Judith Collins announced:

The Government’s move to cut public sector spending on consultants and contractors is on track to save $800 million over two years – double the initial target, Public Service Minister Judith Collins says.

“We set a two-year target to cut $400 million in spending on consultants and contractors across the public sector by 2024/25,” Ms Collins says.

“The latest update anticipates savings will come in at more than $800 million by the end of June.

“That’s $800 million that can be spent on delivering core services to taxpayers, in areas such as healthcare, law enforcement and education.

This is great news. This is a huge amount of savings. It shows how out of control it got under Labour.

In 2022, spending on contractors and consultants was 14.5% of workforce expenditure. It has now dropped to 4.8%. Again, a huge reduction.

1. Claimed that James Shaw asked her to run for Wellington Central (He didn’t)
2. Claimed that she was paying over half her Councillor salary in rent for one out of five bedrooms in Aro Valley (She wasn’t)
3. Claimed that the “vast majority” of people in prison are there for non-violent offences (They’re not)
4. Claimed that Downtown Community Mission has complained to the Police about police officers throwing away possessions of homeless people (They hadn’t)
5. Claimed that someone was in prison for shoplifting a $12 item (This is basically impossible as under $500 is maximum three months which would get home detention)

This is of course all the work of the Green Party Police and Corrections Spokesperson, Tamatha Paul. I think it is fair to conclude that there is a pattern.

Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell has a simple proposed members’ bill to amend the Bill of Rights Act to have equal suffrage extend to local government.

Equal suffrage is a fundamental human right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:

The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also states:

To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors

So equal suffrage is a fundamental human right, included in both major global human rights declarations. It is also in the NZ Bill of Rights Act:

has the right to vote in genuine periodic elections of members of the House of Representatives, which elections shall be by equal suffrage and by secret ballot

So our law already states that equal suffrage applies to national elections. Uffindell’s bill would change NZ BORA so it reads:

Every New Zealand citizen who is of or over the age of 18 years has the right to vote in genuine periodic elections by equal suffrage and secret ballot of members of the House of Representatives; and members of local authorities.

So a very simple law change that enhances human rights in New Zealand. So how does Radio NZ report on this proposed bill. Well in this article they quote two opponents of the bill as a “backward step”, and doesn’t go to a single person (about from the MP proposing it) supporting it for comment.

Radio NZ reports:

Green MP Tamatha Paul is doubling down on her comments that a “visible police presence” makes people feel “more on edge.” …

The Wellington Central MP said she’d received “nothing but complaints” about police beat patrols.

Paul told the event people in Wellington didn’t want to see police officers everywhere, and “for a lot of people, it makes them feel less safe”.

This is a great example of how out of touch the Greens are with average New Zealanders. I’m sure all her friends do dislike seeing the Police, but the vast majority of NZers do not.

In fact the latest Crime and Victims Survey found only 2% of NZers had no trust and confidence in the Police and 83% believe the Police conduct themselves professionally.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Paul’s comments were “outrageous and insane”, and police were out there doing an “incredible job.”

Insane is a good description of her advocacy to defund police and abolish prisons.

Hipkins said her comments were “ill-informed, were unwise, in fact were stupid”.

“I don’t think responsible members of parliament should be undermining the police in that way, I think the New Zealand public have huge confidence in the New Zealand police and they should have.”

Nice to see Luxon and Hipkins agree that the Greens are barmy.

Mitchell pointed to Wellington Central as an example of the success of beat policing.

“We’ve seen a 5.5% decrease in violent crime in the area that the Beat Team is deployed, compared to a 2% drop nationally,” the minister said.

He said the Greens “don’t believe in our police or prisons”.

I think the Greens believe in hugs.

In what could be a attempt to join the Keystone Cops, we have learnt that Trump’s National Security principals set up a private chat channel to discuss a US strike on Yemen, and accidentally added a journalist to it.

This is exactly why you are not meant to use commercial apps for national security discussions. Secure channels don’t allow you to accidentally add on external people such as journalists. They also can be set up to only allow access if you are on a secure connection, or dedicated IP addresses etc.

David French notes:

I’m a former Army JAG officer (an Army lawyer). I’ve helped investigate numerous alleged spillages of classified information, and I’ve never even heard of anything this egregious — a secretary of defense intentionally using a civilian messaging app to share sensitive war plans, without even apparently noticing a journalist was in the chat.

There is not an officer alive whose career would survive a security breach like that. It would normally result in instant consequences (relief from command, for example) followed by a comprehensive investigation and potential criminal charges.

This is the most interesting aspect of what happened. The total lack of acceptance that anything wrong was done at all. Sure you might not expect resignations, but in any normal government you would have an admission that what happened was wrong, was a stuff up, should not have happened, and they will make sure never happens again. But we now have a culture of never ever admitting fault, so instead they just attack the journalist (who did a better job of protecting classified information than the NSA and SecDef).

The other very interesting aspect was the purely transactional view of J D Vance. He said the US should not be bombing the Houthi, as only 3% of US trade goes through the Suez Canal and 47% of European trade. So he saw Trump’s decision as allowing the Europeans to freeload, and wanted them to somehow pay for it.

First of all, it shows a lack of knowledge (or disinterest) in the fact that having extra costs on European trade, will cost US consumers as US companies then trade with those European businesses. There is a lot of data about how the Houthi attacks have contributed significantly to global inflation.

The second segment is that Vance doesn’t see any value in stopping terrorists from controlling a major sea, just because it is the right thing to do. You gain the impression that in WWII he would have been arguing the US shouldn’t get involved in WWII unless someone paid them to do so.

Vance is even more isolationist than Trump, which suggests that if he wins in 2028 (as is likely), the US foreign policy is unlikely to swing back to traditional allies and values.

The latest CNN/SRSS poll has the Democrats historically unfavourable.

That is an awful trend. So in Bush’s second term, they were very popular. Then they fell away in Obama’s first term, rebounded, but then went negative. But they were marginally favourable in Trump’s term, however the Biden administration was a disaster for them going from +5% to -25% today. And they are showing no signs of rebounding.

The breakdown by demographics are:

• Men -32%
• Women -18%
• Whites -37%
• People of colour -5%
• Under 34s -14%
• 35 – 49 -21%
• 50 – 64 -38%
• 65+ -28%
• Independents -34%
• Moderates -14%

J D Vance will be feeling pretty confident right now.

Good to see the Greens focusing on the issues that really matter to NZers, such as abolishing the Police!

Some useful recommendations from the LGNZ working group on local elections.

Move to a nationally consistent system of in-person voting for all local elections that is as similar as possible to parliamentary elections over a two-week timeframe in which to vote, with polling booths in venues where people frequently visit. Preferably by the 2028 local elections or the 2031 local elections at the latest.

If you really want to boost turnout, then I would allow all three methods of voting – postal, in booths and online. Postal is dying, and in booths did not do well in the days before postal.

If we do not shift away from postal voting in 2028, then the Local Electoral Act should be amended to enable overseas voters to use the same electronic voting approach as central government elections, and make it easier for voters to have voting papers reissued if they do not arrive.

Not just for overseas voters. Everyone should be able to access this.

The Government should amend the Electoral Act and Local Electoral Act to put the Electoral Commission in charge of administering and promoting local elections.

Strongly agree, and well overdue.

Local government and central government should move to a four-year term with elections spaced two years apart.

Also a strong agree. If in 2026 people vote for a four year term, then presumably central government elections would be 2029, 2033, 2037 etc. You could then have local elections in 2025, 2028, 2031, 2035, 2039.

The Local Government Act should be amended to strengthen the Code of Conduct process by Empowering the Local Government Commission to investigate complaints relating to significant breaches

I disagree with this one. It would change the nature of the LGC dramatically and politicise it.

Overall some good food for thought, and hopefully the Government adopts many of them.

I noticed a few weeks ago that WCC rubbish bags were now $4 each at the supermarket. I could recall when they were $2.50 each and was interested in when they increased so much. I asked WCC.

In 2020 the RRP was $2.38 and today they are $3.60. That is a 51% increase in just five years. Has the cost of rubbish collection gone up 51%? General inflation was only 22% so that is a 29% increase in real terms.

This is not a small increase. This comes on top of the 20% rates increases. They are addicted to spending.

At Patreon (paywalled) I analyse the proposed new boundaries for the 2026 general election, the likely impact on each seat for each MP, and which seats flip on paper – plus which MP is out of a job.

My prediction last year that Ohariu would disappear has been proven correct, while all those who insisted Epsom would disappear seem to have been guilty of wishful thinking.

Jerry Coyne has found a wonderful new research paper. The abstract is:

This article offers a queer lesbian feminist analysis attuned to lesbian-queer-trans-canine relationalities.

Specifically, the article places queer and lesbian ecofeminism in conversation with Donna Haraway’s work on the cyborg and companion species to theorize the interconnected queer becomings of people, nature, animals, and machines amidst ecologies of love and violence in the 2020s.

It takes two key case studies as the focus for analysis: first, the state instrumentalization of dogs and robot dogs for racialized and imperial violence, and second, quotidian queer and lesbian-dog relationalities and becomings. In the first, the article traces how dogs are weaponized as tools of state violence and proposes a queer lesbian feminist critique of white supremacy and militarization that can also extend to a critique of the violence committed through and toward the dogs. In the second, the article analyzes how, within lesbian, non-binary, and trans-dog intimacies, dogs help articulate queer gender, sexuality, and kinship formations, and as such, queer worlds for gender, sexual, and kin becomings.

The entanglements of violence and love in these queer dog relationalities provide insights into the complexities of queer and lesbian feminist worldbuilding. Lesbian and queer feminist cyborg politics can help theorize the potentials and challenges of these interspecies entanglements.

Sadly it is from a New York academic, so the Royal Society of NZ wasn’t able to fund it!

The NZ version of the deep state appears to be the NZ Public Health Service. They regards themselves as having a divine right to opine on every issue of the day from capitalism to building design. They have been allowed to do this for far too long, and it is great to see the Minister pushing back.

Simeon gives just a few examples of what the Public Health Service has been spending scare heath dollars on, instead of say childhood immunisations.

1. Submitting against a fast food outlet going resource consent on the grounds of planetary health, landscape values, traffic and Te Tiriti
2. opposed raffle tickets for local schools, Surf Life Saving, and Coastguard on the grounds it may encourage gambling habits
3. suggested that coffee carts should be mandated to display signs urging customers to bring reusable cups
4. advocating for the removal of sandwich boards from public spaces claiming they are “hazardous.”
5. told Aucklanders that their ratepayers’ and taxpayers’ money should be prioritised towards walking and cycling infrastructure, and other projects that shift people “away from cars.”

Nelson Mayor Nick Smith also says on Facebook:

So they are advising NCC on road bypasses, on forest conversion, on draining playing fields and lowering bus fares. And in every case reflecting their personal opinion, not the policy of the elected Government.

All this is not just grossly inappropriate, but it comes at a cost. Every dollars spent by the Public Heath Service on their political lobbying is a dollar not being spent on activities such as vaccinations.

The proportion of non-immunised kids in NZ has exploded from 1 in 20 to 1 in 4. This is a public health disaster, At this level we lose herd immunity and kids gets whooping cough which last year was officially at epidemic levels. You can’t rule out diphtheria re-emerging either if we don’t lift vaccination rates.

The Daily Mail reports:

Thousands of jobs faced the axe last night after Sir Keir Starmer announced NHSEngland will be scrapped in a bid to slash red tape.

He hopes that ditching the ‘world’s largest quango’ will save hundreds of millions of pounds a year that can be spent on patients instead.

This is the exact opposite of what NZ Labour did. NZ Labour merged all the DHBs into one huge entity, while UK Labour is saying let the Regional NHSs run themselves without a centralised quango.

Half the 18,600 office staff employed by the two organisations will be lost, with the funds redirected to doctors, nurses and frontline services. This will help to cut waiting lists and improve care, Sir Keir claimed yesterday.

Sounds similar to what the Government is NZ is trying to do – cuts back office staff to redirect to doctors and nurses.

One of the areas where big savings could be made is in the number of equality schemes in the NHS. While ministers view some as important, they say there are far too many that are well-meaning but misguided.

UK Labour seem much more rational than NZ Labour.

From Stephen Kirchner.

Taxing imports is bad for consumers and bad for businesses. The only winner is the Government that gets all the extra tax revenue.

At Patreon (paywalled), I write on why I think World War III is now very plausible:

The odds of this occurring in the next five to ten years has gone from implausible to very possible …

There will be some sort of peace deal in Ukraine this year. The Ukraine conflict was always going to end in a peace deal. Almost all wars end in deals, except WWII which was the rare modern exception of “total victory” being demanded.

What matters are the details of a peace deal.

Stuff reports:

Public health doctors are worried the government is trying to suppress their expertise – raising alarm about what they’re describing as “overreach”.

This is nothing to do with so called expertise. This is to stop taxpayer funded lobbying, as we saw with Public Health officials trying to stop a McDonalds in Wanaka.

On Tuesday, doctors spoke on condition of anonymity to raise their concerns after a meeting earlier that day with the National Public Health Service director, Dr Nick Chamberlain.

He told those doctors that any advice they wanted to offer about issues in their regions needed sign off at a “national level”.

Some public health officials think their job is to take their taxpayer funded salary and advocate for whatever policies they like. This is ending, thank God.

Brown said he wanted medical officers of health to stop writing about issues such as fast food and “leading advocacy campaigns” on public health issues. Instead, he said their focus should be on “technical advice” and immunisation campaigns.

Absolutely. If they want to be lobbyists, they should quit their jobs and form a lobby group and seek donations for it.

Public health doctors have expertise in how social and environmental issues can impact the health of a population. They also offer expertise in how the policies of central and local government will improve or harm health.

Lots of people have expertise in particular issues. Treasury has staff with expertise on how increasing the minimum wage can lead to higher unemployment. That doesn’t mean Treasury staff are allowed to submit to every Council in NZ, advocating against living wage policies.

Brown said he was fed up with seeing doctors giving advice on issues such as fast food restaurants.

Referencing the Wānaka McDonald’s issue, which saw a medical officer submit against the resource consent for another branch of the burger giant to be built, Brown said: “Writing submissions opposing a fast-food restaurant in Wānaka, as Health NZ did last year, is not what New Zealanders expect from their health service.”

“My expectation is that Health NZ should prioritise delivering healthcare services over engaging in broader advocacy efforts. This includes the National Public Health Service which should be focused on improving immunisation rates and tackling key health challenges, rather than weighing in on where fast-food outlets should be located,” he said.

Brown said medical officers of health had an “important role in providing local technical advice”, and that would continue.

The health budget is already stretched. I am sure the vast majority of NZers want more money spent on GP access, elective surgery, EDs, medicines etc and less on lobbying councils and commissioners on resource consents.

The Press reports:

No one stands a chance of survival in a crash at 215kph, a judge has warned an Southland teen.

Harrison Ian Aitken, 18, a carpet layer of Gore, was clocked driving 215kph on August 03 when “running late for soccer”.

I feel safe saying that his excuse is bullshit. No one drives at 215 km/hr because they are running late. They drive at that speed because they like it, and don;t think or care about the consequences.

Aitken had previously plead guilty to charges of dangerous driving in the Gore District Court in November after two incidents in August and September.

So after he got clocked at 215 km/hr in August, a few weeks later he was at it again.

Aitken was disqualified from driving for 12 months, backdated to the date of his first incident, which means he will be disqualified from driving until August 2025.

He has got off lightly. I hope he changes his ways before hs kills someone.

This clearly crosses the line from reporting news to manufacturing news. No one can argue that complaints about school lunches should generate over 25 stories a week for an entire month.

This is quite simply the media at war with the Government.

Climate scientist Michael Mann won $1 million in a defamation lawsuit against writer Mark Steyn. However the damages have been reduced to $5,000 due to false claims by Mann about lost grants.

Some extracts from the recent court ruling:

• They each knowingly made a false statement of fact to the Courtand Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information
• Both attorneys deliberately engaged in outright misrepresentations, with the intent of presenting false evidence in support of a crucial aspectof Dr. Mann’s claims,that fall squarely within Rule 8.4(c)’s prohibition against “conduct involving dishonesty
• Therefore, as Mr. Williams and Mr. Fontaine knowingly violated the rules of professional conduct, the Court finds that their conduct,in service of Dr. Mann, involvesthe requisite bad faith warranting sanctions pursuant to the Court’s inherent authority
• Dr. Mann’s assertion that there was no falsehood or misrepresentation in his testimony orhis counsel’s conductborders on frivolity
• The Court arrives at such a sanction because the misconduct of Dr. Mann and his counsel (1) was extraordinary in its scope, extent, and intent;

It seems Dr Mann has done more damage to his own reputation through this lawsuit, than Mr Steyn did!