spring clean, Attorney-General Chris Bishop says.

The legislative cleanup is being run in stages led by the Parliamentary Counsel Office, alongside the Department of Internal Affairs for local Acts. To date, 152 outdated Acts have been identified for repeal.

Exciting stuff for legal nerds. But important. The fewer laws on the book, the easier it is to know what the law is.

Bishop is proposing the repeal of:

• 85 Local Acts
• 15 Public Acts
• 36 Private Acts
• 17 Provincial Acts

A reader comments:

The RNZCGP is outdoing them and GP’s are sick and tired of it to the back teeth.1/4 of my CME  is about “Cultural Safety and Equity.

25% of my  continuous medical education is spent on this. Every 3 years the same stuff! Over and over again! Why not just once.

That means every 3 years we struggle to do something. I was reduced to learn about the pronunciation of place names instead of the new blood pressure guide lines.

Shoot me now!

GP’s are sick of this, totally. But they all fear to be called a racist.

The woke virus carries on until it kills its host. The RNZCGP now gives the same weighting to “cultural safety and equity” as to “patient outcomes”

And I have seen screenshots showing they get credits for place name pronunciation. Madness.

The seconds Greens policy I am looking at is Agriculture. They key aspects are:

• Ban all synthetic nitrogen fertilisers
• Adjusting stocking rates according to the holding capacity of the land;

So what would this cost?

• The ban on nitrogen fertilisers has been estimated to cost the economy $19.6 billion and destroy 70,000 jobs. The only country on Earth to do this was Sri Lanka, which led to soaring food prices, reduced crop yields, and a major economic crisis, before they backtracked. So the Greens are advocating for something that has been proven to be a disaster.
• The adjusting stocking rates policy is code for shooting cows because they fart and burp too much. They have talked in the past about a 20% reduction, which would reduce export earnings by $5.4 billion a year.

So policy number 2 would cost the economy $25 billion a year and get rid of 70,000 jobs. Makes their ACC policy look modest.

Radio NZ reports:

Almost all of Parliament is backing the 30-year Infrastructure Plan, with the government agreeing in full to 13 of 16 recommendations and four further actions.

The remaining three recommendations are supported in principle, and the government says further work is required.

Labour and the Greens have also offered explicit support, with both parties writing forewords to the government’s response, welcoming a long-term non-partisan approach – although the Greens wanted the government to go further.

This is a very welcome development. Big kudos to Chris Bishop, Kieran McAnulty and Julie-Anne Genter for working together to achieve this.

The full response is here.