EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written for, and first published by, German magazine Cicero.de (ref. Attentat in Christchurch – Willkommen in der Hölle). Thanks also to Prof David Robie, Pacific Media Centre AsiaPacificReport.nz for providing the featured image for this article.

OUT OF THE BLUE:

It was 1:39pm, Friday March 15. As was usual for a Friday hundreds of people had turned up to pray at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, Christchurch. All was peaceful, women, children, men, people of all ages young and old, both Sunni and Shia, were in contemplative repose free of worry. It was a mild, late summer, 20 degrees celsius day. Earlier, the touring Bangladesh Cricket Team had briefly visited the mosque, but left early to attend a press conference. By 1:39pm, they had returned and were outside exiting a bus, intending to continue with their prayers inside the mosque.

At 1:40pm, ahead of the team, a man entered the mosque walking quickly up the front steps. He was carrying an assault rifle and dressed in combat uniform. He immediately began shooting people who were kneeling in prayer. The shots rang out and the Bangladesh team members realising they were witnesses to an attack, retreated, and fled on foot to nearby Hagley Park.

Back inside the Al Noor Mosque scores of worshipers were being gunned down, some killed instantly, others bleeding to death. The victims included little Mucaad Ibrahim who was three years of age.

Mucaad was known by his loved ones as a wise “old soul” and possessed an “intelligence beyond his years”.

Eye witnesses said that once the killer began shooting people, little Mucaad became separated from his family. In the chaos, his family could not find him. The next day Police confirmed he too had been shot dead by the killer.

The murders continued at the Al Noor Mosque until the killer’s firearms ran out of bullets. Then, he simply walked out of the mosque, got in his car, and drove six kilometres to the Linwood Mosque. There too were people who had gathered for their regular Friday afternoon prayers.

Mr Aziz picked up an EFTPOS (electronic funds transaction) machine from a table inside the mosque. He ran outside. He saw a man he describes as looking like a soldier. He said to the man: “Who are you”. Mr Aziz then saw three people lying on the ground dead from shotgun blasts. He realised the man was the killer. He approached the attacker, threw the EFTPOS machine hitting the killer, who in turn took from his vehicle a second firearm (a military style semi-automatic assault rifle) and fired four to five shots at Abdul Aziz, missing him. Then, in an attempt to lure the killer away from other people, Mr Aziz shouted at the killer from behind a car: “Come, I’m here. Come I’m here!”

Mr Aziz said he didn’t want the killer to go inside the mosque and kill more people. But the killer remained focussed. He walked directly to the entrance, once inside the mosque he continued his killing spree. Survivors speak of the killer wearing “army clothes”, dressed in “SWAT combat clothing”, helmeted, wearing a vest and a balaclava.

Inside the Linwood Mosque, another witness, Shoaib Gani, was kneeling in prayer. He heard a noise like fireworks but he and others weren’t too concerned and continued with their prayers. Then, as he and his fellow worshipers were kneeling speaking verses from the Koran, the man next to him fell forward with blood pouring from his head. He had been shot and killed instantly, Mr Gani said. Then others too began falling to the floor dead.

Mr Gani crawled under a table. He saw the killer and his firearm. “Written on the rifle were the words, ‘Welcome to hell’,” he said.

Victims, who were wounded and bleeding, were pleading with Mr Gani to help them. But he was frozen to a spot under a table knowing that the killer was walking around the mosque killing as many people as he could. Mr Gani believed he too would also soon be dead, so he reached for his cellphone, he called his parent’s back home in India. But no one answered. He tried to call his father’s number, but the phone kept ringing. He saw people around him bleeding to death. Others with fatal head-wounds “their brains were hanging out. I just couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do.” Mr Gani phoned 111 (the New Zealand emergency number) and told the authorities people were dead and injured: “The lady on the phone asked me to stay on the line as long as I could.”

Outside, Abdul Aziz picked up one of the killer’s discarded shotguns. Inside the mosque, the killer’s assault rifle ran out of bullets. The killer then “dropped his firearm” and ran back to his vehicle. He got in the driver’s seat. Mr Aziz then ran toward the car. He threw a discarded shotgun at the killer’s vehicle: “I threw it like an arrow. It shattered his window.” Mr Aziz thinks the killer thought someone had shot at him with a loaded gun. The killer turned. He swore at Mr Aziz. When the window burst it covered the inside of the car with glass. Mr Aziz said the killer “then took off” driving in his car. He then turn right away from the mosque driving through a red traffic light and out into Christchurch suburban streets.

Some minutes later, Police and ambulance officers arrived at Linwood Mosque. Anti-Terrorist armed Police entered the mosque. Inside, Mr Gani said the survivors were ordered to put their hands up above their heads. The mass murder scene was covered in blood. The Police then secured the area. Some victims survived because they were under the bodies of the dead. Police told survivors to gather near a grassed area outside. There, people began weeping for their husbands, wives, parents, children, friends.

THE ARREST:

Seventeen minutes later, two Police officers identified the killer, apparently driving his car. They drove the police car into the killer’s vehicle, ramming it against a curb. Immediately, they disarmed the killer, cuffed him, noticed home made bombs in the vehicle – IEDs (improvised explosive devices). They arrested the man and secured the scene.

The rest of Christchurch was in lock-down, children were kept safe inside their classrooms, hospitals began to prepare for casualties, the city’s streets became eerily quiet, people were locked in to libraries, shops, their homes. Police and armed forces helicopters networked the skies. No one knew if the terrorist attacks were committed by a group of people or a lone gunman.

But back inside and entrances to the two mosques, 50 people were dead – one of the dead was discovered the next day by Police, the body was laying beneath others who had been killed. Scores of others were in hospital fighting for their lives, at least another ten were in a critical condition in intensive care. Pathologists from all over New Zealand and Australia were heading to Christchurch to help with documenting the method of murder of the dead.

Within hours of the killings, Australian media named the alleged killer as an Australian born citizen named Brenton Tarrant, 28 years of age. On Saturday morning The Australian newspaper’s front page read “Australia’s evil export”.

Other media in New Zealand followed with details of the man’s background. Brenton Harrison Tarrant appeared in court the next day charged with one single count of murder. Other charges will follow. His duty lawyer did not seek name suppression nor bail, the lawyer told the judge: “I’m simply seeking remand and a high court next-available-hearing date.” Tarrant stood cuffed, smiling at those in the courtroom, at one point signaling with his fingers a ‘white supremacist’ sign. He will next appear in the Christchurch High Court on April 5.

THE AFTERMATH:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later told media: “It was absolutely his [the offender’s) intention to continue with his attack.” PM Ardern said: “Police are working to build a picture of this tragic event. A complex and comprehensive investigation is (now) underway.” To balance the requirement of investigation with the customs of Muslim burials, PM Ardern said liaison officers are with the victims’ loved ones to help “in a way that is consistent with Muslim faith while taking into account these unprecedented circumstances and the obligations to the coroner.”

PM Ardern said, survivors of the massacre had indicated that this attack was not “of the New Zealand that they know”.

One day later, Survivor Shoaib Gani (mentioned above) told media he still could not sleep or eat. The sounds and sights were still vivid in his head: “I still can feel myself lying on the floor waiting for the bullets to hit me.” He said, he will travel back to India to visit family, but he will return to Christchurch: “It’s just a few people, you know. You can’t blame the whole of New Zealand for this… It’s a good country, people are peaceful. Everybody has helped me here. One right wing (person) doesn’t mean everyone is bad. So I can come back here and live and hope nothing like this happens in the future.”

In the hours after the attacks, all around New Zealand, in the cities and in small country areas, Police were stationed and were ready in case others were involved and were preparing further crimes.

Beside the Police officers, people, of all races and religions, began laying flowers at the steps to their local mosques. Messages included read: “Salam Alaikum, Peace be unto you”, and, Aroha nui”, “Peace and love”, “You are one of us”. The outpouring of grief swept the South Pacific nation, and as this piece was written, a mood of support, comfort, reassurance and solidarity with those of Muslim faith was in evidence.

In Australia, Sydney’s landmark Opera House was like a beacon in the night; coloured blue, red, and white – the colours of the New Zealand flag embossed with the silver fern (Ponga) an emblem of Aotearoa New Zealand. Australia’s peoples, like in New Zealand, began laying flowers at the steps of its mosques in a gesture of inclusiveness.

In the aftermath, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to ongoing financial assistance to dependents of those who have died or are injured, and assistance, she said, will be ongoing.

Questions are being leveled as to how a person with hate can enter, live, and purchase weapons in New Zealand while expressing hate toward other cultures and harbouring an intent to kill others.

PM Ardern said: “The guns used in this case appear to have been modified. That is a challenge Police have been facing, and that is a challenge that we will look to address in changing our laws… We need to include the fact that modification of guns which can lead them to become essentially the kinds of weapons we have seen used in this terrorist act.”

When asked how she was coping personally with the tragedy, she said: “I am feeling the exact same emotions that every New Zealander is facing. Yes, I have the additional responsibility and weight of expressing the grief of all New Zealanders and I certainly feel that.”

That responsibility includes ensuring New Zealand’s Police, the nation’s intelligence and security services and “the process around watch-lists, including whether or not our border protections are currently in a status that they should be, and, including our gun laws.”

THE BACKSTORY:

Indeed, New Zealand is part of the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence network that includes the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Global surveillance is coordinated and prioritised among the Five Eyes member states. While significant resource, technology and sophistication is committed to the Five Eyes intelligence agencies, New Zealanders fear that those who find themselves as targets, or within the scope of intelligence officers, are predominantly of the Muslim faith.

In contrast, the accused killer who allegedly committed the horrific Christchurch mosque attacks, has been active both on social media and the dark web expressing, with an intensifying degree, his ideology of hate and intolerance. It does appear of the highest public interest, certainly from an open source intelligence point of view, to ask questions of why New Zealand’s (and indeed the Five Eyes intelligence network’s) surveillance experts did not detect the expressed evil that had radicalised the heart and mind of the perpetrator of this massacre.

It is also fact, that New Zealand is a comparatively safe and peaceful nation. But within its midst are people and groups fermenting on racially-based hate ideas. Whether it be in isolation or among organised groupings, the threat of racially driven terror crimes exists.

The alleged killer, Brenton Tarrant, has lived among those of New Zealand’s southern city Dunedin for at least two years. It appears he was radicalised around 2010 after his father died and he toured Europe. He wrote about becoming “increasingly disgusted” at immigrant communities. In early 2018, Tarrant joined a Dunedin gun club and began practicing his shooting skills and allegedly planned his attacks.

Regarding Christchurch, while it has a history of overt white racist gangs, at this juncture, it does not appear they were directly involved in this series of crimes.

But this leads to many unanswered questions, including:

• Was the killer a lone mass murderer, a sleeper in a cell of one?
• Were those with whom he communicated and engaged with on the web in extreme white racist ideologies aware of his plans?
• Was Christchurch chosen by the killer for logistical reasons?
• Was it because the city is easier to drive around than Dunedin, Wellington or Auckland?
• Was it because Christchurch has at least two mosques within easy driving distance?
• Were the Bangladesh Cricket team in his scope of attacks?
• Was the killer attempting to incite a violent response from Christchurch’s burgeoning Muslim community, or, expecting a response from the Alt-Right, from white racist groups such as the Right Wing Resistance (RWR), the Fourth Reich, and Christchurch’s skinhead community?

THE FUTURE:

Survivors of Friday 15th’s terrorist attack say they have complained of an increase in racism and expressed hate in recent times. They say, their concerns have not been taken seriously. These are the concerns that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to listen to, has committed to represent, and, as the prime advocate for her country’s peoples, to act on to ensure cracks in New Zealand’s border, security and intelligence apparatus are corrected.

And, what of New Zealand’s social culture? How will it be affected? That will be determined by the actions of each individual person, each community, town and city and how as a nation New Zealand redefines “The Kiwi Way”.

Members of New Zealand’s media will also need to act responsibly. It is fair to say some have a reputation for argument that verges on alt-right intolerance, for example, on Twitter only two days after the mass murders, a prominent radio journalist, who is employed by one of New Zealand’s largest networks, tweeted: “28 years on an [sic] we still haven’t stopped madmen getting guns. #ChChMosque… [Replying to @Politikwebsite] And the neo nationalist right are the result of the virtue signaling exclusionary left.”

Perhaps such examples are out of step with New Zealand’s population. But such attitudes do create a dialogue of justification for those who harbour intolerance. However, if the outpouring of love and compassion continues to bind rather than divide, then perhaps New Zealand has received, as they say, ‘a wake-up call’, where racial intolerance and extreme ideologies have no place among peoples of all kinds, Maori and Pakeha, of all religions, political persuasions and creeds.

One thing is certain; to stamp out the evil of hate extremism, New Zealanders will pay a price that will be charged against the Kiwi lifestyle. Personal liberties of freedom, of expression and privacy will certainly be eroded further as this nation of the South Pacific grapples with how to keep its peoples safe. The means of how to achieve relative safety will be hotly debated, but it is a necessary juncture in this nation’s history, a moment when we all must confront and challenge ourselves so that people of innocence, people like little three year old Mucaad Ibrahim, can go about their days in trust, in peace, in joyful purpose and achieve their deserved potential. Anything less is a second killing for the victims of Friday 15, New Zealand’s darkest hour.

This month’s chart uses a correctly proportioned (logarithmic) scale to compare the growth of the average hourly price of labour in Education/Training and miscellaneous Professional Services with wage growth across ‘all industries’ (bearing in mind that most workers are employed in service ‘industries’).

We should relate this to my June Chart (The Future of Work?) and commentary, and with David Graeber’s analysis in mind (Why bullshit jobs are booming [Radio New Zealand], and On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs [Strike, 2013]). We note in particular that, while ‘bullshit jobs’ can be found in all industries – and there are signs that employment in many service occupations is being subject to a process of bullshitisation – Graeber’s bullshit jobs are heavily concentrated in the rapidly growing ‘Professional, Scientific, Technical, Administrative and Support Services’ industry. (This is the PSTAS – or ‘pissed as’ – sector.)

In this month’s chart, we see gridlines labelled ‘500’ and ‘1000’. The ‘1000’ represents a doubling of nominal (ie not inflation-adjusted) hourly earnings. Thus we can see that average hourly earnings doubled between 1989 and 2010. Likewise, they doubled between 1995 and 2018. (The increase from one gridline to the next is about 26 percent. Three gridlines represent a 100% compounded increase.)

In education, hourly wages barely grew in the early 1990s – the years of Ruthanasia, which culminated in the passing of 1994 Fiscal Responsibility Act. Public sector expenditure was ruthlessly (or ‘Ruthfully’?) suppressed at a time when official unemployment reached 11 percent and actual unemployment was double that. However, education wages did catch up in the decade after 1995 – the decade in which the international education industry grew very rapidly in New Zealand.

It was after 2009 that education wages started to fall behind again. In a couple of years in the middle of this decade, education wage growth was basically nil while some PSTAS workers experienced large earnings’ increases.

It is certainly true that education workers need a pay catch-up, and by more than the chart suggests.

Average hourly earnings is influenced by the average experience in the teaching workforce, and by the changing mix between teaching and management staff. As the teaching profession has aged, teachers’ average hourly wages have increased by much more than new-teacher wage rates. (The opposite applies to PSTAS remuneration, as the many new entrants bring down the industry average.)

Further, many people employed in the last five years within the education industry have been managers on six-figure salaries (many doing jobs that fit Graeber’s definition of “bullshit jobs” – jobs the performance of which does not augment social or economic well-being). The industry average earnings growth will have overstated the earnings’ growth of teachers, especially during the 2016 wage spurt.

One of the biggest problems that teachers face was well expressed in the well-received (in Australia) ABC Teaching Special Q+A television program (8 October 2018; downloadable; transcript available) was ‘demoralisation’. Demoralisation relates to incremental though persistent increases in the (essentially bureaucratic) non-teaching workload that teachers face (as in ‘if the students would only go away I would be able to do the work I am required to prioritise’). Essentially this unnecessary work overload is the ‘bullshitisation’ of the teaching profession, and is the deep underlying cause of teachers’ frustration.

More-and-more of teachers’ work is coming to resemble the work done in ‘bullshit jobs’. It means teachers are doing evermore work in total; overtime work they are not getting paid for. If we divide teachers’ salaries by the actual amounts of work they are expected to do, then the average hourly rate of teacher remuneration has been falling. Economists would say that the increased underpricing of teachers’ labour is the root cause of the shortage of teachers and trainee teachers. Add in excessive housing costs, and you have a profession in crisis. This is not a crisis that can be resolved through willful ignorance.

Accusations have surfaced alleging the current National Party leadership conspired to politically destroy Jami-Lee Ross – this after details of his affair with a fellow party MP became known to them. The allegations raise serious questions. Those questions include: what did National’s leader and deputy leader know and when did they find out?

A sworn-to timeline of events is now essential so that the public interest can be satisfied. This must be a crucial element that is cemented in to the methodology of Simon Bridges’ inquiry into the culture of the National Party. Above all, it must be independent and publicly accessible.

The inquiry must examine the National leadership team’s actions and culture, test whether they acted in a proper and timely manner, and assess whether their actions considered a concern for the welfare and mental health of an MP they had previously supported, promoted, and embedded within their leadership team.

It follows that allegations suggesting a “hit job” was orchestrated from inside the National Party leadership must also be independently explored.

If the inquiry finds that either the leader, or deputy leader, was part of a destructive and inhumane attack on Jami-Lee Ross – while it was known that he was at high risk of being pushed over the edge, was ill, and verging on suicide – and that they acted without reasonable regard for his welfare, then it must be accepted by the National Party caucus, its membership and the public, that this National leadership team is at the very least morally bankrupt.

This inquiry ought to be conducted amidst a background whereby Ross declared his role in the destructive side of politics; following the orders of Sir John Key, Bill English, Paula Bennett and Simon Bridges. Ross was afterall a ‘numbers man’ for Bridges, and benefitted from the patronage that the Bridges-Bennett leadership team offered.

There are a number of ‘ifs’ in this analysis, but the public interest demands that they be considered.

The allegations have surfaced on the blog-site Whaleoil which is owned and edited by controversial writer Cameron Slater.

Some may dismiss the allegations on the basis of tribalism, or ignore the allegations because Slater was centrally involved in National’s so called Dirty Politics as revealed in 2014. But the nature of the allegations are as serious as they get in politics, and, if accurate played a part in the sudden deterioration of Jami-Lee Ross’ mental health, the sectioning of Ross for his own protection, and the erasion of credibility of a potential political opponent who was determined to continue as a critical member of New Zealand’s Parliament.

This analysis’ argument suggests any such bias, on behalf by Cameron Slater’s opponents, ought to be ethically and morally put aside until such a time as the truth and facts are tested. Such an inquiry, preferably judicial but essentially independent, must be robust and critical in its analysis.

To reiterate; numerous elements of this saga elevate the issues to a matter of serious public interest.

And it must be noted at this juncture, that the party’s leader Simon Bridges insists he has acted appropriately and denies taking part in any political “hit job”.

Let’s examine what Evening Report has learned from contacts close to events.

Alleged details of events between Saturday-Sunday October 20-21

There is a txt-chain of events that investigators can forensically examine that are central to understanding who was involved in the sectioning of Jami-Lee Ross.

If the txts are examined they will determine if it is fact that the National Party MP, with whom Jami-Lee Ross had a three-year affair, rang the Police and that as a consequence of that call the Police used mental health laws to take Jami-Lee Ross into custody and contain him within the mental health unit at Counties Manukau Health.

Txts will also show whether it is fact that the female MP then called Simon Bridges’ chief of staff at 9:15pm on Saturday October 20 informing him of the events. If so Bridges’ office was aware of an alleged suicide attempt. Investigators would then be able to assess whether a txt message from Jami-Lee Ross’ psychologist, who Evening Report understands messaged Jami-Lee Ross at 9:28pm on Saturday October 20, asking if he was ok, and that the psychologist had minutes prior received a txt message from Jamie Gray, Simon Bridges’ chief of staff.

It is a matter of public record that Simon Bridges appeared on NewsHub’s AM Show on Tuesday October 23, denying all knowledge of events on the Saturday night – that is until a wider grouping within the National Party became privy to what had happened to Jami-Lee Ross.

It appears reasonable to form an opinion that Bridges’ chief of staff would have informed the leader of such an event. If he didn’t, why didn’t he inform Bridges?

The sectioning of Jami-Lee Ross ended a week where many National Party MPs, and a wider network of those loyal to the party, appeared to be actively orchestrating a coordinated campaign to destroy the so-called rogue MP’s political chances and to discredit his claims of corruption within the National Party leadership. Had Jami-Lee Ross abused his position as the senior whip within the party? It certainly appears so. Did he abuse the power he was afforded? Media reports would suggest this was so. Did he have an affair with at least two women? Yes. But it appears that the public attacks began, not at the time when senior members of the party were informed of Ross’ actions, but, once Ross began to attack the leadership. This is significant.

An Opposition’s Role As The Public’s Advocate

As senior representatives of New Zealand’s Legislature, leader Simon Bridges and deputy leader Paula Bennett can arguably be regarded as the public’s advocates within Parliament. Their job is to keep the Executive Government on its toes, challenge its policy and rationale, to be Parliament’s keepers of the public’s interest.

As such, the public deserves to know if the leaders, as a team or individually, conspired to destroy the political chances of an MP and former colleague, who they considered to have gone rogue, and who they knew was suffering a crisis of mental health so serious that it could have ended in death.

It is in consideration of the public interest, that this editorial is written.

We now know as fact, Jami-Lee Ross had a three year affair with a South Island-based National MP.[name withheld]. Like him, she has two children and was married.

While the affair was going ‘well’, contacts inside the National Party have told Evening Report that Jami-Lee encouraged Bridges to promote his lover above her standing and reputation in caucus, well above some high profile MPs like National’s Chris Bishop who are respected among colleagues and media and seen to have been doing their job well. The promotion was seen to give leverage, to sure up the numbers to stabilise Bridges’ and Bennett’s leadership team at a time when they sensed support was delicate.

Meanwhile, Jami-Lee Ross continued to pull in big donations from wealthy Chinese residents in his Botany electorate. As a reward, Bridges embedded him into his inner core, the top three. Politically, this is really an unsound move by a political leader. With Ross being senior whip, he is supposed to be directed by the leader to pull MPs into line, to do the leader’s bidding, and to do this without necessarily knowing the deep and dark details underlying the leader’s moves.

In effect, with Jami-Lee Ross becoming a central figure, knowing all the details, the dirt, the strategy and tactics, it centralised too much power into the whip position and elevated a real danger of a whip using the position for his own gain. To reiterate, this appears a seriously stupid move of Bridges and Bennett to pull a whip in on their machinations. And, in a significant contact’s view, it appears they risked this because Jami-Lee was pulling in the donor money.

Jami-Lee Ross had been on the rise for a time. Former Prime Minister John Key promoted him to the whips office. Then PM Bill English secured Ross’s rise by maintaining and elevating his whip role. Bridges and Bennett further empowered Jami-Lee Ross by cementing him into the whip position, a move that suggested National’s power-politicians were well satisfied with his service.

It’s hard to tell how far back it was when Jami-Lee Ross began to record Bridges. And, at this juncture, it’s difficult to know if he recorded Bennett as well. The public is left to fathom whether it was when his affair with the National MP went sour and perhaps Ross sensed Bennett having become close to her.

In any event, when Jami-Lee Ross fell out with his colleague and lover, sources say Bennett played a crucial role in the analysis of his conduct, in particular women who had allegedly been burned by Ross. Two women, contacts inside National state, were staff of the National Party leader. The MP (whom Ross had a three-year affair with) and the two staff members are said by National Party contacts to be the subject of NewsRoom.co.nz’s investigation into Ross’ activities, an investigation that is believed to have spanned up to one year in duration. Evening Report raises this aspect as the public interest demands to consider whether it is reasonable to believe that two staffers in the leader’s office never told nor informed Bridges, or the chief of staff, that they were cooperating in a media investigation into the leader’s chief and senior whip?

Contacts state that Bennett gained the women’s confidence, received information so it could be prepared as part of a disciplinary process. Did Bennett choose to engage media with this information? If so, once media received the information, what involvement did the deputy leader have or continue to have, or engage with, the complainants and media?

Sources inside National state Bennett then seeded info about Jami-Lee Ross having had an affair. They point to her having hinted at behaviour unbecoming of a married member of Parliament during an interview before TV, radio and print journalists. Did she do this without Bridges knowing or being forewarned.

If true, in effect, this would have driven the narrative ahead of the leader. If so, it is reasonable to fathom that a senior politician would know Bridges would be forced to defend the character-attack campaign that appeared orchestrated and designed to destroy Ross. Amidst the firestorm, National MP Maggie Barry spoke out against Ross with significant indignation. This will have been digested by the public that National had expelled a human predator from its midst. It also gave the impression National’s female caucus members were unified. However, respected MP Nikki Kaye kept out of it. Why?

Next, Bridges was forced to field political journalists’ questions about breaking the old convention that you keep affairs and family issues under the covers.

Bridges was then compelled to inform media that he had “told off” his deputy leader for giving credence that an affair had been ongoing between Ross and a Nat MP. This made Bridges look even weaker.

The future of National’s leadership

National Party contacts suggest Bridges is positioned where he will be forced to absorb the political fallout for what is seen by some as a character assassination campaign gone wrong. One contact states that once Bridges is rendered useless, and the issue dies down, Bennett herself will be well positioned to remove Bridges as leader in 2019.

It is reasonable to form an opinion that senior National MP Judith Collins will also be available if the leadership were to fall vacant. Her popularity is again on the rise.

At this juncture, for Bridges and Bennett, it appears wise for them to expect more National Party dirt to emerge before the end of the year. Evening Report’s sources say: “ample dirt lingers just below the surface.”

For a party that once stated it had no factions, it certainly seems its personality factions are now in all-out political warfare.

Judith Collins’ star has been rising since she returned to the front-bench in opposition. And it has been bolstered by a favourable Colmar Brunton Poll. It’s fair to suggest she has laid heavy hits on Labour’s Housing Minister Phil Twyford. As a consequence, her standing within the caucus has improved. On investigation, it is clear she has not had the loyalty of Jami-Lee Ross since he was promoted by John Key. He, along with Mark Mitchell, then supported Bill English for the leadership. Bennett and Mitchell are politically close. It does appear that moves by some media to connect Jami-Lee Ross’ revelations with a Judith Collins plan as not based on fact.

While there’s an expectation among interested public that Collins will be the next leader, she will need the support of what’s left of National’s social conservatives and those loyal to Nikki Kaye.

For Collins to succeed, she will have to be seen to inoculate the party from damaging information that may be in the possession of Jami-Lee Ross. All the while, she, like Bennett, needs Bridges to continue to fail as a leader.

It is fair to accept, the recordings and damaging information are now with Cam Slater and Simon Lusk. It is also reasonable to suggest that Bridges is a disappointment to some who once supported his bid for leadership. Cam Slater is clearly appalled at what he refers to as a “hit job”.

Slater is adamant that he is not motivated by an agenda, nor by a pitch by a fiscal conservative faction to gain leadership of the National party. Rather he said, he is motivated to help an old friend who the current leadership moved to destroy. He added on his blog-site, if the current leadership continues “to lie” he will continue to reveal the truth.

Meanwhile, Jami-Lee Ross is being reassured and cared for by a mutual friend of his and Slater’s who is a pastor with the Seventh Day Adventists.

Contacts say, with regard to Jami-Lee Ross and his National Party former lover and colleague, the three year affair was a relationship that in the end didn’t deliver what either banked on – despite promotions and connections and having benefitted politically from their association.

It’s fair to say, Jami-Lee Ross was out of his experiential depth and in part abusive from the point of view of how to handle political power, networks and consensual relationships.

Two other women who laid complaints about Ross, worked in the leader’s office.

Bridges is adamant he didn’t know about the abuse of power nor the complaints. Did Bennett know? At what point was she privy to the information?

One National Party contact said: “It defies reasonable belief that Bridges didn’t know.”

It is right that Bridges has initiated an inquiry into National’s culture. But that in itself falls short or what the public interest demands. Why? Because the inquiry reports back to Bridges, who as leader may well be one of the protagonists. Also, the report will not be released to the public which leaves it as a golden prize, the holy grail, for any journalist and, irrespective of who it damns or exonerates, will become a currency for any MP with leadership ambitions.

As it now stands, Bridges’ worst nightmare must be not knowing what Jami-Lee Ross recorded and at what point did he begin taping the National Party leader’s conversations.

If those recordings contain further embarrassing or damaging content and references, then he will be finished as leader. Bridges, as leader, even if he has a clear conscience, must be wracking his memory as to past conversations and comments while knowing the conversations may be in the hands of people with whom he has lost their trust.

And the question remains unanswered: Was Paula Bennett recorded as well?

If her actions are found by inquirers to have led an orchestrated political response to Jami-Lee Ross’ revelations, whether that be at the behest or otherwise of the current leader, then this will destroy any higher ambitions that she may have ever contemplated.

It follows, that if the report concludes that the rot inside National extends to its current leadership, then it may well be that Judith Collins will become the leader of the National Party, unopposed.

Whatever the future holds for the National Party, it is in everyone’s interests that an independent judicial investigation into this National affair be conducted in a spirit of openness and propriety.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Evening Report invites any individual connected to this analysis to have a right of reply. Footnote: Interview between the author and Jami-Lee Ross on his role as a new National Party MP (August 13 2012):

Once upon a time we regarded market-work as a necessary evil, and we anticipated a future reward, in the form of a leisure-dividend. From the 1850s to the 1970s, the idea of a good life included the notion that there would be a release from market labour; indeed, this was considered the whole point of raising our productivity in work.

The leisure-dividend would be a release well before the ultimate release of death, a release that would enable us to give meaning and identity to our lives separate from the identity etched upon us through our occupations and careers.

Once upon a time we worked to live. We used to see leisure as a solution. Now we live to work. Has leisure become a problem? Or maybe our youth are grabbing their leisure dividends early, as older people forfeit theirs? Leisure now or never might be their motto.

This month’s chart shows that 90% of 65-69 year-olds were free from market labour, but in 2017 only 55% are enjoying such freedom. The decline started in the late 1990s, around the time that the retirement discourse shifted. Fulltime retirement came to be framed, increasingly, as an unaffordable indulgence. The likelihood is that the pattern will continue; in part because for some people the love of money has become greater than the love of free-time, and in part because low and precarious incomes force many people to live extended market lives.

For 55-64 year-olds, retirement peaked at 59% during the unemployment crisis of the early 1990s. After that, as the age of entitlement to public superannuation was raised to 65, a rapid decline in retirement set in. Now 25 years after the peak, only 22% of 55-64 year-olds are retired or otherwise out of work.

Neither of the older age groups increased their leisure after the global financial crisis. Rather older people clung onto their jobs, leaving those in their twenties to pay the unemployment price.

While people aged 25-29 enjoy less leisure now than before, the leisure they do experience would appear to be enforced; it is correlated to periods of high unemployment.

For 15-24 year-olds, their fulltime non-employment, which exceeded 50% from 2010 to 2013, shows what must be understood as a remorseless upward trend. Certainly it is not clear that young people need more education than they did in the past. Non-employment in this age group is now as high as it was in the early 1990s, when the young truly experienced mass unemployment on a scale comparable with the depression of the 1930s.

On the upside, some young people may be taking genuine leisure dividends early, on the understanding that the option of a leisure dividend later in life may be closed to them. Others may have dropped-out of any serous expectation of a 40-year-life of paid labour. The epidemic of mental illness among young people surely must be related to the rising proportion who see little hope of leading a life of economic independence. Older people clinging onto their jobs must have contributed to the reduction of opportunities for unexceptional young people to build careers.

So the general picture is one of older people foregoing leisure dividends. And of younger people foregoing economic independence and the responsibilities that such independence entails. Deep down they know that, as they themselves move into middle-age, they will be expected to produce but not consume the goods and services that their collective elders will demand of them.

In the Scoop report of the most recent (16-19 Sep) Colmar Brunton political poll, we see the numbers adding up to 112.3%. This innumerate reporting – a result of Colmar Brunton’s own reporting method – represents one of the biggest flaws of political polling. It de-emphasises the most important statistic, the ‘undecided’ vote. We sometimes forget that the whole point of election campaigns is for parties to convince undecided voters to vote for them. The final election result comes as undecided voters make up their minds. Good polling will show whether undecideds are indeed making up their minds.

Today’s chart reports the TVNZ Colmar-Brunton polls from July, with undecided (and refused-to-say) voters included. The chart sequences the parties with the National bloc (including New Zealand First) at the bottom, with the Labour bloc above. The most likely pivot point is the Māori Party, placed here between New Zealand First and Labour. Parties unlikely to make the cut are shown at the top.

If all the undecided voters do in fact vote, the critical percentage should be between 48% and 49%. In the most recent poll, the National bloc is showing at 45%, meaning that if 30% of the undecideds support National, Act or New Zealand First, then those parties will be in position to form a government. This should happen if enough of the undecideds are undecided between parties in that bloc. But if the main source of indecision relates to Green versus Labour, then most of the undecided votes will be votes for a new Prime Minister.

The chart shows clearly that most of the support gained by Labour after its leadership change came from the Greens and the undecideds. After that, some support seeped from the National bloc to the Labour bloc. The 13 September poll appears to have been a ‘rogue poll’ (overstating Labour). By definition, 1 poll in 20 will be outside the margin of error.

In mid-September, we saw an increase in the undecided proportion. It’s less clear whether this represents people contemplating a switch in intent from the Labour to National.

My sense is that the final result will be an average of the 6 September and 19 September polls, with undecideds slightly in favour of a change of Prime Minister.

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In 1939, Joseph Schumpeter published his magnum opus, Business Cycles. He emphasised three growth cycles, Kitchin (about every three years), Juglar (about every decade) and Kondratiev (about five decades). Of interest to us at present is the Juglar Cycle, with its frequency of about 10 years.

This month’s chart averages economic growth (adjusted for inflation but not population). It suggests a very definite problem around years ending in ‘8’. Most observers of New Zealand’s macroeconomic history would be unsurprised. The ‘8’ years, with a few exceptions, have been characterised in New Zealand by contractionary economic conditions.

Interestingly, the next lowest year is not an adjacent year (‘7’ or ‘9’); rather it’s the ‘1’ year. Indeed, if I was to do this exercise for the world economy as a whole, the ‘1’ year would probably be that with the least growth (notwithstanding the global financial crisis of 2008).

Next year is an ‘8’ year. And all the indications – except one – suggest that 2018 will be a repeat of 2008; in New Zealand and in the world. The exception is that interest rates are much lower than they were in 2007, and the monetary authorities in some countries have their heads around negative interest rates. This in my view means that the world economy should ride out 2018 more easily than it did 2008.

I’m less confident about New Zealand. In the 1930s, countries that had made liberal adjustments (in welfare especially, and in monetary policy) in the 1920s (eg United Kingdom, Sweden) did best. Countries that most practiced fiscal ‘soundness’ in the late 1920s – United States, France, Germany – suffered worst.

My sense is that New Zealand’s lucky run this century is about to unravel. If that unravelling starts next year (or even sooner, if too much real estate is offered for sale after the 2017 election), I am not confident that New Zealand’s public sector will be prepared to go into large-scale deficit spending. I’m particularly worried that a new Labour-led government might pursue debt-averse austerity policies in the event of a 2018 recession.

The last years in which Schumpeter’s three cycles had simultaneous downturns – globally – were 1931 and 1981. While 1931 was particularly bad in New Zealand, 1981 was surprisingly OK in New Zealand compared to the rest of the world.

My sense is that the worst of economic times will happen in the decade from 2025 to 2035. 2028 (or 2027) may be particularly bad in New Zealand, as 1927 was. The next eight or nine years are the ones that will be critical. We need a genuine contest of ideas. We should be prepared for the critical consequences of inequality, precarious living, spending collapses, and debt-deflation.

The world capitalist economy grows through a process of debt-leverage. Every 10 years sees a bout of deleverage; sometimes regional, sometimes global. The solution to deleverage in the past has mainly been to quickly re-establish the leverage cycle. It didn’t happen in the USA, France and Germany in the 1930s. After one of the ‘8’ years or ‘1’ years in the next decade or two, the traditional monetary reboot will not work. We need to have a Plan B that is better than the World War that followed the Great Depression of the 1930s.

This month’s chart shows the only factual measure of net immigration: total arrivals in New Zealand minus total departures. It measures annual net passenger flows as a percent of resident population, using monthly data. The most recent figure, for the year ending July 2017, shows a net inflow of 59,842; which is 1.25 percent of New Zealand’s resident population.

Net immigration is a very good indication of safe employment opportunities in New Zealand relative to opportunities elsewhere. It is generally well-synchronised to New Zealand’s economic growth cycle. This century has seen post-1920 peaks, in 2002 and 2014‑16. 2002 clearly followed the New York and Washington terror attacks in 2001. 2014‑16 also strongly reflects security and economic concerns in much of the rest of the world.

The chart marks the two most recent property booms in the Auckland (and subsequently New Zealand) residential land markets: 2003 to 2008, and 2012 to 2017.

The first boom is demarked by the gold spots, the second by the red spots. The general picture is that such booms are unrelated to immigration. In the first 21st-century boom, initial immigration appears to be incidental. As the boom progressed, net immigration fell and stayed low until 2009. This property boom took place under conditions of generally high (and rising) interest rates.

The second property boom got underway in 2011 at the end of a near-decade of low net immigration. Net immigration became significantly high only in 2014, well after the beginning of the Auckland property boom. This boom took place in a low (and sometimes falling) interest rate environment. Neither immigration nor interest rates serve as plausible explanations for the Auckland land-price booms.

When we go back in time, we see that net immigration closely reflects a stuttering economic cycle. In 1929‑30, there was significant immigration from Australia, where the global economic depression struck. This was more than two years before the summer of 1930/31 when it struck New Zealand. During the Depression, both immigration and emigration were very low. A construction boom in 1937‑38 restored high levels of immigration, especially workers from Australia.

New Zealand’s post‑war immigration peak was in 1952‑53. Immigration was also strong in the early 1960s and early 1970s. Robert Muldoon became Finance Minister from early 1967 to late 1972. Difficult years for New Zealand gave way to good years.

It is true that net immigration collapsed in Robert Muldoon’s first trimester as Prime Minister. This is when many later post-war baby-boomers (born in the 1950s) took the opportunity to enjoy their OE, while New Zealand got the world recession later than most other countries. Many of these people came back during Muldoon’s third term government, from 1981 to 1984. In those years New Zealand was continuing to liberalise (many liberal reforms – such as divorce laws, shop-trading hours, and open information – took place then). These were the years when returning New Zealanders contributed to growing movie-making, information technology, and restaurant-café growth. They were also years when New Zealand looked very pleasant from Thatcher’s new Britain and America’s experiment in Reaganomics.

Net immigration was negative during the period of the Lange-Douglas Labour government, a period of rapidly growing house prices despite emigration and high interest rates. Immigration resumed in 1991, when Australia had its financial crisis (ours began in 1987). Rising immigration in the mid‑1990s coincided with another residential property boom, though probably did not cause it. (Rising income and wealth inequality is in fact the root cause of land-banking mania. 1985 to 1995 was the period in which New Zealand transformed from an equal to an unequal society.) The late 1990s saw a general economic stasis, with changes in China and the USA eventually facilitating the growth boom of the 21st century.

New Zealand is a migrant nation. Immigration and emigration have always featured strongly in its economic and social history. Recent events are no exception. However, while New Zealand has a high population turnover, most people who have identified as New Zealanders remain Kiwis at heart.

What of the 2020s? I think that, for New Zealand, they will prove much like the 1920s. New Zealand will stutter as the world economy slowly implodes.

Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Labour’s demographically challenging party list

Challenging demographic requirements in Labour played a part in causing this week’s difficulties with its party’s list. 

Creating and announcing Labour’s party list for the 2017 election was clearly a challenging affair. Part of this difficulty was due to the very strong desire and, in fact, requirement that the party improve the demographic diversity of its caucus make up. The party has struggled in the past to elect enough women – currently only 39 per cent of Labour’s caucus – as well as ethnic minorities to Parliament (as have other parties). 

But the party list creation has also been challenging due to other factors, with various incumbents and new candidates being promised high list places. As debated earlier in the year, renegade Maori politician and broadcaster, Willie Jackson was strategically recruited from the Maori Party, in a deft move to attempt to stymie the looming alliance between the Maori and Mana parties, which had looked likely to be a major challenge to Labour’s hold on the Maori seats. 

Labour’s new talent on show

For the clearest roundup of who’s benefitted or been disadvantaged by the manovering and various agendas in Labour, see Jo Moir’s Winners and losers: Who is up and who is down on the Labour Party list? She says the winners are: Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Jan Tinetti, Raymond Huo, and Willow-Jean Prime. The losers are deemed to be Trevor Mallard and Greg O’Connor, while Willie Jackson is categorised as an “inbetweener”.

Despite much controversy and internal party drama about its release, there’s actually been plenty of positive commentary about the list. For example, yesterday’s Dominion Post editorial declares it “a relatively strong list” – see: Botched announcement masks a reasonable list. The newspaper comments that “it’s been clear for several election cycles that Labour’s rump caucus has too many MPs who are past it. This list helps some of them to move on, and puts a bunch of new faces into winnable positions”.

Leftwing blogger No Right Turn makes some similar points: “The most obvious feature is the generational shift within Labour – the old guard time servers are out, retired or shoved down, while MPs elected at the end of the Clark years are firmly in charge. There’s also a greater emphasis on new blood rather than incumbent protection, which should help overcome the stale feeling of the party” – see: Labour’s list. 

Patrick Gower points out that the Jackson controversy was allowed to overshadow what should have been a story about the great new talent in the party: “It is unfortunate because it should be about the rise of newcomer Willow-Jean Prime. Rather than Willie’s falling star, the story should be about Willow-Jean’s rising one. This should have been a story about how Willow-Jean Prime was an outstanding new candidate with a high list spot. She is a lawyer, young mother, a Far North district councillor. She does it all – and has got it all. She is Maori, likeable, she fights for the North, is battle-hardened after the Northland by-election – and most importantly, she’s real” – see: Labour’s list is about Willow-Jean Prime, not ‘sooky-bubba’ Willie Jackson.

The likely demographics of the next Labour caucus

There’s been plenty of congratulations for Labour’s presentation of a more demographically representative party list. But what will the next caucus actually look like? 

The most interesting analysis comes in David Farrar’s Labour’s likely demographics. Any such analysis has to be based on a prediction of what sort of party vote figure Labour will get, and in this case Farrar bases his “on an assumption of them having 35 MPs, being 27 electorate and eight list, representing 29% party vote.”

In terms of gender, Farrar suggests Labour MPs will be 54 percent male (compared to 48 percent of the adult population), and only 46 percent female (compared to 52 percent of society). Farrar comments: “So once again Labour has ignored their requirement to have gender equality. Only at 35% party vote do they get equal number of women and men in caucus.”

In terms of ethnicity, the following categories are likely: European 49% (69%), Maori 31% (13%), Pasifika 14% (6%), and Asian 6% (12%). Farrar comments: “A huge over-representation of Maori and Pasifika in their caucus and under-representation of Europeans and Asians (compared to population).”

For an alternative analysis, see Simon Wilson’s It’s not just about Willie: sizing up the Labour Party list. He illustrates what the party list will mean in practice under different party vote results. 

Perhaps the most interesting point he makes is that under numerous party vote scenarios, the party will have failed to produce the required 50:50 gender ratio in its caucus. For example, if Labour gets 35 percent of the vote, its caucus is likely to have “a male-female ratio of 23:19”, and if the party gets only 30 percent of the vote, the ratio is likely to favour men, 19:17.

So, has the party actually adhered to its own constitutional rules? It needs to ensure 50 percent of the caucus are women. And if it hasn’t, then could legal action be taken? This is entirely unlikely according to public law expert Andrew Geddis – see his blog post, Why Matthew Hooton is wrong – again. 

And in terms of Labour’s improving Asian representation, there might still be cause for unrest. Yes, there are high list spots for Priyanca Radhakrishnan and Raymond Huo, but according to Richard Harman, “the next Asian candidate on the list after them is Philippino Romy Udanga in position 46. There are another six Asian candidates below him, but they are unlikely to make Parliament” – see: Dodging Labour’s Indian mutiny.

Harman reports that “there appears to be trouble within its ethnic base in Auckland”, especially with the withdrawal from the list of former candidate Sunny Kaushal, who explains he withdrew because of “ongoing hostilities and bullying from some of the Party Membership and Hierarchy that I have been subject to”. See also, Harman’s Mallard bottom MP on Labour list.

Demographic wars in Labour

The controversy over Willie Jackson’s list placing has come about because of the difficulty Andrew Little has had in delivering on his promise that his new recruit would secure a top ten list position. Although Little, as leader, was central to the list ordering process, it seems that he was outmanoeuvred in his attempts to get Jackson a more winnable position. 

Getting Jackson a higher position was made more difficult because of the new rule in the Labour Party constitution that requires the caucus to be at least 50 percent female. Sam Sachdeva explains: “A further wrinkle is the party’s requirement for gender balance: rule 8.47 of its constitution states the ranking committee must ensure that at least half of its MPs are women, taking into account likely electorate results. Based on current polling, Labour could win 36 seats. However, if it retains the 27 electorates it currently holds (15 of which have male candidates, and 12 female) that leaves space for only nine list MPs – at least six of which would have to be women to ensure gender parity. That is in part responsible for the predicament Jackson finds himself in” – see: Labour list delay reveals cracks in unity. 

Little’s promise of a high list place for Jackson was necessary to lure Jackson away from what was seen by many as a sure win for him in Tamaki Makaurau for the Maori Party. And it is significant that Little was not able to deliver on the promise. 

As Audrey Young writes, this was a blow to Little’s leadership and authority: “It was not unreasonable of Little to have made the public promise to Jackson. Having lured him away in February from a high-paying broadcasting job and a likely candidacy with the Maori Party, a public statement by Little was a signal to the party that this was his call. It wasn’t a decision made by Little because of the calibre of the candidate. It was a perfectly legitimate ‘Captain’s Call’ made by Little for legitimate strategic reasons in the wider interests of the party” – see: Labour leader deserves more respect from his party executive. 

Young says that Labour’s party hierarchy – the list committee and New Zealand Council – “blocked Little’s bid to make good on his pledge, and that “Little deserves more respect from the party’s New Zealand Council.”

According to Chris Trotter, the agenda of gender equality was simply stronger than Little strategic maneuvering with Jackson: “Willie failed to grasp I think, and maybe even Andrew did too, just how firm Labour is – in terms of the party organisation – in ensuring gender equality” – see Newstalk ZB’s Willie Jackson’s list placement down to gender equality – analyst.

Some voters might be put off by the apparent reduced emphasise on meritocracy in the creation of the party list. And for arguments about this, watch Mike Hosking’s Labour’s list another bungle. 

But for a defence of Labour’s mechanism to ensure gender diversity in its caucus, Simon Wilson says: “No, it’s not a ‘man ban’. Men are obviously not banned. It’s gender balancing to reflect the party’s desire to overcome unconscious and historical biases, and if you’re worried about that ask yourself if there’s a better way of getting roughly equal numbers of men and women in Parliament. Yes, it does frustrate the ambitions of some male candidates and their supporters. But it will also delight some women candidates and their supporters. And is there anyone who wants to argue our Parliament will be worse off for having more women in it? Didn’t think so” – see: It’s not just about Willie: sizing up the Labour Party list.

And for an even more strongly-worded case for Labour’s diverse demographic project, see Gordon Campbell’s On the kerfuffle over Willie Jackson’s list ranking. He paints a picture of any opposition to such identity politics as being misogynistic and racist, and even accuses the Labour leadership of playing into that: “Willie Jackson has already been brought on board, to show us the fun-loving side of misogyny.”

Campbell actually foresees this latest split as merely the beginning of a gender/culture identity politics divide in New Zealand politics for the election campaign, and that “All up, this year is shaping up to be a testing time politically for the nation’s blokes.” He concludes, “In the end, the likes of Willie Jackson and Shane Jones will cost their respective parties as many votes (especially among women) as they attract. Essentially, Jackson and Jones represent a nostalgia trip back to an era that really wasn’t so great at the time, especially for women and ethnic minorities. Which could help explain why, beneath their surface jollity, both men seem to be so angry.”

Poor political management

Regardless of the merits of Labour’s candidates and their demographics, there’s clearly been some poor political management of Labour’s list. This is spelt out best by Barry Soper, who says: “One would have thought before Labour made public when it’d be announcing its list, it would have ironed out those who could have been disgruntled with it. Yet again they’re spilling their guts in public, being forced to delay their announcement until this morning to give them time to either placate Jackson or to send him up the political creek without his waka” – see: Willie Jackson ranking latest headache for Andrew Little. 

In failing to get a high list spot, Willie Jackson seems to have been given the consolation prize of being made Labour’s “Maori campaign director”. But could this be a big mistake? Rob Hosking thinks so: “That leaves him incentivised to pull in a different direction. On the face of it, he has been told to deliver those electorates for Labour, and certainly, they will be critical to the party’s chances of forming a government at the end of September. But the fewer Maori electorates Labour wins, the better Mr Jackson’s chances are of getting into Parliament on the party list. Most of Labour’s Maori electorate candidates are below a winnable position on the list: This is a deliberate challenge to voters in those seats to vote Labour, and not the Maori Party. So, depending on Mr Jackson’s performance as campaign director, this could yet backfire on Mr Little” – see: Willie Jackson’s 21st party fizzer (paywalled). 

And it’s clear that Jackson’s integration into Labour – as a candidate and campaign manager – still isn’t accepted entirely accepted by many in the party – see Jo Moir’s Willie Jackson’s role in the Labour Party is still a bone of contention. She reports that Labour MP Poto Williams still appears reluctant to show any support for him, and Tamaki Makaurau MP Peeni Henare was less than enthusiastic in his response to Jackson getting the new party job.

Finally, how much does the Labour Party really care about championing those MPs who achieve progress for working women? For although much of the focus of Labour’s party list has been on Willie Jackson and the demographics involved, less attention has been given to the surprise resignation of Labour MP Sue Moroney, who was essentially demoted by her party. For the best analysis of this, see Chris Bramwell’s Labour Party listing early in election voyage. She reports: “RNZ understands she was blindsided by her party. Ms Moroney is a hard-working, tireless MP who pushed hard for an extension to Paid Parental Leave and on closing the gender pay gap. However, she was a huge David Cunliffe supporter and it’s possible that counted against her with the committee that decides the list placings.”

Today’s content

All items are contained in the attached PDF. Below are the links to the items online.

Media merger rejection

Herald: Editorial: Blocking this merger is a big mistake

Dominion Post: Editorial: The Commerce Commission doesn’t get it

The Press: Editorial: Rejection of Fairfax NZ/NZME merger makes fight for quality journalism tougher

ODT: Editorial – The future of journalism

Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Media merger should be buried

TVNZ: ‘I think we are going to see carnage between NZME and Fairfax now’

Fiona Rotherham (NBR): Who might buy Fairfax NZ’s assets? (paywalled)

Tim Murphy (Newsroom): 345 pages of unanimous rejection

Clive Lind (RNZ): StuffMe solution lies in local news

Peter Thompson (Stuff): NZME-Fairfax merger decision leaves a regulatory challenge

Ross Patterson (Stuff): Loss of diversity through Fairfax/NZME merger would affect all NZers

Raybon Kan (Herald): Visions of the future can confuse the best of us

Herald: Media chief looks at options after watchdog shoots down merger

Herald: Fairfax mulls newspaper cut after merger denied

State surveillance

David Fisher (Herald): Spies’ database of secrets about Kiwis ignored basic security rules and standards, report finds

Jane Patterson (RNZ): Watchdog critical of SIS security clearance system

Newshub: SIS’ sensitive information security systems flawed for years – report

No Right Turn: Incompetent, trust-abusing muppets II

Raybon Kan (Herald): This spying game has a funny side

Nathan Smith (NBR): Five Eyes meeting ‘shows NZ pulling its weight,’ former SIS officer (paywalled)

Immigration

Lincoln Tan (Herald): Many migrant workers to lose pathway to residency

Alex Tarrant (Interest): Winston Peters hits back at criticisms of NZ First’s immigration stance

Michael Reddell (Croaking Cassandra): A world-leading debate on immigration?

NBR: Is immigration the cause of Auckland’s woes?

Hamish Rutherford (Stuff): Record migration could push up unemployment, despite strong economy

Eminem vs National

Ben Irwin (Newshub): National paid under $5000 for song at centre of ‘Lose Yourself’ court battle

Melissa Nightingale (Herald): National Party campaign manager Jo de Joux sought ‘complete assurances’ Eminem-Esque was safe to use for video

Stuff: Advice sought on Eminem ‘soundalike’ copyright, but not from a lawyer  

RNZ: National party received assurances about sound-alike track

David Farrar (Kiwiblog): The Eminem trial

The Budget, economy and social investment 

Herald: Budget 2017: What we know so far

Rob Hosking (NBR): English outlines budget – and election – social policy priorities (paywalled)

Richard Harman (Politik): Here comes the Budget

Isobel Ewing (Newshub): Budget boost for ‘million-dollar problem’ children

Paul McBeth (BusinessDesk): English flags $321m social investment package for needy Kiwis

David Farrar (Kiwiblog): $321 million social investment package

Dominion Post Editorial: Yes to infrastructure, no to excessive fretting over the debt

Stuff Editorial: Rising population the backdrop to Steven Joyce’s pre-Budget economic announcements

Audrey Young (Herald): Winston Peters wants greater diversity in economy away from dairy and tourism

Audrey Young (Herald): Finance Minister rules out tax cuts but lifts infrastructure spending

Newswire: Joyce ‘just playing with numbers’, says Labour

Shamubeel Eaqub (Stuff): Good news, the Government is spending up big

Election

Herald: More than half of young voters haven’t picked a party

Newshub: Fears youth won’t turn out to vote again

Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): 5 months out from 2017 election

James Borrowdale (Vice): The Making of Chlöe Swarbrick

Jason Walls (NBR): Winston Peters wants to be more than a kingmaker (paywalled)

Nathan Smith (NBR): Cooling the cyber ‘politricking’ threat to New Zealand’s election (paywalled)

Justice and police

Demelza Leslie (RNZ): Govt softens target for reducing violent crime

Dan Satherley and Matthew Hutching (Newshub): Prisoner’s sperm donation petition: No right to ‘jizz in a cup’ – David Seymour

Nicholas Jones (Herald): Let us give sperm to become fathers: Murderer petitions Parliament

International relations

Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Brownlee’s change of tact as Foreign Minister

Jane Patterson (RNZ): Brownlee: NZ should not intervene on Israel/Palestine conflict

Audrey Young (Herald): Brownlee moves quickly to restore relations with Israel

Jo Moir (Stuff): New Foreign Affairs Minister Gerry Brownlee knee-deep in restoring relations with Australia and Israel

Health

TVNZ: Children’s Commissioner slams Government’s refusal to ban second hand smoke in cars

Nicholas Jones (Herald): More mental health spending in Budget 2017: Jonathan Coleman

Jared Nicoll (Stuff): Porirua kids swapping schools more often and living in overcrowded houses

Employment

Eric Crampton (Offsetting Behaviour): Smokin’

Eric Crampton (Offsetting behavior): Pay and equity

John Braddock (World socialist website): New Zealand: Gender pay deal used to promote unions, government

Education

Simon Collins (Herald): High-paying private schools lure five state school principals

Adele Redmond (Stuff): Call to extend limits on student visas as ‘inappropriate’ English language testing persists

Sue Cherrington (Newsroom): An open letter to the new education minister on early childhood policies

Jenny Ritchie (Newsroom): Early childhood care should be an election priority

Peter O’Connor (Newsroom): Interpreting Hekia Parata’s legacy

Foreshore and seabed claim

Audrey Young (Herald): Ngati Whatua’s Auckland claim among hundreds to test coastal rights

Morgan Godfery (Spinoff): Relax, Māori aren’t banning you from the beach. Or are we?

Leigh McLachlan (RNZ): Coastline claims ‘not about ownership’ – Māori

Rape

Anna Leask (Herald): Rape – why Kiwi victims won’t report

Tony Wall (Stuff): Police are telling rape victims their hands are tied if the accused denies it

Tommy Livingston (Stuff):‘Obnoxious’ Defence Force slammed over failing to provide care for former naval officer raped while on duty

RNZ: Call to shift burden of proof to rape-accused

Environment

No Right Turn: Climate change: But why would we want to do that?

Rachel Clayton (Stuff):Little being done to tackle issue of plastic packaging in supermarkets

Geoffrey Palmer (Constitution Aotearoa): The case for environmental rights

AUS-NZ relations

Isaac Davison (Herald): Australia now a ‘frightening’ place for Kiwis

Isaac Davison (Herald): Brownlee: No chance of reversing Oz uni fee hike

Isaac Davison (Herald): Most New Zealanders’ study fees to rise by $8700 in Australia

Kapiti and Maori names and language

Stuff: Former State Highway One through Kapiti to get new names

Joel Maxwell (Dominion Post): It’s political correctness gone historic: The people behind the PC road names

Aaron Smale (Spinoff): The Kapiti Expressway, Māori road names, and the media outrage machine

Adam Poulopoulos (Stuff): Otaki in the running to be New Zealand’s first officially bilingual town

Herald: Otaki could be first bilingual town in New Zealand

John Key

Hamish McNicol (Stuff): Former prime minister John Key to become an Air NZ director

Herald: John Key joins Air New Zealand’s board

The Civilian: Opinion: Well, I like planes

Other

Max Rashbrooke (The good society):Is there much wealth mobility in New Zealand?

Lisa Marriott (Newsroom): The hypocrisy of NZ’s approach to fraud

Megan Whelan (The Spinoff): Mike Moore is ‘boring’, Jenny Shipley’s a ‘vile hag’ – the gender bias in Facebook comments

Andrew Geddis (Pundit): Word spread because word will spread

Richard Swainson (Stuff): Inequities mean revolution may not be so far-fetched

Rodney Hide (NBR): Governments fool most people most of the time (paywalled)

Steve Maharey (NBR): Tax cuts won’t bring benefits of globalization (paywalled)

Eugene Sparrow (NBR): Budget 2017: time for a rethink about renting (paywalled)

There’s an overlooked aspect of the New Zealand Defence Force’s account of Operation Burnham that when scrutinised suggests a possible breach of international humanitarian law and laws relating to war and armed conflict occurred on August 22, 2010 in the Tirgiran Valley, Baghlan province, Afghanistan.

According to New Zealand Defence Force’s official statements Operation Burnham ‘aimed to detain Taliban insurgent leaders who were threatening the security and stability of Bamyan Province and to disrupt their operational network’. (ref. NZDF rebuttal) We are to understand Operation Burnham’s objective was to identify, capture, or kill (should this be justified under NZDF rules of engagement), those insurgents who were named on a Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL) that NZDF intelligence suggested were responsible for the death of NZDF soldier Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell.

When delivering NZDF’s official account of Operation Burnham before media, Lieutenant General Tim Keating said:

“After the attack on the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team (NZPRT), which killed Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell, the NZPRT operating in Bamyan Province did everything it could to reduce the target profile of our people operating up the Shakera Valley and into the north-east of Bamyan Province. “We adjusted our routine, reduced movements to an absolute minimum, maximised night driving, and minimised time on site in threat areas. “The one thing the PRT [NZPRT] couldn’t do was to have an effect on the individuals that attacked Lieutenant O’Donnell’s patrol. For the first time, the insurgents had a major success — and they were well positioned to do so again.”

For the purpose of a counter-strike, intelligence was sought and Lt. General Keating said: “We knew in a matter of days from local and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) intelligence who had attacked our patrol [where and when Lt. O’Donnell was killed].” The intelligence specified the villages where the alleged insurgents were suspected of coming from and Lt. General Keating said: “This group had previously attacked Afghan Security Forces and elements of the German and Hungarian PRTs.” The New Zealand Government authorised permission for the Kabul-based NZSAS troops to be used in Operation Burnham. “What followed was 14 days of reliable and corroborated intelligence collection that provided confirmation and justification for subsequent actions. Based on the intelligence, deliberate and detailed planning was conducted,” Lt. General Keating said. Revenge, Keating said, was never a motivation. Rather, according to him, the concern was for the security of New Zealand’s reconstruction and security efforts in Bamyan province. As stated above, Operation Burnham’s primary objective was to identify, capture or kill Taliban insurgent leaders named in the intelligence data. We know, from the New Zealand Defence Force’s own account, Operation Burnham failed to achieve that goal.

Analysis of the NZDF Official Account The official account of events that occurred in the early hours of August 22, 2010, describe how Taliban insurgents, realising coalition forces were preparing to raid the area (marked as ‘Operation Burnham Area of Operation’ in a map (slide 3) declasified and released to media on March 27, 2017), formed a tactical maneuver using civilians (women, children and elderly) as a human shield.

Despite the official account placing this group within a building, within a small hamlet, within the area of operation, within Tirgiran Valley, there is no clear definitive official account yet given of what happened to either the civilians or the insurgents.

This appears to be an obvious void in the official record, but one that has failed so far to be scrutinised.

To follow the logic of Lt. General Tim Keating’s account (detailed below), is to discover our defence personnel, who were in charge of the ground and air operation during Operation Burnham, failed to identify what had become of those civilians (women, children, and the elderly), and also importantly the suspected insurgents who Lt. General Keating said during his briefing used the villagers as a human shield.

We know from the Chief of Defence Force’s notes as provided on March 27, 2017, that as Operation Burnham began, NZDF was in command of United States manned aircraft (including helicopters and possibly a AC-130). The aircraft were swarming above the Tirgiran Valley.

From the NZDF account an NZDF joint terminal air controller was in charge of the air attack against those NZDF had defined as insurgents. Lt. General Keating stated the alleged insurgents were armed and a NZDF commander authorised the US manned aircraft to commence firing.

Weapons-fire then began to rain down on the valley from above. Meanwhile NZSAS ground force soldiers prepared to secure their positions and to defend themselves against any potential enemy counter-attack.

Lt. General Keating stated the insurgents responded: “The insurgents, the guerrilla force, the tactic is mixed in with the civilian population, if you like, the term used is a human shield. So they use civilians as a shield.”

He added: “What occurred, is a helicopter was engaging a group of insurgents outside the village, on the outskirts of the village. During that engagement, it was noted by the ground forces there – the SAS ground forces – that some of the rounds [from the US manned aircraft] were falling short, and went into a building where it was believed there were civilians as well as armed insurgents.”

To be clear, from this account, Lt. General Keating stated a group of insurgents were being tracked, targeted, and fired upon by the US manned aircraft and under the command of a New Zealand Defence Force terminal air controller. Meanwhile, according to the NZDF record, one of the airborne helicopter’s weapon’s sights were not calibrated correctly, and, according to Lt. General Keating, 30mm projectiles went into a building where it was believed there were civilians as well as armed insurgents – remember these 30mm projectiles are capable of penetrating the side of a tank.

For accuracy, Lt. General Keating restated his account: “It is noted, the building, there were armed insurgents in there, but it is believed that there may have been civilians in the building.”

He then added: “There’s no confirmation that any casualties occurred, but there may have been.” He restated again: “There were civilians in that building.” Now, this is where the Chief of Defence Force’s account fails to further explain what occurred after that point. To summarise, the official position of the New Zealand Defence Force is:

• There were civilians in a building within the village that was fired upon by an armor piercing aircraft weapon
• That it was believed insurgents were also in that building
• That civilian casualties or deaths “may have been” or occurred inside the building.

At this juncture, we must consider whether the New Zealand Defence Force ground commanders had a responsibility to determine whether there were Taliban insurgents in the building?

And if so, whether they were the individuals listed on the JPEL list, those deemed responsible for the death of Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell?

And what of the ground commanders’ legal requirements, the duty of care with respect to civilians, were NZDF commanders on the ground or back in Kabul compelled by law to confirm the status of the civilians, whether they were injured or killed?

When asked by a journalist at the March 27, 2017 press conference: ‘If there may have been civilian casualties, why not have an inquiry to find out?’ Lt. General Keating replied: “Even if there was, as far as the New Zealand Defence Force has heard, the coalition investigation has, um, said that uh, if there were casualties, the fault of those casualties was a mechanical failure of a piece of equipment.” This reply does not appear to consider the legal requirements under:

• Second Protocol to the Geneva Convention Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, Article 7: the obligation to provide medical assistance to all wounded, whether or not they have taken part in the armed conflict
• Second Protocol to the Geneva Convention Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, Article 8: the obligation to search for and collect the wounded and to ensure their adequate care
• Second Protocol to the Geneva Convention Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, Article 13: the obligation to protect the civilian population against dangers arising from military operations
• Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971, section 102. This section provides that the commanding officer of a person alleged to have committed an offence under that Act must initiate proceedings in the form of a charge or refer the allegation to civil authorities, unless the commanding officer considers the allegation is not well-founded. While little legal guidance is provided, it cannot be accepted that preliminary inquiries to determine whether an allegation is well-founded can be considered adequate where they fail to obtain evidence from the injured parties, determine their identities or even verify that they exist
• Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 28
• The NZDF Manual of Armed Forces Law provides that there are three types of inquiry in the NZDF: a preliminary inquiry, a court of inquiry and a command investigation. (It appears however the ISAF investigation cited by the Chief of Defence Force was not any of the above forms of inquiry).

Specifically, if you analyse Lt. General Keating’s account, the New Zealand Defence Force commanders failed to identify whether any insurgents were inside the building and whether there were dead or wounded civilians. Why was this the case? It seems reasonable to suggest, this is an abandonment of logic. It does not make sense.

We know from official NZDF documents the soldiers arrived at the scene of Operation Burnham at 0030 hours on August 22, 2010 and left at 0345 hours, that’s the official record. To clarify, the NZSAS commandos were in the area of operation for 3 hours 15 minutes.

Lt. General Keating stated, near the conclusion of the raid: “The ground force commander chose at that time that there was no longer a threat and they were leaving.”

How could that rationally be the case unless the suspected insurgents inside that building had been checked?

Was it not suspected that there were insurgents in that building? Surely the ground force commanders would be compelled to seek and identify the inhabitants of that building to see if they matched the names/descriptions on the JPEL list?

After all, the manhunt for Taliban leadership was the purpose of the raid that night. Also, logic would suggest, the people inside the building were in part civilians including women and probably children – by Lt. Keating’s account the group likely included wounded civilians and probably a dead child.

Also, it is reasonable to suggest, considering the events over those 3 hours 15 minutes, the survivors would have been crying, weeping, even howling, and the wounded would likely have been in agony.

It defies belief that the ground force commanders, and their counterparts back in Kabul, were not aware of this building, that the NZDF account states was housing suspected Taliban, and included a group of civilian victims that had been used as a human shield.

The entire area of operation specific to Operation Burnham is a skewed rectangle approximately 500 metres wide by 1 kilometre long, with an intensified operation plan focusing on two small hamlets, each approximately 50×200 metres in area [based on the scale measures of the NZDF map] – named Objective 1 and Objective 2 in the NZDF released material.

To state it simply, the official silence surrounding the above-mentioned building, and the fate of the people inside, speaks volumes. It leaves one to consider at worst whether a crime was committed by New Zealand Defence Force commanders that night – whether by failing in their duty to care for the injured they were in breach of Articles 8, 9 and 13 of the Second Protocol to the Geneva Conventions.

ADDITIONAL NOTE:
• The Statute of the International Criminal Court defines war crimes as, inter alia, “serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict” and “serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in an armed conflict not of an international character”. (Ref. IHL Definition of war crimes, page 1 (pdf) – ICC Statute, Article 8 (cited in Vol. II, Ch. 44, § 3))
• ‘The Statute defines as within the scope of the law, the “launching an attack without attempting to aim properly at a military target or in such a manner as to hit civilians without any thought or care as to the likely extent of death or injury amounts to an indiscriminate attack”.
• War crimes can consist of acts or omissions. Examples of the latter include failure to provide a fair trial and failure to provide food or necessary medical care to persons in the power of the adversary.’

At best, if NZDF’s official account is to be relied upon, we are to believe the NZSAS ground commanders failed to ensure the Taliban insurgents they sought were not holed up in a building that had sustained damage from coalition force aircraft. If this assumption is incorrect, at what point had the suspected insurgents left the building?

And what had become of the civilians that had been allegedly used as a human shield? Again, the vacuum of information specific to this aspect of the official account needs to be explained, including an explanation as to why NZDF’s account remains vague after six years since Operation Burnham was conducted.

It appears reasonable to assert that this single issue, notwithstanding the irregularities of official NZDF stated ‘facts’, warrants further official and independent investigation. As it is, at this juncture, we are left to consider a series of unanswered questions that to date the New Zealand Chief of Defence Force has failed to satisfy. Here are some of them. Key Unanswered Questions:

• What were the specific definitions of an insurgent that were used by NZDF for the purposes of evaluation during Operation Burnham and for the purpose of post-operation official analysis? For example; was it deemed that anyone who was male and of a fighting age was defined to be an insurgent?
• Were NZDF soldiers fired upon by individuals (villagers or insurgents) located within the confines of the villages or surrounding area during Operation Burnham?
• Was the individual who was killed by a NZSAS soldier or NZDF personnel carrying a weapon at the time of this shooting? If so, had he fired or attempted to fire his weapon in an attempt to kill or wound NZDF personnel?
• How long in minutes were the coalition forces’ helicopters, and any other airborne craft, firing their weapons on the villages and surrounding region during Operation Burnham?
• How long in minutes were NZSAS soldiers involved in securing the operational area from real or potential insurgent attack?
• Did NZDF personnel at anytime seek to identify individuals (and their status, injured, killed, or otherwise) who were located inside or near the building that Lt. General Keating said had suffered damage from an alleged mis-aimed firing from an airborne coalition aircraft?
• Were those who were injured or killed within sight of NZDF personnel before, during, and/or after the alleged mis-aimed firing?
• How many individuals did the NZDF personnel suspect were inside the building?
• How many of these people did the NZDF personnel suspect were civilians?
• How many were suspected of being women?
• How many were suspected of being children?
• Lt. General Keating suggested that one of the individuals that may have been killed during Operation Burnham was a six year-old child. What was the gender of this child?
• Was their any attempt to identify this six year-old victim?
• Was this child Fatima, the three year-old child identified in the Hit & Run [ISBN 978 0 947503 39 0] book? If not, then who was this child?
• What actions did NZDF personnel do to exercise their duty of care obligations to the injured and to civilians?
• What reports, cautions, evaluations were written and/or submitted regarding Operation Burnham to NZDF by the NZDF legal officer who was on the ground during Operation Burnham?

The Twisting Turning Official Account – Is This Smoke and Mirrors? As a consequence of the Hit & Run book [ISBN 978 0 947503 39 0] being published, New Zealand Defence Force’s top ranking soldier, Lt. General Tim Keating admitted civilians “may have been” killed during the operation.

Up until March 27, 2017, for the past six years, New Zealand Defence Force has insisted that no civilians were killed during Operation Burnham on August 22, 2010.

But on Monday, under questioning from the media, at the March 27 press conference, Lt. General Keating stated that the NZDF’s new “official line” regarding civilian deaths was “there may have been”. He then attempted to suggest that NZDF’s previously stated position – that claims of civilian deaths were “unfounded” – was basically the same thing. “I’m not going to get cute here and say it’s a twist on words, it’s the same thing, ‘unfounded’, ‘there may have been’. The official line is that there may have been casualties,” Lt. General Keating said.

A journalist then challenged him further suggesting: “They’re different things, one means they didn’t happen and one mean might’ve done.”

Lt. General Keating then replied: “You’re right…the, the, the official line is that civilian casualties may have occurred, but not corroborated.”

When asked how many insurgents were killed, Lt. General Keating replied: “A significant number of insurgents, identified insurgents, were killed during Operation Burnham.”

When asked again how many were killed, Lt. General Keating stated: “Nine.” When asked if NZDF had the names of the insurgents that were killed, he replied: “No, we do not have names of insurgents.”

This trajectory, inching toward a truth, occurred under tight questioning by a journalist, over just a few minutes.

What further truths will become relevant to understanding what occurred that night in Khak Khuday Dad and Naik villages should a commission of inquiry be established?

The Inconsistencies – A Summary

In evaluation, it is reasonable to assert the official Government inconsistencies observed along a six-year timeline offer the appearance of a military hierarchy that has being dragged, by degrees, (mainly by the work of Jon Stephenson, an investigative journalist specialising in war and conflict reportage) into an arena where the floodlight of public interest ought to shed light on secrets long since filed into a dark place.

However, considering the above, rather than responding openly to the challenge of meeting its responsibilities to the New Zealand Minister of Defence and public, the New Zealand Defence Force appears resistant to its obligations toward open and accurate disclosure of non-classified fact.

In conclusion, if this is true, this conduct exhibited by the officials of New Zealand Defence Force and its Chief Lt. General Tim Keating is hardly a defining benchmark of ‘exemplary’ standards.

Actually, the admissions of relevant information, that is forthcoming only when lanced from the New Zealand Defence Force under questioning, offers the impression of a smoke and mirrors operation – it may appear churlish to suggest, but perhaps the post-Operation Burnham aftermath ought to be referred to as Operation Desert Road (bleak, cold, inhospitable, proceed with caution).

The public deserves to know the whole truth, not spin or part-truths – both the public interest and the national interest depends on it.

By the New Zealand Defence Force’s own account, it appears reasonable to suggest that the commanders overseeing Operation Burnham had legal obligations to civilians; that they were potentially negligent when considered against their stated rules of engagement, rules of conduct, obligations to international human rights law and international humanitarian law – negligent of their obligations to laws covering war and armed conflict, notwithstanding their obligations as representatives of the people and Government of New Zealand to observe the Bill of Rights Act.

It is also reasonable to suggest; there are significant established facts as mentioned above, as put by the New Zealand Defence Force, that require an official investigative response from the New Zealand Government.

It is also reasonable to insist that the matter of an absence of consistent fact emitting from the New Zealand Defence Force upon which a reliable opinion can be draw, adds weight to the burden on the Government to establish an inquiry into this matter.

If the New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English elects not to act then it will likely become a matter of political leadership or lack thereof.

If Bill English does not care to act on his office’s public interest obligations, then, it is reasonable to suggest he consider the empirical facts underlying this matter and the impact the matter has on New Zealand’s national interest. Should he fail to do so, this matter potentially could be argued before the International Criminal Court.

“It seems to me,” Lt. General Tim Keating stressed, “that one of the fundamentals, a start point if you like, of any investigation into a crime is to tie the alleged perpetrators of a crime to the scene. Then we would examine the motive and means, and other scene evidence.” – Lieutenant General Tim Keating, March 27, 2017.

On Monday, March 27, 2017 both the Prime Minister Bill English and the Chief of New Zealand Defence Force Lieutenant General Tim Keating countered details revealed in the book Hit & Run and argued facts stated in the work could not be relied upon because the authors ‘incorrectly’ alleged Operation Burnham took place in Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village deep in the mountainous Baghlan province of Afghanistan – two locations the Defence Force chief insisted his soldiers had never been to. Lt. General Keating asserted that the New Zealand Defence Force had never been to the two villages (Khak Khuday Dad and Naik) and insisted Operation Burnham took place 2.2 kilometres to the south of where the authors Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson had marked the location of the villages (specifically on a map published in the book Hit & Run).

Lt. General Keating said: “As you will note from the book, the authors have been precise in locating these villages with geo reference points — so I have no doubt they are very accurate in the villages they are taking their allegations from.

“The villages lie in the Tirgiran Valley some 2 kilometres north from Tirgiran Village. In straight distance this is like comparing the distance from Te Papa to Wellington Hospital. However, if you overlay the elevated terrain, you will see we are talking about two very separated, distinct settlements,” Lt. General Keating said.

Beyond the obvious, it was a staggering claim, especially for those aware the New Zealand Defence Force had insisted one week prior, that its official position remained the same as stated in a media release dated April 20, 2011 that: “On 22 August 2010 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) elements, operating as part of a Coalition Force in Bamyan province, Afghanistan conducted an operation against an insurgent group.”

NZDF’s earlier position asserted New Zealand soldiers had not been in Baghlan province on or near August 22, 2010 the night of Operation Burnham. Now, the chief of New Zealand’s armed forces was admitting that they had.

At the press conference on Monday March 27, 2017 the Chief of New Zealand Defence Force prepared to stake his claim that the book could not be relied on as a factual reference.Before around 30 journalists, Lt. General Tim Keating pointed to four relevant bullet-points underlying key claims of fact in the book:

• Helicopter landing sites
• Location of houses that were destroyed
• Locations of where civilians were allegedly killed
• Presumed location of an SAS Sniper with evidence presented of SAS ammunition and water bottles which were found at the site.

A relationship was drawn between the Sniper location and the alleged killing of the individual Islamuddin, the School teacher. He acknowledged that the book contained a detailed list of those alleged to have been killed or wounded during a military operation in Khak Khuday Dad and Naik villages and a detailed list of the houses destroyed at the two locations.

Lt. General Keating then drove his point home that: “The underlying premise of the book is that New Zealand’s SAS soldiers conducted an operation on Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village…” “It seems to me,” he stressed, “that one of the fundamentals, a start point if you like, of any investigation into a crime is to tie the alleged perpetrators of a crime to the scene. Then we would examine the motive and means, and other scene evidence.”

Lt. General Keating pivoted. “Let me now talk about the ISAF Operation Burnham in Tirgiran Village.” The premise of the Chief of Defence Force’s position was; the book Hit & Run described events that may or may not have occurred in Khak Khuday Dad and Naik villages, but that these alleged events had nothing to do with New Zealand Defence Force soldiers as they had never been to the two locations as marked in the book.

Likewise, the Prime Minister, Bill English, said the book got it wrong, that the New Zealand Defence Force had never been to either Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village.

The Prime Minister added: “We believe in the integrity of the Defence Force more than a book that picks the wrong villages.”

For some, it appeared the raid that night as described by the authors could have been committed by another force. For others, it seemed the authors had got a major fact wrong so therefore the remaining claims in the book were moot.

By mid-Wednesday morning, the Government and the public found out there was more to it, that the Chief of New Zealand Defence Force was also wrong with regard to his geography.

Unpicking the official line began in earnest late on Tuesday night (March 28, 2017) when the lawyers representing the alleged victims of Operation Burnham contacted their clients back in Afghanistan. The purpose of the contact was to identify the exact location of Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village; to confirm or otherwise disprove the existence of ‘Tirgiran Village’ (the NZDF stated official location of Operation Burnham), and to identify and confirm what village or villages are located at the exact co-ordinates as provided by Lt. General Tim Keating in his briefing to New Zealand media.

The lawyers’ clients, represented by a doctor from the region, stated categorically that ‘Tirgiran Village’ (as stated by Lt. General Keating) does not exist. That the region is known as Tirgiran Valley.

The lawyers evaluated from the new information, that to refer to the location of Operation Burnham as Tirgiran Village is like insisting an operation had occurred in Otago City (obviously Otago is a region and a city of that name does not exist, and as such would fail to offer an exact point of reference on a map).

Importantly, the lawyers confirmed, New Zealand Defence Force’ co-ordinates of where Operation Burnham took place were correct – but that the location was not as the NZDF had stated as ‘Tirgiran Village’ (an incorrect reference to a village that does not exist) but rather marks the geo-locations of where Khak Khuday Dad Village and Naik Village are located.

Specifically, the villagers confirmed the red-rectangle as marked on the NZDF map provided by the Lt. General on Monday March 27, and referred to as the area specific to Operation Burnham, frames the exact positions of where Khak Khuday Dad and Naik villages are located. So simply, the book contained a map that placed Khak Khuday Dad and Naik 2.2 kilometres north of there specific real locations.

And, the NZDF got it wrong by stating that those two villages were located where the book suggested, and that the village at the centre of Operation Burnham was a different village called Tirgiran Village (again, a place-name that does not exist).

So it turns out, according to those that live in the Tirgiran Valley, the Chief of Defence Force’s statement is incorrect or false; that when NZDF stated as a categorical fact that the New Zealand SAS commandos had never been to Khak Khuday Dad Village nor Naik Village, that that information was false.

At this point politically, it’s inescapable that the Prime Minister’s stated position ought to have taken a hit.

Remember back to the Prime Minister’s statement to media on Monday March 27, 2017 where he pitched his rationale: “We believe in the integrity of the Defence Force more than a book that picks the wrong villages.”

Surely, the same measure that was applied to the authors of Hit & Run now ought to be applied in equal measure to the New Zealand Defence Force chief and his officials.

After all, they also got their geography wrong. Since then, there has been stated unease about the whole issue by Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne (the minister who would have to sign off and authorise the costs of an inquiry should the Prime Minister order an inquiry be established).

By Thursday March 30, 2017 Dunne, through media, called for an inquiry into the whole affair. (ref. Stuff.co.nz ) Also on Thursday, the Minister of Defence at the time of the raid, Dr Wayne Mapp, wrote of his unease about Operation Burnham in a piece published on the Pundit website. (ref. Pundit ) Dr Mapp argued that the Government’s position, and that of the New Zealand Defence Force, cannot be the end of it. “Part of protecting their [the SAS’] reputation is also finding out what happened, particularly if there is an allegation that civilian casualties may have been accidentally caused. In that way we both honour the soldiers, and also demonstrate to the Afghans that we hold ourselves to the highest ideals of respect of life, even in circumstances of military conflict,” wrote Dr Mapp.

Common Statements Of Fact

The descriptions of Operation Burnham, in both the book, and, as stated by the New Zealand Defence Force, do mirror each account with precision on numerous vital points, including:

• The time of night Operation Burnham took place
• That New Zealand Defence Force was commanding and leading the operation (both on the ground and in the air)
• That the helicopters were manned by United States military personnel under New Zealand’s command
• That the purpose of the operation was to kill or capture those named as having been part of a Taliban insurgent raid that killed Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell
• That buildings were destroyed during the operation
• That people were killed at the villages.

However, anyone who has reasonably assessed the issue can see there is much more information to be revealed.

Conclusion: In concluding this analysis, it is an imperative that due to the highest levels of public and national interest concerning the alleged conduct, the seriousness of allegations, and the variables relating to the official account, that the matter be subjected to an independent commission of inquiry.

The demography of the United Kingdom, the tangata whenua of Ngāti Pakeha, is of interest to all of us. I caught this chart (from chartsbin.com/view/28k), but it uses the wrong scale, as far too many of our published charts do these days. This scale problem is most significant with charts covering long time periods, and it leads to an exaggeration of the importance of recent data.

My chart uses the same data (extended to a population of 64 million in 2013), but uses a log-2 scale. This means that it shows doublings of population, rather than five-million-person increments.

Many demographic blips are missed in the early centuries, because estimates are very far apart. For example, it is likely that there was a significant population fall after the Romans left Britain in the fifth century.

What we do see is an acceleration of population growth in the (known-to-have-been) warm centuries at the beginning of the second millennium, followed by a huge decline mid-fourteenth century. This decline was the Black Death, which some of us will remember as the initial setting for Vincent Ward’s 1988 New Zealand time-travel Odyssey, The Navigator. (This movie might be due soon for a scheduling on Māori TV.) This plague is widely understood to have been a Malthusian crisis in Europe, an event triggered by pathogens arriving from Asia, but ultimately due to a mix of climate change and overpopulation relative to the economic capacity of the era.

The next population rise represents the impact of the transition to capitalism, the renaissance, and the first period of globalisation which began in the late fifteenth century. This higher growth rate continued in the United Kingdom until about 1800, interrupted mainly by the Civil War of the 1640s. It was in 1798 that Thomas Malthus published the first edition of his seminal ‘Essay on the Principle of Population’. This was in response to a widely-held viewpoint that population growth – virtually unlimited at then historical levels – was sustainable and beneficial to economic progress.

On the face of it, Malthus’ timing was very bad. Population growth accelerated sharply over the next decade or so, the early years of the industrial revolution. There are three main reasons for this acceleration. First, the growth of fossil fuels, as coal displaced (depleted) wood as an energy source. Second was the widespread adoption of the potato, a product of globalisation that originated in South America. Third was the incorporation in 1800 of Ireland into the United Kingdom.

In the middle years of the nineteenth century – the 1840s in particular – the United Kingdom experienced its second main Malthusian crisis of the millennium. The potato famine in Ireland combined with pandemics of cholera and tuberculosis in England, peaking in 1848 (although tuberculosis remained the number one scourge well into the twentieth century).

Recovery from Malthusian doom was due, this time, to the huge expansion of land inhabited by British (and other European) people. It was the beginning of the growth of the Neo-Britains such as New Zealand; the growth of the ‘anglosphere’. This expansion of British settlement helped population to grow rapidly within the United Kingdom. Food became much cheaper during this second era of globalisation, dating in essence from around 1850. Traditional large families suffered fewer deaths after 1850, and the British were much slower than the French to adopt contraception.

The chart shows that, in the United Kingdom at least, population growth slowed substantially in the twentieth century. World War 1 was part of this; indeed, it could be argued that this war was the third great Malthusian crisis of the second millennium. Overpopulation relative to global carrying capacity in the 1910s was very real, as the gains to British people from British expansion were surpassing their natural limits.

From the 1920s we had the new opportunities offered by electricity, oil and natural gas, antibiotics, and chemical syntheses of products that mimicked natural ones. (Important here in a New Zealand context is the role of topdressing fertiliser on pastoral farmland.) The result was another substantial increase in the carrying capacity of the world, including the United Kingdom.

Many of us sense that the next Malthusian crisis may be only a decade-or-so away. The good news is that the economic, accounting and technological ideas that may lead to the next post-Malthusian recovery are also present in today’s ‘outsider’ intellectual environment. The lesson of history, however, is that humankind will probably need to experience a substantial economic and demographic crisis before necessary solutions are actually adopted. During the 2020s, wilful blindness and alternative falsehoods will continue to prevail.

Analysis by Keith Rankin.

From 1986 until the beginning of 2016, Statistics New Zealand, through the Household Labour Force Survey, collected data on people “not in the labour force, by main activity”.

These data considerably understate these “main activities”, because many people whose main activity is neither employment nor unemployment are nevertheless counted as being in the labour force; employment or job-seeking are secondary activities for them.

This month’s chart shows persons aged over 15 classed as having zero attachment to the labour force, and whose main activity is neither education, caring for children, nor retirement. It shows, at least since the mid-1980s, that between six and seven percent of the working-age population are unaccounted for. In 2016, that’s 235,000 people; considerably more than those officially counted as unemployed.

A few of these invisibles will be people caring for other adults. A new dataset for those “not in the labour force, by main activity”, with data only for early 2016, shows 24,000 such people caring for adults, leaving 211,000 unaccounted for.

The new dataset removes the category of ‘retirement’, so most of the 470,000 people classed in the new data as in “free‑time activities” or in “own care due to sickness/injury/disability” are people who would probably be over-65 and in retirement. The new dataset renders completely invisible those aged 25 to 64 without attributable main activities.

There is little interest in collecting statistics about people who do not fit convenient statistical categories. Policymakers generally do not see the invisibles as a problem; they do not see them at all. Except, that is, they have started taking an interest in NEETs, defined as people aged 15-24 who are not in employment, education or training. It’s a pity that these NEET statistics are restricted – for no obvious reason – to persons under 25. These are the ‘naughty’ young people, who supposedly reflect failures of the education system. Thus, there may be a political agenda to generate awareness only of the young invisibles.

There’s no obvious trend in the three decades of data shown here. The main point is that there are so many people whose lives do not fit the roles we expect them to fit. There has been too little interest in those who are defined only by what they do not do.