Ani O'Brien: A Week Is A Long Time - 21 June 2025

New Zealand suspends aid to Cook Islands over China ties

The Government has paused $18.2 million in aid to the Cook Islands, citing concerns over a lack of transparency regarding its agreements with China. These deals, signed in February, include infrastructure and educational projects but do not involve security cooperation. New Zealand views the Cook Islands' failure to consult on these agreements as a breach of the free association compact.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand “will also not consider significant new funding until the Cook Islands Government takes concrete steps to repair the relationship and restore trust”.

The timing of this is awkward given the Prime Minister is currently in China.

China’s foreign ministry said that “New Zealand and the Cook Islands are both important partners for China, and co-operation between China and the Cook Islands is not targeted at any third party and should not be disturbed or restricted by any third party.”

The Cook Islands said nothing.

Changes to sick leave

The Government has signalled that they are looking to make changes to how sick leave works. It is another tricky legislative change for Minister Brooke van Velden which Labour will look to exploit to make it sound like punching down on workers, but it isn’t. Ardern’s government raised sick leave allowance to 10 days per annum from the 5 days it was previously. By not pro-rating the allowance however, the law created a scenario where a part time worker could effectively take 20% of their work days as sick leave. The pro-rata change Luxon has discussed is to have sick leave allowances be between 5 and 10 days depending on how much you work. A proportional system.

Here is a video of two politicians discussing the matter. Let me know who you find more convincing.

Disposable vapes up in smoke

The government’s ban on disposable vapes came into force on Tuesday. Minister Casey Costello says the move was primarily to reduce vaping rates in young people. She called the law changes “practical changes to reduce the appeal of vaping to young people and to target retailers who sell vapes and tobacco products to our youth.” Penalties for breaching the ban are up to $400,000 for a manufacturer, importer or large retailer, and $50,000 for any other person.

“Visibility restrictions also take effect today, which will change the way specialist vape stores look and mean that retailers like dairies, supermarkets and petrol stations need to have vape products out of sight,” Minister Costello says.

Phase 2 of the Covid Royal Commission of Inquiry

As the Royal Commission moves into its second phase and turns its attention to some of the meatier issues like vaccines, there have been some key personnel changes. Economist Andrew Sweet is the new executive director and fellow economists Philip Stevens and Dave Heatley are the head of research and chief researcher respectively. All three previously worked together at the Productivity Commission.

As Kate MacNamara reported for the NZ Herald this week:

“The second phase of inquiry marks a political compromise. The original inquiry was established by the Labour Government in late 2022 and was headed by University of Melbourne professor and epidemiologist Tony Blakely, who is a friend of the former Government’s key health and pandemic adviser Ashley Bloomfield, and at times during the pandemic provided advice to Bloomfield and other Government advisers.”

Many held concerns about the appointment of Tony Blakely because of his connections and inarguable conflicts of interest. Both Act and NZ First negotiated for changes to the Royal Commission in their coalition agreements and this phase two is the manifestation of that.

Labour MPs can’t stop swearing at David Seymour

This week was scrutiny week which means even though it wasn’t a sitting week, a lot of MPs were in Parliament and taking the opportunity to grill ministers and senior bureaucrats in select committees. But instead of pressure piling on Government ministers, it seems Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour had no trouble winding up some of the Labour MPs.

First, Deborah Russell was overheard remarking “for f**ksake” to a colleague as Seymour spoke. This was pointed out by National MP Ryan Hamilton who called it a “rather unparliamentary outburst”. Although committee chair Cameron Brewer (also a National MP) tried to move things along, Seymour insisted that Deborah Russell tell everyone what she said.

"I believe I said for f... sakes in response to something you've said," she admitted, prompting a chuckle from the unflappable Act leader. She then apologised and it wouldn’t be the last apology Seymour would receive from a Labour MP in that session. Duncan Webb was up next after accusing Seymour of "making sh*t up".

Minister of Missing-In-Action Matt Doocey does something

It is difficult to fathom how Matt Doocey has managed to achieve so little in his mental health portfolio given he has had virtually every other responsibility taken off him, but somehow he has managed it. This week, however, his public servants were able to make him look like he’d been busy by giving him the Suicide Prevention Action Plan to announce. It sets out a five-year whole-of-government approach to preventing suicide in New Zealand.

The minister noted some key actions in the plan including establishing a new suicide prevention community fund to “provide targeted support that is focused on populations experiencing higher rates of suicidal distress.” He also addressed the need to grow the mental health workforce, expand training, and better equip communities and families.

One novel concept is the six crisis recovery cafes the minister says will be open by the end of next June. “We want people to receive care in the community instead of resorting to an emergency department,” he said of the cafes.

Here’s hoping we see some improvement in the coming year or get a new minister. Or both.

Reality check for Radio New Zealand

Our national broadcaster is being confronted with the real world consequences of deciding that most of the population are morons or bigots and opting to provide news media that only appeals to a narrow slither of the most insufferable portion of the population.

First they received less funding from the Government at the recent Budget. About $18 million less over the next four years to be more precise. Now, for the first time in their history, RNZ is calling for voluntary redundancies.

When the funding cut was announced, Minister Paul Goldsmith told RNZ that “This savings initiative recognises that government-funded media must deliver the same efficiency and value for money as the rest of the public sector,” and that he expects “RNZ to improve audience reach, trust and transparency.”

If the once great institution is to return to former well-trusted glory, it will need to accept that appealing to middle New Zealand is not a sign of failure. Public media must have mass appeal and do the basics well.

The Wellington NIMBYs tried to protect a condemned brutalist monstrosity

Last week I shared with you the tale of the attempt to protect an Auckland gravel pit with heritage status and this week Housing Minister Chris Bishop had to swoop in and remove heritage status from possibly the ugliest building in New Zealand that no one can even live in.

The Gordon Wilson Flats are a derelict housing block, that Heritage NZ says is “part of Wellington’s social and architectural landscape”. Sure, if you think a large utilitarian (without the utility) boil on the @r$e of The Terrace, that has been deemed unsafe to live in since 2012, is something you want to keep as part of the landscape.

Now that Minister Chris Bishop has taken action, Victoria University (who own the building) will finally be able to develop the site into a large student accommodation bloc.

Tory Whanau is a bad mayor

Having accidentally won the Wellington Mayoralty (that is the story anyway), Whanau found herself in the terrible position of having to do the job. Unfortunately, this came with a level of scrutiny and public interest that fun-loving party-girl Tory hadn’t experienced before. It turns out that getting wasted, running out on a restaurant bill, and pulling the “don’t you know who I am” routine, grabs a few headlines. Subsequent drunk behaviour attracts more headlines. And, of course, the never-reported, but widely-discussed, alleged naughty behaviour that came after the copious consumption of alcohol, only added to a picture of an out of control and inappropriate mayor.

If she had been kicking goals at work her tendency for an extra-curricular faux-pas or three might have been excused, but from Reading Cinema to the airport deal, Whanau was struggling.

Giving her mayoralty term 9/10, she seems to think that anyone would want a mayor who has achieved virtually nothing, suffered from a very public alcohol problem, and who publicly discusses in detail the various mental health disorders she has been diagnosed with and how they prevent her from doing her job satisfactorily. Certainly people with mental illnesses can do very good work in very high-pressured jobs, but Whanau couldn’t even attend meetings in the mornings.

No one plays the victim card quite like Tory Whanau and this week the Herald told us that she says “one of the reasons she decided not to run for the top job again is the “horrific abuse” she’s faced in the role.”

“For years I’ve seen women like Metiria Turei, Jacinda Ardern, Tamatha Paul, Kiritapu Allen and Golriz Ghahraman be treated horrifically by the media and online trolls,” Whanau says. Welfare fraud, divisive Prime Minister, advocate for abolishing police and prisons, Justice Minister who was arrested after crashing a Crown car while drunk and refusing to go with police, and a chronic shoplifter. Hmmm.

“Many women across Wellington have expressed their horror and disappointment at the way I have been portrayed in the media and online,” she says.

Even more have expressed horror and disappointment at Tory Whanau’s unwillingness to be accountable for her actions and her utter catastrophe of a mayoral term.

A wahine Māori mayor who hasn’t been the architect of her own demise

Tania Tapsell shares many of the same demographic markers as Tory Whanau but has not had the same troubles. It might be because she appears to be a sensible, level-headed young woman who has done a good job as Mayor of Rotorua.

Anyway, this week she went toe-to-toe with Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi whose Māori seat includes the Rotorua area. Waititi accused Mayor Tapsell of “callous attacks” on “vulnerable whānau” after her council, and police, visited a makeshift homeless camp on Amohia Street to hand out trespass notices to rough sleepers.

The Rotorua Daily Post reports that Waititi described it as “state-sanctioned cruelty”. But Tapsell wasn’t having a bar of it, responding to Waititi on his Facebook page:

“If you bothered to be present in Rotorua, which you barely are, you’d know these people have been intimidating and threatening others, s***ting, taking and selling drugs, and having sexual intercourse all in the public’s view and causing significant distress to the innocent families (including very young tamariki), workers and tourists walking by.”

ICYMI: A Kiwiblog graph

David Farrar shared this graph on Kiwiblog this week, reminding everyone that the wailing and dramatics from Fleur Fitzsimons and the PSA over public service job losses are manufactured.

Click to view

Head over to his post to see his full commentary. The reality is “the size of the public service in March 2025 is the same as June 2023, three months before the election.”

In short - other stuff that happened:

• Three Strikes came back into force. Now to watch our judiciary pull the teeth out of the legislation like a dentist in the 1970s.

• Economic recovery accelerates: the economy grew by 0.8% in Q1 2025, surpassing expectations.

• Lost baggage? Authorities intercepted approx 25kgs of methamphetamine in an unclaimed bag that arrived at Auckland International Airport on a flight from San Francisco.

• The most lucrative New World supermarket in Victoria Park went up in smoke when renovations created a large fire.

• Some are questioning if we are headed into World War III as Israel and Iran continue to trade blows and Trump keeps us all guessing as to whether he will bring in the big guns.

• Simon Watts appears to not know what he is doing, ever. Seems to have been set to introduce a Fringe Benefit Tax that would be very expensive for tradies and farmers, but late on Thursday night the National Party sent out an email saying “not happening!”

Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.