His wife is Chilean, but he has a dual nature by birth too, that provides an internationalist perspective:
Boris Sokratov is a Bulgarian-Māori and has whakapapa to Te Rarawa, Ngāti Haua. He was the producer of the Nutters Club Radio Show. He helped establish the Key to Life Charitable Trust that supports mental health advocate Mike King.
Yes, it does seem an unprecedented achievement. It exposes the reality of cultural/political/ethnic Aotearoa – a social contract based on history. Seymour reckons it's time to renegotiate that contract. Maori are uniting to oppose doing so. Makes me think of the Springsteen song of 1980: The Ties That Bind. Bondage constrains.
The electoral franchise established under the 1852 New Zealand Constitution Act was supposed to be colour-blind. Truth is it wasn’t (on purpose) because voting was linked to private land ownership. And guess who owned the majority of private land? Only men who owned land were entitled to vote. Māori land ownership was collective.
That meant the majority who were Māori (80,000 people) were excluded from voting. While the settler population (6000) could. On top of that Māori wāhine weren’t allowed to vote until 1893. Only 100 or so Māori voted in the first general election in 1853, out of a total electorate of 5849.
The Treaty preserves the political contract between Crown & Maori chiefs. It is largely seen as an ongoing social contract between pakeha & Maori – so widely that it approximates common sense to see it that way. Encoded into law, this interpretation has become authoritative in recent decades. Seymour wants out of this tradition, but his rationale – same rights for all – is mere ideology.
In 1859 the British Crown Law Office confirmed that Māori could not vote unless they had individual title granted by the Crown.
Anchoring democracy in property rights was valid insofar as it brought feudalism through into the 19th century, which suited the empire just fine. Our state was six years old then, and the constitutional framework has evolved somewhat since, but not to the point of including indigenous rights as far as I'm aware. So those rights conferred by the Treaty remain chiefly and are not specifically allocated to other Maori, which makes them contestable…
Here's a helpful summary of what Seymour wants to overthrow:
In 1986, the government passed the State-Owned Enterprises Act, which included a provision stating that “nothing in this Act shall permit the Crown to act in a manner that is inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”. A year later, our highest court was required to determine what those principles were. Much of what we know about the principles still comes from that case. Among other things, the court discussed the principles of partnership (that te Tiriti/the Treaty was a partnership between Māori and the Crown), active protection (that te Tiriti/the Treaty creates a duty on the Crown to actively protect certain Māori interests), and of redress (that breaches of te Tiriti/the Treaty oblige the Crown to compensate Māori).
It also discussed the obligation on both Treaty partners to act reasonably and in good faith towards each other [which] remains central to understandings of te Tiriti/the Treaty today. Treaty principles are also increasingly included in legislation. There is a trend towards provisions being more specific, requiring the Crown to take specific actions in order to uphold its Tiriti/Treaty duties.
That outlines the legal view, which sees the Treaty as an ongoing contract between partners. The obvious flaw that the judiciary seems blind to is that Maori generally were not partners: only their chiefs were. Trying to pretend that the social contract extends to all Maori is delusional when there's no historical basis for doing so. I presume the judiciary feels that they & the govt have created sufficient law to make it so – but who will believe them??
To summarise so far: the principles have evolved over time, come from multiple sources, and for most of the past 40 years have been the main way in which lawmakers, public officials, and courts have navigated the differences between the two texts of te Tiriti/the Treaty.
Putting aside the myth of the cession of sovereignty, it is perhaps unsurprising the Government has stated that further clarity would be useful. The problem, however, is that what is being proposed is not really an attempt to clarify Treaty principles, but an attempt to erase them.
Erasure of judicial decisions can be achieved by parliamentary legislation, since parliament is supreme law-maker. Is doing so in our national interest? Not obviously, and very likely only feasible on an evidently mutual-interest basis. Any positive alternative to the status quo would have to spell that out clearly for all to agree.
"The obvious flaw that the judiciary seems blind to is that New Zealand European settlers were not partners: only the wealthy male landowners were. Trying to pretend that the social contract extends to all European is delusional when there's no historical basis for doing so."
Quite so! Imagine being born into a cultural matrix in which history proceeded on the basis of historical misconceptions. Who would take them seriously??
True believers in democracy, that's who. Democracy is a cerebral concept that keeps believers within the mental strait jacket it was devised to clamp them down in.
I don't see that "only the chiefs were partners" is a problem. The chiefs would be presumed to be acting as representatives of their people in any discussions or negotiations with the crown.
"Opposition MPs from the Green and Labour parties described the governing parties as lions willing to rip the nation apart, spiders coming to plague te ao Māori, taniwhā to be feared, and hoariri – enemies – akin to the red suits of the New Zealand wars who came to kill Māori and steal their taonga.
These speeches, from Labour’s Peeni Henare and Kelvin Davis and Green MP Teanau Tuiono, were unequivocal in their dire assessments about the current state of Crown-Māori relations.
What’s worse for the Government is how warmly mana whenua welcomed these MPs to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds."
LOTs of great reading this weekend: Pablo piece on our very own junta is excellent, if troubling.
"In October an election was held in which the major rightwing party (National) did not reveal its true policy intentions, preferring to instead focus on the usual canards of lower taxes, high crimes rates and too many regulations and bureaucratic red tape on property owners. They were assisted by a compliant corporate media interested in generating clickbait material rather than dealing deeper into party policy platforms, and who supported the “change for change sake” attitude of the NZ public by focusing on personal scandals within the Labour-led government ranks. It mattered little that, in public at least, the major rightwing party had little to offer. What mattered was that it win, be it in coalition or outright. As it turns out, it needed coalition partners in order to do so.
The more extreme rightwing parties, ACT and NZ First, were a bit more honest in their campaigns about their reactionary intent, but the corporate media chose to ignore the extent of their connections to extremist groups and foreign donors/patrons such as anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists and Atlas Institute seed-funded astroturf groups such as the overlapping Free Speech Coalition/Taxpayer’s Union that contributed to their campaigns. Nor did the political press seriously look into the backgrounds of candidates in these parties, instead preferring to focus on the leaders and their immediate subordinates."
Great minds think alike Robert. I linked to those two paragraphs yesterday on OM. 🙂
Good to see you repeat them because, imo, they lay bare some of the bullshit we have been fed by some on this site as well as in the media. The whole post needs to be read to see the full impact on the election.
Comprehending the real reason behind the loss is a big stepping stone towards regaining control of the narrative and getting the misguided amongst us back on track.
So here's hoping Labour, the Greens and Te Pato Maori are listening to Paul Buchanan – along with other good commentators like Nick Korero and David Slack.
Given how fundamental the Treaty is to NZ self-identity, at that point it is an open question whether the repressive apparatuses of the State– the police, the courts, the intelligence services, even the military– will side with the elected authoritarians. Stay tuned.
It will be interesting indeed. Given their warrior background, the military has many Maori soldiers, sailors and airmen in their ranks. Maori are also well represented in the Police. I wonder what they are thinking right now?
Something to think about there. What price Craig Harrison's Broken October now? A totally outdated social, political and technological scenario, of course, but it can still pose some disturbing questions.
In October an election was held in which the major rightwing party (National) did not reveal its true policy intentions
The notion that a political party ought to reveal future intentions seems to be embedded within the psyche of the author. Such moral finger-wagging is presumably being recycled from an earlier epoch of history since I've been observing politics for approx 6 decades and I've never seen any evidence of conformity to the proposition.
It would be helpful if the author could specify when in history this actually happened, to validate his thesis. Otherwise readers are likely to see it as a sign of dementia.
Sorry if you have taken offence, but that was a tongue-in-cheek reversal of a word D Frank used against another person and is clearly untrue. D Frank can bombard this site with thinly disguised smears about others with impunity.
[the only offence taken here is you wasting my goddam moderator time. Again. Up to you whether you want to learn here or not. My original mod note stands, I’m sick of explaining it to you – weka]
if you don't like something another commenter says, then say so clearly and explain what the problem is. This is helpful to moderators and the community. Flamming another commenter is really unhelpful and just builds up ill will over time.
Sorry Weka, but I'm out of here for the duration, I thought Anne's comment was as usual very thoughtful and made a good point about our fellow traveller Dennis Frank's 'thinly disguised smears about others with impunity'. It's been a worthwhile journey hearing what other left leaning commenter publish here, but so as to not earn a life time ban from you, I'm not going to partake for a long while, if ever again.
You're not even close to being on my moderator radar Jilly, I have no idea why you think you might get banned.
Anne on the other hand has a history and pattern of behaviour that is a problem. Short sharp bans have long been used in this way on TS.
From a moderator's pov, if commenters don't like a specific commenter and they choose to harass that commenter instead of explaining what the issues are, it just creates a bad atmosphere and more work for the mods.
So like I said, anyone can point out the problems with people's commenting style, and this is helpful for moderation as well as the community.
Sorry to see you take leave Jilly Bee. I have found your comments relevant, thought provoking and highly constructive, as are Anne's.
Both you and Anne in IMHO, have always had a great deal to offer from those of us of the senior left perspective, as does Patricia Bremner. You will be missed.
Nope, I just pointed out how he had set himself up sufficiently for readers to jump to that conclusion. The guy must be old enough to take responsibility for what he wrote. If he wanted his vapourings to be taken seriously, he would not have set himself up like that. He would, instead, have pointed to an historical rationale for his opinion: that democracy incorporates a rule requiring parties to declare their future intentions at each election.
You may also believe democracy contains his imaginary rule. If so, why not have a go at providing the historical evidence? Presuming he is incapable of doing so, you'd be doing him, and us all, a good turn.
You think he's a victim of his incompetence? That angle hadn't occurred to me but I suppose you're right. However I don't blame him for being himself – he can only perform at the level he naturally slots into.
[While being a sanctimonious and patronising arse isn’t technically against the site Policy, there is the discretion for moderators to step in on patterns of behaviour that cause problems for the commentariat. You now have multiple people taking potshots at you, and you seem to be quite poor at taking feedback on what is pissing people off.
Maybe you don’t care. I do though, and I’m giving you a holiday from the site for a week to let things cool down. This is to reduce moderator load, but I strongly encourage you to think about how how you communicate here. I will note you’ve had feedback on this kind of thing before here As always, feel free to ask for clarification about anything when you return. – weka]
Yes Robert. An impulsive response to a nasty little dig at someone with both national and international mana and respect. If it had been a one-off I would have passed, but its not.
and as I have pointed out, if you had named the problem without throwing something at another commenter, then that would have been helpful. The moderation issue here is that you seem to think you are above moderation.
No weka, I have never ever considered myself above moderation. Do I respond impulsively from time to time? Yes I do. Do I try to keep some comments too brief thus not making myself clear? Guilty as charged. Am I bit too forthright sometimes? Yes.
Some of the recent bullshit on this site has riled me and I can't be the only one. It must be even more frustrating for the authors who put time and effort into the site. It also turns some people off commenting for fear of ridicule. That's a shame because TS has the power to be very influential and with all the astroturfing going on at present, it is even more desperately needed.
There are only a small handful of people responsible, and they only turn up when there are major controversies in progress as is currently the case. They troll the regulars or fill the pages with distorted facts and misinformation.
They need to be discouraged, but have just picked up you have started. Thanks.
Anne – it's difficult for those of us who love pith, as in pithy, comments.
Detailed, drawn out descriptions are an invitation for some to nit-pic words and phrases; pithy one-liners seem an elegant way to stifle that sort of film-flam, but the down-side of being brief, is…apparent 🙂
Thanks Anne and Robert, for linking to the Kiwipolitico post.
The odd fellow who disparages me in this thread does have a point when saying that there is no universal rule of democracy that says that political parties should and must campaign honestly and transparently about their true policy agendas. Of course not. But that was not my point. My point was that, like many authoritarian-minded cabals who know that announcing their true policy agendas during campaigns will never see them get elected, the recently installed junta deliberately concealed their true intentions while hiding under milquetoast rightwing talking points about taxes, crime and housing. They fully knew that their true agenda would be rejected at the polls if announced in advance, so they deliberately hid it from the electorate, as well as the fact that many of their policy prescriptions were basically written by their big political donors and sponsors.
This amounts to a type of false advertising or "bait and switch" campaigning. It is utterly cynical and dishonest at its core. It is a clear manipulation of the electoral process, which it sees in instrumental terms (a means to achieve power and pursue their real agenda even if it runs against the public good) rather than as an intrinsically valuable form of political voice for the electorate. But sure, it did not break any ironclad rule of democratic politics even if it demonstrates utter contempt for the public who otherwise would have never voted them into office had they known what the junta is really about and who it really serves.
I will say that by pulling the thread into a meaningless sidebar, the odd fellow has performed a textbook example of successful trolling, so credit must given where it is due. Cheers!
Well, yes; meaningless sidebars serve their purpose, I suppose.
The "false advertising" from this junta, as you title it, causes them to recoil in a faint when charged with opaqueness, and they'll point to sidebars of their own that clearly state what they intend to do; details of the minor party's platform are available to the public and prove they have been open and transparent. It's a tricky discussion for the average Jo, but reeks of sinister behaviour from Seymour, Peters and co, imo.
Thanks Pablo for responding. As Robert Guyton has said… its a tricky discussion for the average Jo (and Mary) who don't study the intricacies of politics. For my part, Seymour is the truly dangerous one. He has been very well schooled in the art of astroturfing and stands to cause a level of strife in this country never seen before.
Just like Pinochet had to look over his shoulder at Air Force General Leigh in his junta, so must Luxon keep an eye on Seymour because he is the tail that wags the NZ junta's dog.
A libertarian who wants the president to have more power while government below is diminished.
While they approved the omnibus legislation in general terms … about articles relating to the privatization of state companies and the delegation of legislative powers to the president.
Other articles in the bill aim to lift state controls over the economy, reform the administrative, health and education sectors, and raise public service and utility rates.
"In October an election was held in which the major rightwing party (National) did not reveal its true policy intentions
You wrote
The notion that a political party ought to reveal future intentions seems to be embedded within the psyche of the author
The topic was not about ought to, as political practice, but comment on what National was doing and placing the direction of – in it for the few – as posing the risk of a junta era (use of fear of being the next target after Maori for conformity to the roused majority). Such methods of distraction draw attention away from the elitist oligarchy being established.
Your point that expectation of honesty (from those involved in the political practice) was not based on observation is mere cynicism – the risk of experience creating a curmudgeon is well known.
Apropos to our authoritarian minded junta and it's corporate media enablers.
Pretty obvious the groundwork is being laid for the government to punish Wellington's left leaning politics but sacking the council and appointing a commissioner.
This situation could have been avoided if repeated councils over the last 30 years had not ignored the impending issues.
Some other councils around the country have managed to plan, and find solutions to these types of problems, but seemingly not the coolest little capital.
Fine for opposition MPs to speak well at Waitangi, but National have set the map for future Treaty discourse.
With 16 years to the Bicentennial, both Maori and National are showing there's nothing to do but start talking properly right at the level of principles.
Labour/Greens/Maori Party may not like it but it's the right thing to do and at the right time.
I thought 3 Waters had a number of problems and was badly instituted, which is part of why we are where we are. The debate around it likewise, because there were plenty of people like me who objected to how it was being done but the debate often called dissenters racist as if that could be the only objection.
If we deny there were problems with it, and frame it solely as objectors to be neutralised, we are throwing fuel of the culture war fire. A war we are currently loosing badly.
Ah, but I didn't say "objectors", I said "the agents that caused its rejection", by which I meant the monied players who enabled and encouraged the take down, with their mass-email programmes, their expensive billboards and so on.
I'm still mystified why Labour chose not to explain 3 Waters and its (apparent) co-governance rationale. Consequently it became evident that their choice was producing a negative reaction.
Since I've often commented here in support of their policy initiative (whilst being agnostic re co-governance), I'm puzzled at your reluctance to admit that Labour shot themselves in the foot.
Isn't it obvious that the right won by default due to Labour choosing not to fight for the thing??
The agents I referred to, and the mechanisms they employed to create strong opposition to 3 Waters, are not the only factor in the failing of the proposal, but they are significant. If they were not active, the Government could have succeeded, through tailoring the programme and it's media, differently.
It was a good idea, shot down by agents from the opposite end of the spectrum, using money as ballistics, imo.
I'm not one of those agents. But this is the problem with the debate. People make unclear statements that end up being catchalls.
But now that you have clarified 🙂 I don't see how neutralising those people will solve the problem Ad is talking about. It might be necessary but it's not sufficient.
And talk of neutralising may in fact make it more difficult for large parts of NZ to relearn how to talk with each other.
"Counter", then. If those Atlas-backed agents have free-rein here in NZ, we will be shepherded by them, into the yards – not a comfortable place to find yourself in, imo.
In addition to that, I think we also at the same time have to build common ground with the people are are leaning towards the people representing those energies and politics, and call them back in. If we only tell them that those evil people over there must go or be stopped, this doesn’t tell them what is good and useful about our own position. Doubly important where people are being told that they themselves are bad/wrong because they haven’t accepted the progressive demand.
Maybe Joanna Macy is useful there. The three pillars of the Great Turning
So are the principles different from the Treaty proper?
Yes, they are. Despite Te Tiriti o Waitangi being New Zealand’s de facto constitution, we are one of only five nations without a proper written constitution. Because of that, Te Tiriti itself doesn’t feature explicitly in our law – but that’s where the principles come in. They are the Treaty’s representative within law, which seek to define the Treaty’s role in modern Aotearoa-New Zealand. https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/03-02-2024/the-principles-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-explained
Really, what about postmodern Aotearoa? Not there yet? Well try & keep up, huh?
the principles are determined on a case-by-case basis. The three Ps – partnership, participation and protection – are the most well-known principles. Together they ensure Māori opportunities to provide input into decision-making and require the government to protect rangatiratanga (Māori authority).
Partnership: the Treaty created a relationship between Māori and the Crown and both parties must act with the utmost good faith.
Participation: the Crown will provide tāngata whenua with opportunities to engage with decision making processes at all levels.
Some other principles include kāwanatanga (the Crown’s right to govern), equality, redress, cooperation (concerning common issues), consultation, development (applying the Treaty to modern resources/technology) and informed decision making. Others include the Crown’s obligation to act in the best interests of Māori and that the law affirms iwi control of their taonga.
Okay that seems to create a list of 11 elements (endecad). Sufficiently complex as to keep law lords puzzling the complexity out for several months if not years.
the problem is that there is so much bad faith coming from ACT in particular, who say they want their version of the Treaty principles. Two problems with that. One is they're not interested in finding the best path for NZ. Two, their principles would essential remove power from Māori.
It's hard to see how to have a clear and useful debate about Te Tiriti and a formal constitution in the current climate.
I massively support Chloe Swarbrick for co-leader of Greens. I think she's the only real successor to James Shaw and I hope she carries on the pro-disability mahi that the Greens are doing.
"Do we really get how deeply 3 Waters has divided us"
nah the divisions were already there. They just became more acted upon and expressed in part due to the same happening in the US with Trump.
Very few Europeans and immigrants even bother to interact with Maori at a social level – white flight from schools, white enclaves such as Havelock North over in Hawkes Bay, or the Euro/Asian enclave of Epsom have very little to no experience of day to day activity on a marae.
During COVID-19, and indeed in other civil defense situations, the Maori response on the ground was quite impressive. The organising of food packages, the contacting of the elderly, the delivery of firewood, the clear protocols and explanations, including historical context, to restricting access to tangi and so on. These things continued throughout the pandemic. It was interesting that my European mother was contacted three times by iwi and not once by any of the usual health / welfare mechanisms during lockdown to make sure she and her neighbours were OK.
This is the view of Maori rarely shown in the media and talked about in on-line forums but more reflects the day to day reality of activity and why we should not be afraid of partnership with Maori as the courts have indicated.
This Waitangi Day how many European will be there at local ceremonies celebrating the signing of the Treaty – based on previous experience no more than half a dozen locally. Europeans don't value the Treaty and until they do any attempts to change to a constitution should be treated with the disdain it and they deserve.
Until we express and value those positive characteristics of Maori society and embrace them as meritful and worthy then we should have no say cause we have no respect. Some of those values are in conflict with the values that European capitalist values have constructed eg individual versus communal land ownership, looking longer term to the future in terms of land use, etc not just an extractive way of thinking and others are different and poorly understood eg kawanatanga. Maori have had to adapt and understand European concepts – we need to reciprocate.
I'm more than happy that my children have had a far better education in this respect than those of us did when we were young. The last people that need to be deciding the future are those that are about to die over the next twenty years – their future is a past they only wish existed and is more about now.
Good comment DOS, those on the Right of the political spectrum, some on the Left and some misguided Maori included, are just carrying on the British Empire superiority complex attitude that saw colonisation as a gift that should be accepted with gratitude, especially by people with a so called "stone age culture".
Basically its an 'our way or the highway' attitude that refuses to evolve, except perhaps as just recently in Ireland where the younger generation is making great strides in reforming and uniting a once troubled and divided society racked by six hundred years of colonisation.
My view is there’s an unwillingness to evolve from some people on both sides of the relationship.
Very entrenched fundamentalist views that may never be changed.
Those of us who are more recent arrivals to this country, or their children, tend to sit at the side waiting for those heavily invested to sort their shit out, while we just get on with life.
Do you not make some effort to engage with local Maori communities?
Why sit on the sidelines – all that is is avoidance and leaves you in a vacuum that can only be filled via media or social media. It seems a weird thing to say/do. If I moved to another country I'd always be trying to engage with the local community.
Maybe it is why you think this.
"Very entrenched fundamentalist views that may never be changed."
I took a short course on Te Reo as I thought I should know how to pronounce words correctly, but I have my own mix of cultures that I feel comfortable in so don’t feel a great need to adopt someone else’s.
It isn't about adopting it is about understanding that Maori are much more hospitable and engaging and want a better future for all – not just for themselves.
A picture quite different that that painted by media and social media. so you don't believe this sort of nonsense.
"Very entrenched fundamentalist views that may never be changed."
Treasury advises government that more revenue would assist the government manage its budget (it would also be mindful of infrastructure deficits, so does not reinforce the governments focus on spending cuts).
And its advice suggests a broader tax revenue base is the right direction to go to realise that.
But it said constraints on the personal tax system were creating increasing pressures and constraining the options for reform.
That was coming from the difference between the personal and company tax rates, and the lack of tax on capital and capital gains.
“These limit options to raise revenue, alter the mix of taxes, or make changes that would meet distributional and economic objectives.
“The lack of a comprehensive capital gains tax restricts the ability to manage gaps between company rates and personal rates and increases costs of income taxation. It has also contributed to higher house prices.
“Based on principles such as sustainability, efficiency and fairness, our first best advice is to address these two structural issues,” Treasury said.
I say place a stamp duty of 5% for locals who buy property over $2M and 15% for foreign investment. And a CGT on all property sold with a value over $2m or to foreigners.
PS And a question, which party with fishing quota wants to sell offshore?
The head of Wellington Water Nick Leggat and Daran Ponter (Chair of the Regional Council) are working as partners of National in
1.pressure on WCC to give more money to Wellington Water
2.require water meters, or impost financial sanctions up to 50% of water cost charges.
The cost of water meters is money not then available for pipe repair, so until they are at at the capacity to fix the pipes they already know they need to fix, adding extra knowledge of leaks via metering adds little.
3.User pays for pipe problems on ratepayer property.
Of course there would be charging of ratepayers for water leaks on their own property (and so ratepayers would be liable until they found someone to fix the pipes at their own expense).
Water meters are essential to provide an asset value for the sale of council assets. Though at first half might go to government – so they have an asset to borrow against when granting money to councils (this allows both the council and government to later sell their half shares to reduce debt).
Jeez…. what is it with New Zealanders and water meters.
The things are seen as existential threats by all sides of the political spectrum. Righties see them as an insult to their integrity and self worth, and 'you're going to give it to a Mawries'. Lefties see them as a portal to privatisation and TEOTWAWKI
Water meters are an essential tool for network management and without them you really haven't a clue where the water is going. In Wellington's case there's a good chance most of the leak problem is on private property, or a proportion of residents who are gross (ab)users. Some people will get by with 300 l/day, most households a bit more. A broken 20mm lateral could loose 20,000 l/day or more.
Without good data on where the water is going the managers are just flying blind and fixing leaks once they come through the ground. In Wellington's climate it's going to be a good leak to do that, and they're a small percentage to the number of leaks. The multitude of small leaks will go un-noticed (in our dry climate in Central Otago even quite small leaks are quite apparent in summer) and will add up to a lot of water.
Sorry, but I found your linked article a jumble of confused and just downright incorrect thinking. Things like,
Council-backed loans could cover the cost of repair with repayments added to the rates bill and attached to the property, not the owner.
Wellington's, and every other municipality in New Zealand's, water problem is due to a very longstanding practice of ratepayers not being willing to pay for the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure.
We can't see it and as long as there's water coming out the tap, all's good. Oh, and we can use as much as we like because it's 'free'.
Mr Osborne's assertion that water charges are regressive doesn't account for reality and human nature. In 40 years of involvement in the water industry I've seen a pretty strong correlation between property value / income and water use. It's very unlikely that a gross user (>10x average use) lives in the bottom end of town, and water use goes up dramatically once you get into the House and Garden set. Under current rates based charging practices this is something worse than regressive, it's downright theft.
From your points,
1.a case to fix the known leaks first with available funding.
Well either Wellington Water is incompetent, or they are being incompetently led by the elected Council. Or the rate payers won't pay the Council enough to fix the problem. Generally it comes back to the rate payers not being prepared to pay for it.
2.this might give time to look at equity in meter charging.
Have a serious look at the equity of current rates based charging first, and how that charging regime shapes usage / entitlement perceptions. I don't see much equity between Mr & Mrs Fancy Garden using as much water as they can get out the tap, and the family at the other end of town who treat every drop of water as their last, because they treat everything like that to get through to the next pay day.
Osborne does have a point around the issues in separating water charging from property charges, particularly in residential rental situations. Water charges should remain with the property, so that the owner is incentivised to fix leaks. In a gross usage situation there will probably be other tenancy issues that the landlord can act on.
Metering and Volumetric Pricing do not necessarily follow. Many water providers have installed meters for data collection to get a picture of where the water is going. QLDC and Central Otago have done this with considerable success. There's also a discrete supply (several hundred properties) where volumetric charging has sorted a very extreme usage / entitlement problem that threatened the viability of the supply.
It's very unlikely that a gross user (>10x average use) lives in the bottom end of town, and water use goes up dramatically once you get into the House and Garden set
Right, but what about the household that has two large low income families living in it, who pay nothing now, but would face a new charge with water metering?
Surely the solution here is to provide a certain amount of water per household without charge and to then charge for excess use?
While someone watering a 3 acre lawn is a problem, won't they just pay for the extra charges if they are wealthy? So the council generates some income, but doesn't solve the problem of excess use. Changing land use culture would go a long way to helping alongside other approaches.
that was one of the issues with 3 Waters right? Whether the legislation was Tory-proof enough to stop them from privatising. Better to not have 3W than to end up in the situation we are with power. I'm sure many would disagree with that, but that's part of the resistance.
In most cases small 20 or 25mm meters at the individual boundary are the cheapest and easiest option. The lateral is in a known location and already quite shallow (< 0.5m) and there's already a valve there. If the valve was installed in the last 20 years installing a meter can be a 10 minute job. Street or neighbourhood meters get expensive, the main is often a couple of meters under the street or footpath so quite a crater and disruption, and everything is bigger so costs go up exponentially.
It's wrongheaded to attack the engineering, we should be focusing on the council and government leadership that wants to try and privatise or use rates reduction, and subsequent under investment, to get elected. Fortunately water privatisation is going to be a hard sell to a New Zealand electorate, rates or tax reduction not so much.
who pay nothing now, but would face a new charge with water metering?
They do not pay nothing now. If they live in a town or city they are paying for water now through their rates. There's a lot of averaging that goes into setting rates, especially water, and low users are getting screwed by the current system. If they have good water habits then volumetric charging should be in their favour.
I feel for low income people under the current rating system as the costs of water failure come through, in many places the rates rises will be brutal. Gore is a town to keep an eye on.
Very much the devil is in the detail of how the charge is set up, some have a base rate pretty much as normal rates based charging with an excess charge on top, others it's a seperate invoice to rates. It depends on whether the water supply entity is council in-house or some sort of arms length entity. If there's going to be amalgamation of utility provision (essentially what 3 Waters was) then charging will get tricky, but with clever design could still be charged through rates. We'll see what National's "Local Water Done Well" brings, but I'm inclined to think they'll find it too hard and nothing changes from pre 3 Waters.
From what I've seen excess charges certainly change behaviours. You'd be surprised how tight entitled arseholes are, they haven't amassed their wealth by spending it. Trick is to make excess town water dearer than alternatives like storage or alternative sources.
Land use change, or more like expectation change is coming. There's a new golf course development coming up across the road. Residential lots (80 odd) are restricted to 100m2 of lawn to restrict water use and the developers have done a lot of deals buying irrigation shares to get water for the course. One little bit of the basin will be bright green and a lot will become fallow.
1.a case to fix the known leaks first with available funding.
Well either Wellington Water is incompetent, or they are being incompetently led by the elected Council. Or the rate payers won't pay the Council enough to fix the problem. Generally it comes back to the rate payers not being prepared to pay for it.
That is irrelevant. $300 M for water meters, is $300M not spent on fixing pipes. Ratepayers will be paying, whatever the $300M is spent on.
2.this might give time to look at equity in meter charging.
Have a serious look at the equity of current rates based charging first, and how that charging regime shapes usage / entitlement perceptions. I don't see much equity between Mr & Mrs Fancy Garden using as much water as they can get out the tap, and the family at the other end of town who treat every drop of water as their last, because they treat everything like that to get through to the next pay day.
In Wellington there is already a water use regime that limits garden watering. And in any case those with a large section (often a lot of trees and owned by older couples) currently pay more rates because of the land component of the capital value and would be better off with a move to water charging than those with larger families in infill sections.
For mine the move to $300M for water meter charges is not a move to equity, because of the opportunity cost of $300M not being spent fixing pipes.
For mine the focus on water metering, when they are so short of money to fix pipes, reflects an intent to set charges to force ratepayers to fix up pipes on their land.
The question is why DP and NL want to prioritise that over spending $300M (they do not yet have) to fix pipes on public land?
Is it because they intend to charge the cost of the water meters on top of rates?
Many people discovered The Taxpayers' Union today after they attempted to criticize the government funding of @davidfarrier& @DylanReeve's critically acclaimed and financially profitable documentary 'Tickled.' So for the initiated, here's a primer on The TPU.
“No laws need to be passed,” … “All that is needed is an executive order to require proof before granting an asylum hearing. That is how it used to be.
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
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Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
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Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
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Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University Ken stocker/Shutterstock In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by men’s violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University Oleg Ivanov IL/Shutterstock Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this year’s federal budget. That’s the type of non-emergency surgery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne Amna Artist/Shutterstock One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
In 1995, Sally Clark went out on her own in a bold and unorthodox attempt to join an illustrious group of equestrian riders conquering the world. In the days of glovebox road maps, brick cell phones, and the hit song How Bizarre, Clark refused to follow Sir Mark Todd, Blyth ...
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To celebrate the start of New Zealand music month, we look back at the best local tuneage that managed to weasel its way into Hollywood productions. There’s nothing quite like the thrilling zap of recognition when New Zealand weasels its way into a glamorous Hollywood production. Crack open a Tui ...
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Essay: If the Crown harms children, how do you hold it accountable? Analysis by Aaron Smale in light of the Waitangi Tribunal court decision. The post The Crown versus Māori Children appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 3 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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Recent extreme weather events showed the importance of a well-functioning insurance system, says Commerce and Consumer Affairs minister Andrew Bayly. ...
By Jo Moir, RNZ News political editor, and Craig McCulloch, deputy political editor New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. In an interview on RNZ’s ...
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The Wellington-based Reserve Force soldier is now almost three years into his New Zealand Army career with 5th/7th Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment. ...
His wife is Chilean, but he has a dual nature by birth too, that provides an internationalist perspective:
Yes, it does seem an unprecedented achievement. It exposes the reality of cultural/political/ethnic Aotearoa – a social contract based on history. Seymour reckons it's time to renegotiate that contract. Maori are uniting to oppose doing so. Makes me think of the Springsteen song of 1980: The Ties That Bind. Bondage constrains.
The Treaty preserves the political contract between Crown & Maori chiefs. It is largely seen as an ongoing social contract between pakeha & Maori – so widely that it approximates common sense to see it that way. Encoded into law, this interpretation has become authoritative in recent decades. Seymour wants out of this tradition, but his rationale – same rights for all – is mere ideology.
Anchoring democracy in property rights was valid insofar as it brought feudalism through into the 19th century, which suited the empire just fine. Our state was six years old then, and the constitutional framework has evolved somewhat since, but not to the point of including indigenous rights as far as I'm aware. So those rights conferred by the Treaty remain chiefly and are not specifically allocated to other Maori, which makes them contestable…
Here's a helpful summary of what Seymour wants to overthrow:
That outlines the legal view, which sees the Treaty as an ongoing contract between partners. The obvious flaw that the judiciary seems blind to is that Maori generally were not partners: only their chiefs were. Trying to pretend that the social contract extends to all Maori is delusional when there's no historical basis for doing so. I presume the judiciary feels that they & the govt have created sufficient law to make it so – but who will believe them??
Erasure of judicial decisions can be achieved by parliamentary legislation, since parliament is supreme law-maker. Is doing so in our national interest? Not obviously, and very likely only feasible on an evidently mutual-interest basis. Any positive alternative to the status quo would have to spell that out clearly for all to agree.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/04/why-we-are-debating-the-principles-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi/
"The obvious flaw that the judiciary seems blind to is that New Zealand European settlers were not partners: only the wealthy male landowners were. Trying to pretend that the social contract extends to all European is delusional when there's no historical basis for doing so."
Quite so! Imagine being born into a cultural matrix in which history proceeded on the basis of historical misconceptions. Who would take them seriously??
True believers in democracy, that's who. Democracy is a cerebral concept that keeps believers within the mental strait jacket it was devised to clamp them down in.
I don't see that "only the chiefs were partners" is a problem. The chiefs would be presumed to be acting as representatives of their people in any discussions or negotiations with the crown.
Lively few days ahead.
"Opposition MPs from the Green and Labour parties described the governing parties as lions willing to rip the nation apart, spiders coming to plague te ao Māori, taniwhā to be feared, and hoariri – enemies – akin to the red suits of the New Zealand wars who came to kill Māori and steal their taonga.
These speeches, from Labour’s Peeni Henare and Kelvin Davis and Green MP Teanau Tuiono, were unequivocal in their dire assessments about the current state of Crown-Māori relations.
What’s worse for the Government is how warmly mana whenua welcomed these MPs to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350163781/whawhai-waitangi
LOTs of great reading this weekend: Pablo piece on our very own junta is excellent, if troubling.
"In October an election was held in which the major rightwing party (National) did not reveal its true policy intentions, preferring to instead focus on the usual canards of lower taxes, high crimes rates and too many regulations and bureaucratic red tape on property owners. They were assisted by a compliant corporate media interested in generating clickbait material rather than dealing deeper into party policy platforms, and who supported the “change for change sake” attitude of the NZ public by focusing on personal scandals within the Labour-led government ranks. It mattered little that, in public at least, the major rightwing party had little to offer. What mattered was that it win, be it in coalition or outright. As it turns out, it needed coalition partners in order to do so.
The more extreme rightwing parties, ACT and NZ First, were a bit more honest in their campaigns about their reactionary intent, but the corporate media chose to ignore the extent of their connections to extremist groups and foreign donors/patrons such as anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists and Atlas Institute seed-funded astroturf groups such as the overlapping Free Speech Coalition/Taxpayer’s Union that contributed to their campaigns. Nor did the political press seriously look into the backgrounds of candidates in these parties, instead preferring to focus on the leaders and their immediate subordinates."
https://www.kiwipolitico.com/2024/02/the-new-zealand-junta/
Great minds think alike Robert. I linked to those two paragraphs yesterday on OM. 🙂
Good to see you repeat them because, imo, they lay bare some of the bullshit we have been fed by some on this site as well as in the media. The whole post needs to be read to see the full impact on the election.
Comprehending the real reason behind the loss is a big stepping stone towards regaining control of the narrative and getting the misguided amongst us back on track.
So here's hoping Labour, the Greens and Te Pato Maori are listening to Paul Buchanan – along with other good commentators like Nick Korero and David Slack.
A further important quote from the link:
It will be interesting indeed. Given their warrior background, the military has many Maori soldiers, sailors and airmen in their ranks. Maori are also well represented in the Police. I wonder what they are thinking right now?
Something to think about there. What price Craig Harrison's Broken October now? A totally outdated social, political and technological scenario, of course, but it can still pose some disturbing questions.
In October an election was held in which the major rightwing party (National) did not reveal its true policy intentions
The notion that a political party ought to reveal future intentions seems to be embedded within the psyche of the author. Such moral finger-wagging is presumably being recycled from an earlier epoch of history since I've been observing politics for approx 6 decades and I've never seen any evidence of conformity to the proposition.
It would be helpful if the author could specify when in history this actually happened, to validate his thesis. Otherwise readers are likely to see it as a sign of dementia.
"sign of dementia"? A bit of of projection going on there.
if I see you making that kind of comment again, I will ban you. To make it clear:
Sorry if you have taken offence, but that was a tongue-in-cheek reversal of a word D Frank used against another person and is clearly untrue. D Frank can bombard this site with thinly disguised smears about others with impunity.
[the only offence taken here is you wasting my goddam moderator time. Again. Up to you whether you want to learn here or not. My original mod note stands, I’m sick of explaining it to you – weka]
if you don't like something another commenter says, then say so clearly and explain what the problem is. This is helpful to moderators and the community. Flamming another commenter is really unhelpful and just builds up ill will over time.
Sorry Weka, but I'm out of here for the duration, I thought Anne's comment was as usual very thoughtful and made a good point about our fellow traveller Dennis Frank's 'thinly disguised smears about others with impunity'. It's been a worthwhile journey hearing what other left leaning commenter publish here, but so as to not earn a life time ban from you, I'm not going to partake for a long while, if ever again.
You're not even close to being on my moderator radar Jilly, I have no idea why you think you might get banned.
Anne on the other hand has a history and pattern of behaviour that is a problem. Short sharp bans have long been used in this way on TS.
From a moderator's pov, if commenters don't like a specific commenter and they choose to harass that commenter instead of explaining what the issues are, it just creates a bad atmosphere and more work for the mods.
So like I said, anyone can point out the problems with people's commenting style, and this is helpful for moderation as well as the community.
Sorry to see you take leave Jilly Bee. I have found your comments relevant, thought provoking and highly constructive, as are Anne's.
Both you and Anne in IMHO, have always had a great deal to offer from those of us of the senior left perspective, as does Patricia Bremner. You will be missed.
Kia Kaha my friend.
Thank you Jilly Bee for your support. I will miss your equally thoughtful responses to those commenters who use this site for mischievous ends.
Sorry to see you go, Jilly and Anne. I'm hopeful you both can return.
mod note.
Dennis, are you implying that Pablo has dementia?
Nope, I just pointed out how he had set himself up sufficiently for readers to jump to that conclusion. The guy must be old enough to take responsibility for what he wrote. If he wanted his vapourings to be taken seriously, he would not have set himself up like that. He would, instead, have pointed to an historical rationale for his opinion: that democracy incorporates a rule requiring parties to declare their future intentions at each election.
You may also believe democracy contains his imaginary rule. If so, why not have a go at providing the historical evidence? Presuming he is incapable of doing so, you'd be doing him, and us all, a good turn.
Ah, victim blaming, I see.
If Pablo hadn't said those things, you'd not have had to link his name to the disease.
Not feeling the love.
Anne was right to comment, though not quite careful enough with her reflection, imo.
Sorry to see Jilly Bee announcing a holiday.
You think he's a victim of his incompetence? That angle hadn't occurred to me but I suppose you're right. However I don't blame him for being himself – he can only perform at the level he naturally slots into.
[While being a sanctimonious and patronising arse isn’t technically against the site Policy, there is the discretion for moderators to step in on patterns of behaviour that cause problems for the commentariat. You now have multiple people taking potshots at you, and you seem to be quite poor at taking feedback on what is pissing people off.
Maybe you don’t care. I do though, and I’m giving you a holiday from the site for a week to let things cool down. This is to reduce moderator load, but I strongly encourage you to think about how how you communicate here. I will note you’ve had feedback on this kind of thing before here As always, feel free to ask for clarification about anything when you return. – weka]
mod note.
Yes Robert. An impulsive response to a nasty little dig at someone with both national and international mana and respect. If it had been a one-off I would have passed, but its not.
and as I have pointed out, if you had named the problem without throwing something at another commenter, then that would have been helpful. The moderation issue here is that you seem to think you are above moderation.
No weka, I have never ever considered myself above moderation. Do I respond impulsively from time to time? Yes I do. Do I try to keep some comments too brief thus not making myself clear? Guilty as charged. Am I bit too forthright sometimes? Yes.
Some of the recent bullshit on this site has riled me and I can't be the only one. It must be even more frustrating for the authors who put time and effort into the site. It also turns some people off commenting for fear of ridicule. That's a shame because TS has the power to be very influential and with all the astroturfing going on at present, it is even more desperately needed.
There are only a small handful of people responsible, and they only turn up when there are major controversies in progress as is currently the case. They troll the regulars or fill the pages with distorted facts and misinformation.
They need to be discouraged, but have just picked up you have started. Thanks.
Anne – it's difficult for those of us who love pith, as in pithy, comments.
Detailed, drawn out descriptions are an invitation for some to nit-pic words and phrases; pithy one-liners seem an elegant way to stifle that sort of film-flam, but the down-side of being brief, is…apparent 🙂
Thanks Anne and Robert, for linking to the Kiwipolitico post.
The odd fellow who disparages me in this thread does have a point when saying that there is no universal rule of democracy that says that political parties should and must campaign honestly and transparently about their true policy agendas. Of course not. But that was not my point. My point was that, like many authoritarian-minded cabals who know that announcing their true policy agendas during campaigns will never see them get elected, the recently installed junta deliberately concealed their true intentions while hiding under milquetoast rightwing talking points about taxes, crime and housing. They fully knew that their true agenda would be rejected at the polls if announced in advance, so they deliberately hid it from the electorate, as well as the fact that many of their policy prescriptions were basically written by their big political donors and sponsors.
This amounts to a type of false advertising or "bait and switch" campaigning. It is utterly cynical and dishonest at its core. It is a clear manipulation of the electoral process, which it sees in instrumental terms (a means to achieve power and pursue their real agenda even if it runs against the public good) rather than as an intrinsically valuable form of political voice for the electorate. But sure, it did not break any ironclad rule of democratic politics even if it demonstrates utter contempt for the public who otherwise would have never voted them into office had they known what the junta is really about and who it really serves.
I will say that by pulling the thread into a meaningless sidebar, the odd fellow has performed a textbook example of successful trolling, so credit must given where it is due. Cheers!
Well, yes; meaningless sidebars serve their purpose, I suppose.
The "false advertising" from this junta, as you title it, causes them to recoil in a faint when charged with opaqueness, and they'll point to sidebars of their own that clearly state what they intend to do; details of the minor party's platform are available to the public and prove they have been open and transparent. It's a tricky discussion for the average Jo, but reeks of sinister behaviour from Seymour, Peters and co, imo.
Thanks Pablo for responding. As Robert Guyton has said… its a tricky discussion for the average Jo (and Mary) who don't study the intricacies of politics. For my part, Seymour is the truly dangerous one. He has been very well schooled in the art of astroturfing and stands to cause a level of strife in this country never seen before.
Anne:
Just like Pinochet had to look over his shoulder at Air Force General Leigh in his junta, so must Luxon keep an eye on Seymour because he is the tail that wags the NZ junta's dog.
A libertarian who wants the president to have more power while government below is diminished.
https://apnews.com/article/argentina-milei-reforms-chamber-deputies-libertarian-bdf04cc55e9bdcc1f5a4f2ba90b8ecf7
He wrote
You wrote
The topic was not about ought to, as political practice, but comment on what National was doing and placing the direction of – in it for the few – as posing the risk of a junta era (use of fear of being the next target after Maori for conformity to the roused majority). Such methods of distraction draw attention away from the elitist oligarchy being established.
Your point that expectation of honesty (from those involved in the political practice) was not based on observation is mere cynicism – the risk of experience creating a curmudgeon is well known.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/heather-du-plessis-allan-wellington-city-council-is-the-most-poorly-run-council-in-new-zealand/LAIOEH4IXBF5TEXRZXXPGENWCI/
Apropos to our authoritarian minded junta and it's corporate media enablers.
Pretty obvious the groundwork is being laid for the government to punish Wellington's left leaning politics but sacking the council and appointing a commissioner.
This situation could have been avoided if repeated councils over the last 30 years had not ignored the impending issues.
Some other councils around the country have managed to plan, and find solutions to these types of problems, but seemingly not the coolest little capital.
Someone has to clean up the mess.
Can you name those councils, give examples of their problem-solving and link to evidence, Chess? Please.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
That seems to be the case with the government's new policy which, yet again, involves gutting the environment to prop up our economy: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/fast-track-consenting-fast-lane
The underlying approach is one of "getting things done" without pesky objections like community values standing in the way.
And you can bet the house that anyone objecting to this approach will be introduced to the Natz old friend TINA – there is no alternative.
Fine for opposition MPs to speak well at Waitangi, but National have set the map for future Treaty discourse.
With 16 years to the Bicentennial, both Maori and National are showing there's nothing to do but start talking properly right at the level of principles.
Labour/Greens/Maori Party may not like it but it's the right thing to do and at the right time.
can you please explain that a bit more?
A simple opening question would be:
How do we talk to each other again after 3 Waters?
Principles of re-engagement are what you do first, well before trying to dialogue content.
completely agree. It's the core political need across a lot of things now.
"How do we talk to each other again after 3 Waters?"
Firstly by exposing then neutering the agents that caused its rejection.
out of curiosity, how do you propose to expose and neuter me?
Wrapping in a towel?
(Meant as a joke).
Neuter isn't the right word; I meant neutralise 🙂
Were you opposed to 3 Waters?
Were you one of the agents actively seeking to destroy it?
I wasn't.
I thought 3 Waters had a number of problems and was badly instituted, which is part of why we are where we are. The debate around it likewise, because there were plenty of people like me who objected to how it was being done but the debate often called dissenters racist as if that could be the only objection.
If we deny there were problems with it, and frame it solely as objectors to be neutralised, we are throwing fuel of the culture war fire. A war we are currently loosing badly.
Ah, but I didn't say "objectors", I said "the agents that caused its rejection", by which I meant the monied players who enabled and encouraged the take down, with their mass-email programmes, their expensive billboards and so on.
I'm guessing you weren't one of those agents.
I'm still mystified why Labour chose not to explain 3 Waters and its (apparent) co-governance rationale. Consequently it became evident that their choice was producing a negative reaction.
Since I've often commented here in support of their policy initiative (whilst being agnostic re co-governance), I'm puzzled at your reluctance to admit that Labour shot themselves in the foot.
Isn't it obvious that the right won by default due to Labour choosing not to fight for the thing??
The agents I referred to, and the mechanisms they employed to create strong opposition to 3 Waters, are not the only factor in the failing of the proposal, but they are significant. If they were not active, the Government could have succeeded, through tailoring the programme and it's media, differently.
It was a good idea, shot down by agents from the opposite end of the spectrum, using money as ballistics, imo.
I'm not one of those agents. But this is the problem with the debate. People make unclear statements that end up being catchalls.
But now that you have clarified 🙂 I don't see how neutralising those people will solve the problem Ad is talking about. It might be necessary but it's not sufficient.
And talk of neutralising may in fact make it more difficult for large parts of NZ to relearn how to talk with each other.
"Counter", then. If those Atlas-backed agents have free-rein here in NZ, we will be shepherded by them, into the yards – not a comfortable place to find yourself in, imo.
Completely agree and it’s a serious risk.
“counter” seems a useful framing.
In addition to that, I think we also at the same time have to build common ground with the people are are leaning towards the people representing those energies and politics, and call them back in. If we only tell them that those evil people over there must go or be stopped, this doesn’t tell them what is good and useful about our own position. Doubly important where people are being told that they themselves are bad/wrong because they haven’t accepted the progressive demand.
Maybe Joanna Macy is useful there. The three pillars of the Great Turning
Another explainer:
Really, what about postmodern Aotearoa? Not there yet? Well try & keep up, huh?
He cites a triad:
Okay that seems to create a list of 11 elements (endecad). Sufficiently complex as to keep law lords puzzling the complexity out for several months if not years.
The Treaty of Waitangi would be better replaced with a proper constitution.
It's a vague, poorly translated, unstable and over-freighted document that mostly just pisses people off – Maori and everyone else.
Do we really get how deeply 3 Waters has divided us, if we didn't understand the election result?
There's all to gain from a fearless reassessment.
the problem is that there is so much bad faith coming from ACT in particular, who say they want their version of the Treaty principles. Two problems with that. One is they're not interested in finding the best path for NZ. Two, their principles would essential remove power from Māori.
It's hard to see how to have a clear and useful debate about Te Tiriti and a formal constitution in the current climate.
Ought we regard other well known constitutions as exemplars?
For instance, that of the United States of America?
Are you saying we should? Why?
This aspect is interesting though,
https://daily.jstor.org/the-native-american-roots-of-the-u-s-constitution/
Māori are pissed off by Te Tiriti o Waitangi?
This I did not know!
I'm pretty sure they are pissed off by the attacks on it.
Certainly seems that way.
Those I work with at local government level aren't noticeably encouraged by those attacks.
I massively support Chloe Swarbrick for co-leader of Greens. I think she's the only real successor to James Shaw and I hope she carries on the pro-disability mahi that the Greens are doing.
Agreed gravel……she is eloquent and understands the issues…..but she has and is working on many other issues in addition to disability over the years.
"Do we really get how deeply 3 Waters has divided us"
nah the divisions were already there. They just became more acted upon and expressed in part due to the same happening in the US with Trump.
Very few Europeans and immigrants even bother to interact with Maori at a social level – white flight from schools, white enclaves such as Havelock North over in Hawkes Bay, or the Euro/Asian enclave of Epsom have very little to no experience of day to day activity on a marae.
During COVID-19, and indeed in other civil defense situations, the Maori response on the ground was quite impressive. The organising of food packages, the contacting of the elderly, the delivery of firewood, the clear protocols and explanations, including historical context, to restricting access to tangi and so on. These things continued throughout the pandemic. It was interesting that my European mother was contacted three times by iwi and not once by any of the usual health / welfare mechanisms during lockdown to make sure she and her neighbours were OK.
This is the view of Maori rarely shown in the media and talked about in on-line forums but more reflects the day to day reality of activity and why we should not be afraid of partnership with Maori as the courts have indicated.
This Waitangi Day how many European will be there at local ceremonies celebrating the signing of the Treaty – based on previous experience no more than half a dozen locally. Europeans don't value the Treaty and until they do any attempts to change to a constitution should be treated with the disdain it and they deserve.
Until we express and value those positive characteristics of Maori society and embrace them as meritful and worthy then we should have no say cause we have no respect. Some of those values are in conflict with the values that European capitalist values have constructed eg individual versus communal land ownership, looking longer term to the future in terms of land use, etc not just an extractive way of thinking and others are different and poorly understood eg kawanatanga. Maori have had to adapt and understand European concepts – we need to reciprocate.
I'm more than happy that my children have had a far better education in this respect than those of us did when we were young. The last people that need to be deciding the future are those that are about to die over the next twenty years – their future is a past they only wish existed and is more about now.
Good comment DOS, those on the Right of the political spectrum, some on the Left and some misguided Maori included, are just carrying on the British Empire superiority complex attitude that saw colonisation as a gift that should be accepted with gratitude, especially by people with a so called "stone age culture".
Basically its an 'our way or the highway' attitude that refuses to evolve, except perhaps as just recently in Ireland where the younger generation is making great strides in reforming and uniting a once troubled and divided society racked by six hundred years of colonisation.
My view is there’s an unwillingness to evolve from some people on both sides of the relationship.
Very entrenched fundamentalist views that may never be changed.
Those of us who are more recent arrivals to this country, or their children, tend to sit at the side waiting for those heavily invested to sort their shit out, while we just get on with life.
Do you not make some effort to engage with local Maori communities?
Why sit on the sidelines – all that is is avoidance and leaves you in a vacuum that can only be filled via media or social media. It seems a weird thing to say/do. If I moved to another country I'd always be trying to engage with the local community.
Maybe it is why you think this.
"Very entrenched fundamentalist views that may never be changed."
I took a short course on Te Reo as I thought I should know how to pronounce words correctly, but I have my own mix of cultures that I feel comfortable in so don’t feel a great need to adopt someone else’s.
It isn't about adopting it is about understanding that Maori are much more hospitable and engaging and want a better future for all – not just for themselves.
A picture quite different that that painted by media and social media. so you don't believe this sort of nonsense.
"Very entrenched fundamentalist views that may never be changed."
Treasury advises government that more revenue would assist the government manage its budget (it would also be mindful of infrastructure deficits, so does not reinforce the governments focus on spending cuts).
And its advice suggests a broader tax revenue base is the right direction to go to realise that.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/350167952/capital-gains-tax-could-help-balance-govt-books-treasury
The government is planning to reduce the test for Investment in New Zealand down to national security only.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/01/26/plans-to-scale-back-ministers-powers-over-foreign-investment/
https://www.linz.govt.nz/guidance
This will allow the sale of farms, coastal land off farms, beachfront property, islands (and fisheries) to foreigners.
What will WP say.
Even land along the river in Hamilton is going for $4M
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/could-this-be-hamiltons-next-record-breaker-award-winning-home-hits-the-market-44910
I say place a stamp duty of 5% for locals who buy property over $2M and 15% for foreign investment. And a CGT on all property sold with a value over $2m or to foreigners.
PS And a question, which party with fishing quota wants to sell offshore?
NZF and partner want a Crown Monitor for the WCC, she cites Daran Ponter as wanting the same.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/heather-du-plessis-allan-wellington-city-council-is-the-most-poorly-run-council-in-new-zealand/LAIOEH4IXBF5TEXRZXXPGENWCI/
The head of Wellington Water Nick Leggat and Daran Ponter (Chair of the Regional Council) are working as partners of National in
1.pressure on WCC to give more money to Wellington Water
2.require water meters, or impost financial sanctions up to 50% of water cost charges.
The cost of water meters is money not then available for pipe repair, so until they are at at the capacity to fix the pipes they already know they need to fix, adding extra knowledge of leaks via metering adds little.
3.User pays for pipe problems on ratepayer property.
Of course there would be charging of ratepayers for water leaks on their own property (and so ratepayers would be liable until they found someone to fix the pipes at their own expense).
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/350132494/wellington-councils-given-ultimatum-water-meters
Water meters are essential to provide an asset value for the sale of council assets. Though at first half might go to government – so they have an asset to borrow against when granting money to councils (this allows both the council and government to later sell their half shares to reduce debt).
Wellington's water…
Watch, as Council incompetence is splashed all over the media. The Coalition government steps in, twisting the council's arm….
Then water meters……
And VOILA! Privatisation!!!!!!!!!!!! Which was the plan all along , of course.
Jeez…. what is it with New Zealanders and water meters.
The things are seen as existential threats by all sides of the political spectrum. Righties see them as an insult to their integrity and self worth, and 'you're going to give it to a Mawries'. Lefties see them as a portal to privatisation and TEOTWAWKI
Water meters are an essential tool for network management and without them you really haven't a clue where the water is going. In Wellington's case there's a good chance most of the leak problem is on private property, or a proportion of residents who are gross (ab)users. Some people will get by with 300 l/day, most households a bit more. A broken 20mm lateral could loose 20,000 l/day or more.
Without good data on where the water is going the managers are just flying blind and fixing leaks once they come through the ground. In Wellington's climate it's going to be a good leak to do that, and they're a small percentage to the number of leaks. The multitude of small leaks will go un-noticed (in our dry climate in Central Otago even quite small leaks are quite apparent in summer) and will add up to a lot of water.
There is
1.a case to fix the known leaks first with available funding.
2.this might give time to look at equity in meter charging.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/350086660/case-against-water-metering-wellington
Sorry, but I found your linked article a jumble of confused and just downright incorrect thinking. Things like,
Wellington's, and every other municipality in New Zealand's, water problem is due to a very longstanding practice of ratepayers not being willing to pay for the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure.
We can't see it and as long as there's water coming out the tap, all's good. Oh, and we can use as much as we like because it's 'free'.
Mr Osborne's assertion that water charges are regressive doesn't account for reality and human nature. In 40 years of involvement in the water industry I've seen a pretty strong correlation between property value / income and water use. It's very unlikely that a gross user (>10x average use) lives in the bottom end of town, and water use goes up dramatically once you get into the House and Garden set. Under current rates based charging practices this is something worse than regressive, it's downright theft.
From your points,
Well either Wellington Water is incompetent, or they are being incompetently led by the elected Council. Or the rate payers won't pay the Council enough to fix the problem. Generally it comes back to the rate payers not being prepared to pay for it.
Have a serious look at the equity of current rates based charging first, and how that charging regime shapes usage / entitlement perceptions. I don't see much equity between Mr & Mrs Fancy Garden using as much water as they can get out the tap, and the family at the other end of town who treat every drop of water as their last, because they treat everything like that to get through to the next pay day.
Osborne does have a point around the issues in separating water charging from property charges, particularly in residential rental situations. Water charges should remain with the property, so that the owner is incentivised to fix leaks. In a gross usage situation there will probably be other tenancy issues that the landlord can act on.
Metering and Volumetric Pricing do not necessarily follow. Many water providers have installed meters for data collection to get a picture of where the water is going. QLDC and Central Otago have done this with considerable success. There's also a discrete supply (several hundred properties) where volumetric charging has sorted a very extreme usage / entitlement problem that threatened the viability of the supply.
Right, but what about the household that has two large low income families living in it, who pay nothing now, but would face a new charge with water metering?
Surely the solution here is to provide a certain amount of water per household without charge and to then charge for excess use?
While someone watering a 3 acre lawn is a problem, won't they just pay for the extra charges if they are wealthy? So the council generates some income, but doesn't solve the problem of excess use. Changing land use culture would go a long way to helping alongside other approaches.
Maybe street / small area water meters rather than individual household meters can solve most of the problem.
Less cost and would still give a very good indication of usage and where to investigate for issues and high usage.
This is why we don’t trust them. Already our power companies are doing the same thing.
https://www.nationalworld.com/news/environment/sewage-spills-university-research-how-much-profits-water-company-shareholders-4149319
that was one of the issues with 3 Waters right? Whether the legislation was Tory-proof enough to stop them from privatising. Better to not have 3W than to end up in the situation we are with power. I'm sure many would disagree with that, but that's part of the resistance.
In most cases small 20 or 25mm meters at the individual boundary are the cheapest and easiest option. The lateral is in a known location and already quite shallow (< 0.5m) and there's already a valve there. If the valve was installed in the last 20 years installing a meter can be a 10 minute job. Street or neighbourhood meters get expensive, the main is often a couple of meters under the street or footpath so quite a crater and disruption, and everything is bigger so costs go up exponentially.
It's wrongheaded to attack the engineering, we should be focusing on the council and government leadership that wants to try and privatise or use rates reduction, and subsequent under investment, to get elected. Fortunately water privatisation is going to be a hard sell to a New Zealand electorate, rates or tax reduction not so much.
They do not pay nothing now. If they live in a town or city they are paying for water now through their rates. There's a lot of averaging that goes into setting rates, especially water, and low users are getting screwed by the current system. If they have good water habits then volumetric charging should be in their favour.
I feel for low income people under the current rating system as the costs of water failure come through, in many places the rates rises will be brutal. Gore is a town to keep an eye on.
Very much the devil is in the detail of how the charge is set up, some have a base rate pretty much as normal rates based charging with an excess charge on top, others it's a seperate invoice to rates. It depends on whether the water supply entity is council in-house or some sort of arms length entity. If there's going to be amalgamation of utility provision (essentially what 3 Waters was) then charging will get tricky, but with clever design could still be charged through rates. We'll see what National's "Local Water Done Well" brings, but I'm inclined to think they'll find it too hard and nothing changes from pre 3 Waters.
From what I've seen excess charges certainly change behaviours. You'd be surprised how tight entitled arseholes are, they haven't amassed their wealth by spending it. Trick is to make excess town water dearer than alternatives like storage or alternative sources.
Land use change, or more like expectation change is coming. There's a new golf course development coming up across the road. Residential lots (80 odd) are restricted to 100m2 of lawn to restrict water use and the developers have done a lot of deals buying irrigation shares to get water for the course. One little bit of the basin will be bright green and a lot will become fallow.
1.a case to fix the known leaks first with available funding.
That is irrelevant. $300 M for water meters, is $300M not spent on fixing pipes. Ratepayers will be paying, whatever the $300M is spent on.
2.this might give time to look at equity in meter charging.
In Wellington there is already a water use regime that limits garden watering. And in any case those with a large section (often a lot of trees and owned by older couples) currently pay more rates because of the land component of the capital value and would be better off with a move to water charging than those with larger families in infill sections.
For mine the move to $300M for water meter charges is not a move to equity, because of the opportunity cost of $300M not being spent fixing pipes.
For mine the focus on water metering, when they are so short of money to fix pipes, reflects an intent to set charges to force ratepayers to fix up pipes on their land.
The question is why DP and NL want to prioritise that over spending $300M (they do not yet have) to fix pipes on public land?
Is it because they intend to charge the cost of the water meters on top of rates?
Thread.
Many people discovered The Taxpayers' Union today after they attempted to criticize the government funding of @davidfarrier& @DylanReeve's critically acclaimed and financially profitable documentary 'Tickled.' So for the initiated, here's a primer on The TPU.
https://twitter.com/StrayDogNZ/status/1419555716310847488
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1419555716310847488.html
Elon Musk claims that the illegal immigration is a Democratic Party/Biden's plan to make them legal residents for the purpose of a one party state.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/musk-biden-opened-border-floodgates-democrats-can-stay-power
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/musk-calls-out-biden-for-waiting-on-bipartisan-senate-deal-to-shut-down-border/
In the USA Detainee stuff.
Page 18 on
https://www.ice.gov/doclib/eoy/iceAnnualReportFY2023.pdf