Stuff reports:

The Police Association says light sentences being handed down to serious methamphetamine offenders is making a mockery of laws, harming communities, and has police officers fuming. …

Analysis of 15 people charged and convicted following the operation showed that just five received prison sentences, two of whom were also being sentenced for other serious offending. Another only got a jail sentence because she couldn’t find a suitable address to serve home detention.

That means just two defendants were sent to prison for offending uncovered in the operation.

So only 2/15 were even give a jail sentence for a crime which has a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for supply and 10 years for assisting.

Two significant offenders, for example, had their starting points of seven years in jail reduced to 12 months home detention. Another had a starting point of five years in jail reduced to 10 months home detention.

To go from seven years to home detention means discounts of over 70%.

Cahill said judges appeared to be finding ways to reduce the sentences so they fit into the home detention range

Yes, it is very obvious.

“What really frustrates them is when an offender who offended from their home gets a sentence of home detention,” he said.

They get to work full-time on manufacturing more!

Cahill said the Government’s plan to impose a 40% limit on the amount by which a judge can reduce a sentence, except in situations where doing so would result in a “manifestly unjust” sentencing outcome, would go some way to addressing the issue.

This is a much needed change.

The Herald reports:

Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern has been named as the new leader of a project designed to “challenge and change” the status quo of politics.

Ardern will lead the Field Fellowship, a new programme for emerging leaders, where she hopes to “rehumanise leadership” and “bring more hope and optimism into politics”.

The programme will connect and support those that embrace an alternative form of leadership.

“Leading Field is a humbling and exciting opportunity,” Ardern said.

“I want to help bring more hope and optimism into politics, but also rehumanise leadership. This is a chance to do that and bring together a network of really talented politicians.”

Actually it is a training programme for left-wing politicians. Apparently only politicians on the left can believe in hope and optimism (don’t tell Ronald Reagan).

The programme is run by the Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund, a nonpartisan policy and advocacy organisation based in Washington DC, according to its website.

It’s the left-wing equivalent of the Heritage Foundation. It is about as nonpartisan as they are. It is funds by major donors including the Open Society Foundation.

Now there is nothing wrong with Jacinda training up future left-wing politicians. I’m all for it, just as I’m also for future right-wing politicians being trained up through the IDU etc. I’m just don’t think it should be portrayed as some sort of noble enlightenment exercise.

An interesting poll from Ipsos where they asked people if they thought “People’s chances of success in your country depend mostly on their own merit and efforts” or “People’s chances of success in your country depend mostly on factors beyond their control.

Overall 47% of NZers said merit and 25% said factors beyond control. That was 8th highest for merit out of 28 countries.

However as the education system teaches a generation that it is all about identity politics and victimhood, there is a huge difference by age. The gap between those who say merit and those who say factors beyond control by age group are:

• Baby boomers +36%
• Gen X +31%
• Millennials +11%
• Gen Z -3%

Teaching people that hard work is not linked to success is a great way to discourage hard work!

Robert Reid is a NZ union leader who was appointed to numerous government boards by Labour.

Here he is cheering on the President of Venezuela ordering the arrest of opposition MPs, for pointing out he just massively lost the election.

Imagine if someone appointed by a National Government to multiple boards tweeted in support of say Putin arresting opponents – it would be the main news item. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have been appointed, just that the lack of scrutiny is so one sided.

Stuff reports:

Meridian Energy is not revealing the amount it has paid Ngāi Tahu as it seeks to renew resource consents for its Waitaki Hydro Power Scheme.

Last year Meridian signed agreements with Ngā Rūnanga o Waitaki (Arowhenua, Waihao and Moeraki), the Department of Conservation (DOC) and Central South Island Fish & Game which included financial settlements.

The power company has applied to Environment Canterbury (ECan) to renew 18 resource consents to operate its Waitaki Hydro Power Scheme of six stations and 60km of canals for the next 35 years. Submissions opened on July 24 and will close on August 21. The current consents are due to expire next April.

This is what some call Greenmail. Renewing consents for a critical energy supply should be easy and routine. But the RMA isn’t, and so you have to buy off potential objectors.

Under the financial agreements, Meridian had said it would pay DOC $2.01m per annum over 35 years, or $73.5m in total, to maintain and restore the braided river and wetland habitat.

Central South Island Fish and Game would receive $80,000 per annum, or $2.8m over 35 years to support the delivery of programmes relating to the research and enhancement of the sports fishery and game birds in the catchment.

Based on the $180m figure, this would leave Ngāi Tahu receiving about $104m over the 35 years.

Sadly, Meridian, DOC, Fish and Game and Ngai Tahu are acting entirely rational here.

Meredian need a resource consent to continue to operate the Waitaki Power scheme. The Waitaki Power scheme includes 6 dams that were built throughout the twentieth century, from 1928 through to the 1960s. In total, they supply 18% of the countries electricity and, importantly, over three quarters of our hydro storage capacity. While the dams are of course already built, resource consents need to be renewed around every 30 years to allow the continual operation.

Under the RMA, groups like DOC, Fish and Game and Iwi have the ability to hold up a resource consent application for years or decades. Meridian clearly view the cost of such legal challenges and delays can stretch into the hundreds of millions. In such a situation it makes logical sense to pay an organisation to support an application than pay a lawyer to fight them in court.

From the point of view of DOC, Fish and Game and Iwi, they have the power to do major financial damage to a company like Meredian. Clearly it is not realistic for dams producing 18% of New Zealand’s electricity to be torn down, but these organisations can use objections to the scheme to extract environmental and financial concessions. The incentive is not new and economists call it ‘rent seeking’.

If this is the cost of a reconsent, we can just imagine how much it would cost an electricity company looking to build a new power plant. And such a cost means less investment, and higher electricity prices for all Kiwis.

This isn’t a problem with individuals in these organisations but a problem with the RMA. The RMA empowers anyone to stop someone else doing something. It means investment is slow, uncertain and expensive. It means New Zealand is a less productive society. 

The Government needs to desperately prioritise wholesale RMA reform to move New Zealand ahead. The fast-track approach is at best a short-term fix. It helps big business like Meredian, who may now be wishing they had waited 6 months before signing this cheque, but what is unseen is all the little investments that never happen because of the RMA and will never access a fast track.

While Meridian is paying a cheque of over $100 million, this practice isn’t uncommon in the RMA. A farmer looking to increase the size of an effluent spreading area will often be advised to access a letter of support from a local iwi, and the iwi will advise the farmer that the processing cost if somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars.

It is a regulatory tax that is dragging New Zealand down.

Three policy options fr consideration could be:

• A law requiring any NGO, company or Iwi that receives money from a resource consent applicant to disclose annually how much they received
• Ban payments from resource consent applicants to potential objectors. Allow them to directly fund remedial work that will satisfy the objector, but don’t allow a cash payment just for not objecting.
• Remove the special status some organisations have under the RMA which means they get more weight if they object and hence applicants need to get them on board. Have all decisions based purely on the merits of the environmental issues, not on who is objecting

Here’s key aspects of Venezuela:

• currency controls
• price controls
• massive expansion of welfare programs.
• six millions hectares of private land confisicated
• Have nationalized electricity, water, oil, banks, supermarkets and construction

Yeah that really sounds like brutal capitalism to me.

The Herald reports:

The New Zealand Film Commission has raised eyebrows by throwing two parties apiece for its outgoing acting chief executive, and for its incoming chief executive, for a total cost of $16,431.

In a kind of mirror image approval, incoming chief executive Annie Murray signed off the $8,627 price of two farewell parties for outgoing acting chief executive Mladen Ivancic; and Ivancic signed off the $7,804 price of two pōwhiri (welcome events) for Murray. …

On July 18 2023, 59 well-wishers joined Ivancic at Generator in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter. The send-off capped more than 30 years’ employment at the commission, which included stints as acting chief executive, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

I don’t have a problem with a function to farewell a chief executive who has spent 30 years at an institution.

Not sure two functions were needed though – one in each city.

And I think the new trend of needing to welcome an incoming CE with a function is silly. They’ve just landed a high paying job – they don’t need a party also.

The Herald reports:

One of the country’s top corporate communications, public relations and lobbying firms is closing its New Zealand operation.

SenateSHJ will close tomorrow after 21 years of operation in New Zealand, saying trading conditions have become too tough to continue. It says a reduction in public sector consulting and contracting spend has been a factor.

The closure has caused shockwaves through the PR industry – one established player told the Herald it was an “earthquake”; another said it was huge news.

I was stunned when I heard of this. Senate is/was an institution and I have known many of their directors and staff over the years. Their annual function was always a who’s who’s of Wellington.

Thoughts are with the affected staff.

Before the Olympics there were multiple stories about how Russia will be behind attempts to disrupt the Olympics. Then the trains were struck disrupting a million people, and Russia was fingered.

But I was sceptical. Not that Russia ia a malign actor, but disrupting transport links tends to be the modus operandi of left and environmental groups. And are enough it is reported:

French police arrested an “ultra-Left activist” at a railway site on Sunday (local time) after “coordinated” sabotage attacks caused chaos and disruption ahead of Friday’s Olympics opening ceremony.

The man arrested in Oissel near Rouen, northern France, had in his vehicle “access keys to (state rail operator) SNCF technical premises”, “wire cutters”, a “set of universal keys” and other items, as well as literature with links to the ultra-Left, a police source told Le Parisien.

He was also found carrying “ultra-Left literature” with him and a book by Romain Huët called The Vertigo of the Riot: from the Zad to the Yellow Vests.

Zad, or “zones à défendre” (zones to defend) are sites occupied by eco-warriors to prevent what they consider environmentally harmful development projects from being carried out.

This is not a surprise.

Stuff reports:

Venezuela’s opposition and President Nicolas Maduro’s government are locked in a high-stakes stand-off after each side claimed victory in a presidential vote that millions in the long-suffering nation saw as their best shot to end 25 years of single-party rule.

Several foreign governments, including the U.S., held off recognising the results of Sunday’s election, and officials delayed the release of detailed vote tallies after proclaiming Maduro the winner with 51% of the vote, to 44% for retired diplomat Edmundo González.

Reputable polls had Gonzalez ahead by 30% or more. But Maduro appoints the Electoral Commission who decreed him the winner. The fact they have been unable to release any vote count, either nationally, or by polling place, shows that they have just invented a result. No doubt after a few days they will backfill enough data to justify it.

It would be interesting to do a left/right breakdown of governments that were initially elected into power, but then corrupted the electoral process to stay in power.

Stuff reports:

A transphobic post on social media, racist taunts, and a slogan from New Zealand’s largest neo-Nazi group are among a number of scenarios in police’s hate crime training. …

Some examples of hate speech used as part of the training include racist remarks, a transphobic post on social media as well as a poster for New Zealand’s largest neo-Nazi group Action Zealandia which reads “Kiwi not iwi”.

So Police are using a slogan used in 2005 by National against Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed Act as an example of hate speech!!

I understand the other example of hate speech is saying “There are only two genders”.

And people wonder why so many are opposed to giving the Police more powers over speech!

David Seymour points out:

Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet.

“Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led to urgent calls from the sector to conduct a review. The review is currently underway and taking public submissions.

“Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori have united with the unions to vow to stop any changes, no matter what they are. They are essentially saying they want to stop the Government from making it easier and cheaper for parents to access childcare.

Submissions have not even closed on the review. After they you do a summary of submissions and then draft proposals which you consult on. But the unions and their proxies have decided that they are against any change, no matter what it is.

This is predictable because the reality is the unions hate the early childhood sector because they don’t control it, and it has private providers. Their worst nightmare is that one days parents will say “Hey I got to choose from 10 local ECEs for my pre-school, so why I don’t get any choice for my school”. They also hate that providers can set up anywhere they like, rather than where the Government dictates.

Their ultimate aim is to turn ECE into the school sector – you get no choice, and no flexibility.

As a rule I will try and use someone’s preferred pronouns, especially for friends or acquaintances who are non-binary or trans etc. People who genuinely have a different gender identity to their biological sex should not be stigmatised.

But one can take sensitivity to ridiculous degrees, as Darlene Tana has done. On 23 July Stuff reported:

“My pronouns are they/them, I never walk alone, in fact,” Tana told reporters.

(This was the first time Tana has publicly used the pronoun they/them. During the campaign, Tana was introduced by the Green Party with the pronoun she/her. Stuff asked Tana for clarity if it was best to use the they/them pronoun, Tana responded: “Because I never walk alone. Thank you.”)

You almost have to laugh at the sensitivity here. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Darlene Tana no longer identifies as a woman. She herself said she wants to use the pronouns they/them to signify she is not alone. In this case I don’t think anyone should feel obliged to use her preferred pronouns.

But a week later the Herald reports:

Swarbrick and co-leader Marama Davidson said they had written to Tana asking them to stand down.

So now it seems one can just assert any pronouns as your preferred ones, and the media will feel obliged to use them regardless of whether they are related to your gender identity.

A but of common sense would be helpful.

Radio NZ reports:

The Law Society says Frazer Barton will take a leave of absence from his position as president of the organisation while a complaint against him is addressed.

A formal complaint has been laid against Barton after the Royal Commission of Inquiry report indicated he had advised a church group to destroy records for children in its care. …

The background is reported by the Herald:

According to the Royal Commission of Inquiry abuse in care final report, records were destroyed because a senior staff member at Presbyterian Support Otago (PSO) decided they were “too much of a risk”.

Between 2017 and 2018, the former chief executive of PSO, Gillian Bremner, instructed a staff member to destroy all records belonging to children and young people who had stayed in its residential homes. …

The report reveals the former CEO sought advice from lawyer Frazer Barton, who was a PSO board member at the time, about the wholesale destruction of all records.

According to the commission’s report, Barton, who is now the president of the New Zealand Law Society, told Bremner she was legally obliged to provide the documents requested by the survivor, but that all other documents could be destroyed.

According to information in the commission’s report, Benton told Bremner she could destroy the documents, “but at an appropriate milestone or anniversary”.

It is unclear from the reports about the state of mind of those who advised on and made the decision. If it was to protect the institution from repetitional damage or a future inquiry, then they clearly acted wrongly.

A benign interpretation is that Benton merely advised that you should have a written policy to retain records for x years, and then records older than that can be disposed of.

Another interpretation is that they wanted an excuse to destroy the records, and the advise was along the lines of you can’t do it ad hoc, but can do it based on a time based policy. That would be legally correct but morally wrong.

At the end of the day, you have to wonder why you would need to destroy these records.

Federated Farmers states:

This week, Federated Farmers have written to Otago councils calling for urgent transparency on new policy aiming to protect the mana of water, known as Te Mana o Te Wai.

You may have seen this in the media, as it’s been picked up far and wide. 

Councils were required to give effect to the principle of Te Mana o Te Wai under the previous Government’s freshwater policies. 

While the new Government has announced it will review the direction requiring this, their review is not yet complete. 

It’s staggering that, despite the review, Otago Regional Council (ORC) is charging on and aiming to give legal effect to Te Mana o Te Wai this year. 

We understand the council has reached a view that protecting the mana of water means no treated urban wastewater will be able to be discharged to waterways.

If this rule is implemented, it will no doubt mean billions of dollars of additional cost for Otago ratepayers, including farmers.

This is the problem when you start to try and have rules that water has a life-force which must be respected. Instead of a sensible cost0-benefit analysis, you end up with rules that may cost ratepayers billions of dollars.

We also understand that, under the council’s definition of Te Mana o Te Wai, water from one river can’t mix with water from another. 

If such a rule is implemented, it would cause major issues for irrigation schemes where water is stored and irrigated in an area where it may eventually enter a different catchment.

Oh goodness, we can’t have water from the Smiths going into the water from the Jones. They’re just the wrong sort of water to mix with us good water.

Again, none of this is to do with the scientific view of freshwater quality; it’s simply aiming to give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai.

Maybe we shouldn’t legislate for concepts such as water having a life-force.

A guest post by John Stringer:

In three earlier posts explaining the US presidential election process to readers  not that familiar with how it works, it was said the ‘lawfare’ results v Trump, and the debates still to come, could change everything. No one could have predicted the outcome of that first – and last – debate Trump v Biden. It changed everything.

Trump has been consistently high in the polls since March, and growing his leads. That evolving lead was clearly the motivation for Obama and co. (The Democratic ‘Elite’ as they are called: Obamas, Clintons, Schumer, Pelosi, et al) to force Joe out (which is obviously what this was, a ‘Chicago-style’ palace coup). Assuming Kamala Harris is the Dem. contender, perhaps the most un-democratically elected nominee ever (she was LAST among the earlier presidential Democratic party nominees at 4.6%) what are the polls saying now on a Trump v Harris race?

It’s difficult to gather any real data of measurable significance (one has to grasp at single short-term polls in the wake of events); Harris is in a honeymoon period with a fawning media; and being a ‘change election’ this change from Biden to Harris (man to woman; age to ‘youth’; White to Black) has excited the Left base.  But there are some critical results that indicate where the race is at.

• ECONOMY (where this election will be won/lost) Trump has a 51% favour rating. Harris only 41%. That’s a ten point lead, and in such a close race, that’s probably unassailable. It’s how most Americans will decide their vote.

• OVERALL FAVOURABILITY RATING (doesn’t decide who wins the Presidency). NY Times is reporting an average of various polls: Trump 48%, Harris 46% (compared to Trump 49%, Biden 41% early July). That justifies the coup.

• OVERALL ACROSS 5 BATTLEGROUND STATES one poll has favourability at Trump 44%, Harris 41%.

• ARIZONA: Trump 49%, Harris 44%

• GEORGIA: Trump 48%, Harris 44%

• MICHIGAN: Trump 46%, Harris 45%

• PENNSYV: Trump 48%, Harris 46%

• WISCONSIN: Tied 47%

What this means is that Harris has to cut into Trump’s leads in ALL the battleground states. That’s an uphill battle. She is also untested, and Trump is a very good campaigner, whereas she has not won many races at all, in fact she did not poll well in her own Democratic primary among supporters ostensibly on her side. They didn’t like her then. Obama has been slow to endorse, and at time of writing hasn’t done so.

She is still No.2 in the Biden White House, so has Biden’s failures like albatrosses around her neck, she still his VP!! Baggage. She can’t now try and instance herself from this Administration failures and they are many. She will live or die on Joe’s record, and its not pretty.

She is extremely vulnerable on a key election issue, BORDER and IMMIGRATION. Trump will hammer her on this (Harris was the so-called ‘Border Czar’) and she’ll suffer some king hits there, which further hurts her ability to eat in to Trump’s battleground state leads. Narrowing the lead or winning one or two states (like Wisconsin) means Trump will be President.

Newsweek have just published 24 July, a YouGuv poll reporting Trump +15 points ahead of Harris on immigration and the border.https://www.newsweek.com/trump-harris-immigration-poll-compared-1928887
or herehttps://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/50144-harris-vs-trump-americans-evaluate-personality-and-policy

A certain victory as was inevitable under a Trump v Biden matchup is not now certain, due to this political ‘switcheroo.’ And we have to allow space for Harris to perform well against Trump in their debate/debates which could shift the dial.

If there is a pre-November ceasefire in Gaza and hostages get returned on the Biden watch, Harris might get some brownie points for that. But I would expect Trump’s NY Street savvy, working with Netanyahu, to steal that glory.  Don’t put it past Trump to secretly go to Jerusalem and broker a deal (Trump loves deals) in exchange for promises to Netanyahu for American backing in later conflicts (such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and against Iran). Netanyahu prefers Trump and is more likely to toss any electoral crumbs his way rather than Biden/Harris. Did you see the body language Netanyahu/Harris after their meeting 26 July?

If this is the best poll ‘bump’ Harris can muster then she’s done. But there’s still the debates, the DNC convention, attack ads, and international crises to factor in. In politics anything can happen. But at this stage, the race is Trump’s to lose, and Harris has only 4 months to erode Trump’s consistent lead over the last year or so (and she’s still not technically even the Candidate)..

Summary Trump v Harris Race, late July 2024.

1. 51-41% Favourability on the economy (Trump)
2. 48-46% Overal Favourability (Trump)
3. 44-41% Favourability across 5 Battleground states (Trump)
4. 49-44% ARIZONA (Trump)
5. 48-44% GEORGIA (Trump)
6. 46-45% MICHIGAN (Trump)
7. 48-46% PENNSYV (Trump)
8. 47-47% WISCONSIN (Trump/Harris).

• https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/05/guest_post_who_will_win_president.html

• https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/06/guest_post_7_true_battleground_states_for_us_president_2024.html
• https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/06/guest_post_which_states_will_decide_the_us_election.html

The Herald reports:

An independent report reveals Wellington Water staff took four months to tell the region’s councils about an error in budgeting advice that has left the councils with a bill of $51 million over three years.

The report was scathing about the organisation, saying it was immature, with inadequate systems and processes and a dysfunctional culture.

Something like this should have been escalated to the SLT, then CEO and Board within days.

ps – taken 5 weeks to get this far.

Steven Joyce writes:

Former Health Minister Andrew Little’s lament this week that reform shouldn’t be this hard underlines how little he knew about the ill-starred task he was taking on. As a merger it was of gargantuan scale for New Zealand, and overly complex in world terms. Merging 20 separate organisations with 80,000 odd staff in one big bang restructure was courageous, as they say. Or more aptly, ridiculous. …

As I observed in this column three years ago, the new entity is four times the size of Fonterra, our largest company. Fonterra itself was the product of consolidation of the dairy sector from tens of constituent organisations which took place progressively over decades. Even then the end result took a couple of decades to shake down.

Joyce’s point is not just that the timing was bad with the pandemic, but that the whole idea of merging 80,000 staff into one entity was ill-conceived.

Joyce suggests three key changes going forward, being:

1. Flatten the structure, eliminate the layers of bureaucracy and bring the management back close to the frontline with a chief executive for each hospital who can walk the wards, speak with the doctors and nurses, see what’s happening, and respond as required. Over time, the hospitals could be run as trusts, owned by the Government but reporting to their local community.
2.  Separate the health funding decisions from the operating decisions to get a better balance between primary care and hospital care. Slim Health NZ into a comparatively tiny health funding organisation with no ownership responsibilities, like the Tertiary Education Commission in the tertiary sector. 
3. Train a lot more doctors more cost-effectively, and that means breaking the fat and happy university duopoly that is Auckland and Otago Medical Schools. 

The first suggestion is fascinating. Rather than merge everything centrally, it would be having each hospital run by its own trust and CE. But they would not be a funder, just a provider.

The second is basically to bring back a funder/provider split. Having the one entity both run the hospitals and also decide how much money goes to hospitals vs GPs etc is a bad idea. I would note though that the description of the TEC as tiny may be optimistic. Before we had a TEC, tertiary funding was done by a team of around 12 officials in the Department of Education. Today TEC has around 400 staff!

It will be interesting to see what the Government does.