For a party that ran its campaign on devolving decision making to the regions, this is massive overreach.

I know first hand the infrastructure problems facing Wellington but the council literally only just had the vote. They need to be given the opportunity to find solutions, and go back to the public for consultation, rather than being blackmailed by the minister. Very much comes across as “do as I say, or else” given their hard on for asset sales.

Submissions on tolling the replacement gorge road have now closed, but Woodville residents are refusing to give up fighting.

Under the current proposal, those driving between Palmerston North and Woodville in a light vehicle could pay $4.30 per trip, $8.60 for a return - and up to $17.20 for heavy vehicles.

The former State Highway 3 through the Manawatū Gorge closed in 2017 due to rockfall.

Companies and shareholders associated with 12 fast-track projects gave more than $500,000 in political donations to National, Act and New Zealand First and their candidates, RNZ analysis shows.

The projects include a quarry extension into conservation land and a development whose owner was publicly supported by National MPs during a legal battle with Kāinga Ora.

University of Otago legal expert Professor Andrew Geddis said the Cabinet Manual doesn't cover whether receiving a donation is a conflict of interest.

In a political system where a lot of the money used for campaigning comes from private sources, it would be difficult to bar parties from being involved in decisions which impact donors.

"The unions give lots of money to the Labour Party. If that was then to mean that the Labour Party couldn't pass workplace relations legislation that impacts on unions, it would take a huge policy issue just out of play."

If this was the rule, donors wouldn't donate, he said.

Key: "Donald Trump is driving very much an America First and a more isolationist kind of view. Actually, it's quite different, it's a very different foreign policy than we've ever seen. So that probably doesn't help New Zealanders much. But on balance, I think he's probably better for the economy.“

Please participate. Don't let the country be handed over to the oligarchs.

The police powerpoint presentation, released to Stuff under the Official Information Act, said members of sovereign citizens group Mauri Nation used fake ID to reach the Prime Minister's floor at Parliament.

The presentation from the Police Security Intelligence and Threats Group in November last year, does not say whether the Prime Minister - then Jacinda Ardern - was present.

Everything is going as planned with this government "starve the beast" strategy. They want to destroy the healthcare system so that people will accept privatisation as a possible cure.

The nation as usual is utterly ignorant of what's going on.

Write up from my old mate Max Rashbrooke on the success of the school lunch program, and the likely impacts of the cuts to the program from the National-Act-NZ First government.

Budget documents show the government was told of "profound" wellbeing benefits from the free school lunch scheme months before it decided to trim its funding.

The research was supposed to be published in June but was still under wraps.

However, Budget papers published this week referred to the study's early findings.

"Emerging findings support previous evaluation findings, but also highlight further benefits of the programme, including improvements in achievement and the importance of universality," said a December briefing note to Minister of Education Erica Stanford.

"This includes that learners are more settled and able to engage with classroom activity and learning, with some schools showing increased academic achievement resulting from an enhanced learning experience from being more settled and less distracted. Initial findings also indicate that the programme is having a profound impact on the wellbeing of learners," it said.

Earlier this year, the government cut annual funding for the scheme by $107 million, reducing the per-student spend for children at intermediate and secondary schools to $3.

A March briefing paper about changing the model for Ka Ora, Ka Ako said it was not clear whether lunches could be provided at that price.

"The most significant risk from the proposal is that we have not market-tested or otherwise analysed the proposed $3 per head price. We do not know whether sufficient supply exists to offer lunches to the specified standard at this price across the full range of schools," the document said.

Unfortunately that's behind a paywall, but there's ways and means of reading it, eg via RSS subscription to NZ Herald.

A couple of notes for the benefit of those that can't read it. Two lecturers in maths education have pointed out that Luxon's claim that there is a crisis is misleading as the achievement data is "based on a new draft curriculum, with a higher benchmark compared to previous years."

ie, the standard for achievement is higher, not the level of maths knowledge declining suddenly. In fact "We’ve been tracking student achievement in mathematics at Year 8 for more than 10 years, and in that time, there has been no evidence for improvement or decline."

More alarmingly for me, a ministerial advisory group was setup which has recommended a new curriculum even while acknowledging there is a lack of evidence for teaching maths the way it proscribes.

That advisory group is chaired by an NZ Initiative idealogue, Dr Michael Johnston and the article almost infers he is basically pushing his own manifesto on how education should be conducted into the curriculum - again, despite evidence it has application to maths education.

For anyone that doesn't know, the NZ Initiative was formed by merging the Business Roundtable and the NZ Institute. They are far right neoliberal idealogues and you'll see people cycle through the organisation before going into political reporting or lobbying, or in Nicola Willis case being placed into political party roles.

"More people are going to have to rely on cars and trucks to get around because we don't have a pipeline of alternatives like rapid transit, inter-city passenger rail, public transport and safe walking and cycling in our communities”

I make no secret of how much I disagree with the Governments policy choices but this takes the award for making me apoplectic.

Fuck the most vulnerable members of society! They don’t contribute anything. Landlords need their dignity back and house flippers should get more profit.

Fucking scum.

Ground-breaking work on fairness and equity within New Zealand's police force has quantified for the first time the gap between Māori and Pakeha when it comes to how they're treated.

It comes from the world-leading project Understanding Policing Delivery, which granted a research team unrestricted access to police staff and data.

Controlling for all other relevant factors, including previous criminal history, youth and gang affiliation, Māori are still 11 percent more likely to be charged with an offence than a Pakeha person in the same situation.

A leaked document from tobacco giant Philip Morris says the company should target political parties including NZ First to get more favourable regulation for its Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs).

RNZ has obtained the 2017 document 'Designing a Smoke-free Future in New Zealand', a corporate affairs plan to lobby for HTPs and other smokeless nicotine products to be embraced as part Smokefree 2025.

The Philip Morris New Zealand (PMNZ) lobbying plan, dated August 2017, was drawn up as the National-led government of the day was legalising vaping products. The document maps out a path for HTPs to gain similar recognition.

"It is essential that we move proactively to control the narrative about PMNZ, our products and in particular, our potential contribution to harm reduction," the document says.

"We would like to force those opposing PMNZ's role in a Smokefree NZ … into a position whereby to oppose PMNZ's RRPs (Risk Reduced Products) is to oppose harm reduction, or be pro-harm."

Tougher rules are needed to combat the risk of political corruption in New Zealand, according to the Helen Clark Foundation.

In a report for the public policy think-tank, set up by former prime minister Helen Clark, author Philippa Yasbek set out 26 recommendations to strengthen the country's anti-corruption measures.

They included penalties for those who failed to comply with the Official Information Act, capping a person's political donations to $30,000 per electoral cycle, mandatory reporting of all gifts offered to politicians, and a three-year wait before any former politician could become a lobbyist.

"Corruption is an insidious cancer. It is not enough for democracies like ours to pay lip service to principles of transparency and steps which need to be taken against corruption," he said in a foreword to the report.

"New Zealand must critically examine these issues on a regular basis. That is why this article is so important and why it raises very serious questions about New Zealand's current commitment to transparency."

Yasbek said anti-corruption measures in New Zealand were largely governed by social norms, but laws were needed.

The government aims to test just over 3.3 million drivers a year in its plan to increase roadside tests for drink and drug-impaired drivers.

Transport Minister Simeon Brown is launching a $1.3 billion Road Policing Investment Programme which will run for the next three years.

He said 65 percent of breath tests will be done at high or extreme alcohol risk times.

The scheme will also have a target of carrying out 50,000 drug tests per year.

Brown said another priority will be speeding on open roads and at high-risk locations.

"This plan has a clear focus on outcomes and has clear targets to ensure police are focused on the most high-risk times, behaviours, and locations.

It follows Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford's selling their new maths policy at the National Party conference over the weekend, claiming just 22 percent of Year 8 students were at the expected standard for maths.

However, Aotearoa Educators Collective on Monday raised concerns the 22 percent figure was not comparing apples with apples because it was benchmarked against a new curriculum which was not yet being taught to Year 8 children.

"The original implementation of the refreshed curriculum was to begin in 2026, with a logical expectation that, as students moved through the school years, their maths achievement would be advancing. Year 1 students starting with the refreshed curriculum in 2026 would be in year 8 in 2033," AEC spokesperson Prof Jodie Hunter said.

"We question the use of data based on assessments where student tasks are based on a curriculum that is not being taught.

"The result of around only one in five students working at the appropriate curriculum level in Year 8 seems questionable given it contradicts previous national and international studies, including NMSSA, TIMMS, and PISA, which all show higher levels of student achievement."

The truth is, political parties probably aren't getting a whole lot more in donations than they have in the past. It's just that they're now required to tell us much more about what's coming in.

For the first time, parties have been required to report on the value of donations they received under $1500 where the donor was known. Previously, they only needed to report on the value of anonymous donations of this value. This new reporting rule has brought to light huge amounts of donation cash which had previously been hidden to the public.

Victoria University of Wellington senior lecturer Max Rashbrooke said the change to require reporting of these smaller donations closed a "baffling loophole" which left people guessing how much parties had in their bank accounts to campaign with.

Rashbrooke said it also put a misconception to bed. "There was always a view that the playing field was a bit more level than it might seem," he said. "Because it might seem that National out-fundraises Labour massively in the big donations, but the argument was always made that Labour did very well in the small donations."

In fact, it was National, not Labour, that dominated the small donation rankings in 2023. Out of National's $10.3m donation total, $4m came from 44,000 smaller donations of less than $1500. Labour raised less than $3m from smaller donations.

The NZ Media Council has upheld a complaint against a RNZ story on accuracy.

The story titled Florist says Julie Anne Genter exchange was a 'massive imbalance of power' was about a Wellington florist's claim of being bullied by Green MP Julie Anne Genter over a controversial cycleway project in Newtown.

The article incorrectly claimed that car parks were removed from outside the florist's shop to make way for a cycleway.

Complainant Tom Pearce provided photographic evidence showing there have never been car parks or a cycleway directly outside the shop on Riddiford Street.

On Saturday, Tauranga City Council will have its first election since 2019. In February, 2021, a central government-appointed commission replaced a dysfunctional mayor and councillors.

The best-case scenario this weekend, local government expert Dr Andy Asquith told RNZ, is that the country's fifth most populous city ends up with a council that is "marginally functional".

RNZ spoke with others who said that's all most local authorities can hope for, these days.

Across the motu, local government representatives are making headlines for being in trouble, or causing trouble, or both. This is against a backdrop of ballooning council costs, and the fastest rates increases in decades.

An independent review of local government, commissioned by the previous government and released last year, found communities were not well-served by the relationship between central and local government.

The coalition government rejected its recommendations, saying they were a distraction from the key issues [...], such as the need to reform funding and financing, and planning for long-term economic growth, housing, and infrastructure.

Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters has alleged a cover-up at KiwiRail over the grounding of the Aratere last month.

There were allegations from coalition government partner New Zealand First earlier this week the accident last month happened after "someone put the autopilot on, went for a coffee, and then couldn't turn the autopilot off in time when that someone came back".

Party leader Peters on Thursday morning appeared to distance himself from the claim, before doubling-down on it.

"But here's the point - at the moment we heard this story, it was clear as daylight that something dramatically had gone wrong, that shouldn't have gone wrong, and we find out it was on autopilot." Peters said the party had sources on the boat itself, which relayed the 'coffee break' claim.

"I am the acting prime minister, and the reality is that we are wanting to hear the truth, but we don't want to delay any longer. And in a way, you can say I'm asking KiwiRail [to] front up - right here right now."

Labour leader Chris Hipkins was unimpressed with New Zealand First posting the claim to social media, rather than sharing whatever information it had with investigators.

Housing Minister Chris Bishop has told real estate agents that the government wants to "flood the market" with opportunities for housing development.

It has agreed to a range of changes that would free up land for housing, and, the government hopes, make housing more affordable.

My rough summary of proposal:

• Most cities will be required to have zoned enough land for 30 years of housing demand all the time
• These cities won't be allowed to determine urban/rural boundaries
• Must intensify, especially around major public transport routes. If they decide not to for character reasons, then equivalent capacity must be opened up in another area
• cafes, dairies, etc (mixed use) must be allowed in residential areas
• appartments not allowed to have minimum floor area or requirement for balcony set by council
• councils already intensifying under a previous agreement (MDRS) will keep this, but if they change it then they have to move to using new rules

Let me know if I've got something wrong!