I blogged a few days ago on how the Royal Society on behalf of MBIE (taxpayers) gets paid to hand out 40 fellowships with $800,000 each. They of course do it through identity politics eyes, so their criteria are 20% must go to Māori, 10% to Pacific and 50% to women.

Now you would have thought that even with those criteria, the 10 women, 8 Māori and 4 Pacific researchers selected for these fellowships are the best of the best within their grouping.

But no. The Royal Society selects them through the equivalent of a random lotto draw!!!

I understand that of the 300+ applications they get, they merely reject 2% of them, and the other 98% then just go into a random ballot.

Why do we pay the Royal Society to allocate $32 million of fellowships, when all they do is divide them into ethnic and gender groups – and then conduct a random ballot.

Time for the Government to act!

There could be a fascinating constitutional stand-off, with Trump’s more controversial Cabinet picks. There are three ways they can be appointed.

1. They get confirmed by the Senate, with at least 50 votes in favour. This appears very unlikely at this stage for Gaetz (who has just withdrawn) and may be difficult for Gabbard and RFK Jr.
2. The Senate agrees to go into recess, so Trump can do recess appointment for up to two years. But Senators won’t be keen to give up their role to consent.
3. Trump and the House force the Senate to adjourn against the will of the Senate, and then makes a recess appointment.

The third option is one being talked about. It relies on the clause in the constitution that says:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;

So how this would work is Trump convenes both Houses for an issue, and then asks them to adjourn. The House agrees to adjourn and the Senate doesn’t. This then allows the President to adjourn them both.

Such a move would be unprecedented – the President and the House working together to force the Senate out of session, so they can’t perform their advice and consent role. It would require the entire GOP House to vote for it, and courts would have to rule on if it is constitutional. But it can’t be ruled out.

It would also be short-sighted, because it would mean a future Democratic President who has a Democratic House but not a Democratic Senate (which is often the case) could use this procedure to bypass a Republican Senate for all their appointments.

Current Polymarket odds for Senate confirmations are:

• Mike Huckabee as Israel Ambassador 96%
• Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador 96%
• Lee Zledin as EPA 94%
• Kristi Noem as Homeland Secretary 94%
• John Ratcliffe as CIA Director 93%
• Tulsi Gabbard as DNI 80%
• RFK Jr as HHS 75%
• Pete Hesgeth as Defence 74%
• Matt Gaetz at Attorney-General 31% (just withdrawn)

(And an update on our Charter School situation)

The Term 3 2024 data has just been released.

NB: Full Attendance is 9 days in 10.

• Overall full attendance was 51.3%
• For Secondary students it was 45.5%
• For Maori it was 37.5%
• For Pasifika it was 39.5%
• For High Equity Index (formerly low decile) it was 35%.
  

David Seymour is the Associate Minister of Education and has barely moved the dial on what is a genuine crisis. Given the reponse of Maori to his Treaty Bill and the authoritarian manner with which he is addressing attendance in general, and specifically around the Hikoi, he is now clearly the wrong person for the role and should relinquish it. People may argue that there is a point to some of what he is saying. Never-the-less if NZ is trying to improve Maori attendance he is exactly the wrong person at present.

Update on Education 710+ Charter School Applications

At present all four applications have been turned down. All four got through the filtering stage but the Authorisation Board chose not to interview us or ask a single question. To avoid confusion – for approval it was not “four or nothing” – each was to stand on merit – but there are major researched advantages on a single provider for multiple schools. We applied for:

• A Year 1 – 8 Primary School in Central Auckland that has 57,000 households and not a single school.
• A Year 11 – 13 School in Central Auckland focussed only on UE and looking to bring in South Auckland students.
• A Year 7 – 10 School in Epsom/Ellerslie for 240 students who do not fit in the normal State system.
• A Year 7 – 10 School in Warkworth where people are very keen to have more choice for their children.
  
  

Given my record, havng started 6 successful schools, and the remarkable Board we have – plus the support of people such as John Hattie, Dame Wendy Pye, Mike King, Simon Bridges, etc – we have been very disappointed (to say the least) in both the process and the outcomes.

As least five other applicants are equally as bemused and we are seeking – at least – a fully independent review.

While having a crack at Dame Jenny Shipley, Chris Finlayson and myself (for having divorced my wife) on Mike Hosking’s show earlier this week David Seymour told a porkie that there is only funding for 15 schools. There is funding for 50 schools and we have it in writing from the Charter School Agency that the ratio of new schools to State conversions is not fixed at the 15/35 announced. It also looks as if very few State schools are interested in converting and none of the preious Charters have returned – preferring to remain as Designated Character Schools.

Seymour clearly implied to Hosking that 15 schools have been chosen to start in Term 1 2025. It will be most interesting to see who they are when the list is finally announced.

My charitable company (Education 710+) has a very good option to begin the Central Auckland Primary School as a Year 7 – 10 Private School. We would need some initial investment. I would welcome any interest.

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com

Jessie Moss at Newsroom complains:

The words “Te Mātaiaho is designed to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and be inclusive of all ākonga” have been removed from the introductory statement. Under the guiding kaupapa, the words “the centrality of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its principles” are insultingly replaced with “based on the science of learning”.

So the curriculum is now based on the science of learning, rather than the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. This is great news – for all kids, including Maori.

In fact, the word ‘Tiriti’ doesn’t feature in either of the refreshed English and Maths learning areas of the NZ Curriculum.

Oh my God. Quick, get the smelling salts.

The Herald reports:

The transgender refugee who poured tomato juice over the head of controversial British activist Posie Parker during a raucous rally at Auckland Central’s Albert Park, had previously been the victim of serious assaults spurred by discrimination. …

But despite his at-times sympathetic tone, Justice David Johnstone said he couldn’t overturn a district court decision denying the 36-year-old pharmacist a discharge without conviction because of the message it would send to others.

“…It is important that those who wish to oppose, by protesting against, views they consider abhorrent, do so without engaging in physical attacks,” he wrote near the conclusion of his 11-page decision.

It’s not a difficult line to draw. Protest yes. Assault no.

“The courts should be seen to denounce, and in that way generally to deter, that form of protest, because of the risk it will be copied, perhaps more harmfully, and because of its inherent tendency to undermine rather than facilitate the rule of law.”

If this activist had got off, then of ourselves it would have been copied.

“She has filed an affidavit in which she says she ‘felt compelled to act’,” Johnstone wrote. “Of course, it was entirely improper for Ms Golberstein to offend as she did. 

“Her actions blatantly crossed a line that must be maintained, between the legitimate verbal or written expression of contrary opinion on one side, and physical conduct that risks provoking violence or harm to individuals, communities and institutions on the other.”

Good to see the Judge gets such an important distinction.

This tweet has had around one million views around the world.

Many on the left have celebrated what Te Pati Maori and other opposition parties did. But I wonder what the reaction would have been in say a couple of different scenarios.

Imagine the Destiny Church Party had got some MPs into Parliament and the House was voting on the first reading of a bill to legalise abortion – an issue Destiny MPs regard as fundamental to their identity. And imagine as the vote was occurring the Destiny MPs didn’t just get up and do a haha, but they crossed the floor to face Jacinda Ardern and did the haka opposite her, while the entire public gallery full of her supporters joined in.

I suspect those cheering on what TPM did, would be demanding they be arrested if it had been the other way around. They would have been denounced by every media outlet. Government MPs would have been interviewed about how they fared for their safety. Every columnist would be writing about how this is a terrible thing for the country.

Ananish Chaudhuri writes:

Since 2020, when I was released from jail (oops, sorry; I meant to say stepped down from being department head) I have written nearly one hundred columns and done numerous interviews. Many of my columns and/or interviews have appeared in mainstream outlets like New Zealand Herald, Stuff, RNZ, Newsroom, NBR, The Conversation, and so on. (I even had a piece in the New York Times.)

Now if you look at these columns there is a discernible pattern.

When I wrote about non-political issues or things that were broadly supportive of the previous Labour government, these columns routinely appeared in mainstream outlets.

But when I wrote columns criticising progressive shibboleths, these columns appeared only in alternative outlets like The BFD or bassettbrashandhide.com.

Does that make sense? Clearly, I know how to write columns.  Do I suddenly become stupid when I write columns that argue against the progressive consensus?

A good example of this is the outrageous and illegal behaviour of schools encouraging their students to take part in a partisan protest march. As far as I know, there has been zero coverage of this in the print media, because of course they all support the protest march.

But I think the process became turbo-charged in New Zealand with the coopting of the media by the previous Labour government via the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF). At heart, the PIJF is a good idea. It is in our social interest to have a vibrant media. But in accepting this money, the mainstream media agreed to endorse a particular political view to the exclusion of others. They have continued to express that allegiance even after that government was thrown out via the popular vote.

The current progressive movement has little progressive about it. These are left-wing authoritarians determined to foist their warped sense of priorities on the rest of us.

This is a large part of why Trump won. Voters put aside his deficiencies because they saw him as the lesser evil against an authoritarian movement that doesn’t tolerate dissent on shibboleths such as race and gender.

The Covid lockdowns were a boon to white-collar workers and wreaked havoc for blue-collar workers. They have had severe adverse consequences for children who lost out on their childhood vaccinations and their education. The negative effects were disproportionately pronounced for the less well-off. Shutting down small businesses while allowing big supermarkets to operate was a stupid idea. All of this will significantly exacerbate inequality in the years to come.

This was clear then as it is clear now. Any true progressive would have recognized that. But saying this during the pandemic would have earned you the sobriquet of being a right-wing extremist.

So, yeah, I am fine with being a right-wing extremist if that is the price for common sense; better than being what passes as progressive these days.

The left are very good at pushing people over to the right.

The monthly Curia omnibus poll asks New Zealanders if they have a positive, neutral or negative opinion of various New Zealand organisations and groups – tracking public sentiment on them (only costs $750 + GST a month).

In the October 2023 poll, I decided to also ask about two organisations we don’t normally poll on – the Mongrel Mob and Black Power.

I was interested in this, as media and some political parties seem to treat them as just another community organisation. They get softball questions on what they think of hardline law & order policies. Their PR person gets lots of airtime for them. The former Government funded them to help with drug rehabilitation.

So I was interested in what ordinary New Zealanders views were, and whether they varied by party support.

The full breakdown of the results are on my Patreon (paywalled).

What I can reveal here is that fewer New Zealanders had a favourable view of the Mongrel Mob or Black Power than the proportion of New Zealanders who believe 9/11 was an inside job planned by the US Government!

Stuff reports:

A woman who ran a large methamphetamine operation for the Mongrel Mob and received a lenient sentence of home detention has asked a court to let her serve the sentence in Wairoa so she can look after some animals.

Meth is a Class A drug. The maximum sentence for dealing is life imprisonment. She got home detention.

When it came to sentencing in March this year, the Crown sought a starting point of about eight years. Judge Bridget Mackintosh said an appropriate starting point was seven years.

Hubbard was given a 25% discount for her guilty plea, and a 15% discount for her deprived upbringing and matters covered in a cultural report, a 15% discount for rehabilitation she had undertaken since being charged, and a 10% discount for the impact imprisonment would have on her four children.

That brought the sentence down from 84 months to 29 months. An uplift of two months was then made for her previous offending, but a discount of seven months was made for the time she had been on bail.

That brought the sentence down to 24 months jail, meaning Hubbard, who was pregnant at sentencing, became eligible for home detention and she was sentenced to 12 months home detention.

So she got a 65% discount. That will thankfully not be possible when the bill going through parliament is passed.

What chance do her now five kids have of not turning out to be criminals also?

Hubbard’s partner, Samson Edwards, a member of the Mongrel Mob’s Barbarian chapter, was also involved in the operation, and was sentenced to ten months home detention.

Also got home detention for something which can carry a life sentence.

The Prime Minister has appointed Richard Chambers as the new Police Commissioner. This will be a popular move with frontline police, and I daresay the public. He has significant operational experience.

His police career is:

• Joined 1996 as constable in Avondale
• Became Detective
• Promoted to Inspector
• Police National Headquarters leading the development of strategy and policy
• Appointed Lower Hutt area commander in 2007
• Tasman District Commander
• Acting Southern District Commander
• Auckland District Commander
• Made Assistant Commissioner in 2016 leading investigations, serious and organised crime, including cybercrime, and financial crime
• Then Assistant Commissioner in charge of Northland, Waitematā, Auckland City, Counties Manukau, Waikato and Bay of Plenty Police Districts
• Seconded to Interpol as Director of Organised and Emerging Crime

The Post reports a positive reaction from front-line police, plus the story of how he got his nickname of Felix!

He’s certainly seen action, getting crushed between two cars while rescuing an 18-month old.

Many on the left are obsessed with stopping people being able to donate money to political campaigns. They do this, because then they can get their goal of taxpayer funded political parties.

But the US presidential election is a good reminder of the limited impact of money.

Harris raised US1.00 billion and Trump US$0.38 billion. So a US$600 million spending advantage and she still lost.

Of course money helps. Who doesn’t want to be able to spend more on advertising etc. But the impact on electoral outcomes is quite minor. The empirical data doesn’t back that it needs to be restricted.

Stuff reports:

A man who was told he’d “go nowhere” working for a pizza chain has just bought his first home at the age of 24 – without using his KiwiSaver.

James Batchelor, who lives in Auckland, recently purchased his first home in New Plymouth for $616,000.

Go James.

He bought the house without any financial help from his parents.

And, he didn’t use a cent of his KiwiSaver, despite having about $58k stashed away after contributing 10% of his earnings since he started work in 2017 as a 17-year-old delivery driver at Domino’s Pizza.

So by 24 he has $58,000 in KiwiSaver and around $240,000 in general savings. Amazing.

Batchelor said while he never dreaded going to work, the 80 to 100 hour work weeks meant he had to sacrifice spending time with friends.

“You must be willing to make sacrifices with the idea that your sacrifices today will provide a better tomorrow.”

Hard work pays off.

In 2022, Batchelor took a new role as an auditor in the Dominos’ head office, and in 2023 he became a regional manager, managing 54 stores from Auckland to Kerikeri and in Napier and New Plymouth.

Batchelor has continued with the saving philosophy he adopted when he was 17, putting more than $1000 per week into his savings.

Amazing at such a young age.

Radio NZ reports:

A million-dollar Christmas tree is going up in downtown Auckland, leaving some baulking at the council’s spending while its residents struggle through a cost-of-living crisis.

Auckland Council hasn’t revealed the price of the 18m steel tree, set to stand in Te Komititanga Square (formerly Elizabeth Square) on lower Queen Street. However, the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance says it costs up to $1.3 million.

Auckland Council is stumping up $800,000 for the tree.

Private organisations Heart of the City, the central city’s business association, and Precinct Properties, a major landholder and developer, are funding the rest.

Heart of the City is 98% funded by Auckland Council, so actually it is ratepayers funding almost the entire $1.3 million.

I’m in favour of council funded Christmas trees, just as I’m also in favour of ratepayer funded steps to access a beach. However that doesn’t mean it is a good idea at any price.

Just like the $1.2 million for steps down to a New Plymouth beach is outrageous, so is a $1.3 million Christmas tree – especially as other Councils manage it for a few thousand dollars.

Taxpayers are funding 20 Future Leader Fellowships. Each one is worth over $800,000 so we are talking over $16 million from taxpayers.

MBIE has delegated decisions on who gets them to the Royal Society of NZ. And their criteria are:

• At least 20% must go to researchers who are Māori
• At least 10% must identify as Pacific ethnicity
• At least 50% must go to researchers who identify as female

So male Asian and European researchers are discriminated against.

Also interesting is that to qualify to be Maori you need to have Maori ancestry, but for Pacific you only need to identify as Pacific. So could a Fijian Indian qualify? How about someone from Australia?

Surely it is time for the Government to take back science funding to itself, rather than delegate it to a woke leftwing activist group.

Fresh Desk is one of those socially conscious companies. They boast they pay they are a living wage employer, only use eco-friendly cleaning products and are deeply into corporate social responsibility.

But as Stuff reports:

A commercial cleaning company that said it was was ‘testing the market’ by advertising a job with no pay has apologised and pulled the job advert.

Fresh Desk advertised an intern cleaning position in Wellington on Seek NZ. The only catch was the job applicant would be working for free, with the advertisement stating the role was a “voluntary position.”

“We are testing the market to see if there is any interest in voluntary cleaning,” it read.

The steaming hypocrites. They boast they are a living wage employer, and they’re trying to get people to clean for them for free on the basis of learning cleaning skills!

President Milei of Argentina took office just 10 months ago when monthly (not annual) inflation was at a massive 25.5%. This means that every week your groceries cost 6% more than the week before. Within that one month they cost a quarter more.

Monthly inflation has now dropped to 2.7%. Still too high by our standards, but almost a miracle for Argentina.

Milei haș done it by austerity and deregulation. He abolished various ministries. After 13 years of deficits he achieved a surplus in six months. The currency was deregulated.

All this huge economic success sees the media regularly refer to him as controversial, while lauding left wing politicians who achieve nothing but say the right things.

The Daily Wire reported:

A second House committee announced Tuesday that FEMA Director Deanne Criswell would be questioned on guidance issued from a now-fired supervisor for relief workers in Florida to “avoid homes advertising Trump.”

This has had some reporting in the media, but not much. This is part of the reason why trust in institutions is declining. It should be unthinkable that the disaster relief arm of Government would tell staff to not deliver support to houses with signs supporting one candidate.

It it too easy to dismiss that as one bad supervisor, but you have to question the culture that allowed this. The moment she said this, staff should have challenged this and felt confident doping so. They should know this is clearly wrong.

There is something rotten in the culture of an institution that allows this to happen, and only comes to light due to whistle blowers.

Otago University announced:

The University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka has increased financial support for students in the coming year, with more scholarships and continued investment in relief funds.

The support provided in 2025 will include an investment of $45 million in scholarships, while close to $500,000 is committed to the Pūtea Tautoko financial aid fund and the Residential College Relief Fund.

More than 200 students have already been supported from these relief funds in 2024, with further student support being provided through OUSA’s hardship relief fund for immediate low-level assistance.

Vice-Chancellor Grant Robertson is also contributing a portion of his salary each year to seven new scholarships, worth a total of $49,000.

These scholarships, worth $7,000 each, will be provided annually from 2025 as a supplement to first year students who have already been awarded an Otago equity scholarship, and whose circumstances are such that they would particularly benefit from additional support.

That is impressive – donating almost $50,000 of your own salary to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Combining this with Otago’s superb free speech policy, and I have to say I am enjoying Grant as VC much more than as Minister of Finance!

Reason reports:

It was dinnertime on October 30, 2024, when police handcuffed Brittany Patterson in front of three of her four children and drove her to the station in Fannin County, Georgia. She was then fingerprinted, photographed, and dressed in an orange jumpsuit.

Her crime?

Hours earlier, around noon, Patterson had driven her eldest son to a medical appointment. Her youngest son, 11-year-old Soren, intended to come along but wasn’t around when it was time to leave.

“I figured he was in the woods, or at grandma’s house,” says Patterson, who lives on 16 acres with her kids and her father. (Her husband works out of state). There is no shortage of family in the vicinity. Patterson’s mother and sisters live just two minutes away.

Soren, however, was not playing in the woods. He had decided to walk to downtown Mineral Bluff, a town of just 370 people. It’s not quite a mile from his house.

And for that she was arrested!

At the age of ten I was walking around the neighbourhood as a kid.

On Great Barrier Island, you often see kids walking all over the island – sometimes miles from their homes.

A few weeks ago my seven year old asked me to pull the car over and drop him off so he could walk home (around 500 metres). I was slightly nervous about this, but agreed. It’s my job to work out acceptable risk and balance that against fostering independence. I’m working on him taking public transport by himself when he is eight.

The role of the state is to intervene only when it is clearly neglect, not to second guess parenting choices.