Auckland Council asked for my feedback recently. I answered their questions, but I also had an agenda that I wanted them to know. On the last question I was asked is there anything else I wanted to mention. Here is my general feedback from my Auckland Council Feedback account, GolfBad:
“Rates should be calculated on a parcel’s highest and best use to deter land banking and inefficient uses of land. In particular, 53 Appleby Road, Albany, 0632 is an 82 hectare parcel of land that is used by a private golf course in the heart of Albany South. It has a rates valuation of $58,350,000 which includes $42,050,000 land value and $16,300,000 improvements value.
That parcel is four times larger than that of 360 Albany Highway (Kristen Private School) nearby, whose land value is $70,900,000 and improvements value is $59,335,000 totaling $130,235,000 Capital Value. The school has a rates discount, however its valuation fairly reflects the improvements that make this parcel at its highest and best use. The golf course is a massive parcel of undeveloped land, giving it a ratings valuation advantage as a land banker.
Were there medium density housing in that 80 hectare parcel the Capital Valuation could reach four times that of the school – suggesting $500,000,000 in Capital Value at highest and best use, ten times the current Capital Value. The golf course would then be forced to consider using the land at its highest and best use, and realise they could buy an equivalent 80 hectare parcel outside of the Auckland city limits with far less rates costs to continue the low value activity of golf. Developers could fit an entire inner city subdivision in the 53 Appleby Road parcel, which would have a greater value to Auckland.
If a fair highest and best use ratings valuation were used on this 53 Appleby Road parcel then the golf course could then request a rates discount from Council, which if granted would require Council to assess whether the golf course performs a service to the people of Auckland – perhaps allowing Council to apply requirements for a rates discount such as opening the course to the public as a park on Sundays or otherwise engaging with a wider range of the community (targeting demographics other than the typical golf user to achieve diversity Key Performance Indicators applied and measured by Council). The golf course would have to rethink its operations to better service the people of Auckland – or otherwise make enough revenue to cover the fair rates valuations.
If the parcel really is best suited as a golf course then the land owners will be able to afford the fair highest and best use ratings valuation. Applied across Auckland and you would see magnificent land use change towards a more equitable society. Remember Council can always offer rates discounts in exchange for KPI’s.”
Te Tira Ahu Pae is Massey University Student’s Association… or is it?
The current iteration of the Student’s Association of Massey University is in its first year of operations, and I suspect it is already unfit for purpose and perhaps never was.
The governance of Student’s Associations is complicated, and here we will explore the origins of these institutions, their relationship with the students they are supposed to represent and the Universities they operate alongside of (and later, under). We will find that the modern iteration of Massey’s Student’s Association, Te Tira Ahu Pae, is an entirely different organisation than that of its origins. My knowledge of Student’s Associations comes from my experience as a member of the Albany Student’s Association from 2014 to 2019, and as a current member of Te Tira Ahu Pae. With that noted, I will be limiting our investigation so that these two organisations are the setting. Research for the Albany Student’s Association was conducted using the now unavailable Annual Reports dating from its 1999 inception to its 2022 amalgamation (I had prudently saved copies before the ASA website was taken down).
To keep the focus on our modern legal settings, we begin with the end of compulsory unionism in New Zealand, which was enacted in 1991 (Employment Contracts Act). From this point workers were not compulsorily enrolled in their worker’s union, which meant union fees were now opt-in and voluntary. Student’s Associations, being a union of students, escaped this legislative change and remained able to require students to be fee paying members of their organisation. That is, until 1998 when the Education Act was amended to no longer require student membership in a student’s association. After 1998 Students Associations around the country were allowed to hold referendums and choose whether they continue with mandatory membership (and therefore mandatory fees), or move to voluntary membership (and an opt-in for fees). The Albany Student’s Association (ASA) was founded in 1999, the year which student referendums to choose voluntary or compulsory membership were first held. In its first year of operations the ASA convinced enough of its members to vote in favour of compulsory fees, thereby binding all future students to fees that would fund their organisation indefinitely.
The ASA was stable for a time, but in 2011 a further amendment to the Education Act moved all Student’s Associations to voluntary membership models regardless of student preferences. After twenty years of being the last compulsory union in New Zealand, the Student’s Associations were returned to the same requirements as the Tertiary Education Union and other worker’s unions around the country. Now they had to ask students to become members and pay fees out of pocket (previously the compulsory student’s associations fees could be paid for out of the Student Loan Scheme).
At this point we might expect the ASA to begin the difficult process of financially validating their organisation. Voluntary membership and opt-in fees force unions to prove and maintain their value proposition to their members. The Tertiary Education Union provides value in advocacy to many workers in Tertiary Education Institutions (like Massey University). Staff members pay their fees because of perceived value in membership, which includes employment law assistance, lobbying efforts and pay negotiations. Despite being heralded as the death sentence of Student’s Associations, this change could have moved the ASA to clarifying its value proposition and operate efficiently in the same way as for-profit organisations. At least, that is the intention of the amendment in spirit. We never saw this change in operations from the ASA, because rather than seek voluntary membership fees like every other union, Massey contracted the ASA’s services to students and paid them using the compulsory Student Levy (paid by all students of Massey also out of their student loan). In effect, the ASA continued to get the same funding but instead of directly coming from their student members, Massey University itself became the collector and transferrer of funds. Hardly the intention of the amendment, and ultimately causing the ASA to become independent contractors of the organisation that they work with on behalf of students.
This would be like the Tertiary Education Union suddenly being funded directly by the Universities themselves. If that bizarre event were to happen you would be right in criticizing the independence of the union. When union fees are now controlled by the employer rather than the employees, surely there is now a conflict of interest? I can’t find an example of a workers union being funded by the employer rather than the employee, yet in this instance that is effectively what happened post 2011 for the ASA. Since that point the ASA and its successor, Te Tira Ahu Pae, has been an independent contractor for Massey University to deliver services determined by Massey. These services are defined through the transparency requirements of the Student Services Levy that Massey charges to students for non-core services, however threading what is done by Te Tira Ahu Pae and what is done by other subcontractors is not possible with the information I have access to (Massey and Te Tira Ahu Pae does have this information themselves though).
The ASA became Te Tira Ahu Pae at the end of 2022 by amalgamating with 9 other Student’s Associations affiliated with Massey. Massey University has four campuses, and each campus had multiple associations representing different demographics of the student body. This amalgamation was passed through all ten Association’s Annual General Meetings simultaneously. The ASA’s Annual General Meeting that officiated the amalgamation and winding down of the original Association was held on the 19th of October, 2022, and involved 22-27 votes in favour and zero votes against (there were multiple motions to get the full amalgamation and wind down approved). Under 30 students represented the more than 3,000 Albany students enrolled that year to change the organisation over to Te Tira Ahu Pae, however I acknowledge student engagement has always been low on this campus and this poor turnout remains common, meaning the poor turnout is not reflective of disinterest or deceit in this particular AGM. Through this process, a new Constitution was adopted and the rules of the Association changed to reflect the new Incorporated Societies Act 2022, which is prudent and useful for students to have an updated entity.
This new Constitution details how student representation is to be achieved, and what the strategic priorities of Te Tira Ahu Pae is going forward. Remember that Te Tira Ahu Pae is a subcontractor for Massey University, therefore all of its funding is tied to services specified by the University and there is no expectation of negotiations. The power is asymmetric, and student representation is coincidentally a service required by Massey for Te Tira Ahu Pae to provide. To quote a publicly available website, “Te Tira Ahu Pae are fully accountable to students through the university“.
Knowing that Student’s Associations were once independently funded and could therefore represent student interests exclusively and are now funded through their respective universities is an important difference to note between Te Tira Ahu Pae and the origins of the ASA. Now, if the interests of Massey University are in conflict with the interests of the students it is not clear what Te Tira Ahu Pae will most faithfully represent. In fact, it is recorded on the ASA Special General Meeting mentioned previously on the 19th of October, 2022, that “Massey University requested the centralisation of services delivered by the 4 general student associations in 2021”. It was the University itself that forced the associations to amalgamate in the first place, and the amalgamation movement was not initiated by students. The push for amalgamation was spearheaded by the staff of the Associations; they knew where the funding was coming from and pushed forward their financiers objectives for amalgamation while making it look like a student initiative. I know that the process was democratically followed only in name; I was there in Albany during 2022 and no student understood what was being proposed.
Te Tira Ahu Pae proudly states on its website that they are “your student’s association at Massey University, run by students, for students !” and that they are “independent from the University”. Firstly, they are independent subcontractorsfor the University. Secondly, they are a registered charity and incorporated society, which might be considered a student’s association depending on your definition – if they represent the express interests of students I would agree that they are in fact a student’s association, however their interests are divided due to funding. And finally, are they run by students? It is this question we will now investigate.
The Tira Ahu Pae Constitution creates an organisational structure under the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 with some adjustments to make it a unique entity. At the top of the organisation in power is the Board, which are normally eight people, all of them students holding various important titles. Three Board members must be on the Board and are the three Presidents of the Tripartite system (General President, Mana Whakahaere and Pasifika President); the other five are effectively selected by these people out of other student officials such as a Vice-President (there are 4 to choose from), three Kaiwhakahaere (4 to choose from too) and a Pasifika Student Representative (also 4 to choose from). These eight members are the Board, and they get to choose who will replace them. The named titles above are not all elected positions: the three equally top President roles and all of the four Vice-President roles are appointed by… the Board itself. That doesn’t mean they appoint themselves, just that they appoint their replacements in an unelected manner. There are an additional 16 roles that are in fact elected by the relevant student body.
The top seven student positions in Te Tira Ahu Pae are not democratically elected. Half of the Board (the highest hierarchical body in the Association) is not democratically elected. Below the Board are staff members, who are also not elected of which there are four Manager positions who are employees to the Association. Below them there seems to be 30 additional staff (one role currently being vacant). Under one of the Managers, the Representation Manager, are all the student representatives, 23 in total of which 16 are elected by students. Of those 16, four of them are selected to be on the Board and have the highest power, but the rest are at the bottom of the hierarchy. If you look at the top twelve positions overall (4 Managers and 8 board members), only one third of them are elected and they are chosen by the Board themselves of which half of them are not elected at all! If this is getting confusing, note it took me some hours to understand their structure in full to get it even this concise (or unconcise). The point is that democratic representation of student voices is not being clearly prioritised by this organisational structure.
When I first heard about this structure as a student I just assumed that all student roles were elected. They didn’t hold an election in 2022 because the Association hadn’t been created yet, so I thought the first people in the role must have inherited their positions from their elected roles in the old associations that amalgamated. When I learned that three President titles and four Vice President titles were by appointment I was confused and had to Google whether these titles implied being elected. As it turns out the title of President and Vice-President does not necessarily imply an elected position, so that was my mistake, however I would suggest a more appropriate title would be CEO, Executive or simply Board member rather than President.
In any case, the statement that Te Tira Ahu Pae is run by students is not a lie; the Board is occupied entirely by students. Neither is the statement that Te Tira Ahu Pae is independent (subcontractors for) from Massey University. That Te Tira Ahu Pae operates in the interests of students is evident in their relevant service contracts with Massey University that they presumably succeed in delivering to the satisfaction of their client (the University). So yes, the new Students Association for Massey Students does what it says it does. But is it enough that it isn’t directly lying about its independence and student voice? Clearly it isn’t independent in the way students interpret the statement, and clearly the organisation is dominated by unelected officials and employed staff members.
I suggest that there are improvements to be implemented in the organisational structure of Te Tira Ahu Pae, and I further suggest that were Massey to wholly run the services that they contract Te Tira Ahu Pae for then student outcomes would improve.
To keep this short; the improvements I suggest all involve increasing student representation in the Association; restore elected positions to the top seven student roles, make student engagement in these elections a top priority, and place all of the student roles in a hierarchical position above the managers through sub committees.
I suggest that Massey could do a better job running the Associations services itself because Massey is a huge organisation with well functioning IT, HR and other support systems that can help the service delivery of student success. In a way Te Tira Ahu Pae has the worst of both worlds; it’s not independent in voice but it is independent in its inability to access the shared resources afforded large organisations. Why have a Students Association with no real independence but also be left out to dry? We can’t speak out against Massey using the existing organisation (I’ve never heard of Te Tira Ahu Pae move against Massey even a little, in fact they hold Barbeques during forums for the Stop the Cuts movement). Massey can subcontract the advocacy service to another third party (like the EAP system it currently uses for staff) while delivering clubs and societies, student magazines and sausage sizzles itself or with other more competitive subcontractors.
If it is best that Te Tira Ahu Pae winds up in its first year of operations, I would have to engineer that wind up procedure myself. I know how, and can do so alone, but that explanation will have to be for another time.
Colleagues in all levels of education have joined the chorus of parents expressing concerns about internet use by children. I understand it to be difficult to set device use boundaries with children at all ages, and the negotiation of these boundaries are tiresome for parents and teachers alike.
The cost of unmonitored, open access internet use for children is too high to give up on negotiating these boundaries. One argument for relaxed device use is to allow children privacy; they need a device with open internet access just as much as the right to close their bedroom door. I suggest that the parallels between a child’s need to develop with access to privacy and unmonitored internet use is flawed. In fact, children need to learn that all internet use is not private at all.
There are promising software products that filter internet use for children. The software also limits the controls of the device user (the child) and puts those controls in the hands of the gatekeeper (the caregiver). If a child is upset that their parents can read their messages, then they need to learn that far more sinister entities have access to their digital privacy than their parents.
The Kiwisaver scheme enrolls wage earners in New Zealand (currently voluntarily) into paying a percentage of their earnings into a fund that is managed on their behalf. The fund may only be accessed under specified conditions: Reaching 65 years old, buying a first home, dying or going bankrupt. The fund forces people to save their income over their life and use it later for later life needs.
The Government is currently being called on to remove permanent exotic forests from the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme. This is due to the sector’s lack of biodiversity, low employment and, more significantly, the strange outcome of land becoming unproductive over time while building a massive financial liability. The Government should not make any changes to the eligibility of the NZETS: permanent exotic forests do remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere and must be rewarded for that just like any other industry (in fact this industry will be the prime solution in the medium term due to its low cost). However, after 100 years the pine forests will no longer be absorbing carbon equivalent emissions and as a mature forest their harvestable timber will be far worse than the typically harvested 30 year old plantations. At this stage the carbon stored in the forest will be a financial liability: any land use change that cuts down those trees will incur a carbon emission cost just like any other eligible emitting activity.
I am concerned that after these many decades have passed the land has been productively exploited and is now unproductive and a liability. Companies who own this land have no incentive to change the land use as it will be too expensive. They may just abandon the land and leave the ‘clean up’ to the Government.
With this in mind I suggest a Kiwisaver applied to land parcels instead of people. A permanent exotic forest would have a charge added to its rates that would be a contribution to that parcel’s Landsaver account; a managed fund that can only be accessed under specified conditions by the land owner of the day. The specification for permanent exotic forest would be to convert the land into permanent native forest. The contributions would occur while the land is producing carbon credits for its owner but used for land remediation. This costs the Government nothing and will help with remediation costs of commercial property.
The same Landsaver scheme would be used for many commercial purposes that require remediation when the productive purpose is completed.
You could apply Landsaver to residential parcels as well, but the specified conditions would be activities that reduce emissions, improve biodiversity or support native ecosystems. This would be solar panel installations, improvements in energy efficiency of the home, native planting or perhaps water efficiency.
Landsaver, like Kiwisaver, would not be used for emergencies. A land owner would not use the fund for roof repairs, flood damage or other insurable events. If the residential Landsaver fund builds up over many decades without being used, the funds would fund end of life remediation of the building (demolition and dumping) as well as specified improvements in the new building.
The charges would be very low compared to existing rates (say one twentieth of current yearly rates) as it is an invested fund that would make returns and would often go untouched for decades.
Tāmaki Makaurau is a large region of Te Ika-A-Māui and it holds a great many people of this country Aotearoa New Zealand. 2021 is not a year that is popular to discuss; it holds the collective memories of the Last Great Covid-19 Lockdown, and while I also prefer not to dwell on those times, we must look to that 2021 Spring to understand how the obedient people of Auckland became disillusioned with its Government and will likely vote them out in the coming October 2023 election.
As a reminder of the 2021 Covid context this was after we had eliminated the Alpha variant from our shores in 2020, hence winning our freedoms back and enjoying an awesome Summer, and was the year that the vaccine began rolling out (before 2021 any chance of a vaccine was remote). It is also the year that the more virulent Delta variant entered New Zealand, which caused the nationwide August (2021) lockdown. Although we didn’t know it at the time, the last day of this year would dictate the vibe of 2022: the first Omicron case emerged on New Years Eve.
Auckland, being the largest city and main international hub, was always prone to more cases of Covid than any other region. The spatial injustice is reasonably well understood however I won’t here go into the details of whether policies could improve this inequity. Criticising Covid policy is easy and mostly pointless or innappropriate with hindsight, and I greatfully acknowledge that the New Zealand Government made fantastic decisions under extreme uncertainty throughout the pandemic… until somewhere between the 16th of October and the 19th of November 2021. The events that unfolded during this time window is where the Auckland Separatist Movement began. This is a silent Movement, so silent that most Separatists are not even aware of their own involvement. We can, however, see evidence of the Movement’s effects in politics since its founding. I didn’t notice my own joining of the silent resentment until a full year later, when I saw the lasting consequences of Wellington’s decisions on Aucklander’s lives. Exploring the wage subsidies, vaccine mandates and vaccine passes are all complex policies that need their own space, and therefore we will focus on just the Spring 2021 lockdown here and leave the rest for another time.
I was reminded to write about my perspective of spending the Spring of 2021 in Auckland because we have, in the past few days, enjoyed some fine Spring weather now in 2023. We have left the cold of Winter and are enjoying warmer days, louder birdsong and a greening natural world. These changes have strong emotional effects on people, and enjoying them this year prompted me to reflect on what I observed in myself and my students last Spring (2022). It was the second half of semester, coming back for Week 7 in early September, when I personally felt unusually dismal about teaching. My lifelong passion is to teach, so I was quite surprised to find I wasn’t feeling enthusiastic to be going back into the classroom. Upon returning I found that my students were experiencing the same feelings. The mood was down, and no one wanted to learn anything in that second half. After a couple of weeks I realised that spending time learning in a classroom was not the problem; it was that we were sacrificing being outside and spending time socialising. The change in Season had brought an unusually high switch of attitude, like everyone around me hadn’t enjoyed the benefits of New Zealand Spring in… over two years!
The lockdown in question had five or so rule variations, and looking back they are confusing and complex. We started with Level 4: the most extreme where most people were not travelling outside of their home even for work. There were exceptions, and because Auckland had been through many rounds of these it seemed the work exemptions were becoming increasingly common. The timber merchant had to be open because some of their customers were essential, but they would therefore serve any customer using their exemption. In manufacturing it was a common joke in the industry that we are so interconnected that everyone is essential to at least one essential business somewhere down the line. Level 4 gave way to Level 3, which I still consider a lockdown as it upheld the most punishing parts of Level 4: no leaving the home for anything other than work and groceries. These two settings (with two additional adjustments to Level 3 throughout) would be held over the Auckland region for what ended up being 15 weeks. We started our lockdown in Winter and ended it in Summer. Throughout we were banned from in person socialising in any setting (with one hilarious exception that will be explored later) and were unable to enjoy the natural world. As with all lockdowns we were permitted a daily walk in our local suburb; this is not a substitute for normal city life.
Banality at its finest
In the Winter month, our first month of social hibernation, we were joined by the rest of the country three days later than ourselves. The last day of August moved the country down to Level 3 (back-to-work-but-not-to-play mode) while Auckland and Northland (who moved down just days later) remained at Level 4 (some-can’t-even-work mode). Even at this point we were in this together: my friends in Wellington and Christhurch complained of much the same problems at Level 3 as we had at Level 4. However the seeds of resentment began when on September 7th, when New Zealand moved to Level 2 and therefore effectively out of lockdown (work-play mode) but leaving Auckland in the most restrictive Level 4. At this stage we had been isolating for 22 days, a shorter stint than the original nationwide Level 4 lockdown of 2020 which eliminated the virus completely from the country. Comparing the Auckland situation with that of our Country was frustrating, but in these early days there was a feeling of martyrdom, that we were making a sacrifice for the good of New Zealand. We continued our isolation to protect the vulnerable and allow the rest of us to restart their new normal.
During this time there was also a race to vaccinate the population, and on the 16th of September we were given a goal: 90 percent elligible population vaccinated would be enough. We weren’t explicitly told that this new official target was the new lockdown release lever, however it was implied at this point that vaccination was our path forward in addition to elimination. This seemed like a new goal for the isolating Aucklanders to focus on: getting vaccinated might make this end sooner. We were allowed back to work but still without socialising on the 21st of September, marking a Level 4 stretch that matched the original 2020 lockdown. Still unreleased, the season had turned and Auckland was enjoying Spring weather but empty public spaces. It must be noted that it was never officially the 90 percent vaccination rate that would release Auckland from the lockdown, but it was certainly interpreted that way by some from the 16th September announcement. It was further alluded to in some more direct messaging on the 3rd and 4th of October, where the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a small region lockdown due to local cases and said “If we had a vaccination rate at 90 percent or above in either Hamilton or Raglan, it is highly unlikely that we would be here today announcing level 3 restrictions.“. The next day Ardern explained in a long announcement that vaccination rates are a key factor in lockdown settings. The announcement needs to be read in full here to really understand how explicit the 90 percent vaccination rate was being used as a target for ending the Auckland lockdown, but as a few key takeaways:
“…vaccines will be able to make an even bigger difference. They won’t be the only tool we need, but they will be able to act as a form of individual armour, which means we won’t have to rely solely on restrictions like alert level 3 or 4 to act as a barricade for us. But while we’re transitioning from our current strategy into a new way of doing things, we’re not there yet. We need more people fully vaccinated across more suburbs and more age groups.” PM Jacinda Ardern
On decreasing lockdown levels using the new adjusted settings “movement to each phase will be reviewed weekly. We’ll need to assess the impact of each before making further alterations, but ongoing increases to Auckland’s vaccination rates will also be essential to giving us confidence.” PM Jacinda Ardern
“…it’s great to see that vaccination rate still climbing up. We want to, obviously, see it over 90 percent.” Dr Ashley Bloomfield
In response to a question of whether an additional two months of Auckland lockdown will be required: “That’s the time frame for us to achieve our ambition around vaccination being higher than 90 percent double vaccinated, and then, of course, it’s another couple of weeks when people then have that full protection, full immunity. So this is the period of time, really, that we want to do that in. I’m sure, like everybody—particularly in Auckland—we’re looking forward to a summer where we can enjoy freedoms, and our ticket to that is vaccination. So the next four to eight weeks, into early December, is critical to get our vaccination rates up.” Dr Ashley Bloomfield
You might forgive me, then, when I watched that 4th October announcemnt live from my home and interpreted the policy to be a 90 percent vaccination rate in the eligible population as a requirement for the Auckland lockdown to end. Those who also misinterpreted this announcement were inducted in the silent Auckland Separatist Movement from this point.
Early October is also the point where Aucklanders were permitted to use public outdoor spaces provided they remained socially distant from everyone else and were in groups of ten or less people from two or less households and also socially distanced within their group the entire time. This concession was greatly appreciated, however it was distinctly uncomfortable to utilise. I only went to Long Bay beach on that first picnic-permitted weekend, and unfortunately the popularity of that beach meant an hour of searching for a park (private transport was recommended), and once there the people were either not socially distancing at all or were very grumpy. After so much time alone I, like many Aucklanders, stayed in my bubble and didn’t use the picnic concession very often. Auckland resentment levels rose again knowing that some people could now effectively evade lockdown restrictions, and only diligent rule follewers like me were still being quarantined.
With a new national number to obsess over our attention turned away from case numbers and towards vaccination rates. Auckland was a front runner immediately; we were the regions being punished for not being vaccinated and therefore had strong incentives (aversion to imprisonment) to get to 90 percent. At this time I misinterpreted the target again, possibly intentionally as I was now desperate to be free, and focused on the first dose rates initially. All three Auckland District Health Boards achieved first dose 90 percent on the 7th of November. It is from this date until our freedom in December that the resentment felt in Auckland became boiling hot. Driving was erratic even by Auckland standards, despair was replaced with the rage of a caged animal and we began a cultural witch hunt of the vaccine hesitant that continued for years afterwards, the price of which would be paid by society in obscure and surprising ways down the line. We achieved our double dose target on the 19th of November, but the 2nd of December was the first day out of lockdowns and into vaccine certificates, where vaccinated people were released from their isolation. The delay doesn’t seem too long, but every day of additional lockdown was worse than the last and extremely costly. Delaying 12 days, almost two weeks, from when we achieved the stated goal was too much for many Aucklanders. We had already obediently served for some 13 weeks and were asked to do two more without any target or goal to achieve.
I believe that the intention was to allow time for implementation of the vaccine pass system and give time for other regions to catch up their vaccinaton rates. The former reason is not enough to use emergency powers to isolate a city, and the latter switches the incentives so that those being punished are not in control of removing the punishment. What we do know is that keeping Auckland at Level 3 was not in the best interests of the public health of New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is quoted on the 15th November as saying“…you will have heard me indicate today [is] that there is a strong view coming through from the Ministry of Health that we should consider moving to the protection framework earlier, because it provides greater protection for New Zealanders than we even see with the current alert level system.”. The new system was a better fit for purpose, and this was known to the Government on the 15th of November. It is therefore clear that the additional time spent in lockdown was an incentive to drive up vaccination rates; a punishment for all (Aucklanders) brought about by the few (South Islanders).
Aucklanders waiting for the South Island to get its vaccination rates up so we can visit them is absurd; those regions should have been placed in lockdown themselves until they obeyed and Auckland should have been free to travel to other vaccinated regions, handing over our pent up holiday demand money to fellow obedient cities. Instead we waited those extra 12 days (the regional border actually didn’t open for a further 13 days)) and then began the great punishment of the vaccine refusers.
The traffic light system that replaced lockdowns effectively freed everyone that could prove they did their part and took the vaccine. Those that didn’t remained excluded from many societal benefits. Looking into these effects must be reserved for another time, however it may be noted that a large protest occured in March the next year over these restrictions among other greivances related to Covid.
What has happened is now confined to the past. I have no interest in criticising every mistake made during the Covid response. It is only the additional November days of 2021 that Auckland spent in lockdown alone that I would like to highlight here, because this is the inflection point of public opinion in Auckland. We agreed to make sacrifices necessary for the health of New Zealand, and we agreed with the decisions made up until that month. The Government had grown comfortable with leaving Auckland in its new normal and did not fully appreciate the cost it was levying by delaying their decisions. Every individual day in lockdown is costly; the last more than the first. We felt betrayed after doing our duty, and our resentment of a distant Wellington bureaucracy roared into life.
From this point we see a fall in Government approval rates. In a 26th September ending poll 57% percent of responders thought NZ was heading in the right direction against 32% thinking the wrong direction. This favourable approval of NZ’s direction dropped over the next three polls to the point where a 19th December ending poll reversed the trend and had marginally more responders think New Zealand was heading in the wrong direction than in the right. The highs of that September 2021 poll has not been achieved since. This is clearly an imprecise metric for describing changes in attittudes, however the marked drop in favourable opinions about New Zealand’s direction was not seen during the 2020 Level 4 lockdowns; the polls held steady at a minimum of 70% thinking the right direction versus a maximum of 20% thinking the wrong direction. This is not an Auckland specific poll either, therefore I would contend that the change in favourability was more pronounced in the locked down Auckland region, and their responses would be weighing down the results of late 2021 and beyond.
Similarly we also see a reversal of the voting intentions of respondents over the Spring lockdowns. The same two dated polls from above reveal that pre Lockdown sentiment was 55% Labour party lead vs 39% National party lead preference and then after the Auckland lockdown had run ts course became 44% Labour party lead vs 50% National party lead preference. Political preferences can’t ever be boiled down to one issue so once again this metric is imprecise in its usefulness to my point, however the inflection can at least be observed here as well. Comparing this poll to the same period of the 2020 Level 4 lockdown we would have to look at this poll showing voting intentions for all parties rather than the above two party option. If we just look at the incumbent dominant governing Labour party intentions then our 2021 event shows a drop from 45.5% to 35.5%. The 2020 event shows Labour voting intention of respondents to be from 42.5% to 56.5%. Where the first large lockdown held an increase in voting intentions by 14%, the second Auckland only lockdown held a 10% fall.
This inflection point in attitudes is difficult to prove concisely, however I contend that the events of Spring 2021 are the precursor to an unfavourable election outcome for the incumbent Government. Aucklanders have not shaken their resentment, even if they have forgotten where it originated. We also later elected a Mayor who openly despises Wellington bureaucracy after an election campaign that included vitrually every candidate invariably speaking unfavourably about the central Government (see this great article here).
The Auckland Separatist Movement started in October 2021, and it will attempt to overturn this Government in October 2023. Mayor Wayne Brown is now the chief Auckland Separatist, and I wonder if the resentment continues to build will Aucklanders begin openly discussing a council driven reclamation of tax revenues? I write this here only to serve as a reminder of where exactly this resentment was born.
There are concerns that those working in unpaid labour roles (often childcare and often women) are unfairly disadvantaged. Raising children requires time out of the workforce which delays career advancement and pauses income earning. There are means tested benefits in New Zealand to assist caregivers and a universal Early Childcare Education support that covers up to 20 hours per week for children up to 5 years old. This support helps caregivers with childcare and gives them the opportunity to pick up paid employment.
I suggest that to help close the gender wealth and lifetime income gap then the Early Childcare Education support scheme is increased universally to 50 hours per week for all children up to 5 years old. I do not believe means testing this support is in the interest of society because the support targets gender equality and needs to allow all caregivers to return to full time paid employment after maternity/paternity leave has been exhausted. This will make more productive caregivers and improve the income of the individual and country. Caregivers who can afford the luxury of raising their children without needing paid employment are welcomed and encouraged not to use the support; this would mean voluntary entry into unpaid labour which is an important role and not to be diminished by this funding extension.
Furthermore I also suggest that to continue to support caregivers of children in state schools who cannot be alone at home (years 1-8), once again typically women, funding should be available universally for up to 10 hours per week for these children. This funding would be for after or before school childcare/education provided by the state school itself or a private provider (many already exist and include churches). This is to allow for dropping children off before a full shift of full time work and picking them up when it is finished. This will help permanently level the employment playing field between caregivers of children and unencumbered workers.
Additionally, the current government funded school lunches program covers lower income schools and is funded for all students at the targeted school. I suggest that the funding be used for funded school breakfast clubs instead which are voluntarily entered by students going to school at 8am for the state breakfast. Parents who wish to feed their own children may simply drop off their children at 9am for standard school starts. This puts the choice back in control of the parents and also utilises the childcare support hours used in the above suggested policy. Ideally the same children that attend breakfast club may also be given a small lunch during their breakfast to be eaten at lunch.
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right” – Isaac Asimov, Foundation
In 2019 and 2021, New Zealand used a unique policy to ensure equitable treatment of people during a time of transition between rules. Where previously there were certain firearms that could be bought, owned, possessed and used in this country, later they would become illegal weapons. Possession of these specified types of firearms would, after the new rules were implemented, carry a punishment of five years in prison. Transitioning between these two states posed an equity problem; people who had operated under the previous legal market did not anticipate the sudden policy change (it was not signaled), and may have spent considerable amounts of their money on products that would soon become contraband. Because in the previous legal state these products were allowed to be traded, then the loss of assets that these people were to suffer from the law change was an unforeseeable and unstoppable result of Government intervention.
The transitional policy used to ensure both compliance from the gun owners and an equitable outcome was the New Zealand Police Gun Buyback scheme; a period of time where owners of the soon-to-be illegal weapons could surrender them to the Police in exchange for money. The valuations of the firearms were heavily scrutinised, and gun owners complained that they weren’t getting the fair market price, however the scheme itself was also criticised, as opponents declared that any compensation is too much. The weapons in question were always ethically ambiguous, the opponents argued, and traders in these killing machines shouldn’t be rewarded in engaging in a hobby that facilitated mass killings. It is important to note here that the policy change was in response to the Christchurch shootings, where 51 people were killed. It should also be noted that not all guns were being banned.
Compensation for the release of products that will be made illegal by the Government is a pragmatic solution to encourage compliance, and the Gun Buyback scheme of New Zealand is considered by many to be a successful policy. However every time this type of compensation is used, it is heavily criticised. In history, there was a time when this policy was used in the freedom of slaves, and it is this context that will be explored here.
Compensated emancipation involves the Government effectively buying slaves off of slave-owners and then immediately freeing them. The same pragmatism is pitched against an ethical dilemma as the Gun Buyback scheme. This slave freeing policy must be analysed in the context of the time; like the now illegal firearms, slaves were a legal-to-own asset which provided income for their owners. This asset would, through Government intervention, become contraband in the future, and those who had invested in flesh markets would be financially punished due to an unforeseeable and unstoppable change. Compensated emancipation was only used in a single District of the USA, but was more widely popular among colonial powers. Below I will briefly explore the United Kingdom’s and United States of America’s compensated emancipation schemes, although it must here be acknowledged that the context of these policies are complex and I will be using an admittedly narrow economic paradigm to cover a single policy through-line.
The United Kingdom passed the Slave Compensation Act in 1837, which followed from the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. These policies freed slaves owned in the British colonies and involved a payment from the Government to the slave-owners. The compensation was expensive and contributed to financial instability at the time, and today many people have decried the policy as unethical. Some have suggested that reparations to the slaves should have occurred rather than compensation to the slave owners. While these outcries are completely understandable, it must be acknowledged that compensated emancipation was seen as a required concession in order to get the Acts passed in parliament. Slave-owners were part of the voter (and capital) base and had their own interests to protect, and the nature of democracy required an equitable transition for the change to be effected. It could be that insisting on no compensation would have caused the Acts to fail in parliament, causing slaves to continue in their lack of freedom for longer than otherwise. If that were the case, the cost of refusing to compensate the slave owners could be measured in continued suffering of the slaves. Unfortunately we cannot ever know for sure if the compensated emancipation policy really was required to ensure compliance and an earlier emancipation date, and while it is suggested here it may not be the case. The United Kingdom’s abolition of slavery took many decades to be completed, and the Acts mentioned here were near the end of this transition away from a slave economy. Although the transition can’t be considered a smooth one, in contrast to the United States of America the UK’s policies were fast, equitable and efficient.
The USA did occasionally have advocates for compensated emancipation, however history did not play out with this particular policy as the prominent solution. In 1861 the American Civil War began, with the military conflict originating in a disagreement about slavery between the Northern and Southern States. The Union (the Northern States) wanted slavery to be abolished, and most Union States at the outset of the war had already emancipated their slaves. The Confederates, however, were largely slave owning States which wanted to maintain the status quo and seceded from the Union and began a civil war in an attempt to achieve this. The war has a detailed and complicated history, and its reasons for starting, continuing and ending cannot be summarised succinctly with only the paradigms of slavery policy and economic conditions.
With regards to transitioning from a slave based economy to a free labour economy, however, it is reasonable to see the Civil War as the price paid for this transition. With that framing in place we may see how compensated emancipation would be a substitute policy for military conflict. Perhaps if the Union had offered to buy every slave in the Confederacy for a fair price and have them freed, the war may have been avoided. This assumption comes with complications, as it is possible that the military conflict was inevitable, however an attempt at paying for the cost of the Confederates economic losses form emancipation just might have reduced the cost of war. This leads us to the purely academic question of whether the cost of compensated emancipation would be greater or less than the total cost of the Civil War. It has been suggested that a transfer payment would have been more cost efficient as long as this payment were a fair valuation of the slaves and the entire Civil War was avoided.
As with all speculations of alternate history, we will never know for sure the outcomes of different decisions. Instead, we can look at where compensated emancipation was actually used, and in regards to the USA, only the District of Columbia (DC) paid slave owners for their losses of human assets. The context of this decision is that although the Union was fundamentally abolitionists, it included four slave owning States; Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. The District of Columbia borders Virginia, an enemy Confederate State, and Maryland, a slave owning Union State. DC is the capital territory/city of the USA, and therefore houses the nation’s Congress. Outside of these four States, the Northern States were already without slaves, and these border slave owning Union States were all in a strange circumstance at the outset of the Civil War. Invariably all four of these border States had freed slaves in their territory by the end of the war, and none of them used compensated emancipation excepting DC (which is not a state; its territory was previously donated by Maryland and Virginia to be the capital of the USA).
The Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862 enabled slave owners in DC to claim money based on a valuation of their slave assets, much like the transaction described in England above. At this point in DC’s history slave ownership was already rare; abolition sentiment was rife and it was morally and religiously taboo to partake in the market. It is important to note that legal emancipation came long after the market was considered repugnant by most people. The transition to a free State was financially supported by the Government for a couple of important reasons: Firstly, there were people who had already been freed that had subsequently purchased their family/friends who deserved compensation, and secondly, there were also people that had inherited their slave assets and used their income to fund their advanced age retirement. These retirees would become instantly impoverished if their retirement income source were confiscated without compensation. This negative outcome was eventually enacted on the slave owning Confederate States and enforced when they lost the war. To ensure continued loyalty, the Union used compensated emancipation in DC so that the unionists wouldn’t be punished like the confederates. As a condition of claiming compensated emancipation, the soon to be ex-slave owners were required to state their loyalty to the Union, which reveals to us the political aspect of this transfer payment.
Those that insist compensated emancipation was an erroneous policy are welcome to that opinion. I contend that the policy was pragmatic at the time and may have been the most cost efficient method of transition away from slavery. The New Zealand Gun Buyback scheme is the same policy applied to firearms, and this was enacted in the 21st century; I suggest that despite being controversial, it was appropriate given the context of transition. Economics often defies common sense, and it is difficult to reconcile the two. Usually common wisdom, general ethics and sensibility are the best heuristics we have to assess the optimal course of action, however there are exceptions, and economics lives in the exceptional space.
The New Zealand Government is currently considering He Waka Eke Noa and contrasting it with integrating Agriculture into the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme. NZETS is the most cost-efficient vehicle for emissions reductions; it will achieve its stated goal.
I suggest that as New Zealand will be a world leader in integrating agriculture into a national emissions trading scheme, we have the opportunity to set the applicable boundaries. Currently emissions are captured by the NZETS at point of source: for dairy that is the production of milk but for petrol that is consumption (as the combustion releases the emissions). This means exported petroleum products are not captured by the NZETS as it is the importing country that creates the emissions. If Dairy is added to the NZETS the current policy intention is for all exported dairy products to be captured by the NZETS: this is an accounting line in the sand drawn on a science basis however I suggest that the economic basis would attribute emissions to the importing country like we do for petroleum.
This would be a simple accounting change that would mean the 95% of dairy that is exported would not be in the NZETS and would have no surrender obligations. The justification would be to keep our exports on a level playing field with it’s competitors. If, say, the European Union wanted to, they could add NZ imported dairy products into their ETS on import (they wouldn’t even necessarily have to add their domestic dairy production into their scheme) but it is their consumers that ultimately determine the emissions of their consumption. If we export to a country that has no relevant ETS then we would sell dairy to that country with no capture mechanism, as that country would otherwise buy cheaper milk elsewhere anyway.
If farmers were communicated this policy shift they should be very willing to join the NZETS in full force in 2025 as the only ETS units they surrender would be for domestic consumption.
The implementation of this export clawback would have to be nuanced as it would risk stopping the incentive for behvaviour change that the NZETS is designed for. My suggested policy implementation would be:
The ETS would function as intended: Farm inputs would have NZETS obligations as far up the production change as possible (fertilizer at production or import). This ‘hides’ the cost from farmers but is the most efficient method for administration and behaviour change. Farm level emissions would be measured as they already are and surrender obligations would begin. Farmers would then be fully paying for every unit of emissions – at this point there would be no accounting for product headed for export or domestic consumption.
The exported product would then be eligible for receiving NZETS units upon export. That means administration of earning emissions units would be done by Fonterra or other cooperatives. The NZETS export units that Fonterra earns would then be used to increase the milk payout.
In effect, farmers would find all of their inputs would go up in cost due to emissions charging, and they would surrender their own units at farm level, however they would also receive a permanently higher milk payout to subisidise the total % of processed product headed for export. This will keep the NZETS pushing behavioural change (farmers can avoid NZETS obligations by changing product mixes to lower emissions but also continue to earn back the % export returns) while keeping administration cheap and pushing the emissions obligations onto the importing countries.
We would publicly encourage importing countries to add imported agricultural products to their ETS systems and clearly communicate the emissions of every product we export so they have the information necessary to do so, but we would not force the requirement.
Flynnteresting Thoughts 