r/aotearoa

Health NZ leaders told the Health Minister tight controls on hiring staff were crucial to delivering its budget and that recruitment of any frontline worker was only possible with the sign-off of senior executives.

In a briefing to Simeon Brown last March, then-Health Commissioner Professor Lester Levy and interim chief executive Dr Dale Bramley said strict recruitment rules had been in place throughout 2024/25, and frontline hiring decisions required the sign-off of the regional deputy chief executive.

"This has been coupled with regular close monitoring of recruitment pipelines and the establishment of the HR oversight group," Levy and Bramley wrote. "The expectation is for these controls to remain in place throughout 2025/26."

The documents were released under the Official Information Act to the Public Service Association (PSA), which says Health NZ intentionally delayed recruitment, leaving patients and health workers suffering as a result.

More at link...

Look at where things are at right now across the country. Emergency department wait times blowing out, doctors and nurses at the end of their rope.

Cost of living decimating household budgets, infrastructure deficits everywhere and political debates revolving around minor bracket adjustments or whether we need a CGT vs a wealth tax.

The entire parliamentary debate is trapped in endless tinkering around the edges, because our revenue model is still built on a 19th-century framework designed before real-time digital payments even existed.

What if the fundamental premise of how we fund the country is wrong?

Instead of thousands of pages of tax code, income brackets, GST compliance overhead and chasing capital offshore, what happens if a country like Aotearoa treated taxation purely as a system function?

New Zealand processes $8.6 Trillion across core interbank settlement rails annually. By shifting from heavy personal/corporate income compliance to clipping digital transaction velocity (an automated micro-levy at the central bank settlement layer), you eliminate deadweight compliance costs and enable funding a permanent economic floor for citizens and a structural surplus.

For anyone keen on macroeconomics, tax reform, or UBI models, if a real UBI is inevitable, as many people think with the rise of AI and NZ going backwards in real terms year on year, how do we fund it?

(Full disclosure: I’m a Hamiltonian tech worker/author and just published an independent non-fiction book breaking down the full dataset and blueprint today called 'The Great Revolution' but wanted to bring the core policy mechanics here to discuss with you guys).

what do kiwis think??

A bill returning more than 3000 hectares to Māori in Te Tauihu has unanimously passed its third and final reading.

The Te Here ā Nuku (Nelson Tenths) Bill aims to settle a land dispute that has gone on for close to two centuries and will see 3068 hectares, including the Kaiteriteri Recreation Reserve and part of the Abel Tasman Great Walk, returned to its original owners, with a $420 million compensation payment.

In the 1830s, Māori in Te Tauihu were promised that, if they sold 151,100 acres (61,148ha) of land to the New Zealand Company, they could keep one-tenth, but instead received fewer than 3000 acres (1214ha), and the agreement to reserve the land was in part-payment for the company's purchase of the land.

Then, in 1845, a Crown grant stated a tenth of all land used for the Nelson settlement - plus pā, wāhi tapu, urupā and cultivations owned by the whānau and hapū - would be reserved in a trust for the customary owners, but this did not happen. This is known as the Nelson Tenths.

The prime minister and social development minister have offered an apology to thousands of pensioners who did not receive their Winter Energy Payment this year, after an error in a law change meant people who were supposed to get the payment missed out.

The law change, passed under urgency last year, has meant beneficiaries receiving certain payments like the Supported Living Payment, Accommodation Supplement, and Disability Allowance have had to re-confirm their circumstances at least once every 52 weeks, to confirm whether they are still eligible.

However, the Winter Energy Payment, which is supposed to be automatic for superannuitants, veterans, and people receiving a main benefit, were not excluded from the legislation, meaning some people who would have expected to receive the payment did not.

“Doctors then thought the cause was psychological, that it was all in her head.”

Perpetuating that statement 1 equals statement 2 is a disservice to all and an oversimplification that keeps hurting those involved.

And his see you next Tuesday sign off, even Granny rolled her eyes and chortled away tonight. He’s so good in this Issues series and Karen is excellent. She’s so versatile and funny.

Today's New Zealand Herald highlights two mothers living in Waipukurau with children in dental pain who cite the increased cost of petrol preventing a trip from Waipukurau to Hastings to see a dentist. The children are:

• a five-year-old experiencing mouth pain while eating
• an eight-year-old and an eleven-year-old complaining of sore teeth
• a seven-year-old enduring pain from old dental caps cutting into her growing gums
• a five-year-old needing a routine check for a gap between his front teeth.

One of the mothers explains she needs to travel 50 kilometres each way to reach the nearest open clinic in Hastings. Today that trip would cost between $30 and $40 in petrol versus $20 to $30 a few years ago.

The mothers are calling on the government to reopen the local Waipukurau children's dental clinic, which remains closed because of ongoing staffing shortages.

The Opportunity Party is vowing to "clean up politics" by regulating lobbying and reforming political donations.

It would look to cap political donations and establish an independent anti-corruption body to centralise and coordinate action against corruption.

..

In order to regulate lobbying, the party would introduce a Political Influence and Lobbying Bill that would create a one-year cooling-off period, "closing the revolving door" between ministers, senior staff and officials, and lobbying roles.

It would also create a mandatory, public and searchable lobbying register, with quarterly disclosure of who lobbied which office-holders, as well as a statutory code of conduct for lobbyists and foreign lobbying safeguards.

..

The party's proposal would introduce a $30,000 cap per donor per party per electoral cycle, limit donations to registered voters, lower the public disclosure threshold to $1000 and apply advertising spending limits across the full three-year electoral cycle for parties and candidates.

The party would also establish an anti-corruption body with "investigative, prevention, and education functions, integrating and co-ordinating existing anti-corruption responsibilities".

Hey everyone,

I work in HR and one of my responsibilities is sending out our Employee Satisfaction Surveys. You know the ones: “How are you feeling at work?”, “Do you feel recognized?”, “Would you recommend working here to a friend?”, etc.

The thing is… I’m starting to feel like no one actually takes them seriously. Responses are often rushed, vague, or worse.... nonexistent. And I get it. People are busy, skeptical, or just don’t believe anything will change. But from the HR side, I do want to make this useful and meaningful, for everyone involved.

So, I wanted to ask:

Do you fill out your company’s surveys? Why or why not?

What would make these surveys feel more worth your time?

Have you ever actually seen leadership respond to results in a way that made you feel heard?

What would make you care about these surveys?

I’m trying to rethink how we approach them, maybe shorter surveys, more transparency about what we do with the results, or even just better timing. Open to any ideas.

Appreciate any honest thoughts!

National MP Erica Stanford says her decision to stay silent on if she backed Christopher Luxon this week "didn't work out that well," as she called an impromptu media conference to shut down what she described as "frenzied" media speculation.

Stanford said she had backed Luxon "a million times", declared her support "100%", and insisted she wanted only to stay in her portfolios - a barrage of reassurance that came after a week of speculation she was a prime contender to replace him.

She insisted she had taken no part in the failed challenge against Luxon instigated by minister Chris Penk, who she still suggested was a "great loss" to the party.

"No, I've already ruled myself out. I want to be the Minister of Education and Immigration, mostly education, for the next nine years. I love my job, and I've got so much more to do," she said when asked if she would stand if Luxon lost the election.

Te Pāti Māori have made their election strategy clear: give us your candidate vote to get more Māori in Parliament, and give your party vote to the left bloc.

Candidates, the party executive and supporters gathered at Te Poho o Rāwiri Marae in Gisborne for the formal launch of the party's election campaign and the campaign for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti candidate Haley Maxwell on Sunday.

..

"There's one plan, two votes; our plan has to be to focus on the candidate votes. We trust you with the party vote we trust and we see your love for our people, for our taiao. We trust that you will choose what is right," she said.

"The only way we're going to get this government out, get more Māori in Parliament, and continue to be the loudest, unapologetic, independent Māori voice is to focus on giving our votes to Te Pāti Māori candidates."

More at link, including response from Willie Jackson (Labour)

A new voter opinion poll suggests Opportunity is in the front row seat to determine the next government, with the latest numbers suggesting neither the left nor right political blocs would be able to command a majority without them.

The poll obtained by The Post from Anacta/Talbot Mills, which also does polling for Labour, had Opportunity on 5.2%, up from 4.7% in July and crossing the threshold to get into the house.

Labour were on 34% up 1 percentage point, National were on 29%,down 2 points, NZ First rose 1 point to 13%, the Green Party was down a point at 8% , ACT was unchanged on 7% and Te Pāti Māori was steady on 3%.

Translated to seats in the house National (35), ACT (8), and NZ First (16) would hold 59 seats while Labour (41), the Greens (10) and Te Pāti Māori (4) would have 55, with neither bloc getting the 61 needed to be in the Beehive.

Tauranga City Council is prosecuting owners of dogs allegedly involved in recent high-profile attacks in Pāpāmoa.

The most recent incident was an attack on a horse on the beach, while the other involved people and cattle being bitten.

Both owners appeared before the council's Regulatory Hearings Panel on 20 July seeking to have their dogs released from the pound. The panel's decisions were confirmed this month.

Kia Ora / Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for advice please!

My wife and I are travelling from Auckland to Queenstown from mid-September to mid-October and I've been finalising timings for each day including the Cook Strait ferry crossing.

This is what I've initially planned for this portion of the trip and I'd love your opinions/experiences/recommendations on how likely it is for the ferry to be cancelled/delayed thus affecting the rest of the itinerary (especially as there's a tight turnaround between arriving into Picton then catching the train so soon):

2nd October:

Kapiti Island

Travel down to Wellington to stay overnight

3rd October:

Catch the 08:15 ferry (Bluebridge) to Picton (scheduled to get there by 11.30)

Catch the 13:40 train to Kaikoura

4th October:

Dolphin swim in Kaikoura in the morning

-----------------

I'm really keen to do both Kapiti Island and the dolphin swim and I've picked these specific dates because:

- there are no tours for Kapiti Island before the 2nd October that week

- There's only one train that goes from Picton to Kapiti per day (or at least the Coastal Pacific Train I've looked at)

- I will have booked the dolphin swim in advance and, as it's going to be spring school holidays, I imagine I won't be able to reschedule it for the next day if we do end up missing the train

Thanks in advance!!!

EDIT: Absolutely appreciate how silly it is of me to ask if anyone can see into the future and predict if it will be delayed/cancelled but does anyone know how often it does get cancelled around this time of year? Thank you! ☺️