So many elephants in the room they are becoming unremarkable

In the NZ Herald this morning ex Labour leader sort of congratulates Grant Robertson on his budget spending. Or rather, damns with faint praise really. He writes,

Housing ... not just the supply but also the quality of existing stock — continues to be the elephant in the room to addressing the growing inequity in our society.

Housing is an issue. It is some people's major issue. But...

Set me to thinking. What is mine?

It's twofold. It's stubborn and ignorant repetition of past policies that have never worked. 

And simultaneously charting dangerous territory with the assertions that democracy can't work for minorities (with flavour of the day, Maori). To that end frantically throwing out bedrock democratic principles.

Democracy doesn't work for minorities. I know. I am in one. The 5-10 percent that genuinely crave small government, free markets and personal responsibility. It doesn't follow I advocate for an overthrow of 'one person, one vote'. It means my minority has to persuade the majority their way.

But back to the point of my post. 

What is your elephant in the room?

Prove my point. There are so many elephants in the room that they are now unremarkable.

Budget baloney

Unbelievable bullshit.

The great spin machine has it that for too long mothers on the DPB - called Sole Parent Support since 2013 - have been robbed, yes robbed, of their rightful child support payments made by the non-custodial father. Jacinda says mothers have been "denied money that is rightfully theirs."

Reality check. The state has generously paid a livable statutory entitlement to any sole parent - regardless of the reason for their single state - since 1973. If the non-custodial parent was paying child support (known as 'maintenance' at that time) the state kept it to offset the cost of the benefit to the taxpayer.

Today's announcement puts an end to that.

Some sole parents are in for a pay rise. 

Not because the father is going to pay more. But because the taxpayer is.

Female prison population shrinks nearly twice as fast as male

 

Between March 2017 and March 2022 the female prison population decreased by 39.3 percent whereas the male prison population shrank by just 22.4 percent.

A win for the ever-aggrieved feminists?

New Zealand today: Where facts are described as "nonsense"

 RNZ reports:

Shane Reti: Life expectancy for Māori was 30 years in the 1840s but today it is around 73.4 years.

Willie Jackson: Shane is talking nonsense.

There have been enormous health (and other) gains for Māori over the past 100 or so years. I gathered them together in one document here.

Progress is being made but constant polemic-driven politicking and redundant reforms will not hasten it.

If Andrew Little's goal is to reduce bureaucracy to improve efficiency, why develop two separate health authorities? He too is flying in the face of reality.

Ultimately, the personal decisions individuals make about their own health will have the greatest impact on their longevity.

That should be the message to Māori and every other person of every other ethnicity.

Behind the headline

An RNZ headline reads:

High rate of suicide in pregnant and post-natal women

"Suicide is the leading cause of death during pregnancy and the postnatal period, and Māori women are three times more likely to die this way, a new report has found."

That's an alarming fact and one that somewhat surprised me.

Any suicide is a terrible tragedy but perhaps even more so when it involves an unborn child.

After a moment's reflection, my analytical mind immediately wants to know, how many?

The report is from the Helen Clark Foundation and while the assertion is made and referred to several times in the paper, no statistics are provided. The claim is referenced though and takes us to this source - the maternal section of Perinatal Mortality Review report.

In the thirteen years that span 2006 to 2018 there were 30 suicides or two annually on average.

There were 809,831 maternities in the same period. Maternal suicides are in fact very rare.

But rarity doesn't make for headlines.

Furthermore, there were 27 in the period 2006 to 2016, leaving three in 2017/ 2018.

Maternal suicides are reducing.

For context 65 young people under twenty took their lives in the year to June 2020.

Update: On TV One the maternal suicide number has grown to 10 every year. 

Labour actually achieves something

The data for the following chart comes from StatsNZ. 

Looks like New Zealand is becoming a safer place. Fewer crimes are being committed - of every type - that warrant imprisonment.

There has been a 39.3% decrease in sentenced prisoners since 2016 from 8,958 to 5,433 total offences.

'Unlawful entry with intent/burglary, break and enter' has seen a 44.5 percent decrease. Wow.

What a great result by the Labour government.

Mr Sharma will be delighted.

On Māori inter-marriage and future implications

The rates of partnering between Māori and non-Māori are high and always have been. 

Historically:

 “Intermarriage with non-Maori contributed to the rapid growth of the Maori population in the post-war period. As at 2003, almost one-quarter of Maori children were born to non-Maori mothers, (Statistics New Zealand 2005).” 

In 2013 fewer than half of Māori men had a Māori partner:

Source

The corresponding figure for Māori females is 52 percent.

Furthermore, trend-wise:

“There has been a small but important decline in the proportion of partnered Māori who have a Māori partner. In 2001, 53% of partnered Māori men had a Māori partner. In 2013 this declined to 48%. For Māori women the decline was from 52% to 47%.”

These realities pose vital questions:

1/ Is there a pervasive appetite for separatism among people who have long been attracted to those outside their own race and culture?

2/ With institutions and services increasingly split along racial lines, where will individuals of mixed ethnicity fall? This is particularly pertinent in the case of Oranga Tamariki which is pursuing a policy of keeping ‘Maori’ children with ‘Maori’ relatives as a priority. When all aspects of the child’s well-being are considered, this may be the best course of action; equally, it might not.

John Tamihere famously said New Zealand’s future, “… is being decided in our bedrooms, not our boardrooms.” He also identifies as Māori more strongly than any other ethnicity, as is his right.

Since making that proclamation as Māori Affairs Minister in 2004, Tamihere has become a strong advocate for separate systems. As Māori Party president he appears more radical in his views than when a Labour MP.

Is he now in danger of forcing those of mixed ethnicity – even children – to make difficult, possibly unbearable decisions to meet the demands for tino rangitiratanga – ‘by Māori, for Māori?’

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic the phrase ‘Let no man put asunder’ might be a reminder to those who want to divide New Zealand that ultimately, individuals make their own life choices, and those choices are sacrosanct.

"What women want from Labour, National"

I strongly object to writers who refer to groups of people and profess to speak for them. It happens all the time with Maori, and now Paula Bennett presumes on behalf of women. 

But once a politician always a politician so it's hardly surprising. 

Political parties run 'focus groups' to find out who to woo and what to say. They put their political pinkies in the wind and blow with it. And blow is a good word.

This piece is a lot of 'blow'.

'We' this, 'we' that. Heavy on stereotypical female roles. A shout out to the sisterhood? A signal about how to behave if you want to belong? 

Identity politics, to be blunt about it. 

BUT Bennett knows more about women than I do. She has lost none of her political smarts. Her cloaked advice is for National (not Labour): "You must capture our heads and our hearts." Currently common corporate parlance.

I must have been mistaken when I thought identity politics was the domain of the left.

It squeezes out the individual who doesn't identify with any group - who gets a shiver down their spine when told WHAT THEY THINK AND WANT. Exactly what Bennett has done.

This whole device (former minister speaks for her gender to her former party) leaves me cold.

Then again, my cynicism regarding politicians has never been as deep as it is right now. 

The manipulative game they play, and which voters willingly participate in, is ruinous.

PM: "Come to New Zealand, we're kind."

 The Prime Minister is off overseas tomorrow. RNZ reports:

Ardern will be making local media appearances and leveraging off New Zealand's Covid-19 response. She noted research suggesting those abroad now see the country in a more favourable light.

"They see us as people who look after others, and that's a really important message to send," Ardern said.

"Come to New Zealand, we're kind."

Kind of what? Kind of authoritarian? Kind of conformist? Kind of pathetic?

Jacinda said there would be no vaccine mandates. Thousands breathed.

Then she said there would. Thousands lost their livelihoods.

With nothing left to lose they went to parliament to appeal to her.

Not only did she steadfastly ignore them. She sneered and then smeared them. 

But let's shove aside the mental images still raw from the end of the protest. 

And all the hardship the government response to covid wreaked on the economy.

Covid aside, under Ardern, New Zealanders have experienced so much additional stress.

She has actively made life less tolerable for:

Farmers (unworkable regulations, new taxes, SNAs and encouraged division between rural and urban interests)

Landlords (often unnecessary onerous regulations and loss of tax exemption on mortgage interest)

Employers (more sick leave, higher legislated wages, extra public holiday and family violence leave)

The customers of farmers (all of us) are no better off. Farm produce gets more unaffordable.

Tenants are paying higher rents and now the pool of rental properties appears to be shrinking.

Employees are struggling with inflation that has both international and domestic drivers (not least the hyper spending by government on a burgeoning bureaucracy.) In a high inflation environment the poorest - and their children - hurt the most. They have the least disposable dollar.

The ratio of income to house prices - and newly legislated LVR lending restrictions - means many young people believe it is impossible to buy a home here.

The next migration outflow is imminent and unavoidable.

But... back to the PM's trip. She said, "Now is the time to get out and about, to support our exporters, and so we're willing to take on board the risks."

RNZ originally headlined their article PM says "Now is the time to get out"

An editor guarding their funding source has since changed it.

But I say it to my adult children all the time.

Sepuloni stonewalls serious questions

This morning SEEK, the foremost advertiser of jobs in New Zealand, advised that March listings were up 27% on March last year and 2 percent up on last month. Job ad levels are at a record number.

Applications per job had, however, fallen significantly.

Last week in parliament ACT MP Karen Chhour put the following questions to the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Carmel Sepuloni:

8. KAREN CHHOUR (ACT) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she believe that jobseeker beneficiaries who fail to meet their work obligations should have their benefits reduced; if so, why were work-related benefit sanctions in the last quarter of the last year less than half what they were in 2019?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Only if it is appropriate to do so, and as a last resort. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has changed its way of working during COVID-19. Staff are more proactive with clients and offer more phone engagements, in line with the alert and traffic light settings. The member will notice the number of people sanctioned for failing to prepare for work has remained steady over this time period, and almost all the drop-off in sanctions is for failing to turn up to an appointment. This reflects the changed environment due to COVID-19, as well as increased Government investment in front-line work-focused case management. I'd also like to point out the big drop in the number of parents with dependent children who are sanctioned. This fell from 1,980 in December 2019 to 579 in December 2021. MSD are working more closely with clients to understand the reason for their non-compliance and make it easier to re-comply if they have children. Our new ways of working have been successful. Last year more people moved off a main benefit and into work than any time since electronic records were kept, a trend which is continuing in 2022. 

 

Sepuloni claims sanctions for failing to prepare for work are "steady" but sanctions for those failing to participate in work dropped 62.5 percent from 1,200 to 450. For context the denominator is 368,172 so the fraction is, in any case, tiny.

 But let's deal with the last part of the answer.

The number cancelling a main benefit to move into work is a somewhat meaningless figure without accompanying grants: 

Graphing the Ministry's data shows that in March 2022 there were still more grants of a Jobseeker benefit than cancellations of a main benefit to move into work. In March 2021 the reverse was true. So the situation has actually deteriorated. Additionally, more Jobseeker benefits were granted in March 2022 than either of the two prior months.

Karen Chhour: If someone on jobseeker support does not have an exemption for health reasons and refuses to fulfil a suitable job vacancy, should they be able to stay on their full benefit with no consequences?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Every person's situation on the benefit is different, and it's important that the Ministry of Social Development and the case managers recognise that. We also need to begin from the starting point of assuming that the vast majority of people who are on benefit do want to work. MSD's job is to support them into the job opportunities that are available, that are best suited to them, and work to ensure that the work they take up is sustainable and meaningful for them and good for them and their whānau.

Working is actually about 'earning a living.' A lot of work is not sustainable simply because that is the nature of jobs today. Not everyone can find a long-term secure job that fulfils them in every way. Thousands of people do work that they'd prefer not to. That's the reality of life. They do find reward though in having workmates, in supporting themselves and being occupied.

Karen Chhour: Is it fair to use hard-working Kiwis' taxes to pay for 106,000 work-ready jobseeker beneficiaries when many industries are crying out for labour, with some having to shut their doors due to understaffing?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: What is not fair is to use the politics of divide and rule by trying to pit those "hard-working" New Zealanders against people that are on benefit. Many of us in this House would have had a stint on benefit at some point in time. We're no longer on it. We didn't have the intention to stay on it. We always had aspirations to get out and work for ourselves and our whānau, and that is what the vast majority of beneficiaries also have. There's also a cohort of New Zealanders who struggle to get into work for a range of other reasons, including health conditions and disabilities, and for far too long they have been under-invested in. It's not just about expecting the person on benefit to get off benefit and go and work. It's about a Government being committed to breaking down the barriers to them being able to take up employment.

I surely won't be alone in seeing the irony in a Minister from the current government accusing a member of the opposition of using the "politics of divide and rule." Labour and the Greens are steeped in identity politics which pits the interests of one group against another. New Zealand is being increasingly divided along race, gender and age lines. And the Prime Minister's notorious response to a question about whether the vaccine passes were intended to create two different classes of people - "yip yip" - is, unfortunately for her, unforgettable.

Karen Chhour: Why, when so many businesses need staff, have the average future years on a benefit risen from 10.6 years in 2017 to 12.4 years in 2021?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I saw some recent information that came through to my office yesterday that actually saw there's been a reasonably significant increase in the number of New Zealanders who were exiting benefit and still in employment six months later. This is what we've been focused on since day one in Government—is not just seeing getting people off benefit as the win, which the previous Government saw as a win, regardless of where they went, but actually supporting them into sustainable, meaningful employment so that they are able to continue to work for them and their whānau and, hopefully, with the right support, not return to benefit.

"...some recent information"? That's hardly a rigorous response. If the information isn't referenced, it isn't subject to scrutiny.

According to the latest MSD Annual Report, the "percentage of clients who remain off main benefit having secured sustainable work" (for 26 weeks) decreased from 70.6 in 2016/17 to 68.7 in 2020/21. 

If Labour had successfully focused on a goal of "exiting benefit and still in employment six months later" benefit numbers would be well down. They are not. They grew in every year of the government's first term and eased only slightly between 2020 and 21.

Incidentally Chhour's data comes from the same source. It is damning.

If the "vast majority" of people on a benefit want to work, have aspirations to support their whanau, why, in a job rich situation, has the expected time they will spend dependent grown by seventeen percent?

That remained unanswered.

Parliament is a difficult listen these days. Ministers do not answer questions - particularly supplementaries - and when the opposition MPs complain to the speaker their objections are brushed aside with mealy-mouthed assertions that the question has been addressed.

The only positive comment I can make is that Sepuloni isn't the worst offender.

How bad is that?

 

 

Another reason more people are welfare-dependent

In December 2017 123,039 people were on the Jobseeker benefit and 289,788 people were on any main benefit.

By December 2021 the respective numbers had risen to 187,989 and 368,172 - increases of 53 and 27 percent.

A just released MSD report which monitors the effectiveness of EA (Employment Assistance) interventions contains this graph:

The amount spent on EA interventions has steadily declined since 2016/17. Additionally, the values are not CPI adjusted.

And from the 'key results':

...the total level of expenditure in the effective and promising categories has decreased since the high point of 2013/2014 ($192.3 million). In the last four years the fall in effective expenditure was led by the reduction in spending on Training for Work and Flexi-wage (Basic/Plus)

Within the report there is further negative and positive news. This post simply highlights two broad findings.

Less is being spent on employment assistance, and what is being spent is less effective.

The difference the protest made

Many still credit the Labour government with its life-saving approach to Covid in 2020. But from the outset it was only ever another form of Me-Too. Labour was very quick to jump on board with whatever other countries were doing (even though our physical circumstances were markedly different) with a national hard lock-down, wage subsidies, printing money and border closure. The government justified it by saying that's what everybody else is doing.  It was copycat policy.

They then continued the application of orthodoxy on the domestic populace mandating vaccinations, passports and scanning. Everybody else is doing it and so will you. 

But why is that ever a sound reason to do something? 

To rub salt into the wound New Zealand continues this smug conceit that it is somehow world-leading. An innovator. Progressive and liberal.

While the private sector might have some claims, the government certainly doesn't.

Talking to a friend yesterday, his indifference to Ardern has mushroomed into a visceral loathing. His bristling is palpable. He is sick of being treated like a child, talked to as if he is an idiot. His words.

And when you think about it, living under Ardern has been like being back at school. Where most teachers preached conformity for your own good, or for the greater good, or for the sake of the school community.

Yet anyone who spent a moment reflecting knew that ultimately, you are on your own. You make your own way in the world. You love and look after friends and family, as they do you. But we are each an island. A self-contained intellectual entity.

A Chinese writer sent a letter to the Leighton Smith podcast. She described how in her country actions are only ever in service to the state, for the greater good and so, except for your parents, nobody actually cares about you as an individual.

Collectivist Ardern made this reality sickeningly clear when after imploring kindness and compassion from every one of her team of 5 million she vilified and ostracized and lied about those who gathered at parliament to ask her to end the mandates (a word the Chinese correspondent described as being very familiar to her country folk).

But the spark of human individuality cannot be suppressed indefinitely. Like the lad who mentioned the naked emperor's actual state. Or the exceedingly brave Russian broadcaster who momentarily yelled to the tv cameras that it's all propaganda.

Maybe, just maybe, the silver lining from the last two bewildering and stultifying years will be a re-emergence of individual independence - freedom of action, freedom of thought and freedom from fools.

OK. The last wish is unrealistic but at the very least, foolish ideas and their consequences might once more be debated openly without group-think silencing detractors.

A woman who liked Trump gave her reason as: "He says things I can only think."

I don't have an opinion on Trump. In the same way it irks me that people think our Prime Minister is wonderful when they don't have to live under her leadership, what do I know about America?

But I do have an opinion about the woman. No-one should feel unsafe or unable to express their thoughts. That is what New Zealand had become. That place.

Until the protest. A catalyst. A real event which forced itself into everyone's foreground and couldn't be avoided. Without bidding, a number of people just came out and said to me, I support the protestors. Which opened a floodgate of pent-up frustration and eager conversation.

Having nailed their colours, people will not unnail them. The protestors did make everyone braver. The aftermath isn't about deciding who is right and who is wrong. It's about more people saying what they think. And in doing so finding they are not as isolated as they thought they were. Or as stupid as they had been made to believe.

There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that the parliamentary protest will prove the point of no return for this government.  It exposed Ardern in a way no other event could have.

Her exposure wasn't unique though. Every party agreed to treat the protestors with utter disdain. Our oppositional parliament presented a barricade as unified as the one composed of riot shields and pepper-spraying police.

For me personally that was the big reveal. The lasting impact. For years I've resisted those hackneyed phrases, "Politicians? They're all as bad as each other." "Don't vote. It only encourages them!"

In that moment, the protest also provided a damning demonstration of the truth of these slogans.

Gap between unemployed and jobseekers is huge

 From Statistics New Zealand, note unemployed numbers at end December 2021:

From the Ministry of Social Development note Jobseeker numbers at end December 2021:

The number on Jobseeker Support (previously known as the Unemployment Benefit) is more than double the number unemployed.

The only conclusion that can be drawn is thousands of Jobseeker beneficiaries are not unemployed.

Technically speaking they do not fit the Stats NZ definition of 'unemployed' which is:

- has no paid job

- is working age

- is available for work, and

- has looked for work in the past four weeks or has a new job to start within the next four weeks.

For instance, 43 percent of Jobseekers are not available for work due to illness of some sort.

Some have part-time jobs but still require a benefit.

Nevertheless, there is now a massive gap between the number unemployed and the number on Jobseeker Support.

Let's travel back four years to December 2017 quarter, directly after Labour became government.

According to Statistics NZ the unemployed numbered 122,700:

According to the Ministry of Social Development Jobseekers numbered 123,042:

The two numbers were close.

A few people have asked me what is going on.

I can only suggest that under the current government fewer people are defined as 'unemployed' because the benefit system allows them to not be. Work obligations are looser and not enforced, and beneficiaries can earn more without their benefit being reduced. 

The constant bragging about record low unemployment is cynical. The rate is more likely a result of poor social policy than a 'booming economy'.

Maori fertility rate drops to historic low

By the end of 2021, the Maori fertility rate had dropped to 1.99

This is a fall from the first Stats NZ recorded rate of 6.28 in 1963

That's around one fewer Maori child every 14 years though the substantive drop occurred as women became able to control their fertility more effectively.

Source

The Maori rate up until 1991 was based on ethnicity of child and degree-of-blood. So the steep drop between 1963 and 1991 also reflects the intermixing between Maori and non-Maori.

When the stats resume in 1995 they are based on ethnicity of the mother and self-identification.

I was there again today...

 ... but left too early to experience the unnecessary mayhem that kicked off later in the afternoon.

I reported to a friend:

The focal point has moved to the corner of Molesworth and Hill streets, but some are still at the steps of parliament. There is a guy keeping up a calming narrative (I know you hate that word, but this is the proper use) as the police broadcast a trespass message. It's quite powerful. 

I think the authorities are planning to broadcast some terrible sustained screeching noise which they rehearse periodically. Earbuds have been handed out.

I moved up to the hub where lines of riot police are facing the crowd, some of whom are sitting on the tops of remaining vehicles. People are making short speeches and music is playing. National MP Mark Mitchell said on NewstalkZB this morning there are far more gang members there now. I didn't see them. There's two tidy Mongrel Mob members who have been there from early days.

I made friends with Bubba from Tauranga and gave her my number if she needs help. Her van was towed away last night, to where she hasn't a clue. She still has her tent, but police are moving in on those too starting from the Hill St side. The protestors at the front line have to watch as police drag tents, tarpaulins, chairs, blankets etc down Hill St and biff them all in a high-sided tip-truck. The police are manning all the vehicles that are towing, bulldozing etc.

When I arrived in town earlier, I ended up behind one of the very long Corrections transporters so followed it. All the way to the police station by the central library. They had blocked off the last road though and by the time I had circled the block and parked they were already offloading the final arrested protestor and taking into the station. What amazed me was not one member of the media had bothered to capture any of this. It's truly horrible.

I left around 1pm. It's been pretty quiet and I think the police will continue dirty deeds under the cloak of darkness. (How wrong I was).

Look at this 'violent nasty thug' readying to 'hold the line'. The police look like they are dressed up for roller-blading. It'd be funny if it wasn't so dreadful.

It was important for me to be there. Otherwise I wouldn't know that media descriptions like "just a pack of lowlifes " simply weren't true.

Luxon likes lefties way too much

Talking to Chris Lynch this morning on Magic Talk, National Leader Chris Luxon was singing the praises of our last Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft. There is no link available so you have to trust me. He said something to the effect that Becroft was a really great Children's Commissioner (in a discussion about the role being disestablished).

Becroft was a really great socialist. He clamored for bigger benefits and wage indexed benefits.

He supported Labour's move to stop requiring mothers to name the father of their child (after describing, as Principal Youth Court Judge earlier, how the most common factor in those that appeared before him was 'fatherlessness.)  He called for child support payments to stop being used to offset sole parent benefits, preferring the taxpayer to make up the shortfall. Because more than half of sole parents are Maori he said the current law was racist.  He backs the devolution of Oranga Tamariki services to Maori buying into the 'legacy of colonization' excuses for disproportionate Maori child abuse. 

While I cannot give you his direct word-for-word quote from this morning's interview here is what he said in his departure interview: 

The Māori staff in my office tell me that pre-colonised New Zealand was a land where children were not only valued but were also involved and included in community decision-making. 

That’s not something we do so well in New Zealand now. 

Over his tenure I watched him tow the government line more and more; the Maori world-view more and more.

Not once did I read or see him advocate for parental responsibility. He was totally into Jacinda's Robin Hood recipe for child poverty reduction.

Even if Luxon only read the well-meaning headlines he must have formed some opinion of the Commissioner's chosen ideology.

Luxon likes lefties way too much.

A sample of the anti-mandate protestors

312 responded face-to-face. Poll-wise margin of error plus or minus 4.6%

      - Most aged over 41

      - Labour was the most common vote at last election

      - Maori representation almost double their share in the population

      - Slightly more women than men

      - Largest share come from provincial NZ

      - Just over three quarters are unvaccinated

So your typical protestor is an older Maori female who voted Labour at the last election?

I saw plenty who superficially fit that bill.

Source

First-hand reports

More testimony from those who have actually spent time at the protest site:

NewstalkZB Political Editor Barry Soper: 

The trouble is the politicians have painted them as illegal, dangerous radicals which, having talked to many of them which the politicians haven't, isn't the case for the vast majority of them. 

Lawyer and ex ACT MP Stephen Franks: 

I’ve been radicalised into hoping the protesters win (conspicuously by the end of mandates outside high transmission risk roles). That is by simple disgust at the bizarre RNZ and other MSM state propaganda vilifying the protesters. In my many hours there, I’ve seen nothing to support the calumny aimed at the protesters. Sure, its attracted some dingbats and potentially menacing individuals. But in my view a lower proportion than in most protests.

Protest gathering force

A high achieving sportsman, knighted no less, trumps politicians in his ability to distil and state his position:

In a post made on Facebook, Coutts confirmed his plans to join the occupiers, noting he was not against vaccination – being vaccinated himself - but he was against forcing people to get them.

"I'm heading to Wellington next week to join the protest. It's the first time I've ever felt compelled to join a protest," Coutts wrote.

"I'm not anti-vaccine (I'm vaccinated) but I'm definitely against forced vaccinations.

"I'm also strongly opposed to the ever-increasing erosion of our human rights and the growing limitations on our freedom of choice. I believe in having the freedom to be able to question so-called "expert" opinion.

"I'm against discrimination and the 'them and us' society that is being promoted by our current political leaders. I'm against creating different rights, laws and privileges based on race."

Tone-deaf government

While thousands of people, Maori in particular, are protesting at parliament over jobs and businesses lost due to the mandates, Ministers Carmel Sepuloni and Willie Jackson issue a press release titled:

Government Acts To Support More Māori Into Mahi

It's your typical 'all hui no do-ey' political statement outlining a nebulous 11-point action-plan to get more Maori into jobs. Old hands among us have seen it dozens of times before.

Did the Ministers see this ad in yesterday's DomPost?

Or the signs being carried by protestors?

Best employment policy right now? 

End the mandates.

Update: It gets worse. According to NewstalkZB's Barry Soper, the Prime Minister left the jobless protestors behind in Wellington and went to Rotorua to launch this employment scheme!