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- Date published:
9:10 am, May 25th, 2026 - 43 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, climate change, Environment, making shit up, spin, you couldn't make this shit up -
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I recently wrote this angry post about how the Government was planning to retrospectively stop a private citizen from testing in court if big greenhouse gas emitters owed him a duty of care and should pay him and his whanau damages for breaching that duty and causing him loss.
The case had gone all the way to the Supreme Court where the Court ruled that Mike Smith’s case should proceed and his claim had an arguable basis.
But the Government decided to stop the case in its tracks.
This was astonishing. It is contrary to any notion of the rule of law, and it breached his right to take issues to court and have them ruled on.
As I said previously a responsible Government would let the case proceed, defend its position in court if necessary, and then abide by the decision. If difficulties were identified in the decision then it could amend the law with future effect. But individuals and groups ought to be able to contest in court their interpretation of the law, and not have this right taken away retrospectively. Mike Smith should have just as much standing in Court as any other party. And the Government should have let the Court resolve the issue, and not unilaterally veto the Court’s ability to do so.
I thought it could not get worse.
I was wrong.
Because it has been revealed that Z Energy and Fonterra, two of the defendants in the case, provided private briefings to the government about Smith’s case against them.
And this was not disclosed by the Prime Minister’s Office despite being requested as part of an OIA request by an environmental group.
And the Government then decided to torpedo Smith’s case in the way suggested in one of the briefings.
As revealed on Morning Report this morning hard copies only of the documents were provided to the Prime Minister’s Office and were not logged. Hard copies are much more difficult to track. Do you get the feeling that a pattern is emerging, one that is designed to allow the PMO to deny that it had received representations from big corporate polluters?
Then low and behold Cabinet agreed to law changes remarkably similar to those suggested in the papers even though Luxon did not apparently know about it.
Luxon claimed this morning that his office had no record and no recollection of receiving the documents. Incompetence appears to be the defence offered.
Mike Smith is right when he says that this increasingly looks like a “cover-up of secret lobbying” between the government and some of the country’s most powerful corporate interests.
“This is not just about climate change anymore,” he said. “This is about whether billion-dollar corporations can use their political access to shut down legal challenges they do not want to answer.”
The next time you hear the Government claim that it is doing all it can to address climate change can I suggest you don’t believe them. It seems clear that they are doing their utmost to protect big polluters even if this means trashing the rights of citizens to seek redress from courts of law.
Shame on them.
Are we surprised at anything this Government does?
Remember to check your enrolment before the cut off in October.
Remember every cruel crass misleading thing they have done before you vote.
Incompetence appears to be the defence offered.
Lux didn't say that though. Nor did he suggest that the corporate printers were loaded with invisible ink cartridges that faded the documents after a set number of days, so they end up looking like blank paper. Nor did he suggest that a junior staffer was guilty.
Nor did he point out that instructions from corporates about how to do the right thing are optional, so any resemblance between them and what he does is coincidental.
Lux' inscrutability pose is intended to seem like wisdom incarnate. Instead of bouncing around all the time, the stance would come across better if he did the silent sentinel thing like Hipkins. As you say, govt using advice is shameful. Democracy institutionalising such advice is likewise, so we must stop Labour and National doing it all the time.
I am not aware of an instance where Labour sought to kill a court case by passing legislation made at the request of its funders which it then hid.
Nor me. I was making the point that Labour acts on the basis of advice, just like the Nats, and democracy has long institutionalised the norm. Left-wingers making such advice the point of their critique seem to covertly reject that norm.
In the actual situation, the usage of advice can be evidence-based or not. I am unaware of any constitutional requirement that govts be bound by evidence in their decision-making. Evidence of advice is consequently non-essential.
What I do agree with is that Mike is onto something here. I just think we need to clarify what that really is. Does the cabinet manual require official advice to be kept on file? If not, no problem. If so, Lux's junior staffer is being naughty.
The Government moving to terminate the case is appalling.
Doing so at the request and invitation of two of the parties to the litigation is astounding.
Setting up a system whereby they can receive written requests and then deny receiving them (plural) should be a sackable offence.
This is not a staffer being naughty.
You summarised the look of the thing real good. I'm tempted to agree to your thesis thus far, but we need more info I reckon… Investigative journalism, anyone? Get Lloyd Burr onto it, or Todd Zayner.
Should doesn't get leverage though, so it hinges on if rules actually have been broken by the Nats. Perhaps we need a govt prosecutor, to prosecute the govt when it becomes deviant. Empower the GG to pull the plug. Whatever.
Roll another one Dennis………
Yes, it's just wrong on so many levels. I wonder what Chris Bishop's going to say in his BORA report. It's time's like these you need the courts to be able to step in.
That's a total misreading of what Mickey is concerned about. He is concerned about a government deliberately finding a way to obscure whose interests they are most inclined to accommodate with favourable legislation – even to the extent of terminating a current court case, which in itself looks like a potentially dangerous piece of constitutional over-reach. And that attempt to obscure whose interests are being pandered to, is a violation of the democratic norms that value transparency. The fact that these norms more often receive pious lip-service, rather than actual compliance by governments, does not detract from Mickey's point either. We do not stop complaining about violations simply because they are common.
They didn't obscure much tho, eh? Just what happened to the docs. They seem to be testing the limits of what's possible, which is normal transmission for political humans. Nothing wrong with complaining about misbehaviour, but I'd rather see focus on eliminating it…
The problem is the attempt to obscure. The attempt to obscure is not washed away by the fact that it was ultimately unsuccessful. And we don't stop this sort of thing happening by flagging it through with a shrug of the shoulders.
Yeah, fair enough. Does Aotearoa have a moral leader able to pontificate on the issue? Wait & see. Fakery so often seems part of human nature that I end up taking it for granted half the time. Nats usually seem more of a joke than a threat nowadays. Luxon will go "Who, where?"
They did obscure a great deal. They had a system whereby documents were not received electronically which allowed them to say there was nothing relevant when they received an OIA. This only came out because Smith's lawyers asked the right questions and Fonterra and Z Energy had to cough up the documents.
Okay, but did that behaviour break a rule defined in the Cabinet Manual? If so, guilty as charged. If not, maybe they just bent a rule like Trump does.
Some folk take the law at face value while others see if they can spot an escape clause, which the adept can normally then wriggle through. The question now is how to officially account for the situation. I await entertaining performances from all over the political ring on this issue.
When you have no ring-master, you get a political circus in which the trajectory of the process shifts at random in response to stimuli. Audience are thrilled. Sceptics ask "Ok, good circus, where's the bread?" Guerilla politicos wield scenarios obliquely to capture a good angle on the thing.
Mickyavage said OIA, not Cabinet Manual.
This is the most corrupt government New Zealand has had since the Land Wars.
Don't do bullshit on this Dennis.
There's no Cabinet Manual with this government. The are making John Key's Sky City deal look like a model of probity.
Makes you suspect how much else is being concealed or withheld that is denied the appropriate scrutiny ?
Suppressed and hidden until by chance or by accident or design exposed.
Watergate was treated initially as an inconsequential burglary and not investigated seriously. The rest thanks to Woodward and Bernstein convincing their editor to run the investigation is history.
Yes, and on stored record. But you’re barking up the wrong tree here; the OIA is the relevant set of instructions here – the PMO is not above the law.
MS, just a wondering here. Would/Do you consider the Regulatory Standards Bill to have been a softening up precursor to the Nats latest shitfest ?
I signed Petitions, and put a Parliamentary submission opposing same….
Luxon's warning to John Campbell. What have we come to?
Slippery sneaky and now snarky!!
Keep up the good work JC. Keep asking searching questions!!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360983419/id-be-careful-saying-john-luxon-warns-rnz-host-during-interview
Liar, liar pants on fire Mr Luxon!
If ipredict were still going there'd be a stock on how long he keeps his Morning Report slot.
Is the right code word for Luxon 'Muldoom'?
I'm feeling that Trumpian may be more appropriate
" Luxon's warning to John Campbell. What have we come to? "
Its not the first time Campbelle has been pressured to remain seen and not heard. Or the governing National party regime dictating what questions they will answer and by whom.
Campbell dared to give journalistic scrutiny during the Shyster's time as PM and came under intense pressure to back off and eventually removed from the 7PM slot.
It would seem that the fourth estate exists only to push the narrative that their corporate and Billionaire donors tell them which means in this case Luxon is their political representative and mouth piece but he is proving a dumb liability.
That will change when Willis assumes the leadership as PM after the election and Luxon is knighted for services to the plutocracy.
NZ operates the Westminster System, which is British in origin.
So, when I remember JFKs quote, which was "If this was Great Britain, I would have to go, but this is America so you have to go", it reminds me how things are in a Westminster parliament.
No one has to go here, but if things were given to the PMs office and didn't reach him, it's still his fault.
You haven't watched Yes Minister. The skits from that weren't too far from real life; the writers were clued up and spent much time around pollies in the UK. It's all explained clearly and rationally by Sir Humphrey in 'The Right to Know,' Yes Minister. 4m
Well said, Chris Hipkins. Don’t accuse, just ask the right questions. Short and simple.
https://www.labour.org.nz/news/release-kiwis-deserve-an-explanation/
For all the people who think this government are stupid or thick.
NO, they are not.
This is a purposeful pillaging of New Zealand. The government are in the pockets of Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Mining, Big Tobacco, Big Food, Big Ag, etc
That is who they are governing for. No-one else.
It's also payback time. The corporate bodies who donate big money to the Nats and ACT are demanding their pound of flesh. There's one hell of a lot of back-scratching going on and its up to Labour and the Greens to milk it for all they are worth.
Chloe Swarbrick gets it. She was brief but splendid on TV1 this evening.
TV3 reported that the social media ban for under 16s, modelled on Australia's and introduced by Catherine Webb, has been put on the back burner.
I have no proof, but, knowing this CoC and their corruption, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they had been leaned on by the big social media companies.
Yes she was, in contrast to the dodgy dodging CEO of the CoC – 'government' by and for the sorted – what an embarrassment.
The dog ate my homework.
Great story on RNZ
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596301/1m-in-political-donations-from-entities-linked-to-fast-track-applications-revealed
”More than $1 million in political donations linked to fast-tracked projects have been made since 2022.
An RNZ analysis of the latest donation data reveals $400,000 was donated to National and NZ First in 2025 from people or entities linked to fast-track projects. Labour received $8620.
The introduction of the fast-track approvals process was part of NZ First's coalition deal with National. Since 2022 almost 90 percent of donations from people or entities also linked to projects have gone to the two parties.”
It’s like they don’t even care. Who’s going to call them to an account, and do what? Write a letter!
If the sum total of all those Fast Track deals could guarantee New Zealand a solid 3% GDP growth for 2 terms, higher productivity and lower unemployment …
… while costing New Zealand a temporary drop in our illustrious global transparency rating, well that would be a fair case for Luxon to make.
We aren't getting that. We're getting no economic transformation, really low productivity new business, and deals that don't to amount more than very, very narrow self-interest.
Implementing a profoundly undemocratic and overtly corrupt system that benefits the top 5% is OK providing it brings about growth in NZ?
I don't think that anybody could make a case to justify this.
NZ has planning laws that have been developed by lawyers and experts (planners, landscape architects, economists etc) over generations. The RMA works well in its current form.
Fast-track must go on November 8.
Yes agree Fast Track legislation should go.
This observation from the Helen Clark foundation.
“Our political integrity and honesty has largely evolved from social norms over many decades. Politicians by and large knew the conduct that was expected of them by New Zealand society. Sadly, today, we’re naïve to think that’s enough,” says the author of the report, Philippa Yasbek.
“New Zealand needs stronger laws and regulations to improve trust and confidence in political decision-making, or we risk seeing the rise of populist leaders who are prepared to sweep away democratic norms.”
Former Attorney-General, Hon Chris Finlayson KC, says the increasing risks of corruption in New Zealand’s political system highlighted in the report are very serious and reach beyond party politics.
“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,” Hon Finlayson said.
“New Zealand must critically examine the issues raised in this report on a regular basis and implement law changes, if necessary, as quickly as possible.”
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/helen-clark-foundation-calls-for-tougher-rules-against-corruption-as-public-unease-grows-2/
Thanks Mat – that report [PDF here] was published nearly two years ago, so quite prescient given the NActF coalition's ‘clarification’ to protect climate polluters from current and future legal restraints – probably not the sort of law change Finlayson had in mind. God knows how documentation of those polluters lobbying the CoC escaped public attention. PM Luxon says it's a complete mystery – what, another one? Yeah right.
Those are interesting observations and recommendations – tell me more.
Who would have thought far right tory scum, would act like far right tory scum….
Oh wait, everyone who is not a sucker, still pulling for western liberalism.
Hope you all doing more than being a keyboard warrior, as these far right tory scum, are getting their scum on.
Our government becomes more Trumpian by the day.
"Our office have looked into the issue and they've just got no record, no recollection of this from 2024. Obviously there's a dispute there between the two, between the OIA and what Fonterra or Z are saying and ideally, maybe it should've been captured but our office has no record or recollection of that." – CEO & Landlord Chris Luxon
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596197/a-co-ordinated-campaign-of-secret-lobbying-climate-activist
One document not being "captured" (ie, recorded) – maybe.
But two identical (?) documents, from two sources – come on!! This rotten govt has been caught red-handed trying to deceive the public and they were sprung because two corporations were more upfront than our elected representatives!
Why?
Because the OIA is toothless. There are no consequences if the govt thumbs it's nose at the law.
Not so with Court-required document disclosures. Try and pull a stunt like this with the Courts, and end up on contempt charges.
Maybe that's what we need. Some teeth to the OIA.
What are the chances? As much as me winning Lotto/State house.