Left-wing journalism Anthony Hubbard, has a piece about the governments current klutz, Kelvin Davis

Kelvin Davis was a killer in opposition. His relentless campaign of prison leaks and revelations helped end the career of National’s hapless minister of corrections (the since-retired and forgotten Sam Lotu-Iiga).

Now Davis is the minister of corrections himself and it’s all sunshine and good cheer. “Exciting” is a recurring word.

The friendly MP for Tai Tokerau is excited, for instance, about the revolutionary policy of slashing the prison population.   

Yeah, because slashing the prison population and spilling more than 3000 violent ratbags onto the streets is a real vote winner.

The first one that kills someone is going to be on his head.

No Kiwi politician or party has seriously proposed this before. New Zealand remains one of the keenest jailers in the West, and governments of both sorts have outbid each other on law and order.

And he will be the last who does when it goes pear shaped.

“Governments for a long, long time have tried to outdo each other as being tough on crime. We actually need to be smart on crime.”

Labour promises to cut the prison muster by 30 per cent in 15 years, but how? If you ask Davis, you get a wash of generalities – “multifaceted solutions” – and pledges to examine the research.

If we are going to be smart on crime then why is the dumbest hammer in the bag doing the job?

Instead of concentrating on the prisons – they are just marshalling yards – you need to consider the wider problems that produce an ever-expanding horde of prisoners. These “drivers” are what matter most.

“We actually have to look at things like the mental health situation, we have to look at the housing situation, we have to look at poverty, we have to look at how our people are being treated now – because one of the biggest drivers of the prison population is violence.

“How do we address that? What are the drivers of violence? Is it having a lack of money, is it having no hope, and despair? …

“What are the drivers? And we have to work that out and then base our solutions on that.”

The Government has “to look at all the options”.

What a load of horse dung. While he is having “conversations” and working out what can be done then these bastards need to be locked up. It is what voters want. We want the bad bastards off the streets and we really don’t care what happens to them in prison either. Crim-hugging womble politicians like Kelvin Davis think they have all the answers but I bet he won’t offer up his place as a halfway house for them.

Don’t we need something a little more specific? Will cutting the prison population, for instance, involve cutting prison sentences?

“Possibly, yeah. We need to look at all the options. We need to make decisions based on decent evidence, based on what’s worked.”

What about letting people out earlier on bail? This, too, seems one of the options, though “we’ve got to keep the country safe. This is a balancing act, this isn’t a quick fix. We keep the country safe but also address the types of crime, also the drivers of crime.”

Davis’s vagueness raises questions about how much research he and Labour did before deciding on the policy. Or is he just keeping his powder dry for the upcoming political battle?

Certainly he understands that prison reform faces huge political problems, including the resistance of many voters.

Davis is just like his leader, a lightweight long on sloganeering, short on specifics. Labour already has a soft on crime reputation and with attitudes like that it deserves it. The voters will tear them apart. As I said, the first ex-prisoner released by Davis and Labour will be the poster child for a law and order backlash with Ardern and Davis being sent out on a tumbril.

I hope they do release 30% of the prison population back on the streets. They are all likely to come from Labour electorates so the uproar and backlash will be from their own voters. The only fear I have of such an action is that someone is going to get killed because of the a stupid crim-hugging decisions of an insulated and out of touch womble politician. Holding that politician to account is the easy part, bringing that victim back to life is impossible.

Davis made this rod for his back, with all his grandstanding. I can’t wait for the next stabbing, or bashing, or murder in one of Davis’ prison to occur. He will get his grandstanding right back at him.

He still has some rather impertinent questions to answer about how he got elected in 2014 while his party was campaigning against #dirtypolitics.

Phil Twyford has ordered a stocktake of housing to find out the status of the crisis he, Labour and the Media party have all told us about for years.

Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford has commissioned three of New Zealand’s leading experts to provide an independent stocktake of the housing crisis.

“For too long, the previous Government refused to accept the housing crisis and establish the scale of the problem we face,” says Minister Twyford.

“For instance, it was only once the Labour-led Government came to office that we learned MBIE’s official figures show a nationwide shortfall of 71,000 houses and that projections show house building would fall if not for KiwiBuild.

“The previous government never acknowledged or accepted the official numbers, and also refused to accept its own official definition of homelessness.

“Shamubeel Eaqub, Philippa Howden-Chapman, and Alan Johnson are among New Zealand’s foremost experts on housing. Their insight will be invaluable.

Nice bunch of left-wing focused individuals.

The question has to asked: Why didn’t Phil Twyford do this research before he launched into declaring a housing crisis and before the election?

“This report will provide an authoritative picture of the state of housing in New Zealand today, drawing on the best data available. It will put firm figures on homelessness, the state of the rental market, the decline of homeownership, and other factors in the housing crisis.

“The Labour-led Government is already pushing ahead quickly with initiatives to make housing more affordable and healthy, including banning overseas speculators, passing the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill, cancelling the state house selloff, and setting up KiwiBuild. This report will help the Government refine and focus that work where it is most needed.

“I have instructed officials to provide the experts with any and all information they request. The years of spin and denial are over,” says Phil Twyford.

The report will be due before Christmas.

With a supposed 71,000 houses needed I wonder what Phil Twyford is going to say about the emails from his boss to Housing NZ to provide 150 houses for incoming ratbags from Manus Island and their families?

Won’t that make the housing crisis worse? What about the emails going back that say Kiwis first for houses which then got another one in reply asking for options on hotels for the ratbags?

Didn’t Labour criticise the government for putting people up in motels? Oh that’s right they did.

More importantly does Twyford, as Housing Minister know his boss is dealing direct with Housing NZ?

-Labour party

poverty

Fairfax columnist John Sergeant makes a valid point about all these claims about child poverty:

Summertime and the livin’ might be easy but some of our kids still endure tough times through no fault of their own.

Even so, I still cannot get my head around what “child poverty” is exactly.  

It is a rubbish title and the way of measuring it is even worse.

But hey, Jacinda is going to eliminate it, she’s promised.

I understand it’s bandied around as a measure of social failure but those using the term seem to say nothing of explanation as though it’s enough to say it and let others figure out the rest for themselves, but quite frankly it’s beyond me.

I understand that some children live in poverty, conditions which by first world standards are less than acceptable but by other standards aren’t too bad at all.

Especially when you see kids literally starving in countries where social welfare doesn’t exist.

Back in Godzone, cold and damp housing is a genuine issue for holding kids back from enjoying a decent childhood.

Living in substandard conditions is tragically a part of the poverty trap with rents exorbitantly high and there’s often no choice for families to accept it.

But sending children to school hungry isn’t acceptable and I remain convinced that the term “child poverty” is becoming more of an excuse for poor parenting and in actual fact the term that should be used is ‘child neglect’. 

It’s a parent’s inherent responsibility to care for their children full stop, not to pass the buck onto the government or anybody else.

If you can’t feed them, don’t smoke, drink and all the rest of it.

Spot on. Too may people want to pass the buck to the government. If government is the answer then it was clearly a stupid question.

Kids come first so to have no shoes or rain jackets in the winter and empty bellies is in many cases neglect.

To some degree it’s actually encouraged as various organisations, for instance, feed kids at school unconditionally.

So oddly enough there’s no incentive for parents to feed them at home. Then guess what?

More and more kids turn up hungry and the stats climb so the end of year reports say that “child poverty” is increasing when in actual fact it’s no more than a self-fulfilling prophecy based on the children becoming victims of learned helplessness by parents.

I have seen many parents with very little indeed go hungry themselves to make sure their kids turn up at school proud to be dressed smart, looking smart and acting smart.

That’s how it works but when more and more charities with the best of intentions, inadvertently support a flawed system, I really wonder where our priorities are.

The priorities of the socialists and globalists like Jacinda Ardern, is to have as many people reliant on the state as possible.

We are losing our can do attitude…and replacing it with an entitlement and bludger attitude.

They live amongst us…terrorists that is.

A 19-year-old Dannevirke man appeared in the Palmerston North District Court yesterday after being charged with possessing terrorism propaganda.

Jordayne Evan Thomas Madams faces 10 charges of possessing objectionable material consisting of child sex abuse videos and images, and terrorism material.

He made no plea when he appeared in court and a police spokesperson said he was due to appear in court on December 7 – where he would be required to enter a plea.

According to court documents, that included a text file of The Terrorist’s Handbook, which gives instructions on how to assemble bombs and explosives, as well as Isis beheading videos.  

 

It was also alleged Madams had videos showing Isis, a jihadist militant group predominantly operating in Syria, executing a captured soldier with a machinegun and carrying out a beheading.

The child sex abuse material involved photos and videos of preteen and teenage boys and girls in suggestive poses or taking part in sex acts, according to court documents.

If found guilty of the terrorism material charges, Madams will join a small group sentenced already.

In 2016, Imran Patel was the first person in New Zealand convicted possessing, making and distributing the objectionable material and was sentenced to three years and nine months’ jail.

Police found 62 objectionable videos showing extreme violence or cruelty, as well as copies of an Isis-endorsed online magazine, when they searched Patel’s home in 2015.

Activity supporting terrorist activities, including fundraising, is an offence under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

This is a locally grown terrorist and bad bastard.

Word on the street is that Jacinda Ardern is directly negotiating with Papua New Guinea to bring 150 more ratbags in from Manus Island…and their families.

We have more than enough of our own ratbags thanks.

Note also he is a sufferer of Silly First name Syndrome. No good was ever going to come of him.

-NZ Herald

No one does sanctimony, hypocrisy and double standards like a feminist. Add in the fact that she is a journalist and you really start to wonder about the motivations.

Ms Cuming is clearly out to ‘get’ Mr Bunting and claim a scalp in the name of 4th wave feminism.

This story is yet another example of ‘do as I say, and not as I do’.

It appears that Ms Cuming is guilty of some shocking double standards.

Only earlier this month, she was guilty of stalking a man in local park, taking photos of him and then broadcasting them to the world on Twitter (on 4th Nov) for the purpose of sexual objectification.

She’s been widely called out on social media for her apparent double standards, but she is strangely silent on the issue.

Note that one of the commenters on her Twitter account is Mary Ann Gill, an elected Waikato DHB member. You can bet your bottom dollar that if this had been a male councillor (or any male for that matter) taking photos of women in parks for a similar purpose, all hell would break loose, the police would be called, they’d be sacked etc etc.

Why does Ms Cuming, who is also in the public eye and in a position of influence and responsibility, manage to get away with this?

Why the double standards, complaining about a lewd joke but at the same time objectifying a bloke exercising at a playground?

Will anyone in the media, or indeed TVNZ follow up Ms Cuming for her double standards?

Apparently all Maori in prison should be let out and proclaimed innocent, because…get this…there is no word in Maori for guilty.

A Māori lawyer and social justice advocate says it’s time to abolish New Zealand prisons and take lessons from how law and order was historically approached by Māori.

Does he mean hacking off their heads, tattooing them and selling them to Poms? That sort of justice?

Moana Jackson will give an address tonight in Wellington explaining why Māori and other indigenous peoples didn’t have prisons prior to colonisation.

Mr Jackson said the United Nations and other international human rights bodies have found the operation of prisons in this country to be in breach of human rights.

“The bias and prejudiced way in which various parts of the criminal justice system operates ensures there is a disproportionate number of Māori men and Māori women in prison.

“I think part of that discussion is to look at indigenous nations around the world because there is no indigenous nation in New Zealand, or Australia or Canada or the United States or South America – that have a history of prisons, yet they all have a history of humans causing harm.”

Mr Jackson said Māori traditionally dealt with crime differently, with an emphasis on restoring the relationship between the person who caused harm and the person whom harm was inflicted upon.

I call bullshit on that. He makes out Maori were all sweetness and light and sat around and had a nice meeting to determine that someone was wronged and what the solution was. Those taiaha, mere and other weapons were just decorative weren’t they?

He said Māori sought to impose sanctions for the wrong and in the long-term, rebuild the relationship that was damaged.

“In the Pākehā system if someone is charged with something the question they’re asked in court is do you plead guilty or not guilty?

“There’s no word for ‘guilty’ in the Māori language and so the question asked instead was, ‘do you know who you have harmed’? In other words, do you know what the relationship or the potential relationship is that has been damaged?”

Using his logic, there was no word for dole, or welfare, or benefit, or smokes, or Lotto, or beer, or gambling either…but Maori seem to availed themselves of those quite a fair bit.

I am however perplexed why anyone bothers listening to Moana Jackson. A quick check of the Maori dictionary suggest he is correct…sort of. The is no word for guilty in Maori…there are actually lots of them.

harakore

1.(stative) be innocent, blameless, faultless, guiltless, honest, not guilty, sinless.

E hara ana, e harakore ana rānei, te herehere? (MM.TKM 29/2/1856:13). / Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?

and;

mau tangetange

1.(noun) found guilty.

He mau tangetange te whakataunga a te kōti ki runga i a Hīroki, kātahi ka whakahaua kia patua mate rawa (TTR 1994:28). / The decision of the court was that Hiroki was guilty and he was sentenced to death.

and;

ngākaukino

3.(noun) bad heart, bias against, ill-treatment, guilty intent, prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, malevolence.

He kupu ēnei nā Pāpaka mō te ngākaukino o āna mātua ki a ia (NIT 1995:291). / These were words by Pāpaka referring to his uncles’ ill-treatment of himself.

Why don’t reporters check these claims that these so-called advocates make?

The Coalition promised to plant an extra billion trees over ten years, or 100 million trees every year for ten years.

It turns out that they are now claiming half of those will be planted by the private sector…not the government at all.

NBR reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern rejects criticism that the government splitting the load of planting its goal of one billion trees a year with the private sector is a backdown.

Forestry Minister Shane Jones says the goal of planting 100 million trees a year for 10 years will be shared between the private sector and the government, with both planting 50 million trees each a year.

Mr Jones and the Coalition government have been slammed by National economic and regional development spokesman Simon Bridges, who says the government is backpedalling.

“[Mr Jones’] problem is that the target is recorded unambiguously in both the Labour-New Zealand First coalition agreement and the Speech from the Throne on the new government’s programme.”

That speech said: “This government is committed to a new planting programme, planting 100 million trees a year to reach a billion more trees in ten years.”

The prime minister denies Mr Jones’ comments represented a backtrack.

“We have always been really clear we see a role for the forestry service to work alongside those in the private sector to ensure we’re supporting the planting of those trees.”

She says the goal of planting one billion trees – which she admits is ambitious – was always meant to be a collaborative effort between the government and the private sector.

She says it would be “splitting hairs” to try to decipher what the mix of private and public sector planting would be.

Sorry luv, you can’t claim private sector plantings as your own. It is isn’t splitting hairs. It is calling bullshit on your claims.

Shane Jones’ antics in the house over this now make a mockery of the promises.

I’ve never seen a givernment go backwards so fast nor make so many utter stupid mistakes like this one.

I said this three years was going to be fun and so far it is at least a laugh a day.

I think we are going to see a lot of Jacinda’s angry, scowly face in coming months.

Credit: Luke

The Muppet Show that is our government continued yesterday.

NewtalkZB reports:

Labour has released costing estimates for its boost to student loans and allowances – just hours after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern defended not doing so.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced yesterday the pledge to boost student allowances and student loan living costs by $50 a week was now in place.

However, his release didn’t include cost estimates, and National’s finance spokesman Steven Joyce later challenged Labour to front on its numbers.

Hipkins said the costings would be released in the coming weeks when detail on another policy – fees-free tertiary education – was made public, given that change would affect overall student numbers.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spent much of her stand-up with media today defending the lack of costing information, saying delaying the release would mean “the most robust numbers possible”.

However, later in the afternoon Hipkins’ office released preliminary costings that were taken to Cabinet, estimating the total cost of the two increases at $200m in 2018/19, rising to $210m by 2021/22.

That is lower than the estimate of $270m a year, given during the election campaign.

Labour has not released estimates of up-take for the extra loan and allowance money.

Is there anyone who believes Labour’s numbers?

This government, the Labour members especially are making screw up after screw up. They have been in government 27 days and so far it has been disaster after disaster, flip flop after flip flop.

Chris Hipkins must be right up there for the first minister to get a kick in the balls from Heather Simpson. He is showing he is but a child at this politics thing. He seriously needs to be sent to the naughty step.

He’s made him PM look like a right chump. He won’t be getting the concern face, he will be getting the scowly face about now.

Helen Clark would never have tolerated this level of incompetence.

Jacinda Ardern has caused great offence in her short time as PM.

Even the Media party are having conniptions. In Australia the offence has cut deep:

This season of joy is anything but for Malcolm Turnbull. Australians are fed up with a constitutional shemozzle which has seen numbers of MPs and senators forced from office for the crime of being dual citizens.  Abbott and his conservative cronies have never accepted Turnbull’s legitimacy and keep up a running commentary on his failings in the media.

The Australian Labor Party consistently leads opinion polls and the leader, Bill Shorten, is clawing his way to more respectable poll numbers.

Into this toxic political mix comes a novice New Zealand prime minister with sharp criticisms of Australia’s hardline but bi-partisan immigration policy and the tragedy unfolding on Manus Island.

Canberra is underwhelmed by the timing and tone of the Kiwi commentary. There are dark mutterings of Ardern’s naivety and self-serving “dog whistling” – sending a coded political message to the New Zealand electorate that Kiwis occupy higher moral ground than do those coarse Aussies.

Clearly, this plays well in the New Zealand media still offering a warm honeymoon to the new Labour Government.  Aussie bashing appears to be a regular theme in print and especially in broadcast commentary. But bombast makes a poor substitute for old-fashioned reporting of the facts.  

I think the Media party have taken that on board.

Take the widespread view that New Zealanders have a more humane and decent record in dealing with refugees.

Last year, New Zealand raised its refugee intake from about 750 a year to about a thousand.  It was the first time in 30 years that the refugee intake had been increased.

By comparison, last year Australia’s intake was more than 20,000 and this figure will rise by about a thousand in each of the next two years.

Then there is the view, often retailed in New Zealand, that Australia operates a brutal maritime blockade to stop desperate people from landing on its shores.

Between 2008 and 2013, more than 50,000 people travelled to Australia on more than 800 unauthorised boat trips. More than 1200 died at sea trying to make the journey.

New Zealand has yet to have a single unauthorised boat land on our shores.

Salient and inconvenient facts for Ardern and her apologists.

This has not gone unnoticed in Canberra. Last week the Australian Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, took a thinly veiled swipe at New Zealand by saying that New Zealand benefits from Australia’s tough border protection policies without paying for them.

“We have stopped vessels on their way across the Torres Strait planning to track down the east coast of Australia to New Zealand. We have put hundreds of millions of dollars into a defence effort to stop those vessels.

“We do that, frankly, without any financial assistance from New Zealand,” Dutton said.

The other senior Australian minister with a close interest in the regional implications of Canberra’s border protection policies is the Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop.

Bishop is a toughie who has never publicly backed away from her statement that she would find it “very difficult to build trust” with a New Zealand Labour Government.

None of this is to suggest that New Zealand’s political leaders should not have concerns about the effects of Australia’s hardline policies or should moderate their criticism. But the view in Canberra is that the new Labour Government in Wellington should be doing more than offering armchair criticism. 

Jacinda has only ever done hot air and slogans.

Prime Minister Turnbull is remarkably well briefed on New Zealand’s view. His new chief of Staff, Peter Woolcott, was until recently Australia’s high commissioner in Wellington. A former high commissioner to Wellington heads Australia’s Defence Department.

That a new Australian high commissioner has not been appointed to Wellington for several months may reflect a certain grumpiness in official circles in Canberra.

Some pundits in Australia are suggesting that history may be about to repeat itself and Malcolm Turnbull could become the latest victim of Canberra’s Killing Season.

If their grim predictions are accurate and Turnbull is dumped as leader of the Liberals, the Canberra cognoscenti speculate than two ministers lead the pack to replace him.

The most likely replacement is the deputy leader, Julie Bishop. After her comes the Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton.

Something for Ardern to think about. Very carefully.

I’m not sure thinking was ever on her CV. She’s put herself and us in the firing line of some rather grumpy Aussie politicians. Those same politicians would think nothing of rescinding visa free travel rights for Kiwis.

-Fairfax