NZ Politics Daily: 6 November 2024
GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Spinoff): Conflicts over conflicts: Why perception in politics matters
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): Costello's accusation has had 'chilling effect' on democracy, public servants say
RNZ: Costello advice: Heated debate sees tensions boil over in the House
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Prime Minister apologises after comment about Labour MP's public servant relative
Adam Pearse (Herald): Public Service Association union decries Casey Costello’s ‘unacceptable’ attack on Ministry of Health staffer
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): The Real problem with Mike King is that politicians enable him
Madeleine Chapman (Spinoff): ‘I didn’t get the HRC job’: Stephen Rainbow’s Human Rights Commission appointment just got weirder
No Right Turn: Stephen Rainbow is ACT's crony
Harriette Boucher and Anna Whyte (Post): What it was like from the inside when public service cuts took hold
Rob Campbell (Newsroom): Govts more prey than predator in public-private partnerships
Bernard Hickey (The Kākā): National risks being eaten alive by NZ First & ACT
Jem Traylen (BusinessDesk): Business of Government: Treaty at top of Roche's first week and more… (paywalled)
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Government will make agencies pay invoices faster after axing law change
BOOT CAMPS
Derek Cheng (Herald): Boot camps’ use of force: Christopher Luxon just dug himself an embarrassing hole (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Boot camps: Christopher Luxon claimed no conversation on use-of-force powers, despite Cabinet already agreeing to it
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Bootcamps: Minister defends proposing providers have use-of-force powers against kids, but can’t say who they could be
Anneke Smith (RNZ): Staff will use force in youth boot camps as 'a last resort', Prime Minister says
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Children’s minister clashes with Greens over ‘force’ at youth boot camps
Herald Editorial: Children’s Minister Karen Chhour needs to front on boot camp risks (paywalled)
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): Boot camps must not add to our abuse shame
No Right Turn: National's privatised child-abuse camps
TREATY PRINCPLES BILL
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Treaty Principles Bill to be introduced to Parliament this week
Te Aniwa Hurihanganui (1News): Treaty Principles Bill could be put before the House this Thursday
Julia Gabel & Claire Trevett (Herald): Treaty Principles Bill: David Seymour confirms plans to bring forward controversial bill
Emma Andrews and Giles Dexter (RNZ): Treaty Principles Bill: 'Paruwaru' politics doesn't stop hīkoi for kotahitanga
HEALTH
Ruth Hill (RNZ): Mental health crisis call-outs: Police agree to delay next phase after discussions with officials
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): The police pullback on mental health callouts, explained
Louisa Steyl (Stuff): Health NZ offers jargon not answers on conference travel cost
Matthew Littlewood (ODT): Mayor hopeful southern delegation will make impact
Michael Morrah (Herald): Auckland family doctors, GP clinics, to hike patient fees amid Government funding crisis
John Boynton (The Hui): Unconscious bias a factor in Gisborne ED death
Anna Sargent (RNZ): Number of Christchurch Hospital staff potentially exposed to toxic fumes jumps to 84
RNZ: Minor ailment service funding needed, Pharmaceutical Society president says
Alan Perrott (NZ Doctor): Pharmac axes in-house Māori voice (paywalled)
Peter de Graaf (RNZ): Northland's new mobile ENT clinic inspired by Māori Battalion
RNZ: Covid-19 update: 1248 new cases, 12 further deaths
Craig Kapitan (Herald): Court told of Brian Tamaki’s secret meeting with Police Commisioner Andrew Coster before Auckland Covid-19 protest
Catrin Owen (Stuff): Brian Tamaki defence team suggests political pressure to charge Destiny Church bishop
RNZ: Brian Tamaki's lawyer suggests police faced pressure to take action over Covid-19 breaches
ECONOMY, RBNZ FINANCIAL STABILITY REPORT
1News: Average household living costs up 3.8% in past year - Stats NZ
David Hargreaves (Interest): Household living cost increases slow - but are still higher than official inflation rate
Brianna McIlraith (Stuff): Household living costs increase 3.8%
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): Debt servicing to stay hard unless house prices come down - economist
Dan Brunskill (Interest): Banks expect mortgage defaults to rise even as economy recovers
Gyles Beckford (RNZ): More mortgage defaults likely with higher unemployment - RBNZ
Ella Somers (Interest): RBNZ warns high-risk properties could see more insurance premium increases
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): ‘Geopolitical’ risks emerging as banks’ worst nightmare
Rebecca Howard (BusinessDesk): US election one of many geopolitical tensions: RBNZ (paywalled)
Richard Harman (Politik): Living in risky times (paywalled)
Jonathan Mitchell (NBR): NZ economy resilient to manage shocks: RBNZ (paywalled)
Liam Dann (Herald): Inside Economics: How we know markets are picking a Trump win...and breaking down that Capital Gains Tax poll (paywalled)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT, THREE WATERS
Ella Somers (Interest): New Auditor General report says councils need to have clear strategies for tackling climate change
Charlie Mitchell (Press/Post): Councils need better reporting on climate progress - auditor-general
Matthew Martin (Waikato Times): An appetite for amalgamation - Have we been here before?
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau reveals potential budget cuts, Crown observer yet to be announced
Harriet Laughton (Post): Mayor Tory Whanau breaks the ice on potential Wellington City Council cuts
Julie Jacobson (Post): Fireworks likely as opposition to bridge demolition sparks up
David Farrar: Vision for Wellington
Emily Ireland (Local Democracy Reporting): Wairarapa’s $410m question
Tina Law (Press): The cathedral, Gloucester St, Arts Centre, the A&P Show: the local govt controversies of 2024
Grant Miller (ODT): Radich silent on why report not shared (paywalled)
Susan Botting (Local Democracy Reporting): Why this councillor wears a Mickey Mouse T-shirt to meetings
Natalie Akoorie (RNZ): Hamilton councillor won't face further consequences for expletive-laden rant
Sarah Morcom (Waikato Times): Choice words for councillors unlikely to get results - professor
Local Democracy Reporting):Tauranga council staff 'unfairly' targeted on social media
Matthew Rosenberg (Local Democracy Reporting): Southern council cars clocked speeding 1400 times
Michaela Gower (Hawkes Bay Today): Dannevirke Town Hall to host new Tararua District Council chambers; council says move will save ratepayers $91,000 a year
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, TRADE
1News: US election: Building relationships, rapport key – Luxon
David Capie (Asia NZ Foundation): What would a Trump or Harris win mean for the Indo-Pacific?
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Schadenfreude Is Not Enough
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Nato, NZ security threats linked – ambassadors
David Chaplin (BusinessDesk): The transtasman fund trade balancing act (paywalled)
PARLIAMENT
Brent Edwards (NBR): Labour’s fiscal plan likely to spend more on infrastructure (paywalled)
Richard Prebble (Herald): Is copying the UK Labour budget and taxing the rich our future? (paywalled)
Louis Collins (RNZ): The House: This week’s bills
Kelly Dennett (Post): Politics at noon: Chris Hipkins’ pick for the US presidency
TRANSPORT, INFRASTRUCTURE
Tom Hunt and Thomas Manch (Post): Two new tunnels earmarked for Wellington but will they deliver?
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Simeon Brown reveals estimated cost of Wellington’s scrapped mega tunnel, second Mt Victoria tunnel to be fast-tracked (paywalled)
Kate Green (RNZ): Two new tunnels: Simeon Brown reveals government's preferred plan to lower congestion
Grant Bradley (Herald): Air New Zealand fare row: Consumer watchdog pushes for market probe (paywalled)
David Long (Stuff): Auckland public transport fares to increase by 5.2% on average from February
BUILDING REGULATIONS, HOUSING
Cécile Meier (BusinessDesk): Penk ignores officials' advice on green building regulations
Sarosh Mulla (Newsroom): Random checks needed for self-cert buildings
RNZ: Building consents up but time needed for new builds to return, economist says
Laura Smith (Local Democracy Reporting): Rotorua emergency housing: Hearing to extend use of motels begins in Rotorua
Miriam Bell (Post): The rapidly approaching debt-to-income squeeze
EDUCATION
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Study finds phonics tests made little impact on reading achievement in UK
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Unions seek international inquiry into charter schools policy
Julie Jacobson (Post): Gaming the system adds to NZ’s ‘literacy freefall’: researcher
RNZ: Upskilling teachers a better approach to improve students' math ability
Kerre Woodham (Newstalk ZB): Education shouldn't be left up to chance
Ashleigh McCaull (RNZ): School lunch questions: 'None of those things have been made clear to us'
Brett Kerr-Laurie (Press): Getting In: Zone cheats and the zone police
Davina Zimmer (RNZ): The Detail: Why AI won't ruin children's education
BUSINESS, EMPLOYMENT
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): ‘Tweaks’ large and small likely outcome of health and safety review, says minister
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): How special are supermarket specials?
Maria Slade (BusinessDesk): BNZ seeks to bankrupt Homestead Bay investor (paywalled)
Mike McRoberts (NBR): People over profit: Māori businesses report low positivity (paywalled)
1News: Timaru jobs expo aims to help laid off workers into new jobs
1News: Enormous competition as students struggle to find summer jobs
RNZ: Tourism troubles: 'We are really worried about summer'
POLICE, LAW AND ORDER
Julia Gabel (Herald): Ōpōtiki Mongrel Mob raids: Police Minister denies claims children were left alone, Labour’s Peeni Henare says inquiry needed
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): Ōpōtiki raids: Iwi rejects minister's denial children were left without parents
Jo Moir (RNZ): Police minister denies claims children left on their own following police raids in Ōpōtiki
Anna Murray (1News): Stalking isn't a crime in NZ – but that's about to change
RNZ: 3D-printed gun ban on police's radar
IRD
Phil Pennington (RNZ): IRD to stop sharing taxpayers' details with social media platforms following backlash
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): IRD admits supplying Facebook with ‘raw’ data on 268,000 taxpayers
BANKS
Rob Stock (Post): ASB Auckland branch shuts briefly amid protest over Gaza war
Ryan Bridge (Herald): Credit card fraud and a cashless society: What happens when banking tech fails (paywalled)
OTHER
Lucy Xia (RNZ): Chinese workers still waiting for answers a year after investigation began
Alecia Rousseau (Manawatū Standard): Lake Alice patient hopes redress comes before more survivors die
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Ministry for Culture and Heritage concerns about Te Papa’s international visitor fees revealed (paywalled)
Ryan Anderson (Stuff):‘Grim exercise’: Conservation sector facing cutbacks as Jobs for Nature funding dries up
Shayne Currie (Herald): Media Insider: TVNZ’s big strategic changes and quest to find $30 million come down to this - staff emails by 11am Wednesday (paywalled)
Maddy Croad (Press): Woman’s four-year wait for earthquake repairs made ‘harder’ by Government changes
Alka Prasad (Post): US election pushes Americans to NZ; Active Investor Visa settings repel them, say lawyers
Esther Taunton (Stuff): Power bills set to rise again
Amy Williams (RNZ): No money for school lunch staples: 'We're completely out of funding'
Poppy Clark (Stuff): South Auckland foodbank won’t last until Christmas after freezer turned off, community leader says
RNZ: Mosque fire in New Lynn deliberately lit, police say
Ava Whitworth and Shilpy Arora (Stuff): Fire at Auckland mosque ‘deliberately lit’, police say
Bill Hickman (RNZ): Zero-risk policy part of 'widespread erosion' of access to recreational areas
Layla Bailey-McDowell (RNZ): Parihaka: Remembering a legacy of peaceful resistance
Matt Slaughter (Stuff): Full Disclosure podcast: Why Shaneel Lal’s fight for LGBT+ rights isn’t over
Mary Afemata(Local Democracy Reporting): ‘Cut them off’: Councillor calls for fireworks ban amid safety risks, distressed animals
RNZ: Melbourne Cup: Activists want to stop the race that stops two nations
The Democracy Project is hosted at Victoria University of Wellington, which helps with fundraising, to help keep the Substack newsletter service operating. If you can afford to donate, please do so via the University:
https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/engage/giving/donate/areas/democracy-project
First, they hijacked our politicians—left and right. Then, they dismantled our unions, silenced independent media, and slowly took control of the systems meant to protect us. And without anyone noticing: Australia’s top 100 companies, are now mostly foreign-owned, draining around $2.5 billion *from our economy every single week. This isn’t accidental—it’s the result of decades of manipulated political decisions imposed by both major parties. For over 40 years, while Australians have been kept in the dark, foreign interests have quietly rigged the system to serve their profits over our prosperity.
So, who really owns Australia's biggest companies? Get ready to be shocked. I certainly was; I suspected, but had no idea it was this serious.
A sample of Foreign Ownership of Major Australian Companies:
Mining & Resources:
BHP: 94% foreign-owned
Rio Tinto: 95%
Glencore: 100%
Fortescue: 53%
Newmont Australia: 100%
Anglo American Australia: 100%
Retail & Consumer Goods:
Woolworths: 88%
Coles: 56%
Banks & Financial Services:
Commonwealth Bank: 80% (sent $6 billion to foreign shareholders from 2023 profits)
National Australia Bank: 82%
Westpac: 84%
ANZ: 75%
The other 3 banks sent around $8b to American shareholders making a total $14 b or $270m per week sucked from Australian families.
Energy & Utilities:
Chevron Australia: 100%
ExxonMobil Australia: 100%
Wesfarmers: 78%
Newcrest: 80%
South32: 73%
Peabody Australia: 100%
Amcor: 84%
Mineral Resources: 50%
Whitehaven Coal: 88%
Northern Star Resources: 94%
Origin Energy: 59%
Ampol: 53%
Woodside: 82%
BP Australasia: 100%
Santos: 71%
Shell Energy Australia: 100%
Insurance:
Insurance Australia Group: 76%
Suncorp: 74%
Aviation & Telecom:
Qantas: 61%
Virgin Airlines: 100%
Telstra: 51%
*Australia’s top 100 companies, foreign-owned, are draining around $2.5 billion from our economy every week. GDP: Approximately AUD 37 billion per week. Foreigners own 80% of Australia’s largest companies.
From banks, mines, iron ore, oil, gas, gold, copper, lithium, nickel, telecommunications, tech, even hotel bookings—the list goes on. According to data from the Australian Taxation Office, The Australia Institute, and Bloomberg, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The estimated combined total profit for Australia's four major banks (CBA, Westpac, ANZ, and NAB) from 2000 to 2023 is approximately $457.34 billion. In 2023 these USA owned banks achieved a total net profit of approximately $31.83 billion for the year which is a weekly profit of $610.4 million.
With A$2.1 trillion in combined housing loans across Australia and New Zealand, these banks hold approximately 33% of all residential property within their markets which is why governments are encouraged by financial titans to open the migration floodgates to help push property prices up.
Wall Street giants like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street are major shareholders in nearly every significant Australian company. Through proxy voting, they hold direct control over companies impacting our cost of living. Food, energy, housing, insurance—prices keep rising while wages remain stagnant. Australian families are being squeezed, barely able to cover basic expenses.
Rents and home prices have skyrocketed over the past 25 years, making homeownership nearly impossible for many Australians. Banks keep raising interest rates under the guise of "fighting inflation," but it's Wall Street’s relentless profit demands that drive these inflation rates—a hidden tax on every Aussie household.
U.S. corporations dominate nearly every sector in Australia—banks, supermarkets, media, energy, and more. They use this control to inflate essential costs and squeeze Australian farmers, forcing many to sell to giant corporations monopolising the food chain. This isn’t by chance; it’s a business model crafted to profit foreign investors at the expense of everyday Australians. U.S. corporations leverage economic power to shape policies in Australia and New Zealand, often securing tax breaks and deregulation that local businesses can’t access. Lobbyists, including law firms with local ties, work behind the scenes to ensure a favourable regulatory environment for foreign corporations. This dynamic reinforces foreign control over key industries, stifles local businesses under red tape, and prioritises foreign interests over domestic economic sovereignty.
Our farmers are under attack. In America alone, globalists seeking control of the world's food supply have purchased and closed 580,000 farms, covering 160 million acres. Now, in Australia, they are employing the same tactics by owning everything farmers need to survive—the banks, the chemicals, the machinery, and most importantly, the governments. These governments have been systematically implementing globalist red tape designed to destroy farmers by any means necessary. This is economic warfare. Years ago, warships and armies were used; today, corporate imperialism uses cash.
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s power to create money grants U.S. banks and corporations unparalleled global economic influence. This enables them to amass vast wealth, particularly in resource-rich nations like Australia. Through control over critical sectors like mining, energy, agriculture, and finance, U.S. corporations dictate local prices and exert pressure on governments to enact policies favouring foreign profit over local interests.
After World War II, led by influential Wall Street lawyers like the Dulles brothers, the U.S. government committed to global financial domination, cloaked in the rhetoric of protecting democracy. By 1947, U.S. National Security policy was fundamentally shaped to secure Wall Street's monopoly on global resources. This policy gave U.S. financial elites the license to expand control over essential industries worldwide, imposing corporate interests on global economies under the guise of American security.
Three years after the Federal Reserve Act passed in 1913, even President Woodrow Wilson regretted what had been unleashed, stating, “We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled governments in the civilised world... no longer a government by the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
This dominance persists today, with financial giants like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street exerting influence across banks, supermarkets, media, energy, and transportation, forming monopolies that fuel inflation and maximise corporate profits. Since the 1940s, U.S. National Security agencies, along with the State Department, have worked to consolidate wealth not for the benefit of Americans, but to enrich a handful of corporations. These Wall Street titans now hold major stakes in banks, energy, and agricultural sectors, driving up prices while controlling information and public perception through media ownership.
Over a quarter of Australian families can’t afford essentials like school supplies. Yet our system prioritises corporate profits and foreign interests, while politicians and corporate media remain silent on these monopolies. Multinational corporations with dominant American ownership dodge taxes in Australia by shifting profits to low-tax havens like Singapore and Ireland, often through Delaware-registered companies. Politicians promise action but bow to U.S. pressure, allowing profit-shifting to persist, embedded in U.S. National Security policy since 1947.
In the past 40 years, unions were dismantled, and public broadcasters were weakened, cutting off voices that might call for change. Red tape keeps small businesses from thriving, while foreign giants monopolise our resources and drain wealth from our economy. This system is built to prioritise corporate profits over public welfare, and red tape is weaponized to stifle reform. Real change won’t come from within; it requires collective action. Politicians have avoided responsibility long enough, and we must demand new rules to ensure they serve the public, not themselves. History shows that unchecked power leads to corruption, oppression, and the decay of democracy.
As Lord Sumption and Lord Denning both warned, "Democracy is being hollowed out from within by the very institutions meant to protect it. The greatest threat is internal: the erosion of democratic values within the system. Without proper checks, those in authority may overreach, putting the very foundation of our democratic society at risk." If this continues, the fault will be ours.
Where's today's cartoons......