There have been seven Maori Kings or Queens. The duration of each reign was:

1. Two years
2. 34 years
3. 18 years
4. 21 years
5. 32 years
6. 40 years
7. 18 years

While all the Maori Monarchs have been descendants of the 1st King, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, this is not a requirement. The Tekau-mā-rua could appoint anyone, but tradition has been they don’t.

The three children of the late King are:

• Whatumoana Te Aa
• Te Ariki Taituruki Korotangi
• Te Puhi Ariki Ngā Wai hono i te po

The oldest son is considered unlikely now. In 2022 the Herald reported:

Sources told the NZ Herald that the statement from the King’s office on June 25, 2022, of the disapproval of the marriage to Tahana, was an accumulation of 18 months of deep frustration and hurt, an attempted coup of the Kīngitanga by Whatumoana, mounting debts around the motu, and his dabbling in aspects of black magic.

So a coup, a cult and black magic don’t seem like a likely Monarch.

The second son has issues also, as reported in 2020:

A son of the Māori King punched his girlfriend several times in the head leaving her with a black eye in what a judge called a clear case of domestic violence. 

He also has a conviction for drink driving and got a discharge for alleged burglary and theft in 2014.

This leaves the daughter. She is only in her 20s but is a member of the governing council of Waikato University, where she got a BA and MA. She is also a member of the Waitangi National Trust Board, the Te Kohanga Reo National Trust, and the Waikato-Tainui College for Research and Development.

Not my call of course, but seems like a pretty easy decision to me!

NZ on Air has their annual survey of NZ viewing habits out. The daily reach for different mediums or channels is:

1. You Tube 43%
2. Facebook 36%
3. TV1 32%
4. Instagram 27%
5. TikTok 18%
6. TV3 17%
7. TV2 12%
8. Snapchat 9%
9. Sky Sport 8%
10. Z 5%
11. Sky Open 5%

I did not realise how anaemic TV2 now was.

Sources of news are:

1. TVNZ 46%
2. Stuff 46%
3. NZ Herald 35%
4. Friends 34%
5. Social media from news media 33%
6. Newshub 30%
7. Social media from friends 29%
8. Radio NZ 23%
9. Overseas news websites 17%
10. NewstalkZB 13%

Will be interesting what happens if social media block news content due to the daft government bill.

The Herald reports:

There’s speculation filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson’s movie museum in Wellington could finally materialise – bringing to life a plan that has been more than a decade in the making.

Interests associated with The Lord of the Rings director have spent $105 million buying a large piece of land near the city’s airport in Lyall Bay in what has been announced as this year’s biggest land deal.

There are rumours it could be the new site for his movie museum. Jackson and his partner Dame Fran Walsh have not publicly commented on their plans for the site.

I hope it is. I think such a museum could rival Te Papa as a tourist destination.

Even better if it gets done without ratepayer or taxpayer subsidies!

The Herald reports:

A new Government-funded website intended to help youth foster healthy relationships and learn about the likes of “red flags” and “how to handle a first-time queer crush” has cost more than $800,000.

There was a closed competitive procurement process notified on the Government’s tender website GETS, the ministry said.

Since becoming viewable a month ago, the site has recorded 2300 user sessions.

More than $10 million has been committed to the campaign since development began in 2019, including current and forecast expenditure. That came from funding for family violence prevention work found in Budgets 2019 and 2022.

What a waste of money. There are scores of websites out there about healthy relationships, crushes etc. There is no need for a government one, especially one that no one goes to.

1 News reports:

Multicultural New Zealand (MNZ) president Pancha Narayanan wants a new public holiday to recognise “we are a multicultural society”.

On the last Friday of August every year, the Multicultural Councils across the country celebrate a Te Tiriti based National Multicultural Day.

The initiative was first launched in 2021 as a way to encourage migrants to make their heritage visible in their daily lives by wearing cultural clothing, sharing traditional food with friends and colleagues, and speaking their native language.

This year, celebrations took place earlier at Parliament on August 26 where Narayanan proposed the inclusion of a Multicultural Day into the Holidays Act.

The Holidays Act is the legislation which outlines what public holidays New Zealanders are entitled to — currently we have 11 public holidays.

Actually we have 12 as provincial anniversary days are also public holidays.

The second is a “cultural day” which gives New Zealanders a day off to celebrate an event that is culturally significant to them.

This could be taken on a religious holiday that is not a public holiday in New Zealand, like Vesak Day which is observed by Buddhists, or a cultural celebration, like Lunar New Year.

So that is actually 14 public holidays plus 20 days annual leave where employers hav e to pay staff not to work.

I am a fan of having more flexibility with holidays, but not increasing the total amount. So what I would do is abolish Labour Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day and Boxing Days as public holidays, and instead give everyone five extra days annual leave. That way people could choose which holidays they wish to celebrate and take time off for.

I have been leaked a copy of the latest staff survey from AUT Law Faculty and it is very clear that it is a very unhappy place. Here are some of their results:

• Would recommend AUT as a great place to work 45%
• AUT is in a position to succeed 42%
• Have confidence in senior leaders at AUT 35%
• AUT has a thriving research culture 35%
• Am comfortable reporting inappropriate behaviour 30%
• Workloads are divided fairly 25%
• Innovation is recognised and rewarded 20%
• At AUT we are good at learning from our mistakes 20%
• The right people are recognised and rewarded 20%
• If someone is not delivering in their role we do something about it 5%

You never get 100% staff satisfaction but to have such a low level of satisfaction should ring warning bells.

As if that isn’t bad enough, a whopping 35% of law faculty staff who responded said they had experienced bullying or harassment at work in the last six months. Also 20% said they had been discriminate against.

This is a quote from an e-mail from one of the law faculty professors discussing the results. He seems to blame it all on the central AUT administration, a view not shared by his colleagues.

Now readers will recall that the Dean of Law is Khylee Quince and she attracted a lot of publicity when she called a senior KC a racist dinosaur who should go off and die in the corner.

Readers will be interested in how AUT dealt with this. Did they tell the Dean that this is unacceptable behaviour for a first year law student let alone the Dean of Law?

This is from the Pro VC in charge of the law faculty. So their focus was to make the Dean feel safe and supported for her outrageous behaviour, and not on how her comments may have made staff and students feel.

This is unintentionally hilarious. The Law School Dean blasts someone she disagrees with as a racist old dinosaur who should die in the corner, and the Dean’s boss says our values are to be kind and supportive!!!

This is from a powerpoint presenting the findings of the survey. So is AUT doing anything about this?

As you can see the results for the Law Faculty are much much lower than AUT as a whole. So this would suggest the major issue is not the central administration, but the faculty management itself. I am told by sources that everyone knows what the major problem is, but people are too scared to say so.

So only 1 out of 20 law staff thought something is done when someone is not delivering in their role. I wonder who they might have in mind when they answered that question!

There was a strange story in The Post this weekend. The basic theme of the story is that everyone is leaving Wellington and it is the Government’s fault. One particularly weird extract was this:

An out of work contractor, an open home, the finance minister flashing the cash.

The stuff of nightmares, according to 48-year-old Pete, the aforementioned unemployed contractor, who earlier this week spent eight hours on the Northern Explorer from Hamilton to Wellington staring out of a window as he pondered his – and his family’s –future.

A day or so before he had dreamt he and his wife had to sell their house. “We were doing an open home, and Nicola Willis blew through the place and says, ‘I’ll have this. It’ll make a great rental’.

“That was actually a nightmare I had.”

So the story starts with Pete (who isn’t actually Pete) talking about a nightmare involving Nicola Willis, and someone this is part of the story.

But the main focus is about a couple:

Te Hinemoa Hiroki-Tuiono and partner Aaron Moss are heading to Asia next week. …

Said Hiroki-Tuiono: “It is utterly bleak. The cuts to the public sectoraren’t just constrained to the Government ‒ it’s affecting the private sector as well. Small businesses in the Wellington CBD seem to be taking quite a big hit from this and there are hiring restrictions in the larger organisations too.

“Making the decision to leave was really difficult. I have met some amazing people in the public sector who work insanely hard. It has been awful to see their work degraded.”

I always get interested when I see random members of the public get interviewed, and they seem so highly critical (or supportive) of the Government. So I did a google.

It turns out she was a staffer for former Labour Minister Kiri Allan. This doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be in the story, but surely it would be helpful to mention this.

Now how did it happen that The Post of all the people in Wellington happened to find a former staffer for Kiri Allan for their story? Well the journalist who wrote the story just happened to be a former press secretary for Kiri Allan.

Once again this doesn’t mean she should not get to write political stories, but shouldn’t this be disclosed? A former press secretary for a Labour Minister interviews a former staffer for the same Minister for an article critical of the Government, and none of this is disclosed.

And people wonder why trust in media keeps dropping.

I also wonder why the Government is planning to pass a law to bail out media that readers are abandoning by forcing Internet companies to fund them.

TVNZ has just announced an $85 million loss and a huge $39 million drop in revenue.

I’ve never seen why taxpayers own a commercial media company. There is a case to be made for owing public service broadcasters such as Radio NZ and Maori TV, but not a commercial broadcaster.

Think if ten years ago we had sold TVNZ. It was making a $35 million profit so could have sold for say $400 million. Now think if that $400 million has been invested in say some Netflix shares. They were around US$50 in 2014 or NZ $60. So they could have purchased 6.66 million shares in Netflix. Today those shares are US$692 on NZ$1,105. So we’d have $7.36 billion rather than an asset that is now probably worth close to zero on the open market.

The Herald reports:

The Government wants to “get tough” on the “selfish behaviour” of people who misuse car parks reserved for disabled people by hiking the fine by 400%.

Towage and impoundment fees and parking infringement fees are also going up. Some haven’t been updated since 2004 and the minister said it can now be cheaper to pay a parking ticket rather than paying for parking in Auckland.

Louise Upston, the Minister for Disability Issues, today said misusing car parks for disabled people was the “epitome of arrogance” and the financial penalty will increase from $150 to $750.

I think this is a good move. $150 is not enough of a deterrent.

It does remind me of one of the funniest stories I have heard from a friend of mine some years ago. He was driving from Auckland to Wellington and stopped in Taihape for a toilet stop. The public toilets had a huge carpark with no cars in them, so he parked in the space next to the toilet, even though it was marked as a disabled park. He thought that as it was a Sunday afternoon in Taihape with an empty carpark, the chance of it inconveniencing anyone was close to zero.

However as he came out of the toilet he was horrified to see a bus parked next to his car. A bus for disabled kids, with a dozen kids on board who were being helped out of the into their wheelchairs etc. And all 12 kids were staring at this guy who was parked in their park! Safe to say he slunk away and never did it again 🙂

The Herald reports:

National MP David MacLeod says he is “hugely relieved” by the police decision not to take any action over his failure to declare more than $178,000 in donations before the last election.

The Electoral Commission referred the issue to police to investigate in June after MacLeod initially failed to declare the donations in his 2023 return, something he said was “a genuine mistake”.

Police have decided not to take any further action against the New Plymouth MP over it. MacLeod had amended his return in May to include the missing donations after the National Party discovered they had not been disclosed during post-election checks.

MacLeod told the NZ Herald it was the result of a genuine mistake and he had addressed it once it was discovered.

I believe this was the wrong decision by Police, and another example of why they should not be the body that enforces electoral law.

I am sure it was absolutely a genuine mistake, but the Electoral Act takes that into account. Here’s S209(B)(2):

A candidate who files a return under section 209 that is false in any material particular is guilty of

The return was false, as it omitted $178,000 of donations.

a corrupt practice if he or she filed the return knowing it to be false in any material particular

As it was a genuine mistake (he thought the return was only for donations in 2023, and didn’t realise it was for his entire candidacy) the Police are correct not to regard the false return as a corrupt practice.

an illegal practice in any other case

So the law is designed so that there is a lesser offence for accidental false returns. But there is a way to escape even that:

unless the candidate proves that he or she had no intention to misstate or conceal the facts; and he or she took all reasonable steps in the circumstances to ensure that the information in the return was accurate.

Now again the candidate had no intention to misstate but to escape an illegal practice you also need to have taken all reasonable steps to ensure it was accurate.

It is contestable whether all reasonable steps were taken, such as seeking advice. As it is contestable, I think the Police should have laid a charge of an illegal practice, so that the court could decide is all reasonable steps were taken. It could well be that they decide in the candidate’s favour, but I want a court to decide that, not the Police.

The Marsden Fund is funded by taxpayers and administered by the Royal Society.

It is meant to be for research in science, engineering and maths, social sciences and the humanities. It says it is regarded as the hallmark of excellence for research in New Zealand.

Their grants are online since 2008, so in my spare time I have been analysing them, and dividing them into four rough categories.

• Science
• Humanities/Social Science
• Maori/Colonialism
• Identity (gender/ethnic/refugee focus etc)
• Policy/Political

Here’s how the proportions have changed over time.

So almost 90% of the funding used to go to what you might call hard sciences, and it has now fallen to under three quarters. At the current rate, science will get less than half the funding within a couple of decades.

Maybe the Government should take away 75% of the Marsden Fund from the Royal Society and give it to a new science body, and leave them to distribute the remaining 25% to whatever their current fashion dictates.

The Herald reports:

The Local Government Minister is questioning why patched members of a gang were able to wear their regalia inside a council building when a ban is in force.

The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council faces backlash over a Facebook post featuring photos of patched gang members celebrating the decision in its council chambers to retain its Māori constituencies.

On Wednesday, in what was described as a “significant step towards ensuring Māori representation”, the council voted unanimously to keep its Māori wards. This means there will be a binding poll at the next local government elections in 2025.

But the Facebook post released by the council soon after featuring photos of patched gang members celebrating the decision has been met with frustration from Simeon Brown, who is surprised a current patch ban was not enforced at a meeting.

Members of the public also hit the comment section with concerns about the presence of gang members in the meeting.

Members of the public will be grateful that they will get to decide the issue in a secret ballot, rather than have the final decision made at a Council meeting with patched gang members in attendance to support one particular view.

The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council justified its decision in the Facebook comments.

“We acknowledge that seeing gang paraphernalia can be distressing to some people, and we appreciate your feedback on our post,” it said.

“Regional Council meetings are open to all members of the public and our post is a factual record of this meeting. We do not have the authority to exclude members of the public who are following our meeting rules.”

This is nonsense. If a dozen people tried to enter the meeting naked, the Council would not allow them to do so. The Council does have the authority to tell people that they must be dressed in accordance with the law, to enter. Bars do this every day.

Brooke van Velden announced:

“I am pleased to announce that Grant Illingworth KC has been appointed as the Chair of Phase 2 of the Inquiry. Mr Illingworth joined the Inquiry in July to support the final stages of Phase 1 and will assist the Inquiry in transitioning to Phase 2.”

“I am also pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will be joined by Judy Kavanagh and Anthony Hill, who have been appointed as Commissioners for Phase 2. Their experience in economics and public health respectively will benefit the Inquiry in achieving its purpose.”

These look to be excellent appointments for the phase that will be looking at the decisions made, and the weighing up of economic and social benefits. The three Commissioners are:

• A KC who specialises in public and constitutional law
• A public policy professional and economist
• A barrister with specialist health sector experience including having been Health and Disability Commissioner, Deputy Director-General of Health and Ministry of Health’s chief legal counsel

I look forward to their inquiries and report.

At around 8pm on Friday August 23^rd , in front of an overflow crowd of 17,000 (with 6,000 turned away) at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale Arizona (a huge indoor ice hockey rink often used for concerts and located in one of the suburban cities of the Phoenix area), the son of assassinated Kennedy administration Attorney-General Robert (Bobby) Kennedy and nephew of assassinated US President John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Junior (RFK Jr) emerged onto the stage and, backdropped by perfectly timed indoor fireworks, shook the hand of former President Donald Trump in one of the most consequential political endorsements in the modern Presidential era!

What are the impacts of such a momentous political event in the midst of one of the most eventful Presidential election seasons in decades?

1 – Impact of RFK Jr’s Evisceration of the Democrat Party

At 11am the same day, at a hotel in downtown Phoenix, as the perfect entre to the Main Course served at the Glendale Arena later that evening, RFK gave one of the most masterful discourses on the state of modern US politics and in it, he utterly tore apart his former party in one of the most damning and devastating eviscerations of the Democrats, Biden and Harris you will ever hear. In 47 minutes, he laid bare:

• Harris’ consummate incompetence and unsuitability for office “I do interviews every day. Everyone who asks gets to interview me. Sometimes I do 10 a day. President Trump also does many interviews. How could the Democrat Party choose a candidate who refuses to do an interview?” Yes, finally Harris did one …. a softball, edited, scripted faltering interview on the most Democrat friendly network with her ‘chaperone’ VP nominee Tim Waltz.
• What the modern Democrat Party has become: “It became the party of war, censorship, corruption, big Pharma, big tech, and big money.”
• Detailing the vicious lawfare that was waged against him to first shut him out of the Democrat Primary and then to keep him off the ballot in as many states as possible once he announced his run as an Independent: “In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party set itself to dismantling it. Lacking confidence that its candidate could win in a fair election at the voting booth, the DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself.”
• His speech culminated in his endorsement of Donald Trump and some of his reasons for the endorsement: “Last summer, it looked like no candidate was willing to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine war, to tackle chronic disease epidemic, to protect free speech, our constitutional freedoms, to clean corporate influence out of our government, or to defy the neocons and their agenda of endless military adventurism. And now one of the candidates has adopted these issues as his own, at a point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration. I’m speaking, of course, of Donald Trump.”

Whilst the legacy corporate media tried to muddy his message by either talking over his speech, cutting away from it or not covering it at all, RFK’s Twitter link to his speech was shared by Trump, Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson across their hugely popular accounts on various platforms where tens of millions viewed his speech. The subsequent attempts at undermining Kennedy by Democrat talking heads have mostly fallen flat.

2 – Impact on the DNC

Vice President Kamala Harris’ bloodless coup on President Joe Biden and her ascension as the official Democrat nominee for President in the November 5, 2024 Presidential election without a single Primary vote cast was predictably met with fawning sycophantic MSM media coverage. This culminated at the Democrat National Convention held in Chicago from August 19 to 22. Harris gave a slick, well-choreographed but largely vapid and substance-less speech on the final night of the DNC to what was expected to be days of MSM hype and uncritical praise. Conventions are worth anything from a 5 to 10% bounce in the polls post-convention. Hillary enjoyed a 5% bump over Trump in late August 2016 and Biden got a 7% bounce in 2020. The RFK endorsement wiped Kamala and the DNC off every front page and lead broadcast and dominated the media news cycle for the following week as Trump and RFK gave substantive interviews fleshing out more details of their 16 months of discussions that led to this unique alliance.

Whilst most of the MSM aligned and promoted polls have been screwing the polling scrum somewhat since Harris’ ascension in the race by reducing Republican turnout and increasing Democrat turnout models giving Harris artificially high and often conflicting polling leads, if you factor in the two or three least biased and most historically accurate polls (Rasmussen, Democracy Institute and Des Moines Register), it is clear that Harris emerged from the DNC with no discernable bounce largely thanks to the RFK endorsement leaving her and Trump statistically neck and neck in both the national popular vote and the battleground state polls. Given that Trump over performed in the MSM aligned polls by about 5% in 2016 and 2020, the truth is Harris exits their huge weeklong DNC promo likely behind Trump as we enter into the real meat of the campaign post US Labor Day weekend (this weekend).

3 – Impact of RFK’s campaign suspension

RFK has not formally ended his campaign rather he has indicated he will be taking his name off the ballot in 10 battleground or swing states (AZ, PA, GA, WI, MI, NV, FL, OH, NC and IA). He will stay on the ballots in so-called Blue states (Democrat) and also in whatever strong Red states (Republican) where he might have managed to get on the ballot. This means that the presence of RFK on the ballot in the key states Trump needs to win is no longer a possible distraction whilst RFK reserves the right to try and split the vote in the less strong blue states like say Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia where Biden did win in 2020 but by under 10% in the hopes of triggering a Trump upset in states no longer considered pure swing states. This a very cunning and savvy strategy. It’s unclear how successful he will be in extracting his name off the ballot in all of the swing states as planned. He has succeeded in doing so in PA, GA, NV and AZ but in WI, NC and MI, local Democrat election officials are standing in the way of his name removal.

4 – Impact in battleground states

RFK’s polling in battleground states varied between 4 and 7% with 5% being the average. On paper that doesn’t sound much but the dynamics of the race since Biden stood down is that the switch to Harris almost halved Kennedy’s polling numbers. This is because he was mopping up Dem voters who were either anti Biden or, post Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump, were despondent that the Dems could win with Biden at the top of the ticket and so voting for RFK was a kind of small protest vote. With the temporary sugar high of the Harris campaign fueled by over-the-top uncritical media fawning, some of the despondent or disgruntled Dem voters flirting with RFK came home. This meant that the residual 5% of RFK’s vote was much more likely to be Republicans not comfortable with Trump and seeing RFK as a better option that voting Democrat. Indeed, surveys done by the Kennedy and Trump campaigns and some early post endorsement polling indicates that 67% to 75% of that residual RFK vote will now go to Trump which means an up to 2 to 3% bump for Trump in key battleground states. In a tight race where some polls still have Harris up and others have Trump up in these key states, even a small percentage of new voters arising from the endorsement is only going to benefit Trump rather than Harris.

5 – Impact on women voters

One of the most interesting aspects of the endorsement has been to read literally dozens of Twitter monologues of the political journey of anti-Trump ‘soccer moms’ for whom RFK’s endorsement of Trump and the planned roles have excited them and caused them to overlook what they saw as Trump’s negative traits. Trump has polled poorly amongst college educated suburban women due to his aggressive persona, mean Tweets, presumed racism and his frat boy alpha male image. Kennedy’s championing of child health has resulted in a sizeable minority following of very influential health oriented female social media influencers and their excitement about what Kennedy may be able to achieve in Trump’s new administration is bring many of them over to publicly saying they will vote for Trump. RFK’s endorsement, and the mutual goals he and Trump are setting in the public health space, is softening Trump’s image with one of the few demographics that he is still struggling with. RFK doesn’t just bring his direct supporters over to Trump, but he gives permission for hundreds of thousands of former never Trump women, many of whom are moderate Republican, Libertarian or old school socially conservative Democrats but who were stuck on Trump’s personality negatives.

6 – RFK’s likely role in a 2^nd Trump Administration

This marriage was many months in the making and in recent days, RFK in particular has given a lot more detail on the process he went through to get to the decision he made. It was a decision not made lightly and Trump’s willingness to more fully embrace some key planks of the things that drive Kennedy only came after his own brush with death at the Butler, PA rally on July 13^th. Kennedy has become a very vocal opponent of Big Pharma to the point that social media companies blocked some of his commentary during Covid over the lab leak origin, Dr Anthony Fauci’s role in gain of function research and the C19 vaccine efficacy and side effects and indeed RFK has become a more prominent critic of vaccines in general. In more recent years he has widened his attacks on Big Food over addictive chemical additives in American food and the deleterious impact on obesity and child health. Expats in the US all attest to the poor quality of mainstream food available in the US and how we have to carefully read labels and hunt for niche suppliers to find the quality of food we take for granted in NZ. In his speech, RFK set his sights firmly on the corruption he sees in all the big regulatory and government research agencies seen to be in the pocket of Big Pharma, Big Food and chemical companies. It is highly likely Trump will appoint Kennedy as his Health and Human Services Secretary with oversight over the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), the CDC (Centre for Diseases Control), the NIH (National Institute of Health – a health research funding clearing house) and other agencies. This prospect was the main driver for RFK accepting the new relationship with Trump as he would have real power to clean shop in these agencies.

Whilst Trump announced this at the Glendale rally with RFK by his side, this appointment got limited media attention, but Trump will appoint Kennedy to a role investigating US Presidential assassination attempts. With this comes the promise of a full declassification of the JFK assassination files, a step Trump was talked out of by the intelligence agencies in his first term. Kennedy has been on the public record in his belief that CIA connected operatives were responsible for the murder of his father and uncle, a view hitherto viewed by the establishment and for a long time many Americans as a conspiracy theory. With so many questionable and multiple lapses in security under the administration of the US Secret Service over the attempted assassination of Trump, on this issue these two men are both of a mind to really get to the bottom of what happened to the Kennedy brothers and at Butler PA that day. This portends some tantalising new material likely to excite the growing minority of Americans who see nefarious ‘Deep State’ fingerprints all over these assassinations.

Conclusion

The mood of the country and even the elite chattering classes can be summed up in this iconic New York Post front page. The story of the Kennedy clan and their travails still captivates America all these decades later and they were lions and icons of the Democrat party for a generation. That one of their favoured sons would endorse a man like Trump is a political earthquake the impact of which is only just now beginning to be felt.

The Post reports:

Posties have refused to deliver a circular claiming the Wellington City Council wants the capital’s six mosques to broadcast the Islamic Call to Prayer across the city.

The Postal Workers Union said its Wellington-based posties did not deliver the circular from lobby group Better Wellington on Monday because of its “misleading and inflammatory statement”, but NZ Post reaffirmed intentions to begin deliveries on Tuesday.

A NZ Post spokesperson said it was not appropriate for them to act as a censor in determining what it would and won’t deliver.

Any postie who refuses to deliver legal mail because they disagree with it, should lose their jobs.

If the circular breaches the law, you can complain to the Human Rights Commission or Police.

If the circular is a breach of advertising standards, you can complain to the ASA.

But you don’t get to unilaterally decide what information households are allowed to receive.

It is disturbing that a union is claiming it has the right to decide what mail does and does not get delivered.

For around 20 years women in Afghanistan were free. Then the Taliban took power again, and many said they would not be as extreme as last time. Sadly they are more extreme.

This is what women are now banned from doing in Afghanistan:

• Showing their face in public
• Speaking in public
• Wearing anything except a full veil
• Singing
• Reading aloud
• Look directly at men they are not related to
• Go out without a male escort
• Attending secondary school
• Having a paid job
• Attending a gym

They also face flogging or stoning for adultery.

What has happened in Afghanistan is a tragedy.

The Post reports:

A bitter dispute over a school speech competition has gone all the way to the High Court, with a judge forced to weigh in.

Tamamutu Mitchell – then a student at Taupō immersion school Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Whakarewa i Te Reo ki Tūwharetoa – won the regional round of last year’s Ngā Manu Kōrero, a prestigious event in te reo Māori education.

But while his speech finished exactly on the 12-minute mark, which was the maximum permitted time, it was followed by a haka tautoko, which Mitchell led for other students in the room. (A haka tautoko is an expression of support for an event that has just finished.)

His runner-up subsequently complained that the haka tautoko had caused Mitchell’s speech to go over time. He was slapped with a five-point penalty by the event’s national committee, which meant he narrowly lost to the runner-up by one point, and had to return his trophy – and missed out on representing his region at the competition’s national stage.

How ridiculous. He won the competition and kept to the time. To award him the trophy then take it away is cruel.

Furious with the decision, and with their appeals falling on deaf ears, Mitchell’s supporters took competition backer the Post-Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) all the way to the High Court for a judicial review.

Good on him.

The application for judicial review was overseen by Justice Muir in April, and his decision was released this month.

In it, he lambasts the PPTA for its handling of the dispute, which amounted to a “breach of natural justice”.

Justice Muir said:

• I consider the PPTA’s response both surprising and disappointing. The constitution of the PPTA includes “explicit … commitment to the principles to the Treaty of Waitangi as central to [its] Constitution.” It acknowledges the PPTA’s “commitment to the concept of genuine partnership embodied in the Treaty”,⁷ noting that: “partnership can occur at all levels of policy making by the sharing of power and decision making, satisfactory methods of consultation and the inclusion of cultural perspectives in policies
• Ms Barton denies that the matter ever proceeded to National Committee decision. She says that whatever assistance the Regional Committee may have received from the National Committee, the ultimate decision remained that of the Regional Committee. I regard that position as untenable. On its face the decision refers to it being that of the National Committee. I consider it surprising that a senior executive of the PPTA would, in affidavit evidence, promote a proposition so clearly at odds with the written record and that this position was maintained by the PPTA’s counsel in submissions.

The Post notes:

However, Justice Muir denied the application for judicial review on the technical basis that the respondent should have been the competition’s committee rather than the PPTA.

So it was lost on a technicality.

Stuff reports:

A former Reserve Bank employee was locked out of her office building after a dispute that saw her threaten to take the bank “to the cleaners”.

Sounds bad, but isn;’t in reality.

Things went awry for the woman when she began searching for her next job in July 2023. She received a conditional offer of employment from an organisation that was subject to satisfactory reference checks.

When the organisation withdrew its offer the woman believed it was because the two referees she had nominated had made negative comments during the reference checks.

One referee was her Wellington-based team leader, the other was a colleague in the Auckland office.

The woman sent messages to both referees which they found concerning. She repeatedly told her team manager that she had “backstabbed” her.

This is a bad idea. That is not the way you raise an issue if you think reference was unfair.

The bank became concerned about the woman’s welfare and asked how she felt about finishing at the bank but remaining on full pay for the rest of her contract while she sought another job.

The woman wasn’t happy with this and posted on her work team’s group chat the next morning to claim the bank was trying constructively dismiss her.

“I don’t care anymore I will take RBNZ to the cleaners… I’m disgusted. I’m applying for legal aid and I will absolutely take RBNZ to the cleaners at the MBIE or Employment Relations Authority or even as high as the damn Employment Court,” she wrote.

Posting on a work chat channel you will take the employer to the cleaners is a bad idea.

Following that message the bank suspended the woman’s electronic access to her RBNZ email, remote working systems and buildings, and sought a meeting with her.

The woman didn’t attend the meeting. She remained on paid leave until her contract ended.

She has little to complain about – she got paid out the rest of her contract.

The bank, in reply, said the woman wasn’t suspended. It said she had agreed to a period of paid leave and subsequently refused to return to work. The bank said its decision to to disable her access to its systems was a fair and reasonable response to the messages she was sending colleagues.

Authority member Robin Arthur said the bank had behaved fairly towards the woman, by proposing she take paid leave for a “cooling off” period.

The woman’s application was declined.

A good decision.

Labour’s Ginny Andersen ran to media with a story she claimed showed there were less police foot patrols under National as the number in June 2024 was 15% lower than in December 2023.

Now you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to work out that comparing the number of foot patrols in December to June is rather stupid as summer months are longer and warmer with much more activity than June. Also December is the month with a huge amount of outdoors activities.

TVNZ didn’t just run Ginny’s story, but decided to check the data for themselves.

Now watch her on TV as she tries to cope with facts that don’t fit her narrative.

She dug herself a hole so deep she almost reached Spain.

Audrey Young also notes:

Brickbat goes to Labour’s former Police Minister Ginny Andersen for claiming police foot patrols have dropped by comparing December figures and June figures, and knowing that patrols peak in December for Christmas and New Year. There are increases and decreases in parts of the country but overall, foot patrols have increased by 13.6% January to June, compared with the same period last year.

It’s great Ginny went to such effort to make sure everyone that the are more police foot patrols in 2024 than in 2023.