from Casey Costello of Hobson’s Pledge

The common thread for these is the insertion of new, unclear, and untested Maori words and concepts into our law, and then requiring compliance with these new concepts across complex and varying issues.

The uncertainty thrown up by this kind of law-making is causing havoc and the need for councils and courts to figure out what the law actually means will result in more delay and expense, along with less democracy and accountability.

RMA reform hijacked

The RMA reform announced last week was proudly introduced by Minister David Parker when he confirmed the introduction of the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill.

While most parties agree reform is urgently needed, this already very complex area of law has two outrageous additions included by David Parker.

First, the new regional planning committees must have at least two Maori representatives on them. Not 50/50 co-governance as some were clamouring for, but still another undemocratic intrusion. And it turns out these committees can have 50/50 co-governance, if the relevant councils want them to – do you trust your council to stand up for your democracy?

Second, the new legislation contains a requirement that councils “recognise and uphold te Oranga o te Taiao.”

So we have another case of Maori words with a Maori concept being slipped into an English language Bill and an English legal framework.

This term, new to statute in New Zealand, is defined in the Bill but the scope is so broad that to suggest it will reduce complexity, as the Minister assures us, is naïve in the extreme.

Dr Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative, presented an excellent analysis of the legislation in his article in the Australian (paywalled).

He observes that “Tikanga is mentioned 31 times, Matauranga Maori comes up 26 times. Kaitiakitanga can be found in seven places. They all beat “property right”, which features only three times.

Dr Hartwich rightly observes that the Bill is taking the integration of purported Maori custom into the New Zealand legal system to a new level.

The nuanced definitions and attempts to recognise special interests are all underpinned by the so-called duty to give effect to the principles of The Treaty of Waitangi.

Besides the policy goals, each time this happens, everyone operating in the relevant space (and resource management affects everyone) is left uncertain of where the bounds of the new law are until the courts rule on it. But the courts also wind up with enormous space to define what these concepts mean, as there is very little in the way of agreed definition.

We the public lose direct democratic accountability over our politicians to achieve policy outcomes, as they hand over that power to the courts and new unaccountable bureaucracies with their vague law-making.

At least for now, we have the most direct form of democratic accountability still available to us, with a vote at the next election.

At the heart of each piece of new legislation or policy introduced by this Government – whether it is about education, health, water, environment, resource management, or local government – is a consistent and egregious fundamental principle, that New Zealanders are to be afforded different consideration based upon ancestry.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the rapid and almost overwhelming pace at which these changes are being foisted upon us is intentional.

Distract, Divide and Overwhelm is a sound strategy for any power grab.

Submissions on the Natural and Built Environment Bill close on 30 January 2023. Perhaps influenced by the 80,000+ submissions received on the Three Waters legislation, the Government is hoping that New Zealanders will be too busy and distracted to challenge yet another enormous piece of divisive legislation.

When asked directly, the Prime Minister cannot guarantee that non-Maori and Maori will have the same level of representation and openly states that she believes one person, one vote is an “overly simplistic” approach to democracy. For this reason alone, we must brace ourselves for another battle that demands New Zealanders are treated equally before the law.

The layers of racial bureaucracy will see the wheels of progress grind to a halt, our nation further divided and all of that for no better outcomes for those who are in need, Maori or otherwise.

The many waters of Mahuta

The complexity of Three Waters reached an even greater muddle of confusion due to the change introduced at the second reading on 16 November 2022. The Bill is now awaiting Third Reading and will likely become law before Christmas.

Now included in the Bill is additional clarification of how the Te Mana o te Wai (the respect or authority of the water) provision should be applied. This expands the potential scope of the complex, co-governed Three Waters bureaucracy out to the coast (that’s right, foreshore and seabed all over again), geothermal water, and hydroelectric facilities.

The ambition is galling.

When the water entities are already structured in a co-governance model, with elected representation forming only 50% of the boards, that added layer of the Te Mana o te Wai obligations results in a further reduction in the influence the democratic sphere will have over water. The Prime Minister is lying when she claims that there is no expansion in scope to the Three Waters legislation.

Layers of Representation

While every Government agency and all new legislation are inserting obligations to a certain interpretation of The Treaty of Waitangi, the radical changes to Local Government New Zealand’s guidelines to your Council’s Standing Orders are another direct assault on democracy.

It is important that silence not be seen as tacit acceptance or endorsement of these new proposed Standing Orders.

Stand up for democracy and tell your Mayor to do the same by actively rejecting the divisive and anti-democratic proposal to change council Standing Orders. [Holborow in Kapiti won’t as she is committed to Labour Party policies despite only getting 28% of first preference votes. —Eds]

Hobson’s Pledge is continuing to push back against racism and will continue demanding that ALL New Zealanders are treated equally before the law.

Dear folks,

I am appalled with what this Government – along with the Green Party – have done now with the Three Waters legislation working its way through Parliament.

No longer is this just about how our water services are governed – it’s about democracy and even our constitution.

In case you’ve not caught up on it, last week Green MP Eugenie Sage tabled an amendment (called an “SOP” or supplementary order paper) to the Three Waters legislation that was being rushed through Parliament under urgency.

Incredibly, the opposition parties didn’t even notice the significance until after the Government had passed it. It added in a provision that means the law relating to the ownership and control of water services and significant assets could only be repealed by 60 percent of MPs or a referendum. No one had a say on this, and the fact it was done under urgency says it all.

In effect, the Government and the Greens are trying to bind subsequent goverments/parliament. It’s the ultimate in an underarm bowl. As a senior lawyer put it: 

Entrenchment

Entrenchment is usually limited to very few core constitutional items that underpin our democracy such as the voting age, voting method and the term of Parliament. These are usually entrenched with broad cross-party support after thorough debate and public consultation and require at least 75% of MPs to vote in favour of any repeal or amendment.

In this case, the government has supported an amendment set out in a Supplementary Order Paper proposed by Green MP Eugenie Sage that was passed under urgency to entrench a provision which does not relate to a constitutional matter. They did so in direct contravention of Crown Law Office advice and without public consultation. The level of entrenchment was set not at the usual 75%, but at 60% for the only reason that that percentage represents the Labour and Green votes in Parliament.

Entrenchment of any provision in the Three Waters reforms is controversial therefore for two reasons. First, it adds complexity and uncertainty to any new government’s plans to repeal and replace this legislation. Secondly, it is a major alteration to New Zealand’s unwritten constitution which could see governments of any hue attempting to entrench their significant policy reforms in an effort to tie the hands of their successors. It therefore threatens to draw the courts and Parliament into direct conflict over fundamental questions of sovereignty. Constitutional lawyers have been united in expressing deep concern over the government’s actions – some of them have gone so far as to describe it as democratic vandalism.

ACT leader David Seymour was on Newstalk ZB this morning on the issue. I highly recommend a listen.

Be in no doubt, if this goes ahead, it would be an act of constitutional vandalism. 

With the Government’s current proposal, the principle of entrenchment is blown apart. What would stop a future centre-Right government from entrenching lower taxes or restrictions on the size of the public service, for example? We would like those policies, but in a democracy, voters need to be able to change public policy through the ballot box in regular elections. 

Now in theory, if Parliament is sovereign, a future government could simply repeal this entrenchment provision and then move onto repeal the legislation itself. But even if that survived a court challenge, it would undermine the important electoral entrenchments we already have. And if it didn’t, it would put us into completely unchartered constitutional waters. 

This isn’t about privatisation—it’s about control. 

As early as April, the media were reporting that ministers were keen to shift the controversy over the reforms from co-governance fears to fears of privatisation.

But it was always a false flag: No one is proposing privatisation. What this is really about, is changing the rules of the game. It wouldn’t matter how you vote next year, as this provision could block a future Government from repealing this controversial approach to water reform. 

It is particularly disappointing that this move has come from a Green MP. While unsurprisingly the Taxpayers’ Union tends to agree with the party on very little, we have always recognised their commitment to openness, transparency and localism. But the move today confirms that they are no different to Labour in their contempt for the voting public. 

And it isn’t just the parties of the Right who are outraged by this. It has received condemnation from across the political spectrum and from academia too. A group of eight academics wrote an open letter in today’s NZ Herald criticising the constitutional precedent this would set and the way it has been introduced at a very late stage in the legislative process.

The prime minister recognised on RNZ this morning that the concerns were ‘legitimate’. An understatement if ever there was one. She also confirmed that the principle of entrenchment will be discussed at the meeting of the cabinet this afternoon. 

It’s vital that we put a stop to this nonsense today.

We need to let them know just how strong the opposition is to this move. Please take a few minutes out of your day to take a stand on this vital constitutional principle by sending an email to the Labour and Green MPs. Due to the tight timeframe and urgency of the situation we aren’t able to turn around a website with an automatic form as we would usually do so we are providing some suggested text (see below) and the relevant email addresses for you to copy and paste yourself.

If the Government does not drop this plan today, we will launch a campaign with full-page newspaper and TV ads by the end of the week to ensure that all New Zealanders are aware of the Government’s outrageous tactics to trash our constitution. 

Thank you for your continued support. 

Peter Williams Board Member New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

The Jacinda government’s Mainstream Media propagandists are trying to make it sound like this sneaky measure is to stop ‘privatisation’ when in fact the Jacinda government is effectively privatising all water services under Mahuta and her cronies. Ownership means nothing if you don’t have control, and all that is being given to unelected, unaccountable iwi elites

A memory card from a tabulation machine was mislaid, overlooked but then rediscovered. It makes fairly apparent why there have been so many allegations of fraud and tampering in recent American elections, some of which in the case of the Democrats were probably true. It raises the question: could this happen in Jacindaland given the nature of the two parties presently in power? The answer is it would be a lot more difficult as all parliamentary votes are by pen on paper so they can be rechecked; while there is early voting, there are no mail-in ballots (as in local elections); and the parties can appoint scrutineers.

by Roman Balmakov on The Epoch Times

After the midterm election in Cobb County, Georgia, was over, and all of the winners for the local races were already called, someone happened to discover a memory card lying around that was previously overlooked.

This was a memory card from one of the tabulation machines containing vote counts that were previously not included in the official tallies. And so, after they were added back in and the results of the elections were recertified, the winner of the local city council race was actually flipped.

That’s because, prior to this memory card fiasco, Madelyn Orochena was originally declared to be the winner of a post on the city council within the city of Kennesaw, located in Cobb County. After a recount, the winner is now Lynette Burnette.

Read and see more

by Wally Richards

WALLYS COLD PRESSED SUPER NEEM TREE OIL

Now after 9 long months we have finally being allowed to import and sell our cold Pressed Neem Oil again.

Why could we not sell it you may ask?

Well our beloved Environment Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that it could be hazardous to Aquatic Life and our Safety Data Sheet and labels did not reflect this.

We were operating on a study from America that proved it was Non Hazardous. See http://www.gardenews.co.nz/neem%20safety.pdf

EPA are very cautious these days, likely because of the cock-up allowing Kiwi fruit pollen from overseas into NZ which devastated our Kiwi fruit growers and cost millions in losses.

Thus erring on the side of caution we had to submit a application for a new hazardous rating which we were assured would be treated under urgency.

It has taken a good nine months to process our application to have a new Safety Data Sheet (SDS) and what the label requirements needed to be.

The SDS can be seen on our web site at www.gardenews.co.nz

Fortunately I have a firm of Technical Compliance people that look after matters of this type and they really went into bat for us to get the matter resolved.

They also looked at the other brands of Neem Oil on the market and found that they also did not comply with the new regulations and informed EPA of this fact.

Time went by and all the other brands were still being sold and when EPA was asked why?

They said they had not had time to look at them. (In my case it was only 19 days from first contact to be off the market?)

Now months later they are apparently starting to check and see if the other Neem Oils need to also put in new applications to met current requirements.

Likely they will disappear if found to need new hazardous applications and new label & SDS amendments.

It was a interesting learning curve in which I found there are some Neem sprays which are not Neem Oil at all.

Luckily they don’t mention Neem Oil on their labels or they would be in breech of the Fair Trading Act..

These ones are actually vegetable oils such as soya with the active ingredient added which is Azadirachtin.

So what is Azadirachtin?

Azadirachtin is the most active component for repelling and killing pests and can be extracted from neem oil.

Neem Oil comes from the seeds or kernels of the Neem Tree.

After the natural neem oil is removed from the seeds, it is treated with alcohol, which causes the azadirachtin and related substances to separate from the neem oil.

Neem oil and azadirachtin aren’t the same, but the two are closely related.

Both come from the neem tree, native to India but now grown in warm climates around the world.

Both substances are effective for repelling and killing insect pests and also interfere with feeding, mating, and egg laying.

Azadirachta indica L. (neem) shows therapeutics role in health management due to rich source of various types of ingredients.

The most important active constituent is azadirachtin and the others are nimbolinin, nimbin, nimbidin, nimbidol, sodium nimbinate, gedunin, salannin, and quercetin.

I have been told that in India, villages use the Neem Tree as the village pharmacy for various health aspects.

Organic neem oil contains an active ingredient called azadirachtin, which acts as a natural pesticide for organic gardening.

Gardeners use neem oil on their house plants and outdoor vegetable gardens as an insecticide, fungicide, and miticide.

I have noted that Neem Oil will turn the leaves of plants affected with powdery mildew back to green instantly.

Also very good for black spot and some rusts.

The fatty acids of Cold Pressed Neem Oil has the smoothing effect on some insect pets.

The taste of Neem Oil is very unpleasant as I found out one time when trying to siphon some out of a drum.

The horrible taste is great as it stops the likes of rabbits and possums from eating plants that have been sprayed with Real Neem Oil.

I originally introduced home gardeners to the benefits of Neem Oil in my weekly garden articles about 25 years ago.

Back then there was some confusion as Cold Pressed Neem Oil is not a poison hence insects pests affected after feeding on plants, that have been sprayed with the oil, dont suddenly drop dead as they would do with chemical posion sprays.

Back then popular sprays such as orthene insecticide would clean up the aphids etc in quick time till they became immune to the poison.

Neem Oil on the other hand being an anti feedent would often take a few days for the pests to starve to death.

The active ingredient, azadirachtin is broken down by UV and will be gone in a few days unless protected longer by adding Raingard to the spray.

It is very import for Neem Oil as with pyrethrum to be in a light proof bottle so that the products have a long shelf life.

If stored in a cool, dry place, neem oil has a shelf life of 1-3 years.

When making an insecticidal spray­and mixing it with water and an emulsifier­neem oil will maintain peak effectiveness for just a few hours but remain viable for up to 3-4 days before its chemical compounds fully break down.

I note that one new Neem Oil brand made recently available has a clear bottle which means that even florescent light will be reducing its effectiveness let alone exposure to sunlight.

To sum up even though Cold Pressed Neem Oil is extracted from Neem Kernels and that the active ingredient can be extracted chemically from the oil it means that there are differences between brands and as a result some may be more effective than others.

I am just happy that ours is back available to help you in your gardens.

Problems ring me at 0800 466464
Email wallyjr@gardenews.co.nz
Web site www.gardenews.co.nz

Older readers will remember the Muldoon government in the late 1970s was notorious for ramming laws through Parliament as fast as — ‘the fastest law in the west’ — but 24 in a week must be an all-time NZ record.

New Zealanders have been well and truly duped by Labour over Three Waters.

From the outset, the primary objective has always been to deliver control of water to the Maori tribal elite. It is only through lies and manipulation, a compliant media, and an absolute majority in the House that Labour – or more accurately the Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta – has been able to progress the plans to where they are now.

Full article

(Screenshots on Neighbourly sent to us)