A reader who has a PhD in science writes in:

I’m not sure if you are aware but the issue goes much deeper than just diverting funding from science to “woke” projects for the Marsden fund.  For many years, ALL science funding has a proportion that all applicants are mandated to divert to Maori outcomes (Vision Mätauranga).  This basically means that any successful science application ends up paying a Maori group a proportion of their funding.  Science applications are unlikely to be successful unless this “bribe” is included into the application.

Imagine if science funding was spent on science!

The NY Post reports:

The police chief in Germany’s capital is urging Jews and gay people to “be vigilant” while traversing certain Arab-majority neighborhoods, warning many of them contain pockets of antisemitism and residents who harbor support for terrorist groups. 

“There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful,” Berlin top cop Barbara Slowik told a German newspaper.

Immigration is good, when immigrants integrate. It is not good when they don’t. When Jews and gays get told by Police they need to avoid certain areas, you have a problem.

“There are certain neighborhoods where the majority of people of Arab origin live, who also have sympathies for terrorist groups,” she added, noting open hostility towards Jews in some areas.

Entire neighbourhoods that are pro-terrorist!

My great friend Nikki has died. It was inevitable since that diagnosis in 2016 that she had incurable breast cancer, . But that doesn’t make it less painful when it finally happens – especially at such a young age of 44.

 I met Nikki when she was 18. She was a Young National and I worked in the PM’s Office. I offered her some advice about a remit she was moving in favour of lowering the drinking age, and she listened and rejected my advice. This was a foreshadowing of our relationship going forward – Nikki asking my advice, ignoring it, and following her gut instinct regardless! 

After she left Otago with her BSc in genetics she joined the National Research Unit, and became a colleague and close friend. Somewhere along the way we became best friends. I stayed with her when visiting London, we travelled to IYDU events together, we holidayed together and even did Vegas together. 

In 2008 she decided to move back to NZ and stand for National. Myself and others advised here that she had no chance to win the nomination for Auckland Central against the incumbent candidate (a List MP) yet alone win the seat off Judith Tizard. We said she should seek the nomination for the more winnable Rotorua. She ignored the advice, and not just won the nomination for Auckland Central but won the seat, breaking a 90 year hold leftwing parties had on it. She then went on to hold the seat twice against a Labour MP some people may have heard of called Jacinda Ardern. 

Despite crossing the floor in her first year as an MP to oppose mining on Great Barrier Island,

she became a Minister after just four years in Parliament and ended up Minister of Education. In opposition she became Deputy Leader to Todd Muller. People tend to think that personal ambition is what drives people to seek out leadership roles, and some attributed that to Nikki. They could perhaps reflect that in 2020 she knew she had incurable 4 cancer and her time was limited. Her taking up the role of deputy was out of a strong desire to serve the party.

All of Nikki’s friends have numerous Nikki stories we love to share with each other – from her manic running around Parliament as a staffer, to her ability to lose swipe cards and even credit cards on such a regular basis. I once had to transfer money through Western Union to her in Sydney as she had lost all her cards and was in a dress shop with no ability to pay! There was also the time we went to a Sydney night club and of course Nikki had lost her ID. We only managed to get in by showing the bouncers her page on the parliamentary website. 

Nikki had severe arachnophobia. She could not manage being with 10 metres of even a daddy long legs or even a plastic spider (which somehow would sometimes appear above her desk). I managed to convince her to come to a premiere of LOTR: Return of the King with me, neglecting to mention Shelob. She almost killed me for that one. 

Nikki claims to have saved my life on a couple of occasions. One relates to when we were holidaying at Moorea. I had been swimming the day before and it was beautiful. Nikki turned up the next day and I convinced her to come swimming. I went to the end of the wharf (the day before I swam from the shore) and prepared to dive in. Nikki was hesitant as she said she was worried about sharks. I told her I swam the day before and saw no sharks. She was still unpersuaded, and so I told her that there was a reef around the beach, and I doubt any sharks could get through it. She was still unconvinced.

At this stage I started to get annoyed (a common occurrence when dealing with Nikki!) and told her she was paranoid and that by chance I had just been reading Superfreakonomics which had a chapter on how everyone over-estimates shark attacks. I quoted the data which said there are only 4 fatal shark attacks a year and you are twice as likely to die from a vending machine falling on you, than a shark attack. Nikki remained obstinate, so I gave up and dived into the water off the wharf. It was beautiful, with a hot spring there. I was in paradise, enjoying the water and then Nikki yelled out that there was a shark behind me. I laughed, as I am not that gullible. I told her nice try, but I’m not stupid.

She yelled again “No, seriously there is a shark behind you”. I thought quickly that Nikki isn’t really the type to do practical jokes (unlike me, who absolutely would) so I yelled back “Is this a joke, for if it is I’m going to throw you in the water as revenge”. Nikki yelled back “DAVID, GET OUT NOW” My adrenaline kicked in to maximum, and I swam as fast as I could back to the wharf. I pulled myself up with my heart racing, and looked around the wharf for a shark. After around 20 seconds I couldn’t see one, so I told Nikki I was going to throw her in. Just at the moment a shark swam by. It was about 1.5 metres long and looked like it could do a fair bit of damage. I exclaimed “Shit, you weren’t joking”. Nikki replied “You know I’m not sure that ‘s what I saw”. A few seconds later another shark tuned up, then a third and a fourth. The fourth was around 2.5 metres long and Nikki said that was the one she had seen. I gulped. Since that day, Nikki delighted in telling people she saved my life. I wasn’t convinced they would have eaten me, but to be fair I did mention the sharks to the hotel manager, and he did say that people often throw food to them off the end of the wharf at 5 pm (it was 4 pm). So considering I was swimming in their dining room at dinner time, who knows! 

Nikki was the most determined person I knew. I recall when I told her in 2008 that I didn’t think she could win Auckland Central and she retorted that I was just like everyone else who under-estimated her, her whole life – her PE teacher who never thought she would run (she did many marathons and the Coast to Coast), the reality TV producers who thought the 17 year old private school girl would not last on the survival island etc etc. Being determined to prove people wrong was a defining characteristic. I could go on and on with stories about Nikki, but I need to save some for the wake.

As an electorate MP, she had a work ethic I have never seen before. She got involved with good causes from end end of the electorate to another, and helped tens of thousands of people. I used to hear from the Mayor’s Office that most MPs who met with him would have just one or two items to discuss. Nikki always turned up with 25 or so things she wanted the Mayor to do.

Great Barrier Island was the true love of her life. Nikki first visited there as a candidate and fell in love with it. She visited several times as a candidate, despite there being just a few hundred people living there. As the MP she would visit at least once every two to three months (former MP would visit once every three years) to drive along projects. She wasn’t doing it for votes (it was 1% of her electorate) but because she saw the ability to make a real difference to the lives of people who lived there. She effectively became a local, and after she left Parliament she built a house over there which was her sanctuary.

I’ll just finish with how unfair it is that she died so young, but I know she died at peace with herself as someone who achieved more in her lifetime than most of us manage in a much longer one. Rest in peace Nikki.

Simeon Brown revealed:

The Government has revealed that over the past three years, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has spent an eyewatering $786 million of taxpayers’ money on road cones and temporary traffic management (TTM), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. …

That’s in just three years!

If you cut that spending in half, you could pay for the extra costs of Dunedin Hospital!

“This new approach shifts away from the blanket use of road cones and temporary speed limit restrictions and towards a risk-based approach which seeks to balance the need to ensure road workers are kept safe, while keeping costs under control.  

“This approach is already driving strong results. TTM expenditure – which was 15.9 per cent of maintenance costs and 6.1 per cent of capital project costs last year dropped to 9.9 per cent of maintenance costs and 3.1 per cent of capital project costs in this year’s first quarter.

TTM is needed to varying degrees during construction, but it doesn’t add any value to the road itself. You want to spend more on actual construction and less on traffic management.

Radio NZ has a story about Claire and Paul. They have five children. Their eight year old, Noah, is obviously serious disturbed. He has:

• Poisoned 24 rabbits
• Contaminated the family’s food stores with pig swill
• Tampered with his baby brother’s formula and bottle
• Cut electrical wires in the family’s car
• Sneaks out to light fires
• Coats firewood with a chemical so it produces burning foul fumes

After the last episode, Claire smacks him once. She regrets it and apologises to him.

Claire and Paul contact the authorities for help with Noah. They work with their GP, child and youth mental health services and Oranga Tamariki. The referral to OT is because of the threat Noah poses to the other children.

Over the next two years OT focuses on investigating Claire because she once smacked Noah after he coated the firewood with a poisonous chemical!!

Read the full story about how documents went missing, and others were altered. It is truly disturbing.

The Hill reports:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday rebuked Democratic-controlled elections boards that counted undated and misdated mail ballots, siding with Republicans and reiterating that such votes are invalid. 

Philadelphia, Montgomery and Bucks counties voted to count hundreds of such ballots in recent days despite previous rulings from the court that they cannot be included in this election.

This is the amazing thing. The court had already ruled that they should not be counted, and the Democratic officials in those counties said they would ignore that ruling and count them anyway.

Readers will be aware that the Government’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill has seen both Meta and Google warn that rather than pay a levy under the proposed law for links to news stories, they would block NZ news stories from Google and Facebook.

Curia was asked to poll 1,000 New Zealanders on:

The government is considering a scheme to levy fees on search engines and social media sites, that display links to NZ news stories. In response sites such as Google and Facebook may stop showing you NZ news stories. How annoyed would you be if you could no longer find NZ news stories through search engines or social media sites?

The full results are at Curia.

So 65% of respondents said they would be very or somewhat annoyed if they could no longer find NZ news stories through search engines or social media sites.

There is quite a bit of variation by demographics. The percentage who said they would be very or somewhat annoyed by demographics was:

• Under 40s 75%
• Green voters 70%
• Women 69%
• Labour voters 69%
  NZ First voters 67%
• 40 – 59s 64%
• National voters 62%
• Men 60%
• ACT voters 57%
• Overs 60s 52%

It is interesting that it started life as a Labour bill and now is a National bill, yet Labour and National voters will be considerably upset if it passes and causes them to lose access to NZ news sites via social media and search engines.

Of course there is a chance Google and Meta are bluffing, and won’t block news access. We may find out, if the Government proceeds. I personally wouldn’t bet that they are bluffing.

It will surprise few that I loved and grew up on Family Ties which starred Michael J Fox (I even started calling myself David P Farrar to emulate him) as Alex P Keaton – the conservative son to liberal parents.

His sister, Mallory, was played by Justine Bateman. It seems Mallory (Justine) has joined Alex. The FP reports:

Three days after the election, Justine Bateman, the former Family Ties star, catapulted herself into the political muck with a tweetstorm to her 140,000 followers that began: “Decompressing from walking on eggshells for the past four years.” 

She continued: “Common sense was discarded, intellectual discussion was demonized. . . Complete intolerance became almost a religion and one’s professional and social life was threatened almost constantly. Those that spoke otherwise were ruined as a warning to others. Their destruction was displayed in the ‘town square’ of social media for all to see.”

In other words, she said out loud the thing everyone has been thinking.

The tweetstorm went viral, and her followers more than doubled. People responded on X with tweets like: “A long war just ended and I’m finally home” and “It’s okay to be normal.”

The intolerant left is the best recruiting mechanism for the right.

Then came 2020: the pandemic, George Floyd, the riots, the groupthink—“these people necessitating that I think like them, and policing what people say, and what they tweet, and what they like on a social media post.”

She hated the rise of the progressive mob. It was antithetical to everything she believed in. “The only way you get that kind of momentum behind destroying peoples’ lives is when you have a mob mentality,” Bateman said. “I felt like the fact that Trump won cut the momentum of that mob mentality.”

It was, and still is, a mob.

But as recently as a few weeks ago and definitely a year or two ago, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to produce a show like Family Ties, Bateman told me. The progressive scolds would have called Alex a white supremacist, and they would have loathed the ex-hippie parents for accommodating their kids’ shallow, capitalist, racist, sexist, xenophobic values rather than banishing them from their home. 

Sadly, this is probably correct.

Think how many of our favourite shows could never be made today – Family Ties, Friends, Faulty Towers etc

A guest post by Peter Lynn:

In the 1980’s and 1990’s there were sporadic hysterias about paedophile rings and satanic abuse in various western countries.

In 1993, 35-year-old homosexual Peter Ellis, who had been working at the Christchurch Civic Childcare Centre was tried for offenses against children and found guilty.  Four female workers were discharged.

The problem with the trial was that the children’s evidence had been contaminated by questioning that directed them towards what the prosecution wanted.  But even worse, when their testimony strayed into absurd fantasies, this was kept from the jury.  If these fantasies had been exposed, there’s zero chance the children’s other evidence would have been taken as credible.

Straight away, this case was widely regarded as a failure of our justice system.  Even officers of the court who were polled anonymously in the aftermath of the trial overwhelmingly considered it a miscarriage.

Appeals were made, petitions lodged, and a best-selling book written on the travesty, but still the justice industry could not bring itself to admit to error.  Not doing so brought our justice system into disrepute.  Their reasons for being so obdurate can only have been institutional ego and protecting their own.

Eventually when the policemen, prosecutors and various judges involved had either died or retired, and one of the child witnesses had re-canted, in 2022, Ellis was exonerated.

One immediate effect of the Ellis saga was a clear message to males that working in childcare and teaching was unsafe.  Consequently, from this and other such signals, the male share of childcare and teaching professions fell off the cliff.   At primary school, I had male teachers in every standards class.  Now they are exceeding rare with 85% of primary school teachers being female (2022). 

This matters because boys need male role models- even more so because approaching 20% of NZ boys now live in female only households.  Consequences are societal dysfunction and rising crime.

It matters even more because female teachers are interested in art, music and other soft subjects, while males tend to be more interested in science, technology, engineering and math.  This difference is inherent and observable in all cultures, as evidenced by the proportion of women who qualify in STEM subjects being higher in countries where women are repressed (Pakistan and Iran for example), and lowest in countries where women have the greatest equality (like Norway and Denmark).  Where women are shackled to domesticity, STEM careers provide an escape.  Where women have more equality, they’re less likely to choose STEM subjects because this is not where their interests lie.

 Female domination of the teaching profession is not only contributing to the widening educational gap between girls and boys (because boys are not being taught what they are interested in) but is damaging our economy by constraining the supply of STEM educated boys. 

Fewer engineers and scientists- and rising crime- are not the only consequences of the Ellis case, nor necessarily the worst.  It has also changed our legal system.

Sitting on top of the legal system are Judges.  They are protected, privileged and highly paid- but have a difficult job: fenced in by laws, rules and precedent- and intensely scrutinised. 

Only in the higher courts is there some freedom of action, a chance to make law, not just apply it, and these rare opportunities are where reputations are made.  I recall the rock star status that UK High Court judge Lord Denning acquired by establishing a small change in the law with his “High Trees” judgement.

Zealand has no written constitution, but it has various unwritten constitutional conventions.  These provide a fertile field for judges to make their mark.  This is useful when it keeps law relevant in a changing society but requires that judge’s views are representative of broader society.  Unfortunately, in NZ over the last 20 or so years they have diverged sharply.  Our judicature, especially its upper echelons, have become agents of the Wellington centred progressive urban elite with views far to the Left of the wider population.  Wellingtonians live in a bubble, either unaware of how much their values differ from those of wider NZ, or fully aware but on a crusade.

Our senior justices have taken up a particular Left cause: Māori underperformance.  Rather than address the reason for this (dysfunctional aspects of Māori culture), they are attempting to level the field by elevating Māori to a position of legal privilege, 

Justice Cooke’s novel 1987 description of the Māori Crown relationship as “something akin to a partnership” was a significant step in this direction.  It has since been lifted to a full partnership and become established usage in government departments (also in the Wellington bubble).

But where does Peter Ellis come into this?

Peter died in 2019 while NZ’s Supreme Court was considering a final appeal.  When deciding whether to allow the appeal to continue, the justices turned to Tikanga (Māori custom), creatively declaring it to be “—the first law of New Zealand and not secondary to the colonial common law—”    This became a factor in enabling the appeal to proceed, even though Peter Ellis was not a Māori.  

In their 2022 decision Peter was finally cleared, his convictions quashed.

But this strengthening of Tikanga is ominous for New Zealand.  Although the Justices were careful to contextualise their decision, it is increasingly quoted as established law and is being used to advance Māori supremacy. 

Which will further fuel an inevitable destructive backlash from the non-Māori majority whose citizenship is being downgraded as Māori are elevated.

Not a hopeful future for any of us unless parliament can soon find the courage to rein in this activist judiciary.

Mark Mitchell released data on crime. The summary was:

So a huge reduction in ram raids and modest reductions in violent crimes. Change takes time, and hopefully next year will see larger drops.

The Taxpayers’ Union has found out under the local government OIA that the all up cost of upgrading Begonia House in the Botanic Garden is $25 million.

I like Begonia House. The kids enjoying looking at the fish there. It is nice to see the plants.

But $25 million is an obscene amount to spend on a greenhouse. It is a nice to have, and with rates increasing 20%, can’t be justified.

A guest post by Lucy Rogers:

On 8 November 2024 Max Harris wrote an op ed for The Dominion Post on the Israel – Lebanon conflict. Harris’ article was profoundly misleading in numerous respects and I immediately wrote a response which was submitted to the editor of the Post on 9 November. To that email I have received no reply. This concerns me as The Dominion Post is not only publishing very one-sided coverage of the conflict but intentionally not publishing responses to that material or alternate points of view.

My response is below. I invite the reader to judge for yourselves whether in the interests of balance it ought to have been published. Harris’ article by the way is here: https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360476520/glimpse-life-lebanon-and-what-more-nz-should-do

The Israel – Lebanon conflict is far more complex than Max Harris acknowledges

By Lucy Rogers

In Max Harris’ recent opinion item A glimpse of life in Lebanon, and what more NZ should do a number of criticisms were made of Israel. While I am also critical of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, to my mind his article omits some important facts and necessitates a response. 

Harris says: “In September Israel launched a series of heavy air attacks on Lebanon, following almost a year of sustained and widespread bombardments of Gaza. Then, on 1 October, Israel initiated a ground invasion of Lebanon.” He concedes that this was in response to “rockets fired into Israel” by Hezbollah. However, the only target he identifies is the Shebaa Farms, stating that it was “land held by Israel under military occupation that Israel annexed in 1981, but considered part of South Lebanon by Lebanon.”

One might be forgiven on Harris’ account in mistaking Hezbollah for a legitimate organisation which abides by humanitarian law and the rules of war, especially given Harris’ focus on Israel’s violations of the same. This is reinforced by Harris’ reference to Hezbollah’s “social services” in Lebanon (are suicide bombings a social service?) and representation in Lebanon’s Parliament. In fact 18 countries recognise Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation including inter alia the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. 

Nowhere does Harris acknowledge that over 8000 rockets were fired into Israel by Hezbollah daily over the course of the past year at civilian targets, which has forced 80,000 civilians to evacuate their homes in northern Israel, including Arabs. Nor does he acknowledge that victims of Hezbollah’s missile attacks have included Druze Arab children in the Golan Heights.

Nor does he explain that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy organisation, or that Iran funded and co-ordinated the pogrom of Israeli civilians on October 7. Rather, he says that Hezbollah said that it was acting in solidarity with the people of Palestine in response to Israeli bombardments of Gaza. This is false: Hezbollah started firing missiles at Israel on October 8, well prior to Israeli bombardment of Gaza. It acted in concert with Hamas at Iran’s behest.

I also take issue with Harris stating as fact that over 43,000 people have been killed by Israel in Gaza and that over half of these are women and children. He does not provide the caveat that his source is Hamas, which is not a reliable source given that it is a terrorist organisation responsible for the genocide of Israeli civilians on October 7 2023. 

I do not purport to know precisely what is happening in Gaza. Sources I trust provide contradictory accounts. However, one item of data is the report of former NATO general Sir John McColl, who observed the operations of the Israeli military in Gaza firsthand. Although he arrived a sceptic, he concluded that Israel is doing “all it can” to protect civilians in Gaza and that the IDF’s rules of engagement in Gaza “are at least as rigorous as those of the British Army.” 

The most troubling aspect of Harris’ article is that it minimises Hamas’ genocide of Israelis on October 7. Muslim physician Qanta Ahmed wrote an eyewitness account of the aftermath of that horrific day: over 1200 Israelis a majority of whom were civilians were murdered. Bodies were ripped apart. Children were killed in front of their parents. Entire families were burned alive. Hamas engaged in gang rape of civilians. Men, women and children were sodomised. People were tortured. Civilians were gunned down at a music festival and grenades were thrown into a bomb shelter.

250 hostages were taken into Gaza causing indescribable agony for their families. Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s body and those of several other hostages were recovered from a tunnel with no light, no air vents and no toilets which was not high enough to stand up in. Its only entrance was located in the floor of a children’s bedroom with Mickey Mouse and Snow White wallpaper. The hostages were human skeletons who had been brutally murdered at close quarters.It is hypocritical for Harris to omit these details in an article which quotes a Lebanese friend of his who said that it was “insulting, hypocritical, and dehumanising” to describe the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as a humanitarian catastrophe on the grounds that it does not do justice to the severity of Israeli atrocities. I do not accuse Harris of antisemitism. But given the enormity of some people’s bias against Israel it is unsurprising that many people believe racism to be the to be the explanation.

I blogged in August why I had resigned from the Research Association of New Zealand. By coincidence, the last three months have been the busiest period ever for Curia (outside pre-election periods).

There’s three items I want to update people on.

1. RANZ decided (as per their rules) to still consider the recommendation from the Professional Standards Group, and an independent review group did not endorse suspension
2. The independent review group considered the PSG findings with regard to question design and did not uphold three of them, but did uphold one of them.
3. RANZ is reviewing their procedures, as they were found to be significantly lacking. I will submit to that review (even though not a member) and I may even rejoin RANZ in a couple of years if I have confidence in the process. But this is far from assured, as I think it is very hard to prevent the weaponisation of complaints processes. I am still exploring membership options for overseas based professional bodies and have established our own complaints process.

When I resigned from RANZ, I had not yet received a copy of the PSG decision – just that they were recommending suspension or expulsion. In October I finally received a copy, and I am going to detail some of it here, so people can see for themselves what I have been battling.

First I want to go back to an earlier complaint the PSG upheld, over a question on the proposed Golden Mile redevelopment in Wellington. The PSG found the question was in breach of the RANZ Polling Code (and the general RANZ code) and cited a provision of the RANZ Political Polling Code it breached.

The PSG failed to even understand that the Political Polling Code does not apply to issue polling. The Code clearly states:

The code only covers “political polls”, which for the purpose of the code are polls that relate to
public votes such as national elections, local body elections and parliamentary referenda.

The PSG found breach of a code that doesn’t even apply to the poll in question. Such a failure of basic comprehension and interpretation should give warning bells about how much good faith was involved. The political polling code is a prescriptive code (which I helped write) designed only for polls which are about electoral outcomes.

So in the Golden Mile complaint, the PSG failed to properly comprehend the Political Polling Code they said it breached. I can’t recall an error of a similar magnitude by a professional complaints body. There is no shades of grey here. The code is black and white about its scope, and the PSG either ignored it or didn’t;t even understand a code they sit in judgment on.

Then we have the final complaint, about this poll question:

The UK health service (the NHS) has stopped the use of puberty blockers, which begin the gender transition process, for children under 16 as it deemed they are too young to consent. Do you support or oppose a similar ban in New Zealand on the use of puberty blockers for young people 16 or younger?

The PSG stated it breached the RANZ Code in the following ways:

• Includes more than one concept.

• Is long and complex.

• Uses emotive language that pushes the respondent to answer in a certain way.

• Uses context to influence the responses.

The independent panel disagreed on the first three points (and agreed on the last). I want to look closely at the first three, as I think it shows how biased the PSG was.

The question clearly did not have more than one concept. The only concept is should puberty blockers be banned for under 16s. I can’t understand how the PSG could think that (but I have a theory, detailed later).

It is not a long or complex question. I have written thousands of questions and this is relatively simple and short.

There is no emotive language in the question. So why did the PSG state it had more than one concept, it was long and complex, and used emotive language? Note that these were not even issues the complainant raised, or ones I was asked to submit on. These just appeared in their decision. They did not even ask me for input on these issues, which was a breach of natural justice.

If we go back to the Golden Mile decision, the PSG there found the question Do you think the Wellington City Council should commit to spending $139 million, (of which the outgoing Government pledged $71 million) on the Golden Mile project considering the blowout in the Town Hall renovation and growing Council debt? :

• Includes more than one concept.
• Is long and complex.
• Uses emotive language

Now in the Golden Mile case you can make an argument for there being two concepts (spending and debt) and emotive language (blowout), but these do not apply to the puberty blockers question.

So the only conclusion I can reach is that the PSG simply did a copy and paste of their findings in an earlier complaint into the later complaint.

If this is not the case, then please point out to me which words in the question were emotive? And point out what the second concept was?

This is why I have no confidence that the PSG has acted in a fair or impartial basis towards me. And again I note the independent panel did not uphold their findings on those aspects.

The independent panel did uphold one aspect of the PSG decision. They agreed that the question was leading, as it didn’t mention countries that have continued the use of puberty blockers.

I respect their interpretation there, but also respectfully have to agree to disagree. The question wasn’t about picking out a country at random that has blocked them. The UK was used because they had a world leading three year review of the science behind them, which led to the ban.

The review was seen as so influential, that the NZ Government itself said that it would influence their policy, and in fact just this week the Ministry of Health announced a new precautionary approach in NZ towards puberty blockers. This new position took the best part of a year to develop, and many other countries are also reviewing their policies in light of the UK Cass Review.

The question was about a country that had changed its position, and if NZ should do the same. Naming a country that has not (yet) changed its position is not balancing the question because changes take years to occur – it is apples and oranges in my opinion. I guess you could argue that a balance to the UK example would be a country that did have a ban on puberty blockers and recently got rid of the ban. But I’m genuinely not aware of any country that say had a ban on puberty blockers three years ago and has now unbanned them. Let me know if there is one.

Anyway this is the update. I appreciate the work of the independent panel (even though they upheld one aspect of the complaint) and the work of RANZ Board who are starting a review of the complaints process. But it is fair to say I have very low confidence in the current PSG, for reasons which should be obvious.

This chart shows greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. The changes have been:

• China +9,500 MT, +216%
• India +2.525 MT, +166%
• NZ -11MT, -14%
• US -99MT, -2%
• EU -2,196 MT, -40%

The change by continent is:

• Africa +1,808MT, +62%
• Asia +17,202 MT, +134%
• Europe -3,.659 MT, -36%
• North America +277MT, +4%
• Oceania +34MT, +5%
• South America +672MT, +22%

It is very clear that limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees is impossible to achieve just with US and EU. There needs to be more focus on China and India.

Alex Taborrak writes:

The prediction markets predicted the election outcome more accurately and more quickly than polls or other forecasting methods, just as expected from decades of research. In this election, however, many people discounted the prediction markets because of large trades on Polymarket.

He quotes Paul Krugman:

Never mind the prediction markets, which are thin and easily manipulated.

But Taborrak points out:

The idea seems to be that whales shifted market odds from 50:50 to 40:60, hoping this would drive more people to vote for Trump. Really? Were voters in Pennsylvania watching Polymarket to decide who to vote for? In a decision market, manipulation might be desirable to a whale (albeit unlikely to succeed), but in prediction markets, this scenario seems dubious: a) people would need to know about these markets, b) they’d need to care about probability shifts on these markets (as opposed to voting say the way their family and neighbors were voting), and c) this would have to be an effective way to spend money to influence votes compared to the myriad other ways of influencing voting. Each step seems dubious.

Very dubious.

But here is the interesting part:

The mystery trader known as the “Trump whale” is set to reap almost $50 million in profit after running the table on a series of bold bets tied to the presidential election. …

Polls failed to account for the “shy Trump voter effect,” Théo said. Either Trump backers were reluctant to tell pollsters that they supported the former president, or they didn’t want to participate in polls, Théo wrote.

To solve this problem, Théo argued that pollsters should use what are known as neighbor polls that ask respondents which candidates they expect their neighbors to support. The idea is that people might not want to reveal their own preferences, but will indirectly reveal them when asked to guess who their neighbors plan to vote for.

…In an email, he told the Journal that he had commissioned his own surveys to measure the neighbor effect, using a major pollster whom he declined to name. The results, he wrote, “were mind blowing to the favor of Trump!”

Théo declined to share those surveys, saying his agreement with the pollster required him to keep the results private. But he argued that U.S. pollsters should use the neighbor method in future surveys to avoid another embarrassing miss.

I’ve had a few people ask me about the value of neighbour surveys. They can hold value if there is a reason to believe people are shy to say whom they actually support. But they have a real flaw.

Let’s say the country is 51.5% Trump and 48.5% Harris. But 30% of the population live in heavily blue areas (80% Harris) and 70% live in purple to red areas (65% Trump).

The 30% in heavily blue areas would almost all say their neighbours are boring Harris (even if they are Trump voters) and the 70% in purple to red areas would say a mixture. Basically neighbour polls don’t take account of how heavily a neighbour leans.

In NZ I doubt they would work because I think we have far less idea how our neighbours would vote. But would be an interesting question to ask at some stage, and compare to the normal results.

A reader writes in:

Having just spent 3 months* in New Zealand, and with a concern for what I believe is substantive waste across the University sector, I call your attention to the contractual Research and Study leave entitlements in NZ:

The financial impact of New Zealand’s academic research and study leave appear unique to our little nation. Across my time in Australia, neither myself nor any other member of academic staff had entitlements such as in NZ.

Eligible academics in New Zealand accrue roughly one extra day of leave per week under research leave policies. They can accrue this up to a maximum of 365 days over seven years. NOTE: this is in addition to annual and other leave.**

The link below is one example: Otago University study leave policy. I refer to cl. 8 herein (it should be noted these policies used to me readily posted for all Unis – many appear today to require employee login. That may be something to investigate on its own.

https://www.otago.ac.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/295404/research-study-leave-policy-335801.pdf

In the seventh year, academics can pending management approval, take a full year of research at full pay. 

Academics who get this benefit are the research ranks such Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor, and Professor. Stats NZ suggests there are approximately 10,400 academics eligible for this leave across these ranks in NZ.

Remembering that academics are already paid to do research:

I have roughly calculated 10,400 academics who get an extra 50 days per year that is over 500,000 days. As an example, using an average income of $130k indicates the cost per annum to the country is well in excess of $260 million dollars. In ten years that’s $2.6 billion dollars.

Again, all of these figures require verification but this is difficult as many universities appear to have shifted public inspection of these entitlements as used to be reported on their websites.

And again, in Australia, there are no similar contractual research/study leave entitlements. In the US, long-term paid research and study leave is contestable with few staff competing for small numbers of leave slots. At my university in US, 150 academics will complete for 2 extended paid leaves this year. 2. Teaching loads across NZ also appear lower than in AU (and much of the US).

The rest of the taxpayer funded state sector is having to live within its means. What is the justification for NZ taxpayers to fund such amazingly generous research leave provisions? Is any other country as generous?

The Court of Appeal has ruled:

The application for name suppression of Mr Tarrant’s counsel is granted and an order made permanently prohibiting publication of Lawyer A and Lawyer B’s names, addresses, and identifying particulars under s 202 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011.

This is a bad blow against open justice. Never before (to my knowledge has the identity of lawyers been suppressed). This sets a bad precedent.

I could understand the decision if there had been very serious threats made against the lawyers in this case. But in fact there hasn’t been. Quite properly people understand it is a lawyer’s job to make sure a client gets a fair defence.

The essence of the evidence is that they, as senior criminal defence lawyers, have been subjected to extensive abuse and threats of harm because of acting for defendants in other cases who have attracted significant public opprobrium.

So there have been threats in other cases, and this is used to justify suppression in this case where there were not significant threats. This now lowers the barrier for future cases.

The evidence before us does not identify specific risks of abuse or threats to Lawyer A and Lawyer B.

This is why it is such a bad ruling. It was made on possibilities, rather than actual evidence.

I hope the media and the crown appeal.

Liam Hehir points out:

Forty-two senior lawyers, known as King’s Counsel, have written to the government with a scathing critique of the Treaty Principles Bill. Their letter raises a number of concerns with which I am in full agreement. However, they also make a statement about Parliament’s law-making authority that contains a fundamental and egregious error.

This is not something I say lightly because these are very senior and respected members of the legal profession. They have likely forgotten more law, within their areas of expertise, than I will ever know. But on the topic of Parliament’s authority, there can be no questions.

They assert that it is “uncertain” whether Parliament can legislate in the way the bill proposes, arguing that it is “not for the government of the day to retrospectively and unilaterally reinterpret constitutional treaties.”

This is very significant. The 44 KCs are saying that they are unsure if Parliament is supreme.

Arguments against Parliament’s authority to make law affecting anyone in New Zealand cannot succeed in our courts currently. Parliament’s power to legislate needs to extend to all matters within these islands. No treaty or statute is beyond its reach.

So why would such eminent members of the legal profession make this erroneous claim? Well, there has been a long-standing desire within parts of the legal profession and associated academic fields in which judicial activism and scepticism of parliamentary sovereignty have been quietly cultivated for decades.

Basically the KCs are suggesting that rather than Parliament being supreme, the lawyers should be supreme. They can over-ride Parliament.

The institutions of representative democracy are not infallible. Lawmakers with a mandate from the people will never be immune from the risks of poor legislation or misguided decisions. The same goes for judges, of course.

Parliament carries an important self-correcting mechanism: if lawmakers go too far or lose touch with the public, they risk being voted out. Judges, however, enjoy long or even lifetime appointments, making them immune from the direct accountability that keeps elected leaders in check. This insulation from public opinion is problematic because it enables detachment from the consent of the governed.

Judges should only get to over-ride Parliament, if there is a formal constitution that binds Parliament. However the key thing is that the constitution is amendable by either Parliament or the people – hence is democratic.

The assertion that Judges can over-ride Parliament on the basis of their interpretation of common law is dangerous. It makes Judges unelected lords.