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6:00 am, December 8th, 2025 - 50 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Official procedures at the top level of the police/govt interface are now subject to investigation… https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/andrew-coster-denies-knowing-of-protocol-to-divert-jevon-mcskimming-emails-mark-mitchell-calls-that-unfathomable/FXYNTKAUSRFBXMDXRHMZZQCKPE/
Looks like another case of deep state theory being validated by circumstance. Which underling subverted procedure? Officialdom must engage musical chairs mode to shift the blame around until it lands on the best scapegoat. For this behaviour to convince any official enquiry, responsibility must be allocated on the basis of evidence. That means any relevant clause in a public service employment contract must be cited as evidence.
One naturally imagines the officer signing a statement along the lines of "I will not be naughty on the job." If public servants are thus compelled into doing good, any error evidentially diagnosed will transform scapegoat into offender.
Given that Coster's 'recollections' were not aligned with much of the evidence – from multiple perspectives, in the IPCA report – I don't have much faith in his lack of recollection of a documented email protocol, which originated from his office.
His current flailing around in the media, to attempt to spread blame as widely as possible, makes a mockery of his initial acknowledgement of responsibility.
Yet he was appointed Commissioner by Hipkins, right? As the best available option at the time. His exhibition of character during his career is therefore the logical basis of that choice: leopards don't change their spots, character is destiny…
Given his persistent display of optimal professionalism on the job, our attention seems drawn to any parts of Tame's interview not yet show, as we imagine those:
"So what explains the mess?" "Well, my pal Jevon must've taken me for his patsy. He told me about chronic nagging from his ex, but not about what he did to earn it." "So Hipkins made you top cop because you were a good guy?" "Um, not quite." "What do you mean?" "Selecting a commissioner is a comparative exercise. All it means is that my defects were obviously less threatening than those of the other contenders, so he chose the best option."
Not that it matters one iota for your fantasy stories.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/120118544/highranking-police-officer-andy-coster-appointed-commissioner-of-police
Is Coster saying he's not responsible, or simply that others may be imperfect?
That one at least can be checked out, surely – wonder where the idea came from.
I'm on the boundary over this one. Coster may be lying, and/or some of our elected representatives may be suffering from impaired / selective recollection syndrome.
Imho, it's possible that the responsibility for this protracted travesty could be shared more widely, and if that's the case then certain pollies (who now have the most to lose) and their lackies will be scrambling to stamp out any attempt to "relitigate matters", as their hands must be seen to be squeaky clean at all times.
So, it would impossible for Minister Mitchell to forget that conversation – case closed.
I think your humble opinion is the closest I have seen to reality based on long term experience and observation of 'certain pollies' and their enablers, whose natural instincts are to project their own bullying and questionable behaviour at the feet of their hapless victims.
Sad thing is, they are allowed to get away with it with impunity.
I'm disinclined to believe Coster – based on his record in the IPCA investigation – where his self-serving 'remembering' was not borne out by multiple other witnesses. They stopped short of saying he was lying – but referred to his recollections as inconsistent and unreliable.
For example, I think it would be *incredibly* unlikely that he would have given a verbal briefing to Hipkins in the back of a car in 2022. That was the period when he was desperately trying to cover-up all knowledge of McSkimming's affair – in case it affected his promotion prospects. Why on earth would he even mention it – to the person he was most keen to cover it up from!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/581101/former-police-commissioner-andrew-coster-claims-ministers-knew-about-mcskimming-allegations
His account is simply not credible.
Hipkins response (from the same article)
I'm still on the boundary over this one – imho, that's a prudent position given the (political) reputations at stake.
And, tbh, I'm not sure that Police Minister Mitchell invoking his daughters added much to the credibility of his recollections, even though he's adamant he would have remembered the conversation (which according to him definitely didn't take place) if that conversation, whatever it wasn't, had taken place.
Of course a wider inquiry isn't needed – “Move along! Nothing to see here!” 🙂
As a moderately senior public servant over a long period, here's my take on it:
If I had briefed an elected official in the back of a car over a matter so serious as this, I would not consider said officials to have been adequately briefed unless I followed it up with a full, formal briefing. The matter is too contentious. I would have assumed that it could easily lead to a situation where an audit trail of communications would be required, perhaps in court, and I would make sure everything had been done by the book.
Saying he will keep better records next time because he now knows how people can distance themselves from things is at best a petulant response to a less-than-adequate approach to dealing with a very serious matter. At worst, well we have Mitchell's and Hipkins' version of events, not to mention that Coster must have seen office politics in action on his rise to the top.
Think back to the JFK Warren Commission report – the opening page states "Based on the information provided to it…" and concludes there was a lone gunman. To my mind, those few words are more important than anything else in the report. A typical bureaucrat's approach to navigating dangerous waters.
Hipkins hasn't proved to be the kind of politician who would say one thing and do another, when it counts. Mitchell, for all I dislike his politics, seems to be fairly serious in his approach to his roles. Unlike some others we could all name, I think I'd be happy to accept their version of events, except to say that it might have been mentioned in a way that led both of them to forget what was said as soon as the conversation moved to other, seemingly more important things.
At least no one’s brought up the Pizza Express in Woking…
All IMHO.
Thanks for those insights Thinker; seems plausible – plausibly deniable even.
🙂 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/17/wokings-pizza-express-customers-struggle-to-remember-first-visit
I share DMK's view and followed the Warren sham all the way with considerable interest courtesy of our state media. Are Hipkins & Mitchell off the hook due to being premature geriatrics? There's some merit in that scenario, and it comes from neuroscience.
Is Coster flakey? Probably, to some extent. Arden picked him as the best available option at the time, which means his disguise was working well.
Relative to less impressive options at the time, since relation to context is vital always! Folks don't use relativity as much as they need to for optimality to embed as resilience, so one should share it frequently….
Apart from throwing a sop to perpetually angry and ill informed ratepayers who resent any spending on community well being , what on earth is the COC doing with the rates cap? Is it just a cheap easy win ?
Is it attempting to undermine local and regional bodies , by starving them of finances and preparing the way for private sector provision of services and user pays ?
On the one hand central govt has , since 2002 devolved more and more responsibilities on to local bodies, and now this govt is making it impossible for local bodies to fulfil those responsibilities .I see more and more debt on the horizon, with interest payments eventually being passed on to ratepayers.
I rather fear it's just that. Equivalent to the "tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts" mantra of '23. The sheeple are incapable of looking beyond the contents of their pay packets, seeing only the figures getting slightly bigger, and not realising that that extra dough (and more besides) will go flying out of their wallets by routes other than those controlled by IRD or their local council.
There has been talk about following Aussies social media ban for under 16s.
Here’s another perspective.
https://theconversation.com/the-under-16s-social-media-ban-will-damage-young-peoples-political-education-teachers-need-better-support-271389
The theory of teaching civics is fine. But finding the time in an already ridiculously packed curriculum could be tricky.
https://theconversation.com/the-under-16s-social-media-ban-will-damage-young-peoples-political-education-teachers-need-better-support-271389
thanks, I just edited the post URL before I saw your comment.
For those that don't know, if you remove everything from the ? onwards, you remove the tracking from the linked website, and you make it easier for people to read the URL if they need to see what it is about.
Thanks Weka.
I'm on the boundary over this one.
On the one hand, I see the damage that unsupervised and uncontrolled access to social media has on some kids: suicidal ideation, eating disorders, stalking, bullying, uncritical acceptance of false information …. the list goes on.
On the other, I see the engagement with like-minded online friends in niche interests, a safe space for exploration of identity, breaking down barriers of loneliness for some kids; not to mention the deep way that social media is entangled in IRL social life for teens.
And, on the gripping hand, there is the practicality. Teens (and even tweens) are already fully aware about how to circumvent parental and school limits on access – I doubt that social media is going to prove a greater challenge.
It seems most likely that this 'ban' will be slightly effective for teens/tweens whose parents are actively engaged in monitoring their online lives. These are probably not the ones who need it. It *may* give an additional tool to assist with managing addictive and negative social media concerns (I'm doubtful, about how effective it will be, since kids have a strong motivation to evade the ban).
The most effective solution is, as before: giving kids the tools to recognize online issues and dangers, monitoring their online presence and activities (especially for younger teens/tweens), setting time limits and boundaries, discussing and challenging information they gain online, and, especially, being aware of any behaviour changes and following up quickly and effectively.
Australia is going to be an interesting test case, over the next few years.
there are also significant negative physiological effects of smart phone use. A ban is a no brainer imo, only problem is the how.
all of those could be provided/solved by community.
We could also have simpler phones for kids, that have way better parental controls on them. So kids can still have a phone with them when walking home from school, or for when parents/kids need to contact each other etc.
the main issue here is that the social media companies are run by sociopaths and society has capitulated to them. It's fucking nuts.
Weka: "We could also have simpler phones for kids, "
At the younger ages they could be given the kind of phone I use, these days called a "dumb phone". It's OK for txting and phone conversations. Then gradually graduate to a monitored/controlled smart phone, plus have controlled access to laptops at home for internet usage, with the controls gradually lifted.
It's all I need to stay in contact with people, businesses and public services, etc.
And when I'm out walking, shopping, socialising, etc, I'm not glued to my phone, but enjoying the environment, people contact, etc.
I think this is where the solution lies. Until adults get to grips with the impact of social media on themselves and the loss of normative life, there's not much chance of us imagining how to live well without it.
The blame lies with the commodification of the internet, especially that done by big tech with their development of social media, plus the development of such things as pornography.
All that's aimed at exploiting some human responses they've identified so that they can encourage more clicks. That results in throwing up meta-data they can analyse in order to work out how to manipulate and surveil us. The end result is finding ways to extract profit from our engagements.
Compared with the early days of the internet it amounts to another capturing of the commons.
I don't know how we counter that other than trying to encourage increasing numbers of people to try alternatives: reading books, joining community activities, trying out a Linux OS, and open source stuff, etc.
Possibly they could be, but they are not. AFAICS, this ban comes with no extra resources for social engagement.
As the parent of a teen (thankfully, now above this age threshold), I know just how difficult it is to monitor online usage. Anything that parents can put in place, highly motivated teens can find a way around.
The most effective thing to do was to engage with the kid – talking through risk factors, and ensuring that he had the tools and knowledge to manage this for himself (which, after, all, the kids are now going to have to do when they pass the magic threshold of 16).
Do you feel that under the new conditions that kids of 16, with no exposure to social media, are going to have the toolbox to effectively engage with it?
Likewise when you argue for harm minimisation as the main response to the problem, possibly but most won't. The harm minimisation model works for drugs and sex, because we don't generally carry them around in our pockets (so to speak).
Build non-sociopathic social media. Get the kids involved in designing and building it. It's like adults have just given up and gone with the world's fucked, let's make the most of it.
Get the kids involved in designing and building it.
You bet! Ten out of ten for that.
IT professional with a 12-year-old here: basically this.
When we bought our tweenager his first phone, I gave him a long pep talk on internet safety and security, told him we’d be tracking what he does, explained why, and gave him a simple handful of rules to follow. Basic stuff like not using his real name, and not friending people he doesn’t know in real life.
As he’s got older, I’ve been taking some of the controls off (though Facebook is still a hard no). The goal is to normalise safe habits: questioning what he sees online, recognising dodgy situations, and coming to me or his mum when he’s unsure.
And honestly, if the little guy gets savvy enough to install a VPN without tripping alarms or getting blocked by my network config, he’s probably earned that particular badge. Because no matter what I do, someone around him is going to have access to the content I don’t want him consuming.
So, the real win is making sure he’s got the judgment to handle it when it shows up.
I’m very aware not all parents have the time, knowledge, or technical know-how to do this. Or the necessary familiarity with post-millennial slang.
Which is why “just ban it” feels like an oversimplified answer to a much more uneven reality.
One of the real issues is that most parents are way less technically literate than their kids. There is also the problem of parental discipline, or lack thereof.
Little Suzy calls her BFF a slut on Tik Tok. BFF has a meltdown at school. Teachers and counsellors try to pick up the pieces. Little Suzy gets no consequence at all because she is such a "good girl." And because it all happened out of school hours there is nothing the school can do. Except give a collective sigh.
That scenario would be played out in most classes at least once a week. The worry is its getting to be independent of age.
Schools hold seminars for parents and caregivers on internet usage, but with most families having two working parents, or a solo parent or a grandparent as caregiver, its almost beyond control.
My wife's a secondary school teacher. 90% of her disciplinary issues are unsolicited pictures of people's junk.
More likely little Suzy gets no consequences at all, because she comes from a 'disadvantaged' background. AFAICS, most schools have simply abandoned all interest in dealing with bullying – whether physical or online.
There is also the issue that the kids are also running technological rings around the teachers. The kids are streets ahead of them when it comes to circumventing firewalls, using AI, and generally understanding the information ecosystem.
Sorry about the later reply. I couldn't either reply or post from either of my IOS devices.
The chances are in my school's case little Suzy is from a very comfortably off family, who take little Suzy and her siblings yo the Gold Coast during term time, and where Little Suzy wants for nothing. Except, probably, parental time.
I guess it does depend on the parents concerned.
Which makes the second part of my comment even more true. Schools have effectively abandoned dealing with either physical or online bullying.
And the kids are running technological rings around the teachers.
Sounds like we're pretty much on the same page. Although with an 18-year-old I'm just about out the other side.
I don't underestimate just how much work goes into this. But am proud as punch when I overhear him challenging one of his mates over whether something from TikTok is real or AI.
PS Facebook is dead to the younger crowd. Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat,YouTube (still) is where the engagement is happening
Likewise 'just teach kids good skills'.
As with most things, we need to do all the things. Mostly I feel like adults have abdicated the responsibility for the dangers of SM.
A spiritual view allows a reframe on that: if this generation learning how to be human via intensive online interaction as their primary formative transistion are damaged in consequence, skills of remedial recovery become salient.
Since these are not taught much yet, fast learners can distribute the gnosis by sharing their insights and expertise (if any). Humans have always done an equivalent, it seems – shamanic function has long been both personal and social.
So could be they chose to incarnate to use the learning curve as personal development trajectory. Back before my boomer generation there was a wave of generational incarnations of Cathars, which produced a body of literature through the mid-20th century after they discovered their past lives as adults. I read all available books when researching life after death (for a decade starting '96) and apparently spirit guides collaborate with the descending incarnator prior and generate a life plan (from which some folk get insights into during life)…
why is the curriculum so packed?
The short answer is that successive governments keep adding compulsory “basics” time, especially reading, writing and maths, because those are the areas where achievement data is most visible and politically defensible.
We do have a real problem with kids hitting intermediate/high school without solid literacy or numeracy, and the refreshed English/Maths curricula now come with explicit teaching-time expectations for those areas.
On the secondary side, the NCEA co-requisite has also sharpened the system’s focus on literacy and numeracy as a non-negotiable foundation.
But this government in particular seems obsessed with a handful of measurable indicators, because they’re easy to headline and hard to argue against.
The risk is that every new “must-do” in the basics squeezes everything else, civics included, unless time and support are added as well.
Do they teach darwinism? If not, why not? Do they teach group psychodynamics, or just sigh when confronted with the consequences of not doing so? Still haven't figured out that they ought to teach survival skills to kids? We got survival in the bush techniques taught to us in the early 1960s. Survival in culture wars? Never!
Hi Weka, I struggle to teach 'Civics' esp if it's like what the new Curric wants (how bills get to their 2nd reading after select committees? good grief). I much prefer teaching Civics through History eg I teach Kate Sheppard and her three petitions and the three things she fought for.
what age is that?
13 yrs, Year 9, 3rd form
Kremlin hails Trump's national security strategy as aligned with Russia's vision.
Moscow welcomes White House document critical of the EU.
It’s time for New Zealand Aotearoa to rewrite its position on the USA.
5 Eyes is dead. We should now end military ties. .
Given the US’s current geopolitical thinking, do we start to align with NATO more?
https://www.theconcis.com/p/autopilot-against-europe
”There is no stable future for the alliance as long as the United States sits at the center of it. A factional superpower that swings between transatlantic stewardship and oligarch-controlled chaos cannot anchor a 32-nation security system. Keeping America in the middle guarantees constant instability.
No one needs to kick them out — that only creates another crisis. You simply make them irrelevant. That is how you contain and constrain American influence:
not through confrontation, but through structural redesign.
Chip away at the pillars Washington uses to dominate NATO: weapons production, intelligence depth, and the political power of the U.S. presidency. Expand the alliance outward until the U.S. becomes one voice among many, not the gravitational center. Blur the perimeter by bringing Australia, New Zealand, and Japan so deep into NATO cooperation that the distinction between member and non-member stops mattering.”
Excellent advice. I suspect Europe will build stronger links with China to counteract the American -Russian Axis. A Japan Korea Indonesia Bietnam Malaysia Australia NZ alliance has obvious merit. . A European tie up would be measured in the context of the EU-China trajectory.
I don’t think the USA will recover from their current decline. We should assume they continue to be isolationist, mercantile and ‘strong (white) man’ in style for a long time.
Why the hell would Europe simply trade one autocracy for another? They are perfectly capable of building their own, democratic, collective defence and foreign policy institutions: essentially a superpower in aggregate.
Surprise surprise….
@paulapenfold.bsky.social
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Dates now on the record: Police Minister Mark Mitchell was told of a McSkimming complaint on Oct 14 – three weeks before the date he’s given publicly as when he first heard of concerns
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360911014/timeline-shows-minister-knew-mcskimming-complaint-three-weeks-earlier-he-has-said
https://bsky.app/profile/paulapenfold.bsky.social/post/3m7g5an3mw22o
But Mitchell has daughters, so he would have remembered <i>that<i> conversation. (Why the fuck it should matter if he has daughters or not is anyones guess).
Where there’s smoke, there’s Costello.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/12/08/our-smokefree-goal-has-turned-to-ash-so-what-next/
Costello’s ‘celebration’ has answered this already.
Hey, if someone puts up DR please transfer this to there. I've been brooding on that 4% drop for the Greens in the Verian poll for an hour, and no cause has become apparent despite the wait. https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/12/08/whos-up-and-whos-down-party-leaders-react-to-new-1news-poll/
Best I can do is hazard this guess: contamination from TMP implosion fallout. Radicals ain't worth shit, seems to be the mood of the sheeple. So they gave the major parties a lift and NZF is holding up in 3rd position. Winston rules, ok?
You know when privileged people are being challenged when this is the TU position
Methane breathers and "small business".
The amount involved is $29B
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/personal-finance/tax/inland-revenue-proposes-changing-tax-treatment-of-loans-companies-issue-to-shareholders/premium/IHJVI3UXABH5HJOYAEY4BSFCGI/
https://archive.li/0HvlR#selection-4019.0-4179.58
I just realised why it took 2 weeks to get goods ordered from Briscoes.
They used Aramex.
It is not possible to check the proof of delivery claim on their (Aramex) site – others (reputable and customer serving) provide the photo on the email.
AI says
Yes, there are many widespread complaints about Aramex delivery, especially in New Zealand (formerly Fastway), etc – Reddit and Facebook links confirm this.
Fortunately it was a low value item, but it makes one wonder about Briscoes using such a company.