William McGimpsey: Lessons from Fiji

I recently returned from a family holiday in Fiji, where I took the opportunity to learn a bit more about that county’s fraught history of mass migration, ethnic conflict, military coups, and demographic shifts.

Fiji’s experience serves as both a warning to countries like New Zealand about the consequences of mass migration and ethnic replacement, and a learning opportunity about the types of reforms that can reverse it.

Kate Hawkesby: When did we just accept every social and mental health issue is fine to pour all over our streets?

I see one of the favourite holiday playgrounds for many Kiwi families, has been hit with a travel advisory over violence.

‘Fiji police to increase presence after reports of violent attacks on tourists’ read the headline.

These attacks apparently include assaults, robberies and sexual assaults, mainly in Suva’s downtown nightspots.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 2/8/23

Govt will be cutting education costs to find $680m after doing its sums on a pay deal for teachers

The Minister of Education has answered our question: how is the government spending (or misspending) our money?

It will be spent on giving secondary school teachers more money in their pay packets – and this will cost heaps.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 14/6/23

Statements gush from the Beehive but there’s a dearth of figures for taxpayers who might want to check the costings

A gush of press statements has poured from the Beehive in the past 24 hours.

Ministers, plainly, have been busy. But they were sparing with their information when it came to telling us how much is being spent on the initiatives and what-have-you they were announcing.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 12/6/23

Kiwi who has has blended law with wine industry expertise is backed by govt to win election as new head of the OIV

Trade and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor didn’t mention the weight of support for Auckland lawyer John Barker, when he welcomed the election of Barker as Director General of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV).

Point of Order: 2002 civil defence law had no Treaty clause....

.....but Labour will provide one, along with some guaranteed jobs for Māori

The weight being given to “Treaty of Waitangi” provisions in legislation drafted by the Labour government can be measured by a quick reading of the Emergency Management Bill.

The bill has a Treaty clause. The legislation which it will replace – the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 – made no mention of the Treaty.

The Treaty clause in the Emergency Management Bill “sets out ways in which the Bill recognises and respects the Crown’s responsibility to give effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi”.

Point of Order: We are told (but not officially) that airport shares have landed Michael Wood in a bit of bother

At least one headline-grabbing ministerial announcement had not been posted on the government’s official website, when Point of Order checked early this afternoon.

We learned from other sources

• that Michael Wood has been stood down as Transport Minister over over failing to properly disclose shares owned in Auckland Airport; and
• Rino Tirikatene, Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth, is travelling to Singapore today on a mission (unabashedly discriminatory) to “promote business investment for wāhine entrepreneurs, and explore investment opportunities for Māori land-based aquaculture”.

Point of Order: More policies are stopped or slowed to help save $1bn for bread-and-butter spending.....

...but RMA “reforms” escape the cull

It was a big day for the stopping or slowing of a second tranche of government programmes, an exercise which Beehive publicists are pitching as measures to allow the Government to focus more time, energy and resources on “the bread and butter issues” facing New Zealanders.

This affirms, of course, that since the 2020 general election, the bread- and-butter issues facing New Zealanders had been lowered (or forgotten?) in the Government’s priorities.

Hence the Government’s popularity had wilted, its poll support had shrunk and Jacinda Ardern – remember her ? – had bailed out as Prime Minister when it looked like the Nats and ACT were on course to win the election this year.

Point of Order: Mahuta is back in the swim....

......with a Bill to spare us from sinking in water-supply costs

The government hadn’t done with legislating and regulating our water-supply systems, when we last reported on the flow of announcements from the Beehive.

Nanaia Mahuta (in tandem with Commerce and Communications Minister David Clark) had one more press statement to issue –

Nils-Axel Mörner: Fiji ‘Flooding’ is Fake News

Open Letter to Honorable Prime Minister of Fiji and President of COP23 Frank Bainimarama:

   - Field evidence in the Fiji islands indicate no rise in sea level   
   - Fiji corals indicate full sea level stability since 1950

Karl du Fresne: Accepting the intolerable

There has been a fascinating response to my Dominion Post column last week (reproduced below) about the Bainimarama regime in Fiji.

To recap briefly: I described Commodore Bainimarama as the Pacific’s only military dictator and said his regime had many of the hallmarks of the despot, including such appealing characteristics as nepotism and suppression of dissent. I also said that Bainimarama had been promising elections since 2007 but no one was holding their breath.