I was concerned when the story broke last month about inappropriate subediting by RNZ staff of ‘wirecopy’ from international sources such as Reuters. The wire-tampering story broke with particular reference to stories about the war in Ukraine; and, at least for that story, it needs to be understood that Aotearoa New Zealand is an aligned party to that military conflict, so certain sensitivities will apply.

I was then concerned when RNZ chief executive Paul Thomson called the RNZ subedits “pro-Kremlin garbage”. For background see Mediawatch: Further fallout as RNZ takes out the ‘Kremlin garbage’, Evening Report, 18 June 2023. For a senior professional communicator, the RNZ CE set a particularly bad example.

Subsequently, RNZ has undertaken an audit of stories published on its website, so its possible to check out the bias of the sub-edits. It turns out that there is a clear anti-Washington rather than pro-Kremlin sub-editorial line. A number of the stories brought to light – and corrected – relate to Latin America; in addition to stories featuring Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Israel and Ireland. (I have heard it said that the sub-editor in question is not only pro-Kremlin, but also has a disposition towards anti-democratic regimes. I cannot agree; I would assess the sub-editor in question to be an old-fashioned democratic left-winger who, in Cold War times, might once have had some pro-Soviet sympathies.)

Before looking at specific themes of the sub-edits, I present the following quote (8’20”) from Mediawatch, RNZ’s Russiagate, 14 June 2023.

The programme features Hayden Donnell talking to RNZ’s Anna Thomas about the purpose of subediting a “pre-subbed” wired story from an international news agency: “It’s already gone through a pretty robust process at Reuters or AP or wherever you’re sourcing it from. Most of the time it’ll just require an editor formatting it to in-house style, maybe removing some Americanisms, cutting it to length, and plonking it on the website.”

And then: “What can [ie should] you edit with wirecopy? Even if you agree with this person’s edit, the heart of the issue is that you cannot take copy and make substantive changes to its meaning. But you can add context, you can delete sections for length, you can insert relevant local information or quotes. If you cannot make any changes at all, that’s untenable.” [I have sub-edited bits of this second quotation to shorten it, to remove repetition, and to make it more like written rather than spoken language.]

The problem is that even very small additions, deletions and substitutions can subtly alter the meaning of a text. That’s of course a problem here, and it is clear that there has been an intent to steer the meaning in an anti-Washington direction. By way of contrast, disinterested subediting will be like a ‘random walk’ [a statistical concept] meaning that, on average, altered meanings are unbiased. Subeditors who are close to an issue may display unconscious bias, whereas outsourced subeditors (including robotic subeditors) who are distant from the issues in a text may be unbiased but ‘noisy’; such subeditors will on average make more mistakes, and will struggle to appreciate nuance in a text.

While the problem subeditor in question was clearly inserting an anti-Washington bias, his defence may well have been that he [other media stories refer to ‘he’] was correcting a pro-Washington bias in the material he was working on. Certainly, in any Goodies versus Baddies narrative – inherent in war stories – academic or journalist disinterest is largely absent from most stories; these are narrational contexts where a person who is not overtly on one side is too easily characterised as being on the other side. As the question goes: ‘Which side are you on?‘.

Editorial biases are commonly worse than sub-editorial tampering. These in particular involve the decision whether or not to run a story. While these are often dictated by the fast-moving news cycle – meaning that stories about Covid19, for example, were biased towards the beginning of that pandemic, and created an ‘exceptionalism’ towards that disease at the expense of contextual discussion and other health risks – they also reflect self-censorship (partly but not only because of the fear of the wrath of authorities or other power-brokers).

Another form of bias arises in the need to create headlines which will draw readers to a story; a bias compounded by the fact today that most stories have ‘click-bait’ headlines (hyperlinks) which are even more sensational and less qualified than the actual headlines to the stories.

‘Loaded’ Language

Consider this story: Organization of American States head ‘one of worst in history’ – Ebrard. The changes made and then unmade are listed at the end of the story.  With respect to former Bolivian president Evo Morales, the mischievous subeditor replaced “resigned under pressure” with “resigned and fled under threat”. Both versions are essentially true, though the original (and restored) version may have understated the danger Morales faced; or perhaps the modified version overstated the danger.

We also see, in that story, the clause “a presidential vote that the OAS said was rigged” was changed (and unchanged) to “a presidential vote that the OAS claimed was rigged”. This leads to the issue of the degree to which some synonyms are more ‘loaded’ or ‘accusative’ than others. (Note here that if the original story had used the word ‘claimed’, there would have been no issue; the question is the motive of the subeditor in making the change.)

Aside

A common sort of story takes the form ‘A abuses B’, where ‘to abuse’ means any action that is in some sense ‘bad’. Consider this story, about the November 1975 regime change in Australia (commonly known there as ‘The Dismissal’). The allegation is of Washington involvement in precipitating this particular political crisis.

This is an A abuses B story, where (in this case) ‘A’ is the American CIA, ‘abuses’ means ‘dismisses’, and ‘B’ means ‘the elected government of Australia’. The story at its most disinterested level is [passive voice] that ‘The Government was dismissed’. In the active voice, the most neutral version is that ‘sources said that the Dismissal was instigated by the CIA’. The next level would be ‘sources claimed that the Dismissal was instigated by the CIA’. Up another notch would be ‘The CIA allegedly instigated the Dismissal’, or [passive voice] ‘The CIA was accused of instigating the Dismissal’. Finally, the most overt form is the unqualified ‘The CIA instigated the Dismissal’.

In the various stories we read and hear, many which are in the ‘A abuses B’ form, we will encounter the full linguistic range from neutral (‘something bad happened’) to the presentation of an accusation as a fact. Actually, the way a story is narrated is ‘rhetoric’; and neutral rhetoric can be a way to intentionally downplay something, just as accusative rhetoric upplays that same story.

Back to the Main Narrative

We see this in this RNZ story, Two activists involved in land dispute killed in Brazil: police, in which the restored headline is in the passive voice and the word ‘said’ is only implied. The inappropriately sub-edited version is in the active voice with the abused named without ‘alleged’ as a qualification: ‘Death squad shoots dead two Brazilian land activists’.

This story Chile passes bill to boost taxes on rich, spur investment, small business shows that the subversive  RNZ sub-editor is coming from a somewhat conventional left-wing perspective, and not from an autocratic ‘far-right’ Russian perspective. People who are anti-inequality don’t usually regard Russia these days as an exemplar country.

This story for a while contained an inserted and unqualified allegation of a “2014 US-based coup”:Serbia accuses Ukraine and unnamed EU country of Air Serbia bomb hoaxes. It’s an example that shows the anti-Washington stance of the sub-editor. Indeed, articles like these are not the correct place to debate the extent of United States’ involvement (or otherwise) in the regime-change event in Ukraine in February 2014.

In this story we see the explicit anti-Washington subeditorial stance with respect to China over Taiwan, and also the more neutral word ‘says’ preferred by the subeditor over the word ‘worries’ with respect to Japan: South Korea’s president seeks closer Tokyo ties after latest North Korea missile launch. Yet this story’s subediting uses the rhetorical word ‘blunders’ with respect to China, not exactly an endorsement of Beijing.

Finally

I would regard Paul Thomson’s use of the rhetorical word ‘garbage’ to be more problematic than the sub-editors’ word ‘blunders’. Garbage is ‘waste’, not ‘lies’. Waste is a reality of life that should be regarded as normatively neutral, not wicked. In ecology and sustainable economics, waste is indeed a ‘good’, not a ‘bad’; an input as well as an output. It is not professional to oppose bad rhetoric with worse rhetoric.

And, I wonder if the mischievous subeditor has a point in interpreting much of the copy that came his way as having its own bias. If the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT was trained only on copy acceptable to today’s western authorities and power-brokers, would the bot’s outputs really be any more truthful than the ‘pro-Kremlin garbage’ that a frustrated socialist RNZ minion was (for a brief while) turning out?

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Michael Wood has become a victim of his own complacency about conflicts of interest. He simply didn’t take integrity rules meant to protect the New Zealand political system from corruption seriously. And that’s rightly led to his downfall.

Wood’s complacency about corruption-prevention is hardly unique. The whole country has generally been far too relaxed about conflicts of interests in politics and public life.

And why wouldn’t we be? After all, we are told consistently that New Zealand is the least corrupt country on earth. Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index always ranks us at or near #1.

Complacency about corruption

The problem is we’ve become conditioned to believe the hype, and not to trouble ourselves with the idea that conflicts of interest occur in our politics. The upshot is that New Zealand simply doesn’t have much in the way of significant safeguards against political corruption.

And where any safeguards do exist, they are generally only followed as a box-ticking exercise, rather than with real rigour. Overall, we simply have a political culture of not thinking too much about integrity and corruption. We smugly regard these issues as being problems found in other countries, not ours.

There is also sometimes a tribal and arrogant orientation in New Zealand party politics that views corruption and dodgy deals as something that “the other side do”. Labour thinks National is corrupt and unethical, and vice versa. The fact that politicians appear to have an unwavering trust in themselves and their own side, means that they think the rules about corruption are actually there for their opponents rather than their own team.

In this regard, it’s not really surprising that Wood didn’t seem to think that the conflict of interest procedures in Parliament or Cabinet really mattered that much. And, in fact, for a long time he managed to get away with not abiding by the rules. It should be alarming that he was so easily able to fob off any questions about his conflicts of interest from annoying officials. But, of course, politicians have surely been doing this forever in New Zealand.

Politicians out of touch with growing concerns about corruption

Traditionally New Zealand hasn’t had political scandals about corruption and ethics. My own research shows that the word “corruption” was hardly used in the New Zealand media until recent years. However, there does seem to be a quickly escalating public concern about political corruption, conflicts of interest, and about the integrity of our politicians and political system.

Partly this is a result of the large number of integrity-based scandals occurring in New Zealand politics across all political parties and governments. This has fuelled a greater sensitivity about any wrongdoing of New Zealand’s political class. And journalists are now starting to look more deeply into the financial affairs of politicians and officials.

Unfortunately for Wood, he simply wasn’t up with the new sensitivities. Like many politicians, he appeared to think he was beyond reproach. And he would still be a minister today if it hadn’t been for a Herald journalist digging into this area when the Auckland Council was looking to sell shares in Auckland Airport.

Similarly, Meng Foon, was forced to resign this week from the Human Rights Commission because of his undisclosed conflicts of interest. He was only caught out because earlier in the year a journalist started to investigate who had provided donations to Cabinet ministers. When Foon was found to have donated to Kiri Allen, now the Justice Minister, an investigation was carried out by the Human Rights Commission, which found that he also hadn’t adequately disclosed his conflicts of interest with emergency housing. As with Wood, Foon seemed to be complacent about the requirements. And Foon’s employer, the Human Rights Commission, didn’t seem to even have processes equivalent to the Cabinet Office for ensuring compliance.

The key point is that throughout the political Establishment there is complacency about enduring integrity is maintained. But this laxness is now up against a heightened public and media concern about untrustworthy authorities, corruption and integrity. And it’s not just individuals who are under scrutiny – the systems supposed to safeguard the integrity of political and public life haven’t yet caught up with this new public mood against complacency.

Explaining Michael Wood’s conflicts of interest

Michael Wood was initially stood down from his Minister of Transport position when it became clear he had not managed his ownership of shares in Auckland Airport. But he was finally removed entirely from Cabinet yesterday when the Prime Minister became aware that he also owned shares in numerous other companies in which he might have a conflict of interest.

It turns out that Wood has been using two family trusts for the management of his shareholdings and assets – the Michael Wood Family Trust and the JM Fairey Family Trust (alongside his wife, Auckland Councillor Julie Fairey).

The use of such trusts is a complicated business, allowing great benefits for politicians, and it was the management of these trusts that has created headaches for Wood. For example, it’s possible that his problem with divesting of his Auckland Airport shares became complicated because he owned these outside of the trusts and wanted to shift these into the trusts as a way of divesting them without having to sell them.

This could have held up the process considerably, especially because it would have required that the Minister would also need to be removed as a legal trustee of any such trust. This might explain why the process of sorting out the Auckland Airport shares was so complicated for Wood. This more complicated pathway to managing his conflicts of interest turned out to be something that got put into the “too hard basket”.

Wood’s family trusts also held shareholdings in numerous companies that Wood was regulating and making political decisions about. He owned shares in telecommunications companies Chorus and Spark, and as Immigration Minister had given these companies a significant help in allowing special immigration concessions for telecommunications technicians.

Similarly, Wood owns shares in the company that owns the Bank of New Zealand, and Wood was closely involved in setting up a Commerce Commission investigation into the banking industry – one that critics say has been designed to be too soft on the banks.

Given that the public now knows that Wood had a financial interest in many companies he was making decisions about, there might now be grounds for competitors to demand judicial reviews on the decisions that Wood has been involved in. The public therefore now needs to know the details of all the shareholdings in those trusts – at this stage only the banking and telecommunications shares have been divulged.

Good moves by the PM to tighten Cabinet rules

The Prime Minister has announced new processes for managing the potential conflicts of interests of ministers. He’s to be congratulated in modernising and tightening up the previously complacent rules. All five steps that Chris Hipkins has implemented are good ones.

But he has hesitated to implement the sixth proposal, instead opening up for consultation the idea that ministers should not be allowed to own shares in companies at all, unless they are in a blind trust or managed fund like Kiwisaver. This is also a sensible proposal, and will hopefully be quickly agreed upon and implemented.

Newsroom reports today that if it was implemented, nine current ministers would be forced to divest their shares in companies, and of the seven who were contacted, “none committed to divesting them”. In contrast, “Three senior National MPs – Chris Bishop, Simeon Brown and Judith Collins – immediately told Newsroom they would divest their shares if elected to Government, regardless of whether the rules are changed.” The Act Party dissented, with leader David Seymour saying “We don’t want it to be a priesthood where you have to enter unclothed and penniless. That you live in a monastery for time you’re a minister.”

But all of the new, tighter rules will only apply to ministers. Yesterday, Hipkins had nothing to say about the rules for Parliament, the public service, and for Crown agencies. These also desperately need tightening up. After all, Wood’s transgressions also apply to Parliament. And Meng Foon’s case has highlighted the lax rules, or at least the policing of them, in government agencies.

The End of secrecy

In general, there needs to be a lot more transparency regarding the potential conflicts of interest of politicians and officials. Even what the Prime Minister is proposing for Cabinet level means that most of the crucial information stays behind closed doors, with the public expected to just trust that the Cabinet Office will keep the politicians honest – something they don’t have a good track record on. We now need to see a much more open process, and less secrecy.

Ultimately, the increasing numbers of transgressions, together with the heightened public sensitivities about conflicts of interests and potential corruption means that something more significant is required.

Consideration should be given to the establishment of an Anti-Corruption Commission. After all, New Zealand is very light on watchdogs who are willing to bark at politicians. Yes, there is the local branch of Transparency International, but as a creature of the Wellington political class it’s often absent on corruption debates, or patting public officials and politicians on the back for their minimal efforts on integrity.

The good news to come out of all the scandals over the serious lapses of ministerial integrity – including Kiri Allan, Jan Tinetti, Stuart Nash, and Michael Wood – is that it indicates that the era of complacency over conflicts of interests is over. The public no longer appears to be willing to take politicians at their word that New Zealand is free of corruption. This greater scepticism is the best possible guardrail we can have for the prevention of rotten governance.

Paul and Selwyn will deep dive into the battle to control a narrative, waged by all sides in a polarised combative world, and how modern mainstream media institutions, like Radio New Zealand, fall vulnerable in the absence of robust all-sides-considered analysis and debate.

In this episode, Paul and Selwyn will analyse how fourth Estate bias, propaganda, and conflict-force fact-vacuums are the challenge of our times in this disinformation age.

Upon this context, Paul and Selwyn will consider:

* Why Is the Radio New Zealand sub-editor pro-RU-content debacle symptomatic of a fact-vacuum environment?

* Why is all media vulnerable to disinformation in the absence of robust NATO-Ukraine-Russia analysis?

* What are the unspoken of ‘big picture’ shifts in Russian Federation / Global South relations?

LINKS and REFERENCES:

• https://KiwiPolitico.com
• https://www.dekoder.org/de/person/ekaterina-schulmann-0
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/media/180
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/news-extras/story/2018893905/rnz-editorial-audit
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/491788/nz-entering-ukraine-conflict-at-whim-of-govt-former-labour-general-secretary
• https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/02/25/russia-ends-nowhere-they-say
• https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-russian-elites-think-putins-war-is-doomed-to-fail

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:

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To interact during the live recording of this podcast, go to Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/

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For the on-demand audience, you can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/
• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

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Arriving late to court, poor court etiquette and lack of respect are signs that the level of ethics among  Fiji lawyers has dropped over the years, says the Attorney-General.

Attorney-General Siromi Turaga highlighted this during a panel discussion at the Fiji Law Society (FLS) convention at the Pearl Resort in Pacific Harbour on Friday.

He said ethics was a serious issue that needed to be addressed by the society.

“I have seen a lot of lawyers arriving late to court and having no respect at all while causing unnecessary hassle to the procedures and this is a sign of disrespect,” Turaga said.

“I’ve also come across a lawyer who had placed her leg on a chair in the courthouse. This was shocking to me.

“Another case is when the court opens, we have young lawyers rushing to the front bench where senior lawyers are supposed to sit.”

He said young lawyers should take their cue from their more seasoned peers.

Lawyers ‘lying in court’
“Ethical is just ethical and as a young lawyer, we learn from our senior lawyers and this is something that senior lawyers need to take heed of,” he said.

“We need to see where we are failing in this area and address it as soon as possible.”

Other senior lawyers on the panel discussion were Shailend Krishna, Shoma Devan, Bhupendra Solanki, Roopesh Singh and John Rabuku.

Shoma Devan said: “It’s sad to note and see that some lawyers are deliberately lying to the court.

“I have personally seen some lawyers blatantly lying to court, misrepresenting facts and being dishonest to their own colleagues.

“The public general perception on lawyers is that ‘we are liars’, but, let me remind you that as lawyers you cannot lie and be dishonest.”

She told the lawyers present that if they ever came across a lawyer who was misleading the judge they should “rise up and inform the judge to keep the record straight”.

Devan said lawyers were required to uphold their values and ethics while in the courtroom.

Pekai Kotoisuva is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Political Roundup: Ardern is right to insist on ethical standards, even on chocolate endorsements

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was right to question Marama Davidson’s endorsement of Whittaker’s chocolate. The rule forbidding ministers from endorsing products or services is a basic protection against corruption. It helps maintain the impartiality of ministers who have enormous individual power when it comes to regulations that directly impact businesses.

Davidson, who is Associate Minister of Housing, purchased a bunch of the Whittaker’s “Creamy Milk” chocolate bars – rebranded for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori as “Miraka Kirīmi” – and posed with them on the steps of Parliament, stating that she loved the company.

Ardern asked the Cabinet Office to remind her Minister of the Cabinet Manual rules, which clearly stipulate “no Minister should endorse in any media any product or service”. Davidson was initially defiant, standing her ground, but eventually relented and edited her social media post to remove the company’s name from her endorsement.

Trivial or serious?

Unsurprisingly in a country in which there is often complacency about corruption or the influence of business in politics, there was much scoffing about the pettiness of the PM’s insistence on ethical standards. To many, an endorsement of a chocolate company was too trivial to get the Green Minister in trouble. One political journalist labelled it “Whittakergate” and evaluated it as “the dumbest political scandal of our time”.

Broadcaster Lloyd Burr protested Ardern’s clampdown on endorsements, saying “It’s an outrageous beat-up that makes me so damned cynical of politics.” Burr argued Ardern had completely overreacted and “like she was the Year 6 classroom monitor, and reported to the head teacher that Greens co-leader Marama Davidson had breached the school rules.”

Even National MP Chris Bishop came to Davidson’s defence saying it was only a “very, very technical breach” of the rules, arguing that something of a blind eye should be turned in this case.

But Ardern did actually need to reassert the rules. It may have been a relatively minor breach of the Cabinet Manual, but it is still a breach. The rule that Ministers shouldn’t get too close to business interests is a good one. The power of capital already plays an outsized influence on political decision-makers, and so for the integrity of the political system there need to be clear guidelines and ethical standards to help prevent corruption, bribery, and nepotism in politics.

In this case, a constitutional rule preventing Ministers from endorsing businesses and their products is a small but significant barrier to politicians cosying up to vested interests.

It might have been “only chocolate” – a product that for some reason gets a free pass in the eyes of many – but Davidson’s actions were a deliberate promotion of a business product and she went out of her way to stage the endorsement in front of the Beehive. The episode has no doubt been a useful advertisement for Whittaker’s.

The importance of preventing a slippery slope of unethical behaviour

The problem is one of slippery slopes and grey areas. Once politicians allow small breaches of ethical rules, it can easily evolve into a culture where greater breaches are made.

Some made the same argument of a “trivial” breach back in 2014 when then Justice Minister Judith Collins was photographed with milk from the Oravida dairy exporting company, for which her husband was a director. At the time, Grant Robertson rightly pursued Collins for breaching the Cabinet Manual rules. And Collins gave her defence: “Shock, horror, I drink milk. I promote New Zealand milk anywhere I go. It’s the finest milk in the world”. But the dairy endorsement eventually played a part in her being sacked as a minister by Prime Minister John Key.

Since then, we have continued to have ministers endorsing companies, so Ardern sending a reminder to her colleagues about the rules is not before time. One of the prime offenders is Stuart Nash, who is often seen endorsing businesses in his electorate. For example, he posted this year: “For good health I always start the day with a glass of warm lemon juice from the Limery.” There are plenty of other examples of ministers in recent governments blatantly promoting businesses, and it appears to be on the increase.

It should also be noted that the Prime Minister herself could be seen as sailing close to the wind in her promotion of designer clothing companies, often accepting free clothes to wear on the international stage. And of course, much of the PM’s overseas travel is about promoting particular New Zealand businesses and their products. She even went on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the US to endorse the beef products of Silver Fern Farms.

In the end, it’s the role of the Prime Minister to decide what is a breach of the Cabinet Manual rules, and what consequences a minister should face. So don’t expect the PM’s endorsements to stop anytime soon.

Davidson under fire for virtue signalling while failing on homelessness

Some have suggested Davidson’s chocolate antics are a form of virtue signalling – designed to show how progressive she is while doing very little in terms of homelessness, her area of responsibility as minister.

After Davidson’s promotion of Whittaker’s, Newshub looked at her performance in her portfolio, with journalist Imogen Wells reporting, “since getting the role in 2020, Davidson’s issued just eight press releases and presented only three papers to Cabinet – which were joint with others – and introduced zero Bills to parliament to address homelessness.”

When the journalist challenged Davidson on whether she is actually working hard on the homelessness crisis, the politician replied: “Yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Every single hour, every single day.”

Commentators have drawn attention to her former co-leader James Shaw being rolled from his position after party activists felt he hadn’t done enough in his portfolio. Davidson is regarded by many to have done much less, but to be safer because new Green Party constitutional rules require a co-leader who is Māori and one that is female, and she ticks both boxes.

As to suggestions that Davidson spends more time on social media than she does working on homelessness, the minister replied that social media such as Instagram “is where many of our people are, our communities and people who want to engage with us, that’s where we do a lot of it.” She also pointed out that she had been working on a prevention of violence strategy, which she argued could be seen as equivalent to “100 press releases”.

Given the crisis in housing, especially the rise in homelessness under Davidson’s watch, some on the political left found her focus on promoting chocolate branded with te reo Māori to be symbolic of the Greens’ direction.

Leftwing political commentator Steven Cowan questioned the priorities of the Minister for Homelessness: “It is incongruous, to say the least, that Davidson who has a ministerial brief to assist some of the poorest people in the country, should be promoting a brand of chocolate. There are tens of thousands of people either living in emergency accommodation, sleeping rough, or living in cars, garages and on couches across New Zealand. A brand of chocolate labelled in te reo is the least of their concerns.”

It’s certainly true that homelessness is getting worse. For example, last month 1News reported that when the Government came to power there were 51 children living in cars, and by June this year it had skyrocketed to 228. It’s hard to imagine that many of those families are excited about a luxury-brand of chocolate.

Other items of interest and importance today

PARLIAMENT AND GOVERNMENT
Matthew Hooton (Herald): Time’s up for most inept Government ever (paywalled)
Lloyd Burr (Today FM): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is out-of-touch and plagued by missteps
Jo Moir (Newsroom): Bishop set to run National’s 2023 campaign
Peter Dunne (Newsroom): Luxon in danger of becoming the Ian Foster of NZ politics
Bridie Witton (Stuff): National rules out working with Freedoms NZ, a new political party formed of fringe groups
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Labour’s plain language bill passes second reading
Johnny Blades (RNZ): Parliament journos back on the tiles

KIWISAVER FEE TAX U-TURN
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): What next for axed KiwiSaver policy?
ODT: KiwiSaver: Politics trumps policy
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Government accused of undermining confidence in KiwiSaver following tax U-turn
Bernard Hickey: A one-day epic tax fail – and the far bigger tax tragedy behind it 
Eric Crampton: An odd approach to tax policy
Kate Hawkesby (Newstalk): This Govt has done it’s chips and panic mode isn’t going to save them
Hamish McNicol (NBR): The KiwiSaver GST ‘disaster’ and chocolate freebies (paywalled)
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Labour’s Michael Wood won’t say if any Cabinet members stood up against KiwiSaver GST plan

LOCAL GOVERNMENT, THREE WATERS, AND ELECTIONS
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Lower voting age and longer terms for local councils – Govt review
Toby Morris (Spinoff): Big tick energy: The 2022 local election hoardings review
Kea Kids News: Auckland mayoral candidates reveal their best dance moves and funny faces
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk): I can’t understand why some people are getting quite this worked up about conspiracy theorists running for council
Tim Brown (RNZ): Local body elections: Why some fringe candidates seek office and what they want to achieve
RNZ: LGNZ launches voter education campaign as conspiracists, extremists stand for election
Jennifer Eder (Stuff): When you ask a candidate if she is part of Voices for Freedom
Tina Law (Stuff): Council bosses organise private meetings with Christchurch mayoral candidates
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Is running on a ticket the antidote to minority mayors? (paywalled)
Georgina Campbell (Herald): The case for councillors, mayors, and their kingdoms (paywalled)
Andreas Heuser (Herald): Five big problems with Three Waters (paywalled)
Richard Harman: Nelson floods raise new questions about three waters (paywalled)

HOMELESSNESS AND HOUSING
Wilhelmina Shrimpton (Today FM): There just aren’t enough state houses and rents are rising
Brad Lewis (Today FM): Rotorua becoming a dumping ground for undesirables thanks to emergency housing motels
Grady Connell (Today FM): ‘It feels like it is growing’ – Lifewise manager on service demands
Richard Norman and Andrew Washington (Stuff): How Wellington’s rating system discourages housing development
Miriam Bell (Stuff): What could NZ learn from Singapore’s high homeownership rate?
Dileepa Fonseka (Stuff): Build taller is the housing lesson from Dublin’s unfair city
Grady Connell (Today FM): New Zealand seeing house prices drop by NZ$710 a day
Anne Gibson (Herald): Home values fall below $1m as downturn accelerates in August
Eva Corlett (Guardian): New Zealand house prices continue to plunge, as national average falls below $1m
Stephen Minto (Daily Blog): Proof market capitalism fails

ECONOMY, EMPLOYMENT, INEQUALITY
Daniel Smith (Stuff): ‘Everything costs so much more’: Young people confront inflation
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Living Wage increases by 90c an hour
Herald: Imports jump by billions, high energy costs blamed as NZ moves into deficit
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Fewer people receive second ‘cost of living’ payment after extra checks kick in
Jason Mika (Herald): The billion dollar Māori economy must look towards the Asia-Pacific region for shared prosperity

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT
Rosie Gordon (RNZ): Climate change experts warn people must rethink trans-Tasman travel habits
Shane Jones (Herald): Less Climate Change Commission puffery, more economic realism (paywalled)
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Greens urge Government to immediately halt bottom trawling on sea mounts

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Geoffrey Miller (World Politics Review): Ardern’s Hot-and-Cold Approach to China Is Getting Harder to Follow
RNZ: NZSIS, GCSB Minister to visit all Five Eyes partners
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Mixed messages on Xinjiang report from NZ politicians
RNZ: UN report on claims of abuse against Uyghurs: Nanaia Mahuta calls on China to respond
John Minto (Daily Blog): Here’s the wrong way to fight racism and anti-semitism

COVID
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Government considers axing Covid traffic lights
Otago Daily Times: Government looks at scrapping mask mandates in some health settings
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refuses to be drawn on shift to green
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Covid-19 isolation win-win gets no traction

MEDIA AND DEBATE
Simon Louisson (The Standard): Govt public media reform performance makes AB’s look good
Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): The Woman with the red umbrella – A short story
Waimanea Nuri (Herald): Newshub’s Oriini Kaipara is breaking glass ceilings in the broadcasting landscape

OTHER
Alexia Russell (RNZ): School trustees: What happens when a board fractures?
Aaron Smale (Newsroom): Crown Law blocks the police in rare, costly legal standoff
RNZ: Paula Tesoriero named to head Whaikaha Disability Ministry

A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning raise the question: If escalation of the Russian war against Ukraine will occur should NATO or European Union nations intervene to protect Ukraine, who or what can assist in bringing this war to a close?

For many of us around the world, Russia’s war against Ukraine raises a philosophical dilemma. Is defence of the vulnerable the correct pathway toward reestablishing peace?

And specifically, Defence… what should it look like?

Do we, as members of an international community, stand by and allow innocent people to be murdered in the name of a geopolitical doctrine or ambition? Or, do we truly have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable?

In last week’s episode we explored how Russia had advanced ahead of NATO and Europe in matters of deterrence. We also canvassed the Responsibility to Protect principles.

Today, we deep dive into how concerned nations may be able to come to Ukraine’s aid, and under what circumstances could this be possible, and how will such resolutions be defined.

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

New Zealand police are being commended for tightening the rules for officers photographing young people, but there are concerns it could lead to the perverse outcome of more Māori being arrested.

The changes come after RNZ revealed in December 2020 that officers in Wairarapa were unlawfully photographing young Māori.

Police there admitted illegally taking pictures of young people on three occasions.

Whānau described their sons — some as young as 14 — walking alone in broad daylight, when police approached and insisted they take their picture.

The rangatahi were not doing anything wrong, nor being arrested.

Further RNZ reporting by Te Aniwa Hurihanganui suggested the practice was far more widespread than just in Wairarapa.

Police subsequently launched a review, and as a result of that, officers will no longer take pictures or fingerprints of young people unless they have been arrested or are being summonsed.

Photos being deleted
They will delete all photos of young people already taken on police-issued phones.

From now, when a picture is taken, only official cameras or photographers should be used.

At a pinch, a mobile device can still be used by officers, but the photo must be deleted off the phone once it has been uploaded into the police’s national intelligence database.

Barrister Marie Taylor-Cyphers said there was the risk it could lead to more Māori being arrested, rather than just being given a warning.

“If a police officer, in the course of their investigation, needs to for some reason identify the child by photographing them, then they’re going to be incentivised to place that child under arrest more readily than previously.”

Police deny there will be an increase in Māori arrests as a result, calling the changes a procedural issue.

Police community partnerships and prevention director Eric Tibbott told RNZ Morning Report the change would “definitely not” lead to more Māori youth being arrested.

Policy to reflect community expectations
“This is more about policy to reflect community expectations,” he said.

Taylor-Cyphers said the way the policy was worded appeared to give police permission to photograph young people in wider range of circumstances than adults.

Police said the law allowed them to take pictures of people under custody.

But Taylor-Cyphers said the new rules also let police snap photos of young people under summons — which often happened for lower level offences like traffic or driving infringements — and the policy needed to be tightened up.

Dr Karaitiana Taiuru, who has completed a PhD on indigenous ethics in data collection, described the changes by police as a “huge step forward”, but was also worried it could lead to more rangatahi facing charges.

Dr Taiuru said it would be necessary to wait and see how the policy was implemented.

“In a year’s time, it would be really interesting to see the statistics on … how many Māori youth were arrested for low-level crimes rather than non-Māori youth.

“And then compare the amount of photos taken of Māori youth compared to non-Māori youth.”

The full findings from the police’s internal review are expected early this year, as is a joint Independent Police Conduct Authority and Privacy Commission inquiry.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Artist Dinar Candy has held a protest action over the extension of Indonesia’s Enforcement of Restrictions on Public Activities (PPKM) by wearing a bikini on the side of a road in Jakarta, reports CNN Indonesia.

During the action, Candy also brought a banner with the message, “I’m stressed out because the PPKM has been extended”.

Candy was arrested by police last Wednesday, August 3, about 9.30 pm near Jalan Fatmawati in South Jakarta. She was taken directly to the South Jakarta district police for questioning.

In addition to this, police also confiscated material evidence in the form of a mobile phone belonging to Candy, which is alleged to have been used to record the protest.

And it was not only Candy. Her younger sister and assistant were also questioned by police for recording the protest at Candy’s request.

After being questioned by police, who also sought advice from an expert witness on morality and culture, Candy was then declared a suspect.

“We have declared DC as a suspect for an alleged act of pornography,” South Jakarta district police chief Senior Commissioner Azis Andriansyah told journalists on Thursday.

Candy has been charged under Article 36 of Law Number 44/2008 on Pornography which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison or a fine of 5 billion rupiah (NZ$987,000).

Candy not detained
Despite being declared a suspect, police have not detained Candy who is only obliged to report daily. Andriansyah said that Candy’s protest wearing a bikini did not heed cultural norms.

This is because Candy’s action was held in Indonesia where there are cultural and religious norms which apply in society.

“Anything that is done in Indonesia [is subject to] existing norms, there are ethics, there are cultural norms, there are religious norms which apply in our society, now, the actions of the person concerned did not pay heed to cultural norms,” said Andriansyah.

A number of parties, however, believe that Candy’s bikini protest does not need to be prosecuted under law.

National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) Commissioner Theresia Iswarini believes that Candy did not commit a crime even though she wore a bikini during the protest. She suspects that Candy’s protest was related to mental health issues.

“It would indeed be best, it has to be thought about, [although] this [wearing a bikini in public] is indeed inappropriate, but it does not mean she committed a crime, remember,” Iswarini told CNN Indonesia.

The Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH), meanwhile, is worried that the state is going too far in regulating what people wear in public. LBH Jakarta lawyer Teo Reffelsen is of the view that in the future the state could enforce its own values on what the public wears.

“If so, then eventually our prisons will be full just because people wear bikinis,” Reffelsen said.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Protes Bikini Dinar Candy Berujung Jerat UU Pornografi”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A View from Afar: Political scientist and former Pentagon analysis Paul G. Buchanan and investigative journalist Selwyn Manning and debate security, intelligence, and foreign policy trends and issues.

This week’s episode: Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning discuss this week’s revelations by Paula Penfold and the Stuff Circuit team that a New Zealand tech company (with New Zealand Government investment) has been in business with iFlytec – a Chinese company alleged to be involved with surveillance of China’s oppressed Uyghur people.

Does this example underscore the perils facing New Zealand companies that enter into joint-ventures with Chinese interests in the surveillance and state control sector?

And should New Zealand Government front-up and provide answers as to how it invested in the New Zealand company that got into business with iFlytec?

ALSO MYANMAR, Buchanan and Manning discuss the latest disturbing events occurring in Myanmar. What has caused Myanmar’s military to once again overthrow a government and establish deadly totalitarian rule? So join Paul and Selwyn live, to comment, questions and interact in this debate.

COMMENT ON THIS DISCUSSION:

You can interact with the programme by clicking on one of these social media channels. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The world was ablaze with hope following the announcement last week that a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech may be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19.

New Zealand politicians were quick to point out 1.5 million doses had already been pre-purchased through a legally binding agreement signed in late September to buy any vaccine to emerge from the multilateral COVAX facility.

Within the week, a second potentially effective vaccine emerged from US biotech firm Moderna. Health Minister Chris Hipkins would not say if New Zealand had negotiated for this option.

But assuming an approved vaccine is coming, attention then turns to logistics. Funding, procurement, storage and distribution all raise significant questions about values, decision-making and ethics.

We know there are multiple candidates for a covid-19 vaccine, but there will be few “winners”, as many countries have already pre-contracted substantial amounts based on calculated risk assessments of which will emerge first. Even then, the challenges will be immense.

For example, assuming the Pfizer vaccine does become available as a safe option, it must be held in “ultra-cold storage” at -70 degrees Celsius. As has been observed already, “Distributing an effective COVID-19 vaccine to the global population will likely be the greatest logistical challenge since World War II.”

UPDATE: We are proud to announce, along with @BioNTech_Group, that our mRNA-based #vaccine candidate has, at an interim analysis, demonstrated initial evidence of efficacy against #COVID19 in participants without prior evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

— Pfizer Inc. (@pfizer) November 9, 2020

Who gets a vaccine first?
For New Zealand, as with all countries, the questions raised are complex: do we now spend a large amount of money to scale up a logistics, distribution and storage system for the Pfizer drug? Or should we wait for an alternative that is more effective, easier to transport and store, and possibly cheaper?

After all, the first available vaccine might not achieve the outcomes we want. But would it be fair (or feasible) to make the country wait?

Furthermore, because enough doses to treat everyone will not be available immediately, it will be necessary to prioritise recipients. What are the country’s obligations here? Do we offer the vaccination first to the oldest, or the youngest, or the most vulnerable?

National health systems will have some idea about how to go about this, but wealthy countries have never faced an immediate requirement on this scale.
An ethical framework
Answering these questions means calling simultaneously on a number of different ethical perspectives:

• an ethic of justice to assess the fairness of a decision
• an ethic of consequentialism to look at outcomes
• the ethics of obligations to see who we may have made commitments to
• an ethic of care to look at individual cases, rather than relying on abstract logic.

Only when we combine these perspectives can we begin to make sense of priorities.

The vaccine marketplace is a kind of oligopoly, with a few extremely large firms deciding which vaccines get made, when and at what price. Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to invest in producing new vaccines for the developing world because they have little prospect of earning an attractive return.

While global organisations such as vaccine alliance GAVI have been instrumental in getting vaccines to developing countries, given the geopolitics of procurement it could be a long time before an effective COVID-19 option reaches the poorest populations.

We just announced that mRNA-1273, our COVID-19 vaccine candidate, has met its primary efficacy endpoint in the first interim analysis of the Phase 3 COVE study.
Read more: https://t.co/vYWEy8CKCv pic.twitter.com/YuLubU1tlx

— Moderna (@moderna_tx) November 16, 2020

The moral dimension
All this points to the deeper ethical issue of inequality. Many agencies, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), have demonstrated that health outcomes are related to socio-economic, ethnic and gender inequalities. COVID-19 has only made these inequalities worse.

Only last week, for example, a UK study showed 57.7 more people per 100,000 have died in the poorest areas of northern England than in the rest of the country.

This matches other research showing how the pandemic has disproportionately affected poorer families, including their being less likely to be able to work from home or adapt to home-schooling.

Limited or selective availability of a vaccine could exacerbate these problems. And while New Zealand may be in a relatively privileged position, this doesn’t mean there won’t be negative consequences for other countries.

This adds an international dimension to our national dilemma: we have a duty to protect our own citizens, but is there a way we can minimise harm to others at the same time?

Dr Barbara Allen is senior lecturer in public management, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington, and Dr Michael Macaulay is professor of public administration, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENT: By Scott Waide, deputy regional head of news of EMTV News

Yesterday [Saturday], we received a lot of criticism over our coverage of the death of Senior Inspector Andrew Tovere.

As a news organisation, we have several responsibilities one of which is to deliver ACCURATE information.

READ MORE: Former PNG Defence Force chief calls for inquiry after policeman killed

Friday night’s incident presented several critical challenges:

Accuracy vs speed:
We had a situation that could have turned nasty if we had carelessly pumped out information as demanded by social media users. Yes. There is a place for breaking news and being first with information. However, given the situation [on Saturday], accuracy was of primary importance. I personally issued instructions to be careful of how we handled the situation.

Any sensationalism could have got us an enormous amount of traffic…. and… contributed to tipping the city into chaos jeopardising the negotiation work that was being done by senior PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) and Royal PNG Constabulary (RPNGC) commanders behind the scenes. In short, we could have added to the complication and contributed to more deaths, had we not been careful.

Papua New Guinea is different. We all know that. I am urging everyone to look at the big picture in circumstances like this. Do not succumb to the lust for breaking news and dead bodies. As I said, there is a place for it.

Yesterday [Saturday], in my opinion, was not the place for it. We lost one senior police officer, and bear in mind, a human being with a family, a tribe and colleagues who could have taken a different course of action.

There is an editorial team made up of the head of news, the online editor, myself and other senior reporters that works everyday to verify incoming content. It is a lengthy ongoing process. It’s not “poor journalism”. it’s actually good journalism to verify and check sources. Good journalism is about accuracy and balance.

We have to care about our country.

News cannot, always, be handled like what you see in America, Australia and other countries. Our team always tries to take into account the wider impact on the community. A community made up of families, clans and tribes. That is a difficult task with no room for selfishness and sensationalism.

Verification:
While many will want to jump at the opportunity to share information circulated, we have to verify the details of what happened. We presented an honest, unsensationalised account of that happened also clearly stating that it was a developing story and that we would provide updates as things happened. There is nothing wrong with being honest and cautious.

We placed reporters at Port Moresby General Hospital to verify that a death had occurred then sought clarification from the RPNGC command and the police minister. We shared when we were sure everything we had was accurate.

Live broadcast (controlled and uncontrolled situations):
Quite a few people demanded “live coverage” of the shootout. Unfortunatley, it rarely happens in real life in UNCONTROLLED situations like a shootout. Some said we should be “risking our lives” to get accurate information. While I have team members who can do that, the answer for me as a team leader is NO.

I don’t have to explain this, but there are so many misconceptions related to this that sometimes, the comments border on fictional expectations. We don’t usually go to a scene and prepare for a police shootout to happen.

Let’s be realistic.

Scott Waide is a frequent contributor to the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report. Here he gives some insight into journalists’ dilemmas with news judgement, ethics and responsibility in Papua New Guinea in response to social media criticism of EMTV News coverage. The comment was first published on his Facebook page.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Hugh Breakey of Griffith University

As Australia and New Zealand move into lockdown mode in response to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, we are increasingly faced with serious ethical questions about what ordinary people should be obliged to do for others.

These challenges can perhaps best be seen in the outrage as people flocked to Bondi Beach and packed into pubs and cafes over the weekend, despite strict social-distancing rules.

This also helps explain the anger on social media over people lying about overseas travel in order to get doctors’ appointments, hoarding toilet paper and defying quarantine orders, even as they defend their conduct self-righteously.

READ MORE: The coronavirus pandemic is forcing us to ask some very hard questions. But are we ready for the answers?

Why is ethical action critical?
In the face of a pandemic, legislation and police enforcement can only do so much. Ethical decision-making by ordinary people becomes crucial.

While laws and policies can be slow to evolve, individuals can alter their behaviours instantaneously. Rules and bans can be ham-fisted or crude, but ethical decision-makers can respond intelligently to their own contexts.

Above all, ethical decision-makers can be intrinsically motivated to do right by the community, ensuring compliance of social-distancing rules in situations where effective policing is logistically impossible.

Even as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced a special taskforce to enforce an immediate shutdown of venues and restrictions on gatherings, he appealed to people’s consciences in the strongest terms:

If you act selfishly, people will die.

This is why leaders have called for voluntary cooperation during the crisis. Laws and political action alone will not save us. An effective response to the pandemic requires ordinary people making sound ethical decisions.

Why is this so challenging?
As we have seen from the images over the weekend, ethical decision-making in response to a pandemic is not easy. Many people are simply not taking the crisis seriously enough.

One of the reasons for this is confusion. Rules change almost daily, meaning some people will not know the latest requirements. Others might not appreciate the stakes involved with their behaviours, and that it is not only their own health they are risking.

Also, rules can be ambiguous. For example, what happens if you’re keeping an appropriate distance from others at the beach or park, and it starts becoming crowded? Who should leave? Should those who arrived first have priority? Or should those who have had “their turn” move on?

In ambiguous situations, people take cues from those around them. If we saw others interacting normally at the park or pub (before they were closed), we could conclude it’s probably okay. We might also wonder if there’s any point in obeying the rules if others are not.

Furthermore, it’s easy to question the legitimacy of the new rules. Ordinarily, we judge rules based on many factors, such as:

• Is it the right thing to do?
• Is it fair?
• Will it be effective?

In fluid situations, these conditions are hard to meet. Consider the case of casual workers with no paid sick leave who might not be able to pay rent or might lose their jobs if they comply with quarantine orders. Demanding they shoulder this burden can seem unfair.

Similarly, many teachers feel they are taking unfair risks to keep schools open.

In the most difficult cases, people must weigh up conflicting moral priorities. Do they support their elderly parents by visiting them, or is this risking infection?

For these reasons, even conscientious ethical decision-makers can struggle.

Why we might make poor decisions
Unfortunately, human beings suffer from decision-making biases.

For example, we often interpret expectations as entitlements. We convert our ordinary expectations about social, work, educational, religious and sporting routines into demands that these should continue.

This is one reason why some call for a “war footing”, urging people to acknowledge a “new normal”.

In addition, people tend to be self-interested and prioritise immediate goals. Abstract concerns about risks to community infection can seem less salient than the pressures of the moment.

This bias can affect ethical decision-making. It allows us to “neutralise” rules by inventing stories about why they don’t apply to us, given our special circumstances. These self-serving excuses are a classic source of serious moral error.

Some guidelines to follow
There are no easy answers to the myriad moral challenges that Covid-19 thrusts upon us. However, here are five rules of thumb:

1. Common sense ethics still applies – and the stakes make it more important than ever. Never lie about or conceal your history or infection status. Comply strictly with authoritative directives about quarantine.
2. Stay informed about the latest rules.
3. Never force your decisions on other people. Even if you are not personally concerned about social distancing, acknowledge that others are entitled to their space.
4. If others are behaving recklessly or inappropriately, try to engage with them constructively. Outrage can be appropriate, but understanding can be better at changing minds.
5. Gird yourself for the long haul. “Fatigue” can set in over long periods with changing rules. As the weeks in a state of emergency turn into months, we can be worn down and become less diligent in our ethical decision-making.

Finally, remember the positives. As the stakes rise, acts of kindness and support are more important than ever before.

Hugh Breakey is president of the Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics. He is also senior research fellow in moral philosophy at the Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

If there were any doubts about Jacinda Ardern’s ability to deliver the goods as a campaigner, then they were quashed by her masterful performance against Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday.

Ardern made what is being reported as a “stunning attack” on the Australian Government, while standing alongside the Australian PM in a highly-orchestrated press conference. She declared his Government were in the wrong for deporting people to New Zealand who have very little connection with our country. She said, “We have a simple request. Send back Kiwis, genuine Kiwis – do not deport your people and your problems.” And she concluded: “We will own our people. We ask that Australia stop exporting theirs.”

Ardern’s extraordinary attack, and the reaction, is well covered by the Herald here: NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern lashes Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison – the reaction.

For a good report on the press conference, see Henry Cooke’s account: Extraordinary scene as Jacinda Ardern directly confronts Scott Morrison over deportations. He says the confrontation was highly unusual: “Ardern went for the jugular”, Morrison responded strongly, and “They didn’t just make their points and leave it at that – they directly argued with each other”.

Cooke looks at the motivations of both sides: “There was no softening of positions on either side. Both prime ministers were clearly playing to domestic audiences. Morrison got to look tough on criminals while Ardern got to look like a leader unafraid to smash another politician in the face when needed. It was quite a show.”

I’ve written for the Guardian today about the political calculations behind the PM’s performance – see: Taking on Scott Morrison over deportees is a win-win strategy for Jacinda Ardern.

In one respect, the attack is clearly an attempt by the Government to deal with the Opposition’s strong push on law and order issues: “It’s election year and National started the year ramping up talk about criminal gangs in New Zealand. While that’s to be expected every election year, there is evidence that the Australian deportation policy has contributed not just to growth in criminal activity but, alarmingly, to the establishment of a whole new gang culture imported from Australia.”

I explain the PM couldn’t let the National own this issue: “Ardern needed to be seen to be doing something about it, and directly confronting Morrison on his home turf certainly got everyone’s attention. Making this stand on the international stage, in such a commanding fashion, also ensured that opposition leader Simon Bridges was overshadowed and left with few options to attack her on.”

This was a departure for Ardern, who has been relatively quiet in dealing with other world leaders recently over other big issues. For example, last year she met with Donald Trump but did not raise any contentious issues such as climate change – see my Guardian column at the time: Ardern was supposed to be the anti-Trump, but she failed to speak truth to power.

So, Ardern has answered her critics and shown she will stand up to bigger countries when necessary. As I argued in today’s Guardian column, “Her supporters want to see her ruffle feathers internationally on issues of principle and humanitarianism, especially at a time when critics say she has been too pragmatic. Compassion, particularly when it comes to migrants, is one of her defining political characteristics, and in Scott Morrison she has almost the perfect foil. Standing up for the rights of New Zealand citizens abroad is always a winner.”

For more background on the political threat the deportation issue poses for the Government, and why Ardern had to respond so strongly, see Luke Malpass’ PM Jacinda Ardern gets a win in ScoMo’s territory.

He explains that deportations are linked to concern about a rise in gang problems here, made even more galling by the fact that New Zealand doesn’t treat Australians in the same way. Malpass says the deportation move “has sparked a crime wave in New Zealand, boosted gang membership and introduced a whole new Australian gang, the Comancheros, to these shores. It is a fair gripe. Under New Zealand law, with few exceptions, if you’ve been on these shores for 10 years you are considered New Zealand’s problem.”

National has started to make political capital out of this, and have been campaigning hard on the need to reciprocate and deport Australians, and this is worrying Labour: “The fascinating thing domestically is how the gangs and deportations issue is clearly now starting to nip at Labour’s heels. It has not been the party of law and order for many decades”, but with Ardern’s response on Friday, “Law and order just became a bigger part of the election campaign.”

In terms of impressing supporters, the strategy worked. For example, Labour blogger Greg Presland wrote about how Ardern had effectively snookered Bridges and shown her toughness: “National with its latest tough on crime approach will be hating this. Not only has Jacinda again displayed a backbone of steel but she has again shown that she is one of the most remarkable International leaders. The justice of her argument is clear.  And she has trashed traditional notions of how New Zealand Australia relations are conducted when making her point” – see: Do not deport your people and your problems to New Zealand.

Even some of the more sceptical voices on the left watched Ardern’s performance with great appreciation. For example, blogger Martyn Bradbury says “Jacinda stepped up……she is just such a class act isn’t she? She has acted with real leadership… She’s just amazing” – see: Jacinda robs Simon Bridges of his Australian thunder.

Bradbury also sees the electoral strategy as very smart, saying “Last week I thought Bridges had made a break through moment by promising to deport Australian criminals back home to Australia”, but now “she makes Simon’s earlier announcement of reciprocity look blunt and desperate”.

Ardern’s strong attack on the Australian Government over deportations was justified, according to Guardian reporter Ben Doherty, who specialises in immigration issues. He says: “Australia is unambiguously in the wrong here, and it has been consistently for years” – see: Not much love actually: Jacinda Ardern was right to call out Australia’s ‘corrosive’ policies.

Doherty argues: “countries are responsible for the people they create…They are Australian, and they are Australia’s responsibility. Just as parents can’t spurn their children who behave badly, states can’t simply foist people they find difficult onto other countries. The Australian government mounts arguments around national security and safety, but they are spurious, and made for the hackneyed political gain of being seen as tough on crime, and harsh towards ‘others’.”

Although Ardern is being widely celebrated for speaking out so strongly on Australia’s treatment of deportees, there are rumblings about her silence, so far, on controversial statements from one of her own ministers. On Saturday, NZ First’s Shane Jones went on Newshub Nation to say this about immigration: “If you want another million, 2 million, 3 million people, we should debate it and there should be a mandate, rather than opening up the options, unfettered, and everyone comes here from New Delhi. I don’t like that idea at all. I think the number of students that have come from India have ruined many of those institutions” – see Dan Satherley’s Shane Jones says Indian students have ‘ruined’ NZ academic institutions.

David Cormack suggests there is a clear mismatch between Ardern’s treatment of Morrison and her continued leniency towards Jones: “So as our Prime Minister was standing next to a man who has the leadership skills of a potato and telling him to change Australia’s domestic policy on deporting criminals, a man who sits in her Cabinet was back at home belching out vile racism. And will she say anything about it? I hope so, but I’m not holding my breath” – see: Jacinda Ardern’s deafening silence over Shane Jones ‘racist’ comments (paywalled).

Finally, comedian Oscar Kightley is impressed with Ardern’s press conference on Friday, saying it “felt like a turning point in terms of our relationship with Australia. Finally, a leader from here was willing to stand up and say what New Zealanders have been thinking since this discriminatory treatment started – see his broader outline of how this latest spat fits into the long-running relationship between the two countries: Jacinda Ardern’s shirtfront on ScoMo a turning point in trans-Tasman relations.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won power in 2017 on the basis of statements such as “My goal is to eradicate child poverty in New Zealand”. The Government’s progress on child poverty will be under scrutiny at this year’s general election, but progress is slow, and many are claiming not enough is being done to address this urgent problem.

Statistics NZ has just published details of child poverty levels for the last few years, as required under the new Child Poverty Reduction Act. For the best report on this, see Sarah Robson’s New figures show little change in child poverty. She reports: “for the year ended June 2019, there was no significant change to the percentage of children living in material hardship, compared to the previous year – remaining at about 13 percent, or one in eight children”.

The Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft has described the figures as “underwhelming”.

The problem is the statistics can be interpreted in different ways – or at least cherry-picked by supporters and critics. Also, the statistics are limited in what they measure, particularly in terms of the time periods involved.

Some critics to the left and the right of the Government are pointing to various elements of the report to say things are getting worse, while the Government is highlighting elements that show they’re making progress.

Overall, there’s probably a consensus that if improvements have been made, they are marginal, and much more needs to be done to combat child poverty.

Interpretation of the child poverty statistics

Jason Attewell of Stats NZ gave an insight yesterday into why measures of poverty are contested and interpreted differently: “Now child poverty is a real complex issue, and it’s really hard to define who’s poor and who’s not poor… So we don’t look at just one measure we look at nine measures across.”

For the best discussion of the different interpretations of the new stats, see Jason Walls’ PM Jacinda Ardern and National’s Simon Bridges spin child poverty numbers – but who’s right? (paywalled). He points to the Government and Opposition arguments on the latest report, and declares “Both are right but for different reasons.”

Here’s the Government’s interpretation: “Ardern used what is known as the after-housing costs measure to argue her case for successfully combating child poverty. That showed that after housing costs, 235,400 kids lived in homes with less than 50 per cent of the overall median household income, in the year to June 2019. That’s a drop of 18,400 children, or a 2 per cent fall compared to the previous year.”

Here’s the Opposition interpretation: “Bridges used the numbers to suggest child poverty was getting much worse ‘under Jacinda Ardern’. He used the before-housing cost measure for the bottom 60 per cent of households and compared the year to June 2017 figures with those from 2019. On this measure, the 20,000 figure is correct – 243,300 kids were in this category in 2017, compared with 263,400 in 2019.”

In contrast, Walls points out that there is arguably a third and more important interpretation of the figures: “the most important measure – according to Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft – was actually increasing. Material hardship, which measures the things most people would consider to be essentials – such as access to fresh fruit and vegetables, going to the doctor and the ability to pay bills on time – increase by just over 4000 in the year to June last year.”

For further discussion of the different measures of child poverty and what is changing, see Thomas Manch’s Child poverty: Numbers show marginal change, but more children in material hardship. This includes reporting of Stats NZ’s principal statistician Diane Ramsay, who “said she could not be confident there was a downward trend in the figures due to margin, and results in the coming years would clarify this.”

Also, see Max Rashbrooke’s analysis, which is more positive, suggesting that the PM should be relieved to finally have “a tangible – if tentative – sign of progress” – see: Child poverty stats promising, but more is needed.

Rashbrooke also points to the contrast with what was occurring under the last National Government: “If the improvements are real, they will be all the more impressive when seen in the light of the previous National-led governments, of which the best that can be said is that they maintained, overall, a very high level of poverty. In their nine years in power, poverty fell on some measures but increased on others, and in general seemed to be becoming cemented into the foundations of New Zealand life. We may look back on this moment, then, and see it as a turning point”.

Criticism about the failure to deliver

Critics on both left and right of Labour are saying the Government is failing to deliver the promised improvements in child poverty.

On the right, Mike Hosking is calling this out as “another promise not met”, which he says is especially damaging for the PM, as child poverty reduction “was the Prime Minister’s calling card” – see: Child poverty is the KiwiBuild of social failure. Hosking concludes: “Every social indicator has gone backwards – food handouts, housing queues, jobless payments and poverty. Every single one of them in the wrong direction.”

Heather du Plessis Allan also has a hard-hitting take on the findings – see: Child poverty figures shows PM is not helping those she promised to. She says this about Ardern: “Remember when she promised to lift 100,000 children out of poverty by 2020. Well, it’s 2020, that is so far from happening… it’s just gutting. We expect centre-left governments to come and do the best they can for people at the bottom of the heap, because those people are there.”

Du Plessis Allan warns it will damage Labour and Ardern’s credibility with their own supporters: “It has charities, NGOs, churches, unions, all telling them to get on with it. Labour’s entire support base is telling them to help people, but they’re not. How can they expect those people to re-elect them or even respect them? How can the Prime Minister ever say again that she will help the worst off and expect us to believe it? Today’s figures haven’t just hurt the government’s credibility; they’ve hurt the Prime Minister’s.”

Those NGOs are also speaking out. Child Poverty Action Group spokesperson Susan St John says: “Put simply: these statistics do not show any change for the children living in the worst, most entrenched poverty… This confirms our view that the Families Package (implemented July 2018) was not designed to give the necessary income boost to those in the deepest poverty. This picture is unlikely to change when the full Families Package is counted in the next report due in 2021” – see: The latest child poverty statistics are a wake-up call.

Her group says “child poverty requires urgent and immediate action. Meaningful adjustments to the benefit system and working for families must not wait until after the election for implementation.”

And even in Max Rashbrooke’s cautiously congratulatory account, he warns much more action is needed, saying: “the government will have to marshal resources of which it has only just begun to dream. Most of its efforts so far have focused on taking those who are just below the poverty line and lifting them just over it. That is valuable, and makes a real difference to families’ lives. But there are still tens of thousands of families in far deeper poverty. Their situation, the new data suggests, has barely improved.”

Rashbrooke says the PM needs to take a bolder approach: “That will require considerably more political courage from a leader who has so far governed cautiously. But it is the reality of the task she has set herself. The early steps she has made, though valuable, may turn out to have been the easiest.”

Ardern is promising more, and she is reported as believing that her government is “on track” to meet its promises. She says part of the problem is that the latest statistics don’t reflect how much has recently been done – see Zane Small’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confident child poverty reduction policies ‘yet to show’ full results.

Finally, last month the Child Poverty Action Group commissioned Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris to illustrate the need for “the government to fix the broken welfare system so all children and families can thrive” – see: Fairer Future: Fixing Poverty in Aotearoa.

A very concerning element of the current NZ First donations scandal is the role of lobbying and lobbyists close to the Government. The most recent story from RNZ’s Guyon Espiner and Kate Newton, revealed that lobbyist Doug Woolerton, who is also a trustee of the NZ First Foundation, had been advocating for law changes on behalf of a property developer client who was a donor to the Foundation – see: NZ First Foundation trustee was lobbying for donor.

According to Espiner and Newton, Woolerton “took on apartment developer Conrad Properties as a client for his firm, The Lobbyist”, and then lobbied politicians on their behalf. In addition, the same company was making donations to Woolerton’s NZ First Foundation: “Between July 2018 and January 2019 Conrad Properties, and entities which share the same two directors, donated $55,000 to the foundation in four amounts, which all fell below the public disclosure threshold.”

Is this a problem? As National Party blogger and pollster David Farrar tweeted yesterday, “There is nothing wrong with being a lobbyist. There is nothing wrong with being a party fundraiser. There is a lot wrong with being both. The two roles should be ethically incompatible.”

Guyon Espiner had already reported on Woolerton’s role as a lobbyist in his original story about the secret donations – see: Mysterious foundation loaning New Zealand First money. He cited the sales pitch on The Lobbyist website, which offers: “all ancillary services such as media strategies, speeches, drafting changes for legislation, submissions to select committees and personal introductions when appropriate”.

Espiner approached Woolerton for comment, but he “wouldn’t say what the foundation was, what his role as a trustee involved or whether he believed he had conflicts of interest given he also ran a lobbying firm.”

At the time, Danyl Mclauchlan also examined these arrangements: “When you have companies and individuals making secret donations to a party that holds the portfolios in those industries, there is every reason for the public to ask questions about whether their government is corrupt” – see: The NZ First donations scandal is very serious, and won’t let Jacinda Ardern hide.

Mclauchlan pointed to NZ First’s apparent vetoing of the Labour-Green capital gains tax proposal, which many in the property sector were so opposed to, and says in light of this, “The public has a right to know that they were being funded by property developers.” He noted that while in government, NZ First has “taken very strong policy stands on behalf of specific industries and companies”.

Woolerton has played a role in the NZ First party according to Richard Harman who profiled him in a 2018 article that pointed out he had been “the party president for 14 of its 25 years and an NZ First MP for 12” – see: How NZ First could go with National. According to this, “Woolerton has retired from Parliament and the Presidency, but he is still a force behind the scenes. He says he writes two pages memos from time to time to NZ First MPs just reminding them of that constituency that the party represents.”

For more on NZ First-related allegations of policy being vulnerable to lobbying and vested interests in this Government, see my column from last week, Political Roundup: Is Government policy for sale in New Zealand?.

There have been other NZ First-related lobbying controversies involving Shane Jones. Last month Guyon Espiner broke another story about the Provincial Growth Fund, with allegations that the NZ Future Forest Products company, which has close links to NZ First, had lobbied the minister about a bid for funding over dinner at the Beehive, but Jones didn’t disclose this – see: NZ First-linked company in government loan bid says it met with Shane Jones.

According to this article, the company’s “directors include Brian Henry, lawyer to New Zealand First Party leader Winston Peters, judicial officer of the party and one of two trustees of the New Zealand First Foundation, and NZ First leader Winston Peters’ partner Jan Trotman, who joined the company in August 2019.”

Other lobbying scandals in the Government

Lobbying controversies continue to plague the Labour-led Government. Last year, I covered the major one, where a lobbyist was employed as Jacinda Ardern’s acting Chief of Staff while remaining a director and owner of a large lobbying firm – see: Political Roundup: Have corporate lobbyists been running this government?.

There have since been other problems of potential conflicts of interests involving lobbyists employed to work in the Beehive. In January, it was revealed that the Government had been employing lobbyist Barry Ebert to work in the Labour Leader’s Office and as a Specialist Ministerial Adviser to Cabinet Minister Phil Twyford – see Jason Walls’ A senior staffer to Minister Phil Twyford owned lobbying firm while working for Minister.

According to this report, “While he was working for Twyford, he remained the director and owner of Three Point Two Communications, according to Companies’ Office records. In fact, the Three Point Two website still lists him as the director of the PR firm.” And “The firm advertises ‘advocacy and lobbying’ services helping clients ‘stay several steps ahead of your competitors and the regulators’.”

The lobbyist claimed that no conflicts of interest arose during his time working in the Beehive. But according to Thomas Coughlan, he carried on with outside work without full disclosure of this – see: The lobbyist working in Phil Twyford’s office didn’t disclose contracts to employer.

Coughlan has also written about the case in an opinion piece, complaining “while there’s no suggestion of any wrongdoing, the lack of proper disclosure is concerning. He won’t disclose the names of his clients – and short of the Prime Minister forcing his hand, we’re forced to take him at his word” – see: There’s nothing wrong with lobbying – so why won’t the Government prove it?.

Coughlan also outlines some of the anti-democratic risks of having such loose rules around lobbyists working in and out of government. He comments: “All this makes it staggering that New Zealand is so laissez-faire when it comes to lobbying, which is almost entirely unregulated. The US, for example, forces lobbyists to disclose who they’re acting for, how much they were paid for the contract, and their lobbying expenses.”

Lobbyist Matthew Hooton has become an outspoken critic of this situation, telling Mike Hosking that “that you simply can’t be working at the Beehive while advertising your services as a lobbyist” and it’s a sign of how lax this country is on lobbying – see Newstalk ZB’s Matthew Hooton criticises Government’s lax attitude to lobbyists. He says “Even in Trump’s Washington, these people would be in custody if something like this happened.”

Hooton also wrote about the Government’s lobbying controversies late last year, relating this to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s apparently relaxed nature towards NZ First’s fundraising practices: “she has adopted a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy towards the political and personal activities of ministers from NZ First and the Greens. Perhaps Ardern’s reticence to carry out her constitutional responsibilities as Prime Minister relates to her not being squeaky clean herself. One of her closest political advisers is one of my fellow lobbyists, Gordonjon Thompson, who she uses as a sounding board” – see: Winston Peters must tell — but Jacinda Ardern must ask (paywalled).

Hooton elaborates on Ardern’s employment of Thompson as her acting Chief of Staff: “According to the Prime Minister, Thompson had input into all staffing matters across every Beehive office, including the appointment of 111 staff. Moreover, he had access to all Cabinet papers and other secret Government material, perhaps even to SIS security clearance reports on potential Beehive staff. The Prime Minister will not say what his security classification was or if he had access to intelligence information and attended meetings and briefings with her as Minister for National Security and Intelligence.”

Was this a conflict of interest? Hooton comments: “Through all this time, Thompson remained a shareholder and director of his lobbying firm, obliged to act in the best interests of the company, and even conducted some company business. His services as a lobbyist continued to be advertised on the company website, along with the number of the cellphone sitting right next to him on the 9th floor of the Beehive.”

Finally, one of the key sectors of lobbying is health, and the ODT’s Bruce Munro has delved into this to see what effect the lobbyists are having on our health system and laws – see: Up to no good: What impact is lobbying having on public health?.