Bob Edlin: ACT’s pledge to lop road-tax spending on highway pou....

.....raises questions about the payoff – and the total expense

A report for The Detail yesterday raised questions about ACT’s pledge to remove motorway art from road project budgets.

It noted that advocates of the artworks say the effort to save us money will make us poorer.

The report tells us:

Bob Edlin: Tax claims and electioneering bullsh*t.......

.....The Post spotlights some campaign nonsense

National’s Catherine Wedd is among the many National MPs who are parroting a moot message about the taxes that will be imposed if voters elect a Labour-led government at the general election.

In Parliament last week, she insisted:

Bob Edlin: Local government academic chides Hastings council (hurrah!).....

....for its censorial hushing of code-of-conduct investigations

West Australia-based Dr Andy Asquith – it seems – has become the go-to expert on local government, when journalists check out the dubious goings-on of local authorities.

He has been referenced in media reports this week dealing with a byelection in Porirua, the Tauranga City Council’s regulatory conflict of interest, and the Hastings District Council’s egregious urge to hush its code-of-conduct investigations.

Bob Edlin: Professor to become a Tumuaki at NZ’s major science society....

....where the Treaty galvanises governance

The Royal Society of New Zealand seems to have been conflicted, when announcing its new president.

The headline on its press statement says: Next President of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

The first paragraph of the statement described her as the next “Tumuaki”.

Bob Edlin: Horowhenua – where the district council gives preferential treatment to iwi....

....on six properties it aims to sell

The Taxpayers’ Union is crying “foul” after yet another local authority has demonstrated it regards some citizens as more equal than others.

The authority in question is the Horowhenua District Council, which has voted to give iwi and hapū first right of refusal over six council-owned properties.

Bob Edlin: Child porn - Brierley went to jail and lost his knighthood.....

.....but former Maori fishing CEO gets to serve time at home

At first blush, it seemed the former chief executive of Te Ohu Kaimoana was treated leniently when he was spared jail after police found 136 files “of the worst kind of child exploitation material on his devices.

At second blush, that impression was not dispelled.

Graeme Hastilow was sentenced to 12 months’ home detention in July after pleading guilty to five charges of copying child exploitation material and five charges of possessing it.

Home detention? Really?

Bob Edlin: Asian school attendance rates cast doubts over links between the Treaty....

....“cultural safety” and Maori truancy

Newsroom brought Maori truancy into focus in a report headed Record school attendance masks persistent gap for Māori.

It was a narrow focus. No mention was made – for comparative purposes – of school attendance rates among other ethnic groups which might be culturally disadvantaged in the New Zealand school system – or who might feel culturally “unsafe”.

The report said:

Bob Edlin: Good health news for Hutt....

....but we didn’t see a picture of Simeon Brown among patients in the Wellington ED queue

It’s a great publicity shot, for two cabinet ministers keen to persuade voters that they should be re-elected at the General Election just a few weeks hence.

Health Minister Simeon Brown is shown wielding a pair of scissors to cut the ribbon at a new medical centre in Lower Hutt.

Bob Edlin: TOP is guided by developmental science on youthful criminality....

....but how is young adult voting behaviour affected?

Chris Lynch’s Christchurch Newsroom earlier this month reported that the Opportunity Party has scrubbed the age of 25 from a policy proposing a major expansion of New Zealand’s youth justice system.

Bob Edlin: Media and the matter of Maori tribal links....

....why are they mentioned in some reports but omitted in others?

A PoO reader has drawn attention to two articles published in The Post earlier this week.

One was headed Former Māori fisheries chief executive sentenced over child exploitation material

The other was headed The Wellington teen charting a course to the stars.

Bob Edlin: Luxon keeps hooting (to the point of tedium) about no new taxes...

....but he dropped the ball when asked about Treaty policy

If you haven’t got the message, the Nats are counting on remaining in government by pledging not to introduce new taxes while portraying left-leaning parties as ravenous revenue grabbers.

The Nats might have other policies. But in the past week their campaign pitch has emphasised what they oppose – more taxes – rather than what they support.

Bob Edlin: Game theory, conspiracies and the puzzle....

....of the way the media got a whiff of Penk’s plot

Sacked from the Luxon Cabinet for his role in the National caucus leadership challenge, the hapless Chris Penk – we are supposed to believe – was the sole plotter.

New Zealand first learned of this one-man conspiracy on August 12, after an emergency National Party caucus meeting and a secret confidence vote called by Prime Minister Christophe Luxon to address the speculation.

Bob Edlin: After ruling out new taxes, the Nats say voters’ choice is simple....

....but there’s support, too, for more spending on state services

Google threw the Facebook messaging of National MP Matt Doocey into considerations when PoO asked Google for a steer on political polls and public support for parties which have ruled out tax increases.

Doocey was crowing:

Bob Edlin: How Simeon Brown stonewalled Parliamentary questions about nurse numbers....

....and triumphed in not saying “54

The “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams was “42”. It was calculated by a supercomputer named Deep Thought over 7.5 million years.

The answer to a question in Parliament this week was “54”. But it looked like we might have to wait 7.5 million years before Health Minister Simeon Brown would let that number trip from his tongue.

The question was raised by Labour’s Ayesha Verrall, who asked Brown:

Bob Edlin: The Nats (like Labour) have ruled out a streaming tax....

....but they have put their message on repeat

Those of us who keep an ear to proceedings in Parliament should have been left in no doubt this week about National’s policy position on a streaming tax. They are agin it.

Fair to say, they comprehensively laboured the point: after three days of hearing the PM and Paul Goldsmith banging on at Question Time about ruling it out of the National agenda, those listening would have been yearning to hear what they will be doing to improve our well-being rather than what they will not be doing.

Bob Edlin: What Carl Bates says about expertise in tax policy....

....and (good grief!) the Finance Minister lacks those credentials

As one measure of the politicians’ preoccupation with tax policy in the runup to the general election, Hansard recorded the word “tax” 371 times in its record of proceedings in the House of Representatives yesterday.

But if we listen to Carl Bates, National MP for Whanganui, only some were qualified to discuss it.

Bob Edlin: Brownlee’s bet with Willie Jackson is intriguing....

......but who has a record of it?

What was it that Mr Speaker said during Question Time? That Labour’s Willie Jackson – correction, the Honourable Willie Jackson – had not settled a bet with him?

Bob Edlin: ACT wants to ban working-time karakia in the public service....

..... but MBIE shows why more prayers might be a blessing

The Taxpayers’ Union has drawn attention to the cost of daily prayers and sing-songs in just a few of the country’s many state agencies.

Fair to say, the union’s figure – around $3.5 million – is a small drop of the $180 billion or so spent by the government in 2024/25.

Bob Edlin: IRD apologises for the boors among its bureaucrats....

....but it does not explain discriminatory tax decisions

The Inland Revenue Department has ducked the key question about its dealings with an aggrieved taxpayer.

The Post reports the taxpayer’s plaint under the heading –

Bob Edlin: Mayor Brown enthuses about project to restore “mauri” to the Manukau Harbour.....

Mayor Brown enthuses about project to restore “mauri” to the Manukau Harbour – but how will he measure progress?

PoO was drawn to an article in The Post headed You can’t manage what you haven’t measured: the execution test for water reform starts now

Written by Jason Perera, APAC commercial director for Gentrack Group, the article discussed New Zealand’s water reforms as they cross from policy to practice.