Word of the day

Filibeg – kilt.

Sowell says

The whole environmental extremist movement is based on doing Good Things, in utter disregard of costs or diminishing returns.

— Thomas Sowell Wisdom (@TheThomasSowell) November 22, 2023

Highland Cathedral

Another taste of Scotland for St Andrews Day:

The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond

A toast for St Andrews Day:

May the best ye’ve ever seen
Be the worst ye’ll ever see
May a moose ne’er leave yer girnal
Wi’ a tear drap in his e’e
May ye aye keep hale an’ he’rty
Till ye’re auld eneuch tae dee
May ye aye be jist as happy
As we wish ye aye tae be

 

Did you see the one about . . .?

Never again is now – Oliver Hartwich

On the 50th anniversary of the DPB – Lindsay Mitchell

Medical schools must protect free speech by making space for controversial views – Gabrielle Redford & Patrick Boyle

Identity politics and the retreat from reason– Brendan O’Neill

Simply unfit for office – Caleb Anderson

My experience of censorship and what it tells us about the new culture of journalism – Karl du Fresne

The Road to He Puapua – Is there really a Treaty partnership?- Elizabeth Rata

Abolishing NCEA science – Michael Johnston

Underperforming in education harms national income – Bryce Wilkinson

The puzzling push for te reo in public – Graham Adams

They’ve got a little list

The National-led government has an action list for its first 100 days:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has laid out the Coalition Government’s plan for its first 100 days from today.

“The last few years have been incredibly tough for so many New Zealanders. People have put their trust in National, ACT and NZ First to steer them towards a better, more prosperous future,” Mr Luxon says.

“New Zealanders voted not only for a change of government, but for a change of policies and a change of approach – and our Coalition Government is ready to deliver that change.

“We will be a government that gets things done for New Zealand and we will start straight away, with a 100-day plan that includes a range of actions we will take to improve the lives of New Zealanders.

“Our Government is starting the way we mean to go on – ambitious for New Zealand. With 49 actions to deliver in the next 100 days, this plan is hugely ambitious but we will be working as hard as we can.

“Our 100-day plan is focused on rebuilding the economy, easing the cost of living, restoring law and order and delivering better public services. These are things that New Zealanders voted for and expect us to deliver.” . . 

The 49 actions are:

Rebuild the economy and ease the cost of living

1. Stop work on the Income Insurance Scheme.

This was effectively a tax on the many to help the few, many of whom would have been able to afford personal loss of income insurance.

2. Stop work on Industry Transformation Plans.

3. Stop work on the Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme.

An expensive boondoggle.

4. Begin efforts to double renewable energy production, including a NPS on Renewable Electricity Generation.

5. Withdraw central government from Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM).

6. Meet with councils and communities to establish regional requirements for recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle and other recent major flooding events.

7. Make any additional Orders in Council needed to speed up cyclone and flood recovery efforts.

8. Start reducing public sector expenditure, including consultant and contractor expenditure.

9. Introduce legislation to narrow the Reserve Bank’s mandate to price stability.

The dual mandate was partly responsible for runaway inflation.

10. Introduce legislation to remove the Auckland Fuel Tax.

11. Cancel fuel tax hikes.

Fuel taxes are inflationary, adding costs to all goods and services with a transport component and hitting the poor hardest.

12. Begin work on a new GPS reflecting the new Roads of National Significance and new public transport priorities.

13. Repeal the Clean Car Discount scheme by December 31, 2023.

This was expensive greenwash which had no affect on emissions because of the way the ETS works.

14. Stop blanket speed limit reductions and start work on replacing the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2022.

15. Stop central government work on the Auckland Light Rail project.

16. Repeal the Fair Pay Agreement legislation.

There is nothing fair about these agreements.

17. Introduce legislation to restore 90-day trial periods for all businesses.

18. Start work to improve the quality of regulation.

19. Begin work on a National Infrastructure Agency.

An excellent idea that will encourage much-needed long-term thinking for long-term projects.

20. Introduce legislation to repeal the Water Services Entities Act 2022.

That’s Three Waters gone.

21. Repeal the Spatial Planning and Natural and Built Environment Act and introduce a fast-track consenting regime.

This Act was far worse than the RMA it replaced.

22. Begin to cease implementation of new Significant Natural Areas and seek advice on operation of the areas.

23. Take policy decisions to amend the Overseas Investment Act 2005 to make it easier for build-to-rent housing to be developed in New Zealand.

24. Begin work to enable more houses to be built, by implementing the Going for Housing Growth policy and making the Medium Density Residential Standards optional for councils.

Right house, right place. denser housing is practical in some areas but not all.

Restore law and order

25. Abolish the previous government’s prisoner reduction target.

Fewer prisoners because of less crime would be applauded. The previous government’s policy led to more crime by by not imprisoning criminals who ought to have been kept out of the community.

26. Introduce legislation to ban gang patches, stop gang members gathering in public, and stop known gang offenders from communicating with one another.

27. Give police greater powers to search gang members for firearms and make gang membership an aggravating factor at sentencing.

28. Stop taxpayer funding for section 27 cultural reports.

29. Introduce legislation to extend eligibility to offence-based rehabilitation programmes to remand prisoners.

This is a crime prevention initiative, helping people to turn their lives around.

30. Begin work to crack down on serious youth offending.

31. Enable more virtual participation in court proceedings.

32. Begin to repeal and replace Part 6 of the Arms Act 1983 relating to clubs and ranges.

Deliver better public services

33. Stop all work on He Puapua.

34. Improve security for the health workforce in hospital emergency departments.

35. Sign an MoU with Waikato University to progress a third medical school.

36. By December 1, 2023, lodge a reservation against adopting amendments to WHO health regulations to allow the government to consider these against a “national interest test”.

37. Require primary and intermediate schools to teach an hour of reading, writing and maths per day starting in 2024.

38. Ban the use of cellphones in schools.

39. Appoint an Expert Group to redesign the English and maths curricula for primary school students.

40. Begin disestablishing Te Pukenga.

That’s the mega-polytech that cost multi millions of dollars and did nothing to help students or staff.

41. Begin work on delivering better public services and strengthening democracy.

42. Set five major targets for health system, including for wait times and cancer treatment.

43. Introduce legislation to disestablish the Māori Health Authority.

44. Take first steps to extend free breast cancer screening to those aged up to 74.

45. Repeal amendments to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990 and regulations.

46. Allow the sale of cold medication containing pseudoephedrine.

47. Begin work to repeal the Therapeutics Products Act 2023.

48. Establish a priority one category on the social housing waitlist to move families out of emergency housing into permanent homes more quickly.

49. Commission an independent review into Kāinga Ora’s financial situation, procurement, and asset management.

This list is a commitment to undo some of the damage of the last six years and to take action to improve public services and people’s lives.

Sit back and watch the hysteria from the left – which includes many in the media – as they set about crying the sky will fall.

Word of the day

Supererogation – the performance of more than is asked for; the action of doing more than duty requires; the act of performing more than is required by duty, obligation, or need.

Sowell says

Even in democratic nations, there are people who can impose their vision on other people, with no consequences for being wrong and no requirement that they prove themselves right.

— Thomas Sowell Wisdom (@TheThomasSowell) November 22, 2023

Did you see the one about . . ?

Where to from here? – David Cumin

The voice inside the progressive head  – Theodore Dalrymple

Trans: the new ideology of the ruling class – Brendan O’Neill

Threatening consequences – Chris Trotter

She/her/or else – Victoria Smith

The frontline of child protection is failing; missing statistics are just one symptom – Jane Searle

Mixed-gender hospital rooms are on the rise in New Zealand, but the practice is unsafe and unethical – Cindy Towns & Angela Ballantyne

New Zealand’s modern cultural cringe – Michael Bassett

From the river to the sea is a call for genocide – Daniel Ben-Ami

The memory-holed massacre – Fraser Myers

Health Minister values workforce

It’s taken six years, but we’ve got in Shane Reti a Health Minister who understands the problems the sector faces :

“Unfortunately, despite the goodwill of our sector having done the hardest and best work they could, we are fundamentally broken and, no doubt, this is a crisis,” he said.

Reti admitted progress to improve things in the health sector will be slow and will present hardships along the way, but he’s adamant he’ll be able to bring things to a better place.

Hosking asked Reti where he would start to repair the sector, to which the minister offered an immediate answer: “Our workforce”.

Labour wasted millions of dollars on restructuring the system at the expense of the workforce and with no measurable improvements to services or for patients.

“I can build buildings, I can do other things, but if you don’t have the healthy workforce to staff it then it doesn’t matter.”

Reti said the priority would be to dive deep into recruitment, maintaining workers and building a longer pipeline into health.

“We were so late to open the day one pathway to residency that there’s a potentially mobile group – they’ve gone to Canada, they’ve gone to Australia,” said Reti. 

Labour was far too slow to recognise the problem, open the borders to health professionals and allow them fast tracks to residency.

An immediately pressing issue is the countdown to Christmas and New Year, a season that typically brings drunken and disorderly behaviour that frontline health workers are forced to confront.

But Reti has made an early promise to his tenure. “People will not turn up boozed over Christmas and New Year and assault our staff, that is not going to happen,” he told Hosking.

The minister said he’d had briefings yesterday about improving security measures to protect staff potentially vulnerable to such assaults.

That assaults happen to staff anywhere is appalling. It’s worse still in hospitals where health workers and patients are vulnerable.

“That will send a signal to staff ‘we value you, we’ll look after you’ and it’ll signal to the public that ‘you will not turn up at public facilities, for staff looking to help you in your moment of need and assault them’. That will not happen.” . .

A Health Minister who understands and values the health workforce should not be news but it is because the people who deliver the much-needed services have been neglected by the previous government.

Dr Reti will be focusing on what matters – the workforce, what is needed to improve recruitment and retention and as a result of that better services for patients.

That is a very important first step in the long road to the sector’s recovery.

Word of the day

Grubstake – money or other assistance furnished at a time of need or  of starting an enterprise; an amount of money or other help that someone gives to a new business in return for part of its profits; an amount of material, provisions, or money supplied to an enterprise (originally a prospector for ore) in return for a share in the resulting profits;  provisions, gear, etc., furnished to a prospector on condition of participating in the profits of any discoveries; to provide with a grubstake.

Sowell says

Even in democratic nations, there are people who can impose their vision on other people, with no consequences for being wrong and no requirement that they prove themselves right.

— Thomas Sowell Wisdom (@TheThomasSowell) November 22, 2023

Rural roundup

Federated Farmers say new government will restore farmer confidence :

The new Government have set out a clear and credible plan to get farming back on track and restore farmer confidence, says Federated Farmers President Wayne Langford.

“The last six years have been incredibly challenging for farmers and rural communities with a lot of impractical and expensive regulation. Farmer confidence is at record lows,” Langford says.

In the lead up to the election Federated Farmers released a rural roadmap with 12 policy priorities for the next Government that return some positivity to farming and get things back on track.

“The politicians have clearly sat up and taken notice, because the new Government have comprehensively adopted those policy priorities as their own. . . 

Work visa wage requirements ‘untenable’ :

Federated Farmers and DairyNZ will ask the new Government to remove the requirement that Accredited Employer Work Visa holders be paid at least the median wage.

“That wage requirement is simply untenable for the mostly entry-level farm assistant migrant staff needed to plug dairy workforce gaps,” Federated Farmers dairy chair Richard McIntyre says.

The result is that farmers who can’t find New Zealanders to fill roles in a tight domestic labour market, and who are desperate to relieve pressure on already over-stretched existing staff, are forced to pay way over the odds for the entry-level migrant worker.

This undermines the financial viability of the business in a climate of high input costs and lower milk payouts, McIntyre says. . . 

Yeah mate I couldn’t spot you hiding there 😊 pic.twitter.com/L3UTlgXvyH

— Duncan Humm (@duncanyzf20) November 20, 2023

Honest Wolf wins top Rural Women NZ Business award:

Honest Wolf, a company producing wool-based luggage and accessories, has won the NZI Rural Women NZ Business Supreme Award.

It’s the first time the top award has been given to the winner of the Emerging Business category.

Hunterville-based Sophie and Sam Hurley started Honest Wolf in 2020 as a way to combat declining wool prices.

“This year we have seen the businesses that were created or were forced to pivot and evolve during the 2020 lockdown period really coming into their own now,” national president Gill Naylor said. . .

Industry focuses on improving fruit quality and strong performance in market leads to record forecast for Zespri growers :

Zespri has released its November forecast for the 2023/24 season, with Green, Organic Green and RubyRed per tray returns forecast at record levels, and Zespri SunGold varieties well up on last season.

Green is a particular standout, with the latest forecast Green per tray returns at a record level of $9.00. This compares to last season’s final Orchard Gate Return (OGR) of $5.78 per tray. For Zespri Organic Green, the forecast per tray is at $12.00, up from last season’s final OGR of $8.68.

For Zespri RubyRed, the OGR per tray is forecast at $26.10, above last season’s final OGR of $22.27. Forecast SunGold Kiwifruit returns are at $12.35, well above last season’s final OGR of $9.97, and forecast returns for Organic SunGold are also up at $14.15. The November forecast returns are up across all categories on the August forecast mainly due to improved fruit quality this season.

Zespri CEO Dan Mathieson says the results reflect the strong and growing demand for Zespri Kiwifruit, as well as the huge effort the industry has put into improving fruit quality this year. . . 

New Zealand’s avocado capital Katikati welcomes a unique orchard tourism business :

An innovative tourism business located in Katikati, the Avocado Capital of New Zealand, is breaking new ground by offering tours of a working avocado orchard, the first-of-its-kind in New Zealand.

Co-founded by Tim Rosamond and Michele Ricou, Avocado Tours offers visitors a unique opportunity to step into the world of avocados and discover the journey from tree to toast.

With avocado consumption on the rise and the increasing popularity of this delicious and nutritious fruit, Avocado Tours NZ aims to provide an informative and enjoyable experience for avocado enthusiasts and curious travellers alike. The guided tours offer a firsthand look at the workings of a fully operational avocado orchard.

“Our goal is to introduce visitors to the fascinating world of avocados and showcase the beauty and wonder of an avocado orchard,” says co-founder Tim. “We want to provide an educational and unforgettable experience that will leave our guests with a deeper appreciation for this incredible fruit.” . . 

 

Sheep and dogs. My young bloke contract musters and has an eye for good photos. pic.twitter.com/f1sYxes9O9

— Brian Leahy (@BrianLeahy11) November 21, 2023

Seaweed agribusiness innovative thinking only hope for environmental sustainability and food production challenges :

An historic agreement was signed today between a pioneering innovator in seaweed, and Crown Research Institute AgResearch.

AgResearch signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Paeroa-based AgriSea with the promise of benefit for the primary sector and prosperous agribusinesses and communities.

Guests included Coromandel MP Scott Simpson, who reflected on his own farming grandparents’ time when milking sheds were built next to streams for easy effluent disposal, and farmers “farmed with a matchbox”.

“That didn’t make them bad people or bad farmers, that was just the commonly accepted practice of the day,” Simpson said. “We’ve learnt a lot along the way, and some of the things we used to do, we wouldn’t dream of doing today. . . 

How ‘privileged’ am I?

An upbringing by parents who loved each other and their children; encouraged them to do their best; set boundaries and imposed consequences when they were breached; a stable marriage; a comfortable home; sufficient income for all needs and a few wants. . .  used to be thought of as normal.

Now it’s regarded as privilege.

So too are other factors, many governed by identity politics, as shown by the intersectionality calculator.

I scored 20 and was told that meant:

You are more privileged than 70% of others.
Please give more to those less fortunate.

How judgmental and condescending this is.

Those behind it have no way of knowing how much participants already give nor how much in need of help those who score higher on most of these scores are.

But that’s not surprising when you read the explanation:

What is an Intersectionality Score?
It’s an easy and effective way to measure the systematic oppression and discrimination faced by an individual due to their multiple identity factors. Having a high Intersectionality Score means being faced with more challenges to get ahead than someone who has a lower score.

How can they be used?
The scores has many practical uses. Primarily, it can be used to help those who are historically marginalized. In an office setting, you can easily identify those who may have unique, and most often overlooked or disregarded perspectives. You can give exclusive opportunties and promotions to people with high intersectionality scores so that they become more represented in positions of power. We also suggest every group meeting to begin with everyone sharing their intersectionality scores.

The most powerful use of Intersectionality is to identify oppressors and encourage them to share their privilege (and money) with the victims of their oppression. This would produce a more inclusive outcome and improve overall diversity. . . 

Intersectionality is a variation on identity politics and in this example is heavily laced by a very left wing agenda.

It’s best regarded as a diversion, not to be taken seriously.

Hat Tip: Tom Hunter

Worth the wait

It took three weeks from the declaration of the final vote count to the announcement of the coalition government.

This exercised some of the commentariat but it was worth the wait.

We’ve got the country’s first three party coalition and one with a very detailed agreement.

The commentariat are picking who did best and who bested whom.

I think all three  parties did well.

National, which got by far the most votes holds the most important portfolios. Act and NZ First got ones that suit them and all three got policies wins which show they have more in common than critics give them credit.

Those who voted for change have also won.

On election night, I said that we’d listened to the public and heard a description of a better New Zealand. New Zealanders want change that makes our lives easier. We want change that improves our opportunities. We want change that makes this great country even better. The Government is going to deliver that change and we are ready to get on with it.

We’ve got a government that is focussed on undoing the worst policies of the last six years, delivering policies that will address the omnishambles Labour has left behind and that will make the country, and people’s lives, better.

And we’ve got a Prime Minister in Christopher Luxon, who understands the responsibilities of government and is in parliament for the right reason :

“It is genuinely an awesome responsibility and so I think the ceremony is incredibly weighty that actually every minister understands the responsibility that they have.”

“As I said, it is a really special privilege to do public service, that’s why we genuinely leave what we’re doing and actually come to this place, to try and advance the lives of all Kiwis, and that’s what we’ve gotta do as a government.”

You can read the National – Act agreement here and the National NZ First one here.

Word of the day

Efface – erase a mark from a surface; to eliminate or make indistinct by or as if by wearing away a surface; to cause to vanish; to remove something intentionally;;  to wipe out; do away with; expunge; make oneself appear insignificant or inconspicuous; to behave in a modest way

Sowell says

Lenin was just the first of the great vision-driven dictators of the 20th century. Like Hitler and Mao after him, Lenin was prepared to sacrifice the lives of millions of human beings on the altar to his vision.

— Thomas Sowell Wisdom (@TheThomasSowell) November 22, 2023

Quotes of the week

The FMG Young Farmer of the Year rewarded me with so much more than a chainsaw.

So if you’re young enough, kind of a farmer, or just love beer and s*** yarns, sign up and see what you can learn.

One day in the future at a pub quiz you might have the winning answer to “What is the name of a baby mussel?” It’s spat.

Or – be able to assist in circulating blood around a body with compressions for seven or eight minutes and actually help someone else with living.

And, if you’re quick enough, your beer won’t even go flat. – Pete Fitz-Herbert

I’m as impatient as the next guy but can we cut Luxon some slack here? He’s dealing with Winston. He’s dealing with two parties, both deeply ambitious, principled and headstrong, and one of them has Winston at the helm.

That makes this entire negotiation of talks that he’s enduring.. all the more harder I reckon. I also don’t buy into the media’s timeline. This is not one of the longest negotiations on earth. Not by a long shot. And I don’t believe it started the day we counted votes either. That’s unfair to start the clock from there. – Kate Hawkesby

I just don’t trust Winston Peters when he says he’s working really hard and it’s constructive.. and he tries to look urgent about it. It feels like he’s just saying all that to put us off the scent .. to make us think it’s not him being the stick in the mud. It’s part of his chameleon character.. say one thing, do another, who knows.

I just know that when it comes to politics, David Seymour and Winston Peters are seasoned pros .. Seymour I believe would play with a straight bat, Peters not so much. But together they could really be forcing National to jump through some hoops. If that’s the case and the deal is shoddy then we can fairly criticize Luxon at that point, but this pasting he’s getting from the media now, just seems a bit premature. – Kate Hawkesby

All mainstream media ideally should strive to reflect the society they serve, but state-owned media especially. Stories that pander to the prejudices of the bullying metropolitan Left strike a jarring note now that the country has moved on.– Karl du Fresne 

In the 1990s, international agencies and legal experts finally began to see violence against women as a particular category of war crime. Organizations like UN Women exist to protect women from such crimes, while Israeli experts and activists have been involved in these international efforts. Thus, our second shock: The inconceivable and unforgiveable silence of these organizations when faced with the rape and murder of Israeli women.

It is not that condemnations of gender-based violence by Hamas have been weak or insufficient – there have been none at all. Statement after statement by organizations like UN Women, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) have failed to condemn these crimes. They failed us, and all women, at this critical moment. – Michal Herzog

Seriously, Fitch Group, I presume you’re not based in New Zealand.

I presume you haven’t been living here for a number of years because I don’t know about you, and I would really, really like to find out, but even without a government I feel the country is more stable and positive than when we had one that had been elected in a landslide. – Kerre Woodham 

I feel more positive than I have for many years. And I don’t know if that’s just because we don’t have to hear of yet more tales of ineptitude, that we don’t have to see money being squandered. The new government may well end up being inept and squander our money, as I say, they are as yet untested, but at least we don’t have to report on it on a daily basis, because that was grinding my gears.

Maybe it’s because we’re not talking about stuff ups and wanton wastefulness, having a break from talking politics, perhaps.

Maybe it is simply as banal as it changing from winter to spring and summer, but I certainly feel far more positive with no government than I did with one elected in a landslide.  – Kerre Woodham

Rather than punching above its weight, New Zealand has fallen into widespread mediocrity. It faces significant environmental challenges. The ‘friendly’ people part remains largely true, although New Zealand has many social issues. – Oliver Hartwich

The gulf between self-perception and reality makes New Zealand’s economic decline even more galling. New Zealanders like to think of themselves as free traders and innovators. However, they are only ranked 62^nd in international trade, 53^rd in international investment, and 53^rd in productivity and efficiency. – Oliver Hartwich

But perhaps the most significant chasm between Kiwi self-mythology and reality lies in the social sphere. Yes, New Zealanders are a friendly bunch, but they are no longer egalitarian.

As a nation, New Zealand is being pulled apart. One fault line runs between those who can still afford homes or have owned them for many years, and others for whom home ownership will always remain out of reach.

This is an entirely self-inflicted problem. Caused by restrictive planning laws that empower NIMBYism, made worse by lack of infrastructure funding, New Zealand has built too few homes for decades. This failure produced an entirely predictable housing shortage. Ours is one of the world’s most unaffordable housing market.

Even so, New Zealand’s failing education system is an even more pressing issue.

New Zealand once had a decent, even world-class, education system. It certainly does not today. In international rankings of student achievement, New Zealand has dropped dramatically. – Oliver Hartwich

Housing and education are two areas in which failed policies have created and exacerbated social divisions. Another is health, in which the state now provides some basic cover, but anyone who can buys private insurance on top. In each of these cases, only people on higher incomes can purchase better service whereas those cannot afford that are stuck with poor baseline offerings.

All of this belies New Zealand’s self-image as a relatively class-less society.

The new Government must reform New Zealand to catch up with its self-mythology. – Oliver Hartwich

With a bold reform agenda, the kiwi would grow wings. New Zealand can build an economy, society and environment that lives up to its lofty self-image.

Otherwise, New Zealand’s story about itself will be nothing more than an ancient myth. – Oliver Hartwich

Money for the unemployed doesn’t come from the government, it comes from the workers.

— Alice Smith (@TheAliceSmith) November 22, 2023

Each party had a specific manifesto that the voters voted for and as part of the due diligence each party has to as far as possible deliver on the promises made to their constituents.

This will be a negotiation of unpreceded proportions to ensure that each party delivers as far as possible on the promises they made to their voters but this common sense perspective has eluded the Mainstream Woke Media who make a living out of muckraking.

Let’s give these parties the time they need to deliver on the promises they made to their voters.

I think it may deliver a better NZ.

What your media guys are doing is not helpful and frankly shows a significant lack of intelligence and perhaps malevolence, perhaps a residue of the Labour Governments media funding.
– Ray Avery 

You have to commend, firstly, Chris Luxon. The media gave him a ridiculous serve over his mergers and acquisition claims. Even if you suggest, and I probably do, that he shouldn’t have spruiked his credentials 20 days shows, details pending, he delivered.

But that is the Luxon story so far isn’t it?

The media, who have been shockingly exposed these past six years over their bias, decided Luxon was a clown, couldn’t connect, didn’t know politics and was set for a fall.

Yet, look at the proof. He fixed National, won the election and stitched together a three party deal in less than three weeks.

You also have to commend David Seymour and Winston Peters. There were no leaks, plenty of professionalism and Seymour, as I have said, gets extra kudos for being pretty available to tell us, within constraint, what was going on.

The potential here is huge.

MMP has been ropey. Too many deals have not been delivered, too many people have fallen out and too many parties have been punished, even vanished, as part of deals.

This one might end up the same. But my gut says it’s got a better-than-even chance of actually being a hit. – Mike Hosking

The coolest person in the room now though is Nicola Willis, isn’t she? Not interested in the baubles, more interested in the business of governing, she says she never wanted to be deputy PM, Seymour and Peters can scrap it out between them, she’s back to home to Wellington to see her 4 young kids who’re missing their Mum. I mean she’s all class and so far, looks like the most mature of the lot of them. I think in her saying what she said, she clearly showed the others up for what they are and removed herself from the fray. Good on her.

She’s keen to get on with governing, showing she’s truly about the good of the country, not the good of her ego. – Kate Hawkesby

Ethnic Cleansing 101 pic.twitter.com/MfmgJrwads

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) November 22, 2023

“Right” Māori is left

The new government’s intention to get rid of references to the principles of the Waitangi Treaty in legislation and reverse the old government’s anti-democratic race-based policies has upset many on the left.

It has inevitably resulted in opponents calling these policies, and the people promoting them, racist.

In doing so they prove yet again that to them being Māori isn’t a matter of race, but politics.

To these people it’s not who you are but what you think and believe that makes you Māori.

To them the only “right”Māori are left.

They don’t see the irony that this is racist – judging people not as individuals but a group who think and act as one,

In complaining as they are they either overlook, or ignore, the racial make-up of the new cabinet.

There are 28 ministers, eight, or 29%, of whom are Māori. That’s more than twice the percent of Māori in the general population and the largest percentage of Māori ministers we’ve ever had.

Those statistics won’t placate the critics though because they are blinded by their ideology, their adherence to identity politics and their inability to understand that sharing immutable characteristics with others doesn’t mean you share their world view.

If a left wing government had such a high proportion of an Māori, it would be celebrated. Instead it’s being ignored and criticised as racist because these Māori don’t adhere to the left’s world view of how Māori should think.

These ones are to the right which their critics see as wrong.

Word of the day

Nonesuch – a person or thing regarded as excellent or perfect; a person or thing without equal; paragon; a small Eurasian medick which is widely grown as a constituent of grazing pasture.