Nicola Willis announced:

The Government set the public service a target of eliminating $400 million in operating expenditure on contractors and consultants by 2024/25.

In 2023/24 savings of $274 million were achieved. This year the public service is on track, after the first quarter, to achieve savings of about $500 million. These savings are forecast to continue over the next three quarters, which means savings over the two-year period could total more than $800 million, according to the update.

It shows operational expenditure by departments on contractors and consultants fell a further 46 per cent in the September quarter on an annualised basis, after a 31 per cent drop in the previous financial year to June.

Great news, except for consultants.

The Public Service Commission’s September Quarterly Workforce Data Update also shows the size of the public service has decreased 2.2 per cent from September 2023 to September 2024, and 1.1 per cent for the quarter.

In real terms, this is an annual drop of 1,402 full-time equivalents (FTEs).

“I feel for anyone who loses a job, but no government can live beyond its means indefinitely,” Nicola Willis says.

“The growth in the public service under the previous government was not sustainable if we also want to fund the health, education, welfare and other services New Zealanders depend on.

So for all the wailing and gnashing, the actual drop over 12 months has only been 1,402 FTE staff. This is partially because in a fit of of irresponsibility there was a huge increase in the last quarter of 2023, despite the election.

Here’s the change by quarter:

• Jul – Sep 23: +1,106
• Oct – Dec 23: +1,476
• Jan 24 – Mar 24: -416
• Apr 24 – Jun 24: -1,745
• Jul 24 – Sep 24: -717 (my calculation)

So the EFT staff total in the public service at September 2024 is only 296 less than in June 2023.

The House has just passed the first reading of the Gene Technology Bill. Judith Collins said:

Our current regulations for genetically modified organisms are some of the most backward looking in the world. New Zealand has lagged behind other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and England, which have safely embraced these technologies for the benefit of their people and their economies.

Despite gene technologies having been in use in New Zealand since the 1970s, the restrictive rules and time-consuming processes we have imposed on researchers have made testing and embracing innovation outside the lab all but impossible. But no more. This Government has listened to our research, primary industry, and medical communities and the frustrations that they have felt over many years. Today, New Zealand moves into the present with a safe enabling regulatory regime. The legislation will enable the sorts of innovation that will benefit New Zealand while effectively managing risks to the health and safety of people and the environment.

After 25 years of dithering, we finally have a Government that is not letting hysteria trump science. Amazing that this legislation has been introduced in the first year of office – rather than just another working group.

I knew Greens and Te Pati Maori would vote against, but very sad that Labour did also. They really are stuck in the 20th century.

The ABC reports:

Victoria’s Opposition Leader John Pesutto has lost a defamation case against former Liberal partyroom colleague Moira Deeming.

Ms Deeming brought the lawsuit against Mr Pesutto, alleging the Victorian Liberal leader had defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser in the wake of an anti-trans-rights rally.

She won $300,000 damages plus costs.

I can’t recall a party leader being sued for defamation before by someone who was in their caucus.

His mistake was repeating smears that attending a gender-critical rally was somehow aligning with Nazis. He threw his own MP under the bus to try and appease the wine mob, and has ended up fatally wounded.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is finished – either this week, or at the election.

Any tiny chance of victory has disappeared with the dramatic resignation of not just any Cabinet Minister, but his Deputy PM and Finance Minister. And she did it a few hours before the release of a major economic statement.

Trudeau’s GST holiday has backfired, with her implicitly calling it a costly political gimmick.

Trudeau will go one one of four ways:

1. He resigns, as some have reported he is considering
2. The Liberal Party caucus roll him
3. The NDP, who have called for him to resign, vote no confidence in the Government
4. He limps on to the election in October, with current projections being they would retain only 47 of their 160 seats

The Herald reports:

The public won’t learn the findings of an investigation relating to allegations of the misuse of personal data at Manurewa Marae until at least the end of January.

But it is expected the findings will “impact all of the public service” and some matters relating to the investigation will “require referral to other authorities for further consideration”.

It doesn’t sound like they found nothing, does it?

I also note that Te Pati Maori are now five months overdue with their audited financial accounts – a legislative requirement under the Electoral Act. They have been referred to the Police, yet there has been no decision two months on.

Radio NZ reported:

A man who died of a gunshot wound on the Coromandel Peninsula on Friday has been described as a “loveable ratbag” and father of five boys.

Kevin Mark Mabbott died about 2pm at Waiau on The 309 Road, and another man was airlifted to Auckland City Hospital with a gunshot wound. Police said the latter remained in a serious condition.

A third man was taken into custody later that afternoon, and on Saturday the 77-year-old was charged with murder and attempted murder. …

On Friday, she wrote: “Rest in peace and love our son. We are all broken. Your two sisters, numerous cousins, aunties, uncles, friends and five sons.

“A needless end to your vibrant lovable crazy ratbag free-spirited self.”

I understand that there is huge community support for the elderly farmer and not so much for the poachers.

Now let’s be clear that no one should be killed for poaching. The dead man was a son, a father, a brother, an uncle etc. The loss of his life is devastating to his family and friends – especially his sons.

But the 77 year old was well known as someone who doted on his pigs. They were his pets. To have people come onto his land and kill them would have been terribly upsetting to him. Did he crack in a moment of despair. Did he fear for his life as armed men were on his property. We may not know until the trial.

He should not have shot the men unless he was in fear of his life. They should not have been on his property firing guns and killing his pets. Those two wrongs are not equal – it is worse to kill a man than pigs, even pet pigs. But they would be alive if they had not done what they did.

I understand the level of support for the 77 year old is so great that they would be hard pressed to find a local jury that would convict him. So do not be surprised if there is an application to move the trial to a more distant venue.

With over 1,500 votes in 12 hours we have the winners.

National MP of the Year

1. Simeon Brown 50%
2. Erica Stanford 32%
3. Christoper Luxon 9%
4. Nicola Willis 8%

Labour MP of the Year

1. Barbara Edmond 45%
2. Greg O’Connor 41%
3. Willie Jackson 8%
4. Chris Hipkins 6%

Minor Party MP of the Year

1. David Seymour 47%
2. Karen Chhour 26%
3. Winston Peters 18%
4. Brooke van Velden 9%

MP of the Year

1. David Seymour 57%
2. Shane Jones 22%
3. Christoper Luxon 15%
4. Brooke van Velden 6%

Also on my Patreon (paywalled), I have done my own personal choices for MPs of the Year in the following categories:

• Te Pati Maori MP of the Year
• NZ First MP of the Year
• ACT MP of the Year
• Greens MP of the Year
• Labour MP of the Year
• National MP of the Year
• Overall MP of the Year

These are not always based on whether I agree with their policies or actions, but how effective they are for their own party’s supporters and voters.

The ABC reports:

Facebook, Google and TikTok will be forced to fund Australian journalism regardless of whether they host it under a federal government plan to impose a new tax to push the tech platforms to make funding agreements with news organisations.

The tax, which could also apply to Apple and Microsoft, would be applied to the platforms’ Australian revenue, but can be reduced to zero if they sign agreements similar to those Google and Meta (the owner of Facebook) signed in 2021, including with the ABC.

This is outrageous legalised theft and blackmail.

Basically the argument was that social media companies unfairly profit from news media, and so a law was needed to force them to fund news media.

The social media companies said that actually they make a tiny amount from news media, and they’ll simply block news stories from their platforms.

Now the Australian Government has said they will pass a law that will force social media companies to hand cash over to news media companies, regardless of whether or not they carry any links to news media on their platforms.

This is truly repulsive. The social media companies should not give in to this blackmail, and instead announce that they will remove Google and Facebook etc from Australian access, if this law passes. 20 million pissed off Australians will turn against the Government for their brazen blackmail attempt.

I’d rather the Government doesn’t own any banks (except the Reserve Bank) but as it does own Kiwibank, I’m wondering if it should be mandated to provide banking facilities to customers who can’t get banking service elsewhere?

Organisations and businesses simply can’t function without a bank account they can receive money in and pay money from. It isn’t a nice to have, but a must have.

The Herald reports:

The Bank of New Zealand’s chief executive has admitted the decision to deny a business account to a women-owned sexual wellness brand was the wrong one and strayed into acting like the “moral police”.

Girls Get Off, a New Zealand-based sex toy and accessory brand, had its application for a business account denied last week as the nature of its operations were “outside of BNZ policy”.

I don’t think banks should have policies about what types of customers they have, so long as they are law abiding. But a bank as a private company can decide otherwise. BNZ now refuse to allow Gloriavale to bank with them, and are saying they will ban petrol stations from 2030 from banking with them. In a few years their woke agenda may see them refuse to lend to dairy farmers.

Now this is in theory ok, if those declined at BNZ can bank with ANZ etc. But what if no bank will take them as a customer. You basically have the banks deciding who can and can not operate a business in NZ, rather than Parliament.

You could require banks as a condition of their licence, to not decline legal customers, but an easier way to deal with this problem is simply use the ownership of Kiwibank to direct that they can’t decline banking facilities for any legal customer.

So if a customer is fundraising for a terrorist organisation, they could still be declined. But if they simply provide a service a bank doesn’t approve of, they could not.

Voting is now open for the 2024 Kiwiblog Awards.

Finalists were selected based on the number of nominations they received.

The contest for National MP of the Year is between

• Simeon Brown for his making the transport system work for motorists, rather than against them.
• Christopher Luxon for leading the party and making sure National Ministers perform
• Erica Stanford for putting student achievement at the centre of the education system
• Nicola Willis for cutting public service costs, reducing taxes and being a Finance Minister who can say no.

The contest for Labour MP of the Year is between

• Barbara Edmonds for the credibility she brings to Labour in the Finance portfolio
• Chris Hipkins for keeping his team united
• Willie Jackson for being the most high profile Labour MP
• Greg O’Connor for sound service as Assistant Speaker

 The contest for Minor Party MP of the Year is between:

• Karen Chhour for fighting for child rights to trump racial rights
• Winston Peters for owning the libs and sound foreign policy management
• David Seymour for courage under fire and many policy wins of ACT
• Brooke van Velden for bringing balance to industrial relations

Finally for overall 2034 MP of the Year, it is between:

• Shane Jones for services to mining and frogs, plus giving Greens and TPM rhetoric the responses they deserve
• Christopher Luxon for a government that actually delivers, not just talks, and keeping the coalition strong
• David Seymour for forcing a debate which so many want to not have
• Brooke van Velden for expanding the terms of reference for the Covid-19 inquiry, delivering great policy in workplace relations and telling the National Library not to censor speakers

You can vote in the embedded survey below, or at this link.

This graphic from Nate Silver is fascinating. Up until 2010, Democrats were mainly seen as representing the working class, but now they are mainly seen as standing for marginalised groups and only 11% now identify them as representing the working class. This partially led to Trump winning white working class voters in 2016, and a greater share off Asian, Latino and black working class Americans.

Audrey Young gives ratings for the new National MPs elected in 2023. They are:

• A – James Meager (Rangitata), Katie Simon (Napier), Tom Rutherford (Bay of Plenty)
• B – Cameron Brewer (Upper Harbour), Grant McCallum (Northland), Catherine Wedd (Tukituki)
• C – Miles Anderson (Waitaki), Carl Bates (Whanganui), Mike Butterick (Wairarapa), Hamish Campbell (Ilam), Carlos Cheung (Mt Roskill), Tim Costley (Otaki), Greg Fleming (Maungakiekie), Ryan Hamilton (Hamilton East), Dana Kirkpatrick (East Coast), Nancy Lu (List), Rima Nakhle (Takanini), Suze Redmayne (Rangitikei), Vanessa Weenik (Banks Peninsula)
• D – David MacLeod (New Plymouth)

These are of course Audrey’s ratings, not mine.

New MPs who have won electorate seats are encouraged in their first term to focus on their seat. If they lose their seat, then it won’t matter if they were a regular speaker in the House. So it isn’t surprising that many new MPs are only a C – it may just mean they are focused in being a great electorate MP.

It will be interesting in 2026 to see how many retain their seats. Only one National MP has a majority of less than 1,000 and a further four under 2,000.

However boundary changes are likely to be significant and affect many seats, so that could well be the biggest factor – plus of course who stands against them.

The Herald reports:

The Supreme Court has ruled the majority of the Court of Appeal “erred” in a major decision that ultimately eased the test for Māori to gain customary rights for use of the foreshore and seabed.

Its just-issued ruling allows an appeal by the Attorney-General against the Court of Appeal’s decision last October, at a time the Government is pushing through contentious legislation to overturn it.

The Court of Appeal decision was appallingly bad, and was clearly going against the clear intent of Parliament. That is why Parliament moved to overturn it. It is good to see the Supreme Court, also overturn it (even if I am suspicious of their motives and speed).

The usual suspects have all called the Government racist etc for the law change to make sure the original intent stands. Now that the Supreme Court has done likewise, will they also be calling the Supreme Court racist?

Radio NZ reports:

It’s the best time to buy an EV with the vehicles selling more cheaply than when the rebate scheme was in place, a motoring editor says.

Global sales have slowed, and recently prices for new EVs have been slashed after sales dropped dramatically at the start of the year.

So all those millions of dollars went into a rebate scheme that actually pushed electric vehicle prices up to take account of the subsidy. Remove the subsidy, and the price falls to meets demand.

News.com.au reports:

Steve Price has unloaded on Australian Venue Co after the hospitality giant’s controversial decision to ban Australia Day.

The pub group apologised on Monday after widespread backlash and said it “severely regeretted” the move. 

But this did not spare them the ire of Price, who told the group to “shut up” in a no holds barred spray on Monday night’s Project. 

“Apology not accepted! When are these finger waving woke corporations going to wake up to the fact we don’t want them to tell us what to do on Australia Day,” he said.

“Last year it was Woolworths, ‘oh we won’t sell the flag’, the CEO, Brad Banducci, ended up losing his job.

“Just shut up and let people throw a lamb chop on the barbecue, have a beer and get on with it.

Its interesting to see all these corporate competing to be the most woke, and then discovering their comms staffers are not representative of their customers!

It was the wrong call by the Police to issue this release. The Police are the state agency empowered to enforce laws and arrest people who don’t comply. When the Police say “the community is asked to refrain from ocean based activities” it will be treated by many as an order.

A rahui is a prohibition based on religious or spiritual belief. The Police should not be involved with communicating them. Or at the very least they should have a release which says “Kaumatua have asked the community to refrain …” to make clear the request is not one being made by the Police who have no role in enforcing religious requests.

The year is almost over, so it is time for nominations for the annual Kiwiblog Awards. The nomination categories are:

• 2024 Minor Party MP of the Year
• 2024 National MP of the Year
• 2024 Labour MP of the Year
• 2024 MP of the Year

Make your nominations in the comments (free free to say why) and then I’ll start a vote based on the most popular nominations.

The winners in 2022 (seem to have missed doing them in 2023) were:

• National MP of the year – Christopher Luxon
• Labour MP of the Year – Gaurav Sharma
• Minor Party MP of the Year – David Seymour 
• MP of the Year – David Seymour

Nathan and Yvette Durie are, based on achievement data, the very best educators on Maori High School students in NZ.

Manukura, as Designated Character School in Palmerston North, has been their previous – and amazing project. Since I begane looking at achievement data for LEAVERS over the last six years Manukura (with primarily Maori and low decile students) has been in the top 10 – 20 schools and consistently ahead of many of the “greats” – e.g. Auckland Grammar.

This new today is so very good.

Today, the former Māori Anglican boys’ high school, St Stephen’s, now known as TIPENE, will be officially opened as a charter school for Term 1, 2025.

To tell the truth – Nathan and Yvette should have been able to write their names on the back of an envelope and be approved. To discover today that it has taken 18 officials on an average salary of $158,889 to get 6 tiny schools – and St Stephens across the line is stunning. $2,860,002 to do a job a very, very poorly compared to 1 person (shout out to Drew Preddy) in 2013 – 2017.

How can a government that promoted efficiency so startly produce the opposite?

I have OIA’s in on how many people are employed on the MInistry of Education overall at December 1. Under Labout it had ballooned to 4,200. National and ACT promised to return it to pre-Labour levels (2,700). We will see.

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com

Readers who have viewed The Life of Brian (as I have done 20 or so times) will recall how The People’s Front of Judea didn’t just battle the Romans, but also The Judean People’s Front who they regarded as splitters for not being pure enough.

I have discovered the real life equivalent – the World Socialist Website. In it they savage the late Keith Locke for not being left wing enough for them. Their insults include:

• career as a capitalist politician
• defender of NZ imperialism

This is why communism has failed in every country that has tried it. They spend all their time fighting each other!

A surplus or profit that is 24% of your revenue is astonishing. Not just astonishing for a charity that is almost entirely taxpayer funded, but would be astonishing for a commercial company.

Of the top 100 companies in NZ, only seven have a higher profit as a share of revenue than the Waipareira Trust. So this taxpayer funded charity is making a higher profit than 93% of the top 100 companies in NZ.