STEVE MARTIN [HOST]: And in our news this morning has been a story about a major funding announcement for the Western Freeway, Western Highway as well. The sections towards Melbourne that will be upgraded, there are bridges in the west which will be subject of some of this. And the area of the Western Highway around Warrenheip is also being talked about. Catherine King is the federal member for Ballarat, but also the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. And Catherine King is our guest this morning. Minister, good morning.
CATHERINE KING [MINISTER, MEMBER FOR BALLARAT]: Good morning, Steve. How are you?
STEVE MARTIN: Very well. $1.1 billion you’re announcing this morning for the Western Freeway and the Western Highway. Can you just explain what the money goes towards?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, I can. So the first thing is that the Victorian Government and the Federal Labor Government have undertaken a business case along the Western Highway. In particular, the areas that we’ve been concerned about is around where there’s been significant housing development between Melton and Caroline Springs. And you see that really significant bottleneck that’s occurring there. The West Gate Tunnel will help alleviate some of that, but the road really is not in a condition to deal with the volume of traffic there. And we of course know there continue to be problems along the whole corridor. So we’re announcing today $1.1 billion to go into the Western Highway. A billion of that is focused on the Melton and Caroline Springs area to try and alleviate that congestion, 100 million to go towards trying to find a solution for Brewery Tap Road, that Warrenheip area where we know there’s a very dangerous intersection. We’ve had multiple complaints about that, multiple near-misses, and know that needs to be resolved. We continue to do the work. There’s already a billion dollars committed to the west, and so there’s projects right the way along the corridor. But we’re adding in an additional project today around fixing some couple of the bridges around the west, which again, are proving to be bottlenecks. And they are around the Dimboola Bridge, over the Melbourne Adelaide railway line and the Dadswell Bridge over Mount William Creek floodplain. So both of those bridges getting money for upgrades as well.
STEVE MARTIN: Okay, can I just ask, is this money that is allocated and locked in, or is this dependent on an election outcome?
CATHERINE KING: No, we are making this as a decision of government. So we are not in an election campaign yet. We are governing, and so this is a decision of government. So that will appear in the pre-election financial outlook, which is how the- what the state of the books are before the election. So that will appear there. Of course, there are risks that if there is a change of government, that a new government makes a different decision and is obviously- when we’re seeing that they’re looking for cuts, that these sorts of things can get cut. But these are in the budget. They are a decision of government.
STEVE MARTIN: Okay. When you mentioned it could be cut, in a similar manner to what you had to do around November 2023, where you had to cut back- I think it was about $80 billion worth of promises, including ones on the Western Freeway at that stage for- I think it was the M80 Ring Road to Ferris Road.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. Well, what I had to do is that what we’d seen is a really, to be blunt, pretty appalling management of the infrastructure investment pipeline. What they’ve done is used it, frankly, to stand up and make election announcements without having any idea about how much the cost of projects were going to be, and not doing the planning work alongside the Victorian state government, and really using it to- you know, to pork barrel, to be frank. And so what we’ve had to do is really look at the pipeline, do planning work first, do business cases, get a good understanding of what is needed and also what the costs of projects are. So we didn’t cut $80 billion because that’s in fact almost the entire infrastructure investment program. We cut projects that had no hope of proceeding because they were woefully underfunded and also just hadn’t been done in conjunction with Victorian state government.
So I think there was $50 million that was allocated there, 50 million to the quarter. But no, it had- it sat there on the books for years not having any work done on it. So what we’ve done here is we’ve done the planning work, done the business case, got a fairly good understanding of what’s needed and are now working with the Victorian government, you know, hand-in-glove really to make sure we can actually deliver these projects along the highway.
STEVE MARTIN: When would we see works commence? Because I believe the bridge is different in the far west to some of the other work. And you did mention that for Warrenheip and Brewery Tap Road, that’s a planning process. So when will people start to see works happening, do you think?
CATHERINE KING: Well, there’s some safety works that can happen pretty quickly and they can be around shoulder widening and certainly making sure that we’ve got the- you know, mostly the highways covered by barriers. But, you know, some of the shoulder widening that may be needed, some of the resealing work that can happen fairly quickly. But obviously when you’re talking about things like overpasses or new interchanges, they are significant pieces of work, and they do require some planning to make sure that they can be delivered. So, you know, our view is the money is available, we’ll make the money available the minute the project is ready to go. But again, you have to do these things properly. And we’re in the hands of the Victorian Government when it comes to the delivery.
STEVE MARTIN: I did have a question that came in specifically from our team in western Victoria, just wanting to know a bit more about the bridges in the west. The Dimboola Bridge upgrades, they’re asking specifically when that might be rolled out. But as you just said, there is still some work to be done before this begins. Is that right, Catherine King?
CATHERINE KING: Well, in terms of those two projects. So the total cost of those, it’s a 50/50 project with the state government. So it’s a $12.2 million project. They will match that project. That’s expected to commence in 2025 with an estimated completion date of ‘26. So it’s meant to actually be starting this year in relation to those two projects. They were – have already been in planning for a while, so we know what we want to do there. So those projects should come on train fairly quickly.
STEVE MARTIN: Rightio Catherine King, thanks for your time this morning.
CATHERINE KING: Terrific to be with you, Steve.
STEVE MARTIN: Catherine King is the Federal Member for Ballarat, but also, of course, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government.
Source: United States Senator for Vermont – Bernie Sanders
WASHINGTON, March 5 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), alongside Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), today asked for unanimous consent on the Senate floor to pass a series of straightforward resolutions condemning Russia’s illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The senators offered six resolutions clarifying that the United States stands with the people of Ukraine in defense of their democracy and condemns the dictator Vladimir Putin’s crimes against humanity. Republicans rose in opposition to every one.
The senators’ resolutions are statements of fact and principle, backed by evidence and long-standing American foreign policy, including:
Clarifying that Russia started the war againstUkraine.
Condemning Putin and Russian forces for their widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
Condemning Russia’s forcible abduction of at least 20,000 Ukrainian children and calls for their return to their families.
Reaffirming the support of the United States for Ukraine’s sovereignty in the face of Russia’s invasion.
Restating a simple but fundamental principle of international law and global stability: that you do not take the territory of another country by force.
Demanding that Putin immediately withdraw Russian forces from Ukraine, cease his attacks, and end this terrible war.
Sanders’ remarks on the Senate floor were livestreamed here and are available below.
I am here tonight with colleagues who have worked extremely hard to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine and to defend democracy in that country and, in fact, throughout the world.
And I thank my colleagues for getting on the floor this evening and for the resolutions that they will be bringing forth.
M. President, I am not a historian. But I do know that for the last 250 years, since the inception of our great country, despite our imperfections, the United States has stood in the world as a symbol of democracy. And all over the world people have looked to our country as an example of freedom and self-governance to which the rest of the world could aspire. People have long looked to our Declaration of Independence and Constitution as blueprints for how to establish governments of the people, by the people and for the people.
M. President, tragically, all of that is now changing. As President Trump moves this country towards authoritarianism, he is aligning himself with dictators and despots who share his disdain for democracy and the rule of law.
Just last week, in a radical departure from long-standing U.S. policy, the Trump administration voted against a United Nations resolution which clearly stated that Russia began the horrific war in Ukraine.
That U.N. resolution also called on Russia to withdraw its forces from occupied Ukraine, in line with international law. The resolution was brought forward by our closest allies, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and dozens of other democratic nations. Ninety-three countries at the U.N. voted YES on that resolution.
Rather than side with our long-standing allies to preserve democracy and uphold international law, President Trump voted with authoritarian nations like Russia, North Korea, Iran and Belarus to oppose the resolution. Many of the other opponents of that resolution are undemocratic nations propped up by Russian military aid.
But it wasn’t just the U.N. vote. Pathetically, President Trump also told an outrageous lie, claiming that it was Ukraine that started the war, not Russia. He also called President Zelensky a dictator, rather than the leader of a democratic nation, as he is.
M. President, as we discuss Ukraine tonight, it is terribly important that we not forget who Vladimir Putin is and why he is no friend of the United States, and why we should not be in an alliance with him against Ukraine.
Putin is the man who crushed Russia’s movement towards democracy after the end of the Cold War. Putin is a man who steals elections, murders political dissidents and crushes freedom of the press. He has maintained control in Russia by offering the oligarchs there a simple deal: If they grant him absolute power and share the spoils, he would let them steal as much as they wanted from the Russian people. The result: while the vast majority of the Russian population struggles economically, Putin and his fellow oligarchs stash trillions of dollars in offshore tax havens.
And so today, 26 years after he took power, Putin is the absolute ruler of Russia. And I think as everyone knows, Russia’s elections are blatantly fraudulent. A sham.
And Putin is the man who sparked the bloodiest war in Europe since World War II.
More than three years ago, on February 24, 2022, Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. Russian land, air and naval forces have attacked and occupied territory across Ukraine.
Since that terrible day, more than a million people have been killed or injured because of Putin’s war. Putin’s forces have massacred civilians and kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children, bringing them back to Russian “re-education” camps. These atrocities led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 as a war criminal. That’s who we are allying ourselves with.
And still, today, Russia continues its attacks, raining down hundreds of missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities. Russian forces illegally occupy about 20 percent of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.
M. President, this war could end today if Putin gave up his outrageous effort to conquer a neighboring country. The war could end today. The killing could stop right now, if Putin gave that order.
And that, simply, M. President, is what my resolution says to Vladimir Putin: Stop the killing. Obey international law. Withdraw your forces and cease your attacks on Ukraine. And I, honestly, don’t understand how anyone in the United States Senate could object to that simple demand.
M. President, now, more than at any time in recent history, it is imperative that the Senate come together in a bipartisan manner to make it clear that we stand for democracy, not authoritarianism; that we stand for international law, not conquest by force; and that we stand with Ukraine and fellow democracies throughout the world, and not with the murderous dictator of Russia.
Workers at NZ Post’s call centre have been told their jobs are being gradually moved to Manila, in the Philippines, as part of NZ Post’s need to cut costs.
While workers’ jobs are safe for now, they will be replaced by workers in Manila by attrition, with people not being rehired in Aotearoa New Zealand when one leaves.
NZ Post worker and E tū delegate Samatha Boe says the move is out of line with NZ Post’s values.
“I find it disappointing a government-owned business is looking to send jobs offshore, thus taking away from everyday New Zealanders trying to earn a living in a difficult economic climate,” Samantha says.
“The Government should be prioritising having Kiwis in jobs. They might save in some running costs, but they’ll lose out in tax revenue and unemployment benefits.
“One of NZ Post’s values is ‘stronger together’ – we should be keeping these values here in Aotearoa.”
E tū Negotiation Specialist Joe Gallagher fears this is just another signal of the Government’s overall goal of preparing NZ Post for privatisation.
“Our postal network is core infrastructure designed to help our communities and businesses, not just another thing to make a quick buck on,” Joe says.
“We’re deeply concerned that the Government is allowing NZ Post to make these kinds of changes in preparation to sell off this service to the highest bidder.
“The state-owned enterprise model has been appropriate for NZ Post, and we have worked very constructively with the company through some significant changes, always putting the interests of workers and the wider community who use the services first.
“Offshoring work, inadequate government support, and the talks of privatisation all point to an abdication of responsibility for both New Zealand’s workforce and the services we need.”
ENDS
For more information and comment: Joe Gallagher, 027 591 0015
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe Chairman Keith Self delivered opening remarks at subcommittee hearing titled, “Bridging the Gap: Turkey Between East and West.”
WATCH HERE
-Remarks-
I welcome everyone to the first Europe subcommittee hearing. It is an honor to chair this subcommittee that deals with a dynamic and potentially dangerous environment in a crucial region for U.S. national interests. I look forward to our work as a subcommittee.
Today, our objective is to examine Turkey’s roles in NATO and necessarily the Middle East, even though this is the Europe Subcommittee. It will be necessary to look at Turkey’s track record in NATO and the Middle East, in order to gain perspective on their role going forward in both regions. As a NATO member, historically Turkey has operated as a member of the NATO alliance, often aligning their foreign policy interests with the goals of NATO, but in the last decade there have been some actions that don’t line up with the NATO goals.
Take for example the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the barbaric October 7th attacks on Israel in 2023. While Turkey supports most of the agenda within the NATO alliance, it did operate as NATO’s lone member refusing to condemn the actions of nefarious players in the Middle East. The world is changing quickly and Turkey’s geographic location places it at the epicenter of the most tumultuous regions as conflicts rage in Europe and the Middle East. Turkey has also assumed the position of power broker in the vacuum created by Syria’s regime change but is vexed by their unresolved issues with the Kurds going forward. The world, particularly the United States, is watching closely as Turkey decides rather or not to ease tensions with the Kurds. America has relied on the Kurds partnership in the region and opposition to their success will be a major sticking point in Turkey’s relationship with the United States.
Turkey is also unique in that geographically it straddles both Europe and Asia. It is a prominent member of the Minerals Security Partnership and could be a strategic partner for the West by operating as an alternative to Beijing. Recently, Turkey laid claim to one of the largest rare-earth element reserves in the world with a rare earth 694-million ton deposit.
Historically, Turkey was the anchor for NATO’s Southeast corner against the old Soviet Union, but over the past decade Turkey’s commitment to anchoring that region has begun to crack. They have the second largest military in NATO – only behind the United States – which makes Turkey a key asset to the alliance, but their geographic location also makes them vulnerable to bad actors in the region.
I look forward to hearing testimony from our three experts today as they share their views on Turkey’s role in both Europe and the Middle East.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Germany’s important election last week struggled to make the news cycle, even on Germany’s own Deutsche Welle(DW), Germany’s equivalent of Britain’s BBC. Especially (but not only) in the international media, most of the focus was on a single party (AFD, Alliance for Germany) that was never going to have the most votes and was (almost) never going to become part of the resulting government.
Germany is the world’s third largest national economy, and traditionally dominates the politics of the European Union; an important example of this dominance was the Eurozone financial crisis of the first-half of the 2010s; a crisis that was (unsatisfactorily) resolved, thanks to a problematic and controversial program of fiscal austerity.
At present, Germany, like New Zealand, is experiencing an economic recession. (Provisional annual economic growthwas -0.2% in 2024 and -0.3% in 2023.) The cause is similar, too, in both countries: the same ‘balance the Budget’ mentality that gave the world the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Election Result
The ‘winner’ of the German election was the CDU/CSU Alliance (see Wikipedia for a better presentation of the results), which works a bit like the Liberal/National Coalition in Australia. (The Christian Social Union functions in Bavaria much like Australia’s National Party functions in rural Queensland.) CDU/CSU (like National in New Zealand) comfortably prevailed with 28.5 percent of the vote, entitling that alliance to 33 percent of the seats in the Bundestag (Parliament).
The new Chancellor (equivalent to Prime Minister) will be Friedrich Merz; a 69-year-old version of our own Christopher Luxon, as far as I can tell. He is strongly anti-Putin and pro-Israel. He has come to power well and truly under the international media radar; and will be in a strong position to exert near-absolute power, given that he will always be able to turn to the AFD (who got more votes than the Social Democrats; 20.8%) for support in the Bundestag for any measure that is not palatable to Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats. In the new Parliament, the Greens and the Left merely make up the numbers.
Merz’s Christian Democrats will form a coalition government with the losing SPD (Social Democratic Party, like Labour in New Zealand) who came third with 16.4 percent of the vote; 19 percent of the seats. Together these two parties of the establishment centre hold 52% of the new parliament, despite having less than 45% of the vote. (The outgoing minority government was a centrist coalition of the SPD and the Greens; the election was held early because the ACT-like Liberal Party – the FPD, Free Democrats – withdrew from the coalition. The FPD vote shrunk from 11.4 percent in 2021 to just 4.3 percent of the vote this time.)
The result in Germany proved to be very much like that of the United Kingdom in 2024: a slide in support for the two major parties (‘the establishment centre’), a consolidation of power to the self-same establishment centre, and a shift of that establishment centre to the right. (See my chart in Germany’s stale (and still pale) political mainstream, Evening Report 27 February 2025, for a timeline of decline.) While both countries technically underwent a change of government, in both countries the establishment has entrenched its power, and in both countries the political assumptions of the power centre have shifted to the right.
Clearly this is problematic for democracy, because historically disastrous popular support for the ‘broad church’ parties of the establishment centre has coincided with increased power to those parties, as well as policy convergence between them. Further, based on legislative electoral requirements, neither Germany nor the United Kingdom (nor the United States for that matter) will have a new government until 2029. At a time when a week is a long time in international politics, 208 weeks is an eternity. World War Three, a distinct possibility, may be in its second or third year by then.
Voting System
Germany represents the prototype upon which New Zealand’s MMP voting system is based. There are some differences though, and some recent changes.
Germany calls its all-important ‘party vote’ the ‘second vote’, disguising its importance. It is possible that many German voters do not fully appreciate its significance. The electorate vote is called ‘first vote’, and winners (by a plurality, not necessarily a majority) are elected ‘directly’. The second (party) vote is understood as a top-up vote to ensure proportionality.
Party lists are regional in Germany. And ‘ethnic parties’ may get special privileges.
In one respect the German version is more proportional than the New Zealand version of MMP, in that it no longer allows overhang MPs. (However, the most recent result is not proportional in the important sense that two parties together with less than 45% of the vote have 52% of the seats.) In MMP, one can easily imagine an overhang situation being frequent if the ‘major’ parties, which win most electorates, only get between 16% and 29% of the party vote.
In 2013, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court decided that overhang seats were too big a threat to proportionality. So, they introduced ‘levelling seats’. In effect, it meant that if one party gets an overhang, then all parties get an overhang. The result was, in 2013, that a parliament that should have had 598 members (Deputies) ended up with 631, an effective overhang of 33. In 2017 that effective overhang grew to 111, and to 137 in 2021.
For 2025, they decided to abandon overhang representation altogether, by not guaranteeing direct election through the first vote. And they fixed the size of the Bundestag to 630 Deputies, up from a base-size of 598.
If the new German system was in place in New Zealand in 2023, then two of the Te Pati Māori electorate seats from 2023 would have been forfeit, going instead to second placed candidates; proportionality in 2023 entitled Te Pati Māori to four seats, not the six which they have. However, we should note that, if New Zealand was using the present German version of MMP, there would be no special Māori electorates, but the Māori Party would be exempt the five percent party threshold. Ethnic-privileged parties in Germany are incentivised to focus on the party vote, not the electorate vote. In Germany there is a Danish ethnic party (South Schleswig Voters’ Association) which is exempt the threshold. Its leader, Stefan Seidler, did not win his electorate. But his party got 0.15% of the nationwide vote, meaning it qualified for 0.15% of the 630 places in the Bundestag; one seat, for him.
New Zealand voters seem to have more tactical and strategic political nous than do German voters. Thus, it has been very rare for a party in New Zealand to miss out qualifying for Parliament because of getting between 4% and 5% of the party votes (noting that both countries operate a 5% disqualification threshold). In Germany, party-vote percentages just below 5% are not uncommon. In New Zealand, voters, conscious that they want to play a role in coalition-building, actively help parties near the threshold to get over the line. (Indeed, I voted New Zealand First in 2023, because I was 99.9% sure that the only post-election coalition options would be National/ACT or National/ACT/NZF; I favoured the three-party alternative, so I used my vote strategically to help block a National/ACT government.)
Indeed the latest German result was a bit like the latest New Zealand result, but with a party resembling New Zealand First (BSW) getting 4.972% of the vote, so getting no seats at all. BSW getting just a few more votes would have meant a substantial erosion of the two-party power result which eventuated. It is extremely difficult for new non-ethnic parties to get elected in Germany.
In 2025, two parties scored just under five percent of the vote. As well as the BSW, the (ACT-like) Free Democrats who had been part of the previous government, and who had indeed precipitated the early election, scored 4.3%. Indeed, fifteen percent of the votes were ‘wasted’ – that is, cast for ultimately unsuccessful parties. In New Zealand the wasted vote is typically around four percent. Indeed, this high wasted vote turns out to be a more serious challenge to proportionality in German than uncompensated overhang seats.
Both Germany and New Zealand have the contentious (in New Zealand) ‘electorate MP’ rule; the rule that’s misleadingly dubbed in New Zealand as the ‘coat-tail’ rule. (Misleading, because most MPs come in on the coat-tails of their party leadership, and always have.) In Germany the rule is stricter than in New Zealand. In order to avoid disqualification by getting less than 5% of the party vote, New Zealand requires that the party get one electorate MP. In Germany the rule (initially the same as New Zealand), since 1957 has been a requirement for three electorate MPs. In Germany in 2021, the Left Party got 4.87% of the vote and three electorate MPs; they just squeezed in, on both criteria!
Overall, United States’ Vice-President JD Vance’s pre-election comments about democracy in Germany were valid. German politics continues to exclude the non-establishment parties of both the right and the left, despite support for these parties having been increasing for a while, and now representing the majority of German voters.
Media Framing
German television electoral coverage, if DW is anything to go by, is superficial; indeed, is quite insensitive to the national and local dramas taking place. I watched the coverage live. In the hour before the Exit Poll results were announced, the discussion barely mentioned the potential dramas taking place, despite both the BSW and FDP parties pre-polling only just under the five percent threshold. The state of the economy was mentioned in a perfunctory way; clearly it was not a big issue for the political class on display.
At 6 o’clock exactly, the exit-poll results were read out, as if they were the election result. As indeed they turned out to be, more-or-less; the same as the pre-election polls. The subsequent uninterested attitude towards the actual counting of the votes was disappointing. There had been a bit of this in the 2024 UK election as well; as if the exit poll was the election result. In the UK case, Labour’s actual result (for the popular vote) was well under the exit poll result, while the Conservatives did significantly better than their exit poll tally; those facts, though, were for the nerds and psephologists.
In my observation, early votes and exit polls favour the parties supported by the political class; election day votes much less so. So, in New Zealand in 2023 it was initially looking like there would be a two-party coalition of the right. But, to the attentive, as the night wore on, the National Party percentage fell from 41% to 38%, meaning that NZF would have to be included in any resulting coalition.
I suspected something quite similar would happen in Germany, and I was only partially wrong. The exit poll results, and the subsequent counts, were presented to just one decimal place; indeed, the presentation of the numbers was very poor throughout. So, it was hard to see to what extent BSW was improving as the votes were counted.
In the exit poll, two parties – FPD and BSW – were shown as being on 4.7%, and the AFD was on 19.5%. So, the two 4.7% parties were largely written out of the subsequent discussion. We did see an early concession by the FPD, who – representing a segment of the political class – understood the polling dynamics rather well. And we did see the AFD’s Alice Weidel being asked if she was disappointed to get under 20%. Ms Weidel put on a brave face, but she did seem disappointed. When the votes were actually counted, her party got 20.8% exactly on Weidel’s prior expectations.
BSW was completely ignored. There was simply no interest in the possibility that they might reach the 5% threshold, even when the vote count had them upto 4.9%. In the end BSW reached 4.972%; so close! Out of sight, out of mind! In the official results the BSW were lumped with ‘Other Parties’. The DW election panel were too unaware to make any comments about the party itself, its philosophies, or how its possible success might influence the process of forming a coalition government. (Of particular importance was that, with just a few more votes, BSW might have given Eastern Germany a voice in a three-way coalition government.)
For DW, their perennial concern is the place of Germany within Europe and the World; they had little time to give the outside world a glimpse into the domestic lives and politics of ordinary Germans. And we heard nothing about the ‘ethnic vote’, the privileged Denmark Party notwithstanding. I suspect that many if not most of the recent immigrants who do much of the work in Germany either could not vote or did not vote. The election was about them, not for them; denizens, not citizens.
However, DW did invite on a gentleman who mildly focussed the attention of the discussants by suggesting that one of the priorities of the new Chancellor – Friedrich Merz – would be to acquire nuclear weapons! I don’t think the rest of the world had any prior insights into that; ordinary Germans were probably equally in the dark.
Who is Friedrich Merz? Who knows? It turns out that he dropped out of politics for a while, to play a leading role in BlackRock, the international acquisitions company which until recently owned New Zealand’s SolarZero (refer Update on SolarZero Liquidation by BlackRock, Scoop, 29 January 2025). Our media told us that the election was all about the “far-right” AFD Party; that is, the far non-establishment-right. We in New Zealand heard nothing about the far establishment-right; the shadowy man (or his party). Some now fear Merz will be an out-and-out warmonger. Even Al Jazeera, which can be relied upon to cover many stories about places New Zealand’s media barely touches (and in a bit more depth), had the portraits of Olaf Scholz and Alice Weidel on the screen, on 22 February, the day before the election, despite the certainty that Merz world become the new Chancellor.
In that vein, I heard a German woman interviewed in Christchurch, on RNZ on 25 February. She, disappointed with the election result, spent her whole edited four minutes railing about the AFD, as if the AFD had won. There was no useful commentary, by her or RNZ, of the actual result of Germany’s election.
Are we so shallow that we don’t care; that some of us with the loudest voices only want to rail against a non-establishment party, and to see the democratic support for alternative parties as being somehow anti-democratic?
East Germany
People of a certain age in New Zealand will remember the former East Germany; the DDR, German ‘Democratic’ Republic. Most people in Germany itself will have had knowledge of it, including the Berlin-based political staff of DW who were mostly in their thirties, forties and fifties. But the ongoing issues of Eastern Germany were barely in their mindframes.
In Eastern Germany – the former DDR – (especially outside of Berlin), support for the AFD was close to 40%, for BSW over 10%, and the Left much higher than in Western Germany. In the former East Berlin (which I visited in 1974), the Left seems to have been the most popular party. Support in the East for the establishment parties combined was between 25% and 30%, and with a lower turnout.
BSW, it turns out, is Left on economic policy and Right on social policy. And, in the German discourse, is categorised by the political class as ‘pro-Putin’. If BSW had got 5% of the vote, Merz could have tried to bring them into his government; or Merz might have turned to the Green Party instead of a ‘pro-Putin’ party. But I cannot see even the German Greens being able to govern as a junior partner to a belligerent establishment-right CDU-led government. BSW’s failure to get 5% of the vote may turn out to be one of the great ‘might-have-beens’ of Germany’s future history.
As JD Vance stated, this Eastern German situation poses a danger for democracy in Germany and in Europe. Eastern Germany is where the German state is at its most vulnerable. The majority of voters there have voted for ‘pro-Putin’ parties; and, significantly, parties prioritising the problems of economic failure over the big-politics of extranational power-plays.
The new German government, it would seem, is set to aggravate (or, at best, ignore) the problems of Germany’s ‘near-East’, while setting out to inflame the problems of Europe’s ‘far-East’.
The Debt Brake
This is Germany’s equivalent of Ruth Richardson’s 1994 ‘Fiscal Responsibility Act’ (now entrenched in New Zealand law and lore). This is the major single reason why New Zealand has had so many infrastructure problems this century, and why so many young men and families emigrated to Australia in the 1990s, with some of these emigrants coming back to New Zealand in recent years as ‘501s’.
The Merkel debt-brake is the self-inflicted single major reason why many European economies are in such a mess today; and Germany in particular. Germany is congenitally deeply committed to all kinds of financial austerity, with government financial austerity being the most ingrained. Rather than circulating as it should, money is concentrating. The debt-brake is “a German constitutional rule introduced [in 2009] during the Global Financial crisis to enforce budget discipline and reduce [public] debt loads in the country” (see Berlin Briefing, below).
Germany still has a parliamentary session under the old Parliament, before the new parliament convenes. Michaela Küfner (see Berlin Briefing, below) suggests the possibility that the old “lame duck” Parliament could remove the debt-brake from the German constitution, because she sees the make-up of the new more right-wing parliament as being less amenable to address this ‘elephant in the room’. Seems democratically dodgy to me, even talking about pushing dramatic constitutional legislation through a ‘lame duck’ parliament; like Robert Muldoon, pushing through a two-year parliamentary term for New Zealand in the week after the 1984 election!
(Two-year parliamentary terms are not unknown, by the way; the United States has a two-year term for its Congress. This is almost never mentioned when we discuss the parliamentary term in New Zealand. In the United States at present, there will be many people for whom the 2026 election cannot come fast enough; an opportunity to reign-in Donald Trump.)
Future German relations with the United States
On 27 February (28 Feb, New Zealand time) – before the fiasco in the White House on 28 February – I watched Berlin Briefing on DW. This programme is a regular panel discussion of the political editorship of Deutsche Welle.
The context here is that Friedrich Merz made an important speech the evening after the election; a speech that had the Berlin beltway – “people behind the scenes here in Berlin” – all agog. Merz said: “For me the absolute priority will be strengthening Germany so much so that we can achieve [defence] independence from the United States.”
The discussion proceeded as follows:
“How important is this anchoring in Nato of the idea of the United States as ‘The Great Protector’?” Nina Haase, DW political correspondent: “I don’t think there’s a word, ‘massive’ is not enough; people behind the scenes here in Berlin … they talk about are we going to part with the United States amicably or are we going to become enemies [my emphasis] … Europe has relied on the US so much since the Second World War is completely new thinking; just to prepare for a scenario with, if you will, would-be enemies on two sides; in the East with Russia launching a hybrid attack and then [an enemy] in the West as well.” They go on to talk about the possible need for conscription in Germany.
The political correspondents were talking like bourgeois brat adult children who had expected that they should be able to enjoy a power-lifestyle underwritten by ‘big daddy’ always there as a financial and security backstop; and just realising that the rug of entitlement might be being pulled from under them. Michaela Küfner (Chief Political Editor of DW) goes on to talk about an “existential threat from the United States”, meaning the withdrawal (and potential enmity) of the great protector. “Like your Rich Uncle from across the ocean turning against you”, she said.
Nina Haase: “Pacifism, the very word, needs to be redefined in Germany … Germans are only now able to understand that you have to have weapons in order not to use them.” She was referring to earlier generations of pacifists (like me) who saw weapons as the problem, not the solution.
Ulrike Franke: “Everything needs to change for everything to stay the same”, basically saying Germany itself may have to pursue domestic Rich Uncle policies to maintain the lifestyles of the (entitled) ten percenters.
Michaela Küfner, towards the end of the discussion: “The AFD is framing [the supporters of] the parties which will make up the coming coalition as the political class who we will challenge”. And she noted, but only at the very end of the long discussion, that the effectively disenfranchised people in Eastern Germany are “a lot more Russia-friendly”.
Maybe Merz has a plan to build employment-rich munitions factories in Eastern Germany, to address both his security concerns and the obvious political discontent arising from unemployment and fast-eroding living standards? But Merz will have to abandon his innate fiscal conservatism before he can even contemplate that; can he do a Hoover to Hitler transition? Rearmament was Hitler’s game; his means to full employment after the Depression.
Implications for Democracy
I sense that Friedrich Merz will become the face of coming German politics, just as Angela Merkel once was, and as Trump and Starmer are very much the faces of government in their countries; becoming – albeit through democratic means – similar to the autocrats that, in Eastern and Middle-Eastern countries, they [maybe not Trump] rail against.
We might note that if we look carefully at World War One and World War Two, the core conflict was Germany versus Russia. Will World War Three be the same? And which side will ‘we’ (or ‘US’) be on? In WW1 and WW2, we were on Russia’s side. (Hopefully, in the future, we can be neutral with respect to other countries’ conflicts.)
Democracy is under strain worldwide. The diminishing establishment-centre – the political and economic elites and the people with secure employment and housing who still vote for familiar major parties – is clinging on to power, and for the time-being remains more powerful than ever in Europe.
In the Europe of the early 1930s, it was the Great Depression as a period of abject political failure that resulted in the suspension of democracy. All the signs are that the same failures of democratic leadership – worldwide from the 1920s – will bring about similar consequences.
For democracies to save themselves, they should bring non-establishment voices to the table. In 2025. Germany will be another important test case, already sowing the seeds of political failure. We should be wary of demonising the far non-establishment-right while lionising the far establishment-right.
*******
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Markela Panegyres and Jonathan Strauss in Sydney
The new Universities Australia (UA) definition of antisemitism, endorsed last month for adoption by 39 Australian universities, is an ugly attempt to quash the pro-Palestine solidarity movement on campuses and to silence academics, university workers and students who critique Israel and Zionism.
While the Scott Morrison Coalition government first proposed tightening the definition, and a recent joint Labor-Coalition parliamentary committee recommended the same, it is yet another example of the Labor government’s overreach.
It seeks to mould discussion in universities to one that suits its pro-US and pro-Zionist imperialist agenda, while shielding Israel from accountability.
The UA definition comes in the context of a war against Palestinian activism on campuses.
The false claim that antisemitism is “rampant” across universities has been weaponised to subdue the Palestinian solidarity movement within higher education and, particularly, to snuff out any repeat of the student-led Gaza solidarity encampments, which sprung up on campuses across the country last year.
Some students and staff who have been protesting against the genocide since October 2023 have come under attack by university managements.
Some students have been threatened with suspension and many universities are giving themselves, through new policies, more powers to liaise with police and surveil students and staff.
Palestinian, Arab and Muslim academics, as well as other anti-racist scholars, have been silenced and disciplined, or face legal action on false counts of antisemitism, merely for criticising Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine.
Randa Abdel-Fattah, for example, has become the target of a Zionist smear campaign that has successfully managed to strip her of Australian Research Council funding.
Intensify repression The UA definition will further intensify the ongoing repression of people’s rights on campuses to discuss racism, apartheid and occupation in historic Palestine.
By its own admission, UA acknowledges that its definition is informed by the antisemitism taskforces at Columbia University, Stanford University, Harvard University and New York University, which have meted out draconian and violent repression of pro-Palestine activism.
It should be noted that the controversial IHRA definition has been opposed by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) for its serious challenge to academic freedom.
As many leading academics and university workers, including Jewish academics, have repeatedly stressed, criticism of Israel and criticism of Zionism is not antisemitic.
UA’s definition is arguably more detrimental to freedom of speech and pro-Palestine activism and scholarship than the IHRA definition.
In the vague IHRA definition, a number of examples of antisemitism are given that conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, but not the main text itself.
By contrast, the new UA definition overtly equates criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism and claims Zionist ideology is a component part of Jewish identity.
The definition states that “criticism of Israel can be anti-Semitic . . . when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel”.
Dangerously, anyone advocating for a single bi-national democratic state in historic Palestine will be labelled antisemitic under this new definition.
Anyone who justifiably questions the right of the ethnonationalist, apartheid and genocidal state of Israel to exist will be accused of antisemitism.
Sweeping claims The UA definition also makes the sweeping claim that “for most, but not all Jewish Australians, Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity”.
But, as the JCA points out, Zionism is a national political ideology and is not a core part of Jewish identity historically or today, since many Jews do not support Zionism. The JCA warns that the UA definition “risks fomenting harmful stereotypes that all Jewish people think in a certain way”.
Moreover, JCA said, Jewish identities are already “a rightly protected category under all racial discrimination laws, whereas political ideologies such as Zionism and support for Israel are not”.
Like other aspects of politics, political ideologies, such as Zionism, and political stances, such as support for Israel, should be able to be discussed critically.
According to the UA definition, criticism of Israel can be antisemitic “when it holds Jewish individuals or communities responsible for Israel’s actions”.
While it would be wrong for any individual or community, because they are Jewish, to be held responsible for Israel’s actions, it is a fact that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister Yoav Gallant for Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.
But under the UA definition, since Netanyahu and Gallant are Jewish, would holding them responsible be considered antisemitic?
The implication of the definition for universities, which teach law and jurisprudence, is that international law should not be applied to the Israeli state, because it is antisemitic to do so.
The UA’s definition is vague enough to have a chilling effect on any academic who wants to teach about genocide, apartheid and settler-colonialism. It states that “criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions”.
What these are is not defined.
Anti-racism challenge Within the academy, there is a strong tradition of anti-racism and decolonial scholarship, particularly the concept of settler colonialism, which, by definition, calls into question the very notion of “statehood”.
With this new definition of antisemitism, will academics be prevented from teaching students the works of Chelsea Watego, Patrick Wolfe or Edward Said?
The definition will have serious and damaging repercussions for decolonial scholars and severely impinges the rights of scholars, in particular First Nations scholars and students, to critique empire and colonisation.
UA is the “peak body” for higher education in Australia, and represents and lobbies for capitalist class interests in higher education.
It is therefore not surprising that it has developed this particular definition, given its strong bilateral relations with Israeli higher education, including signing a 2013 memorandum of understanding with Association of University Heads, Israel.
All university students and staff committed to anti-racism, academic freedom and freedom of speech should join the campaign against the UA definition.
Local NTEU branches and student groups are discussing and passing motions rejecting the new definition and NTEU for Palestine has called a National Day of Action for March 26 with that as one of its key demands.
We will not be silenced on Palestine.
Jonathan Strauss and Markela Panegyres are members of the National Tertiary Education Union and the Socialist Alliance. Republished from Green Left with permission.
Environmental-economic accounts: Data to 2023 – 6 March 2025 – Environmental-economic accounts show how our environment contributes to our economy, the impacts of economic activity on our environment, and how we respond to environmental issues.
Stats NZ’s environmental-economic accounts show the interactions between the environment and the economy to provide a clearer understanding of environmental-economic pressures, dependencies, trade-offs, and impacts. It is done within the United Nations’ System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework, which specifies how environmental data can be integrated coherently with economic data from the System of National Accounts.
All accounts are expressed in monetary units and in current prices for the year to March.
Key facts In the year to March 2023:
Total environmental taxes were $5.2 billion, most of which were transport (51 percent) and energy (45 percent) taxes. From 2022–2023, environmental taxes decreased 21 percent ($1.4 billion).
Marine economy contributed $4.6 billion to New Zealand’s gross domestic product (GDP). This was an increase of 7.9 percent compared with 2022. The contribution of the marine economy to GDP in 2023 was 1.2 percent.
The total asset value of renewable energy was $13.7 billion. Hydro generation made up 69 percent of total asset value, followed by geothermal (21 percent).
Central and local government expenditure on environmental protection (on a final consumption basis) increased 15 percent ($381 million) to total $2.9 billion. Local government contributed 68 percent ($1.9 billion) to this total, and central government 32 percent ($904 million).
Building activity down 4.4 percent in December 2024 quarter – 6 March 2025 – The seasonally adjusted volume of building work in New Zealand was $7.4 billion in the December 2024 quarter, down 4.4 percent compared with the September 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today.
“There has been a downward trend in building activity volume since the most recent peak in the September 2022 quarter,” economic indicators spokesperson Michael Heslop said.
Residential building work fell 4.9 percent to $4.5 billion and non-residential building work fell 3.1 percent to $2.8 billion (seasonally adjusted) in the final quarter of 2024.
“Residential building activity volume reached its lowest level in over four years, in seasonally adjusted terms,” Heslop said.
Source: United States Senator for Texas John Cornyn
Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA) reintroduced their bipartisan and bicameralSea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act, legislation to establish funding at the Department of Commerce for the rescue, recovery and research of sea turtles in Texas and across the United States. Text of the bill can be found, here.
“Sea turtle strandings are rising at an alarming rate along the Texas Gulf Coast,” said Sen. Cornyn. “This bill would help identify the causes of these strandings and invest in rescue and recovery efforts to better protect Texas’ endangered and storied sea turtle population.” “Sea turtles are the canaries in the coal mine. Right now, every known species of sea turtles found in US waters is either threatened or endangered and faces extinction and environmental wipeout due to the human-caused climate crisis. We have the responsibility to act,” said Sen. Markey. “I am reintroducing the Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance Act to financially support ongoing rescue and rehabilitation efforts of our shelled friends.”
The legislation is co-sponsored by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Cory Booker (D-NJ, and Tom Tillis (R-NC). In January, Representative Bill Keating (MA-09) introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
Background:
In 2000, fewer than 50 sea turtles were found stranded on the beaches of Cape Cod; by 2022, that number had skyrocketed to 866. During the 2021 cold snap in Texas, more than 12,100 turtles were cold-stunned, and rescue organizations were able to save and return only 4,000 of the stranded turtles to the wild. Rescue efforts are predominantly volunteer led and underfunded despite sea turtles facing increasing environmental and human-caused threats that make strandings more likely, including rapid temperature changes, red tide events, and entanglement in marine debris. This bill would provide stability and support to efforts that rehabilitate and aid in the recovery of sea turtles along the coastal US. Specifically, theSea Turtle Rescue Assistance Act would create a new grant program to fund rescue, recovery, and research of sea turtles in the U.S., and authorize $5 million annually for awarding of grants to further that purpose from 2025 through 2030.
TheSea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act is endorsed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the New England Aquarium, the National Aquarium, ABQ BioPark, Acadia Institute of Oceanography, Adventure Aquarium, Allied Whale – College of the Atlantic, Assateague Coastal Trust, Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, Aquarium of the Pacific, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Audubon Nature Institute, Bird River Beach Community Association, Blank Park Zoo, Brevard Zoo / East Coast Zoological Park, Brookfield Zoo Chicago, Buttonwood Park Zoo, Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens, Chattanooga Zoo at Warner Park, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, Conservation Council For Hawaii, El Paso Zoo and Botanical Garden, Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, Georgia Aquarium, Georgia Sea Turtle Center / Jekyll Island Authority, Georgia Wildlife Federation, Gladys Porter Zoo, Gulf World Marine Institute, Healthy Ocean Coalition, Houston Zoo, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), Jenkinson’s Aquarium, John Ball Zoo, John G. Shedd Aquarium, Kansas City Zoo, Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue & Rehabilitation Center, Loggerhead Marinelife Center, Louisiana Wildlife Federation, Marine Education – Research & Rehabilitation Institute, Inc. (MERR), Marine Conservation Institute, Marine Mammal Alliance Nantucket, Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, Mass Audubon, Maui Ocean Center Marine Institute, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Mystic Aquarium, National Marine Life Center, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Newport Aquarium, New York Marine Rescue Center, North Carolina Aquariums, North Carolina Wildlife Federation, OdySea Aquarium, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, Racine Zoo, Roger Williams Park Zoo, Saint Louis Zoo, SEA LIFE Aquariums, Sea Turtle Recovery, Inc., Seattle Aquarium, Seatuck Environmental Association, SeaWorld Parks, Sociedad Ornitologica Puertorriquena Inc., South Carolina Aquarium, South Carolina Wildlife Federation, Sunset Zoo, Surfrider Foundation, Texas Conservation Alliance, Texas Sealife Center, Texas State Aquarium, The Florida Aquarium, The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, The Ocean Project, The Turtle Hospital, Upwell Turtles, Vancouver Aquarium, Virgin Islands Conservation Society, Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, Whitney Lab for Marine Bioscience at University of Florida, WIDECAST: Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network, Wildlife Restoration Foundation, and Woodland Park Zoo.
“We are grateful for Sen. Markey’s continued partnership as he reintroduces the Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act of 2025 in the U.S. Senate. Each year, the New England Aquarium rescues and rehabilitates hundreds of cold-stunned sea turtles that wash onto the beaches of Cape Cod Bay. This bill would help fill a critical gap in sea turtle conservation efforts by providing much-needed financial support to organizations across the country like ours that help return these endangered animals to the ocean,” said Vikki N. Spruill, President and CEO of the New England Aquarium.
“The National Aquarium applauds the reintroduction of the bicameral, bipartisan Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act. We are proud to be part of the nationwide network of organizations engaged in sea turtle conservation and in educating the public on the challenges facing these threatened and endangered species. Sea turtle strandings are on the rise, as are the expenses related to rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing them back to their ocean home. The level of voluntary contribution from stranding network partners is not sustainable. We thank the champions in the House and Senate for their leadership in creating a much-needed federal grant program to support this important work,” said John Racanelli, President & CEO of the National Aquarium.
“Each year, aquariums, zoos and other organizations selflessly rescue and rehabilitate thousands of stranded and injured sea turtles with little to no federal support. They do it because it is the right thing to do,” said Dan Ashe, President and CEO of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. “This bipartisan Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act would help to fill a critical gap in support for these federally protected sea turtles.”
Building activity down 4.4 percent in December 2024 quarter–6 March 2025 –The seasonally adjusted volume of building work in New Zealand was $7.4 billion in the December 2024 quarter, down 4.4 percent compared with the September 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today.
“There has been a downward trend in building activity volume since the most recent peak in the September 2022 quarter,” economic indicators spokesperson Michael Heslop said.
Residential building work fell 4.9 percent to $4.5 billion and non-residential building work fell 3.1 percent to $2.8 billion (seasonally adjusted) in the final quarter of 2024.
“Residential building activity volume reached its lowest level in over four years, in seasonally adjusted terms,” Heslop said.
Environmental-economic accounts: Data to 2023–6 March 2025 –Environmental-economic accounts show how our environment contributes to our economy, the impacts of economic activity on our environment, and how we respond to environmental issues.
Stats NZ’s environmental-economic accounts show the interactions between the environment and the economy to provide a clearer understanding of environmental-economic pressures, dependencies, trade-offs, and impacts. It is done within the United Nations’ System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework, which specifies how environmental data can be integrated coherently with economic data from the System of National Accounts.
All accounts are expressed in monetary units and in current prices for the year to March.
Key facts In the year to March 2023:
Total environmental taxes were $5.2 billion, most of which were transport (51 percent) and energy (45 percent) taxes. From 2022–2023, environmental taxes decreased 21 percent ($1.4 billion).
Marine economy contributed $4.6 billion to New Zealand’s gross domestic product (GDP). This was an increase of 7.9 percent compared with 2022. The contribution of the marine economy to GDP in 2023 was 1.2 percent.
The total asset value of renewable energy was $13.7 billion. Hydro generation made up 69 percent of total asset value, followed by geothermal (21 percent).
Central and local government expenditure on environmental protection (on a final consumption basis) increased 15 percent ($381 million) to total $2.9 billion. Local government contributed 68 percent ($1.9 billion) to this total, and central government 32 percent ($904 million).
Released by: Minister for Agriculture, Minister for Water
The Minns Labor Government is trialling Fishheart; a state-of-the-art temporary fish passage technology in the Lower Darling-Baaka River near Menindee, western NSW.
The goal of this initiative is to test options to connect the Northern and Southern Basin and reduce the accumulation of fish, as part of the Government’s response to the Office of the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer (OCSE) independent review into the March 2023 mass fish kill.
The NSW Government continues to make good progress in addressing the recommendations identified in the OSCE report, with 10 of the 26 actions we’ve committed to now complete and the remaining 16 underway funded under the $25 million Restoring the Darling-Baaka River Program.
One of the key actions the NSW Government has committed to is a $6.52 million trial of new temporary fish passage technology at Menindee.
Australian native fish need to migrate to feed, breed and seek new habitat but due to the introduction of barriers to fish passage, like dams and weirs, fish migration pathways have been impacted.
Currently in the Lower Darling-Baaka, fish can only migrate upstream as far as Lake Wetherell and Menindee Main Weir. The Fishheart unit is a floating hydraulic fishway system designed to assist fish moving over existing barriers. Construction commenced to install the Fishheart unit to the Lake Wetherell outlet regulator in December 2024.
Work continued over the summer, with the technology being lowered into the Lower Darling-Baaka River in late January 2025. Calibration and testing of the Fishheart is currently underway.
The Fishheart unit works by attracting fish into the fishway and then using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect and collect fish in the chambers, counting fish, gathering data before moving fish up and over barriers like the Lake Wetherell outlet regulator.
This is the first time that this innovative technology will be trialled at this scale on Australian inland freshwater fish and builds on Fishheart’s work in Europe and the USA that has shown plenty of promise.
The aim of the project is to test options to connect sections of the river, thereby helping move some fish out of the Menindee town weir pool to complete their life cycle and reducing the biomass and associated risks for water quality and fish kills.
Fisheries Scientists from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) Fisheries will conduct the monitoring program, using underwater sonar and video capture technology, plus trapping activities under appropriate permits.
Minister for Agriculture and Regional NSW, Tara Moriarty said:
“This is the first time that this fishway technology will be trialled under Australian conditions at this scale and on native inland freshwater fish and it demonstrates the commitment of the Minns Labor Government to address environmental issues using innovative approaches, especially in western NSW.
“While there is no one size fits all solution to restore fish passage in the Lower Darling-Baaka River or the Menindee Lakes system, this project aims to use innovative science, data and infrastructure as we promised to do.
“Construction has been progressing through very hot days out at Menindee and we are grateful to all the personnel for their efforts in ensuring the fishway can get operational as soon as possible.
“The Fishheart will be trialled for three breeding seasons, to measure its effectiveness in Menindee. But overseas experiences provide strong indicators for success, for moving fish through the fishway safely and hopefully reduce the risks of future fish kills in the Lower Darling-Baaka.”
Minister for Water Rose Jackson said:
“It’s fantastic to see the fish passage being trialled in Menindee which is one of the innovative infrastructure solutions proposed to prevent future fish deaths.
“We pledged to take decisive action on water quality in the Darling-Baaka to improve fish health and we are delivering on this promise, with a six-month progress report now available to show the community where we are up to.
“So far, we have developed new water quality triggers, overhauled our emergency response plans, continued to upgrade monitoring and added additional resources while also exploring state-of-the-art infrastructure solutions such as the tube fishway and microbubble technology.
“I’m encouraged by the progress in a short space of time, which the Chief Scientist himself has acknowledged publicly, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
“The reality is this is an incredibly complex river system with significant challenges that won’t go away overnight, but we are in a much stronger position to respond to changing conditions than ever before, and we are undoubtedly moving in the right direction.”
Europe is warmed by heat from ocean currents, which move water from the warm tropics to the colder North Atlantic. Once the warm, salty water from the tropics reach the polar region, they cool enough to sink to the depths and flow back towards the Southern Ocean.
This enormous system of currents is known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Climate scientists are increasingly worried about the AMOC, which appears to be slowing down.
While there’s still debate over whether the AMOC has weakened over the last decades, climate models consistently show the AMOC will significantly weaken over the coming century due to the increase in heat-trapping atmospheric greenhouse gases. As more heat stays in the system, the ocean heats up and ice melts, adding fresh water to polar oceans. The overall effect is to slow these currents. The AMOC could weaken 30% by 2060.
A weaker AMOC would mean big changes in Europe, which benefits directly from the warmer waters it brings. But it would also change the climate in the Southern Hemisphere. Our new research shows a weakening of the AMOC would lead to a large change in rainfall patterns, leading to wetter summers in northern Australia and a drier New Zealand year-round. Indonesia and northern Papua New Guinea would also become drier.
Running AMOC?
In the Earth’s long history, the AMOC has gone through many periods of weakening. These were most common during ice ages, when glaciers expanded, but they also occurred during periods as warm as today.
To reconstruct past climates, researchers use data from ice cores, marine sediment cores and speleothems (mineral deposits in caves such as flowstone and stalagmites), as well as simulations performed with climate models. These data show a weaker AMOC strongly affected the climate in the Northern Hemisphere. When flows of warmer water faltered, sea ice expanded in the North Atlantic, while Europe endured colder, drier conditions and the northern tropics became drier.
If the AMOC weakens significantly, it will mean major change for Northern Hemisphere nations. Average temperatures could actually drop 3°C in Western Europe.
At present, the AMOC’s flows of warmer water give European nations more pleasant climates and keeps ports ice free, while the Canadian side of the North Atlantic has a much more severe climate.
What does it mean for the Southern Hemisphere?
Data from ice cores and marine sediment cores also showed Antarctica and the Southern Ocean became warmer during these past AMOC weakening events. Until now, we haven’t understood what an AMOC weakening would mean for rainfall in the Australasian region.
To find out, we ran climate model simulations with the Australian Earth system model, ACCESS-ESM1.5. Our modelling reveals a complex and regionally varied response, primarily shaped by large-scale atmospheric changes.
As the AMOC weakens, it sets off a chain reaction in the oceans and atmosphere which alter rainfall and temperatures across Australasia.
A weaker AMOC would affect ocean temperatures, cooling surface waters in the northern hemisphere and warming waters in the southern hemisphere. This would push the Intertropical Convergence Zone – a belt of heavy rain near the equator – further south.
This means areas such as northern Papua New Guinea and Indonesia will get less rain, while northern Australia will cop wetter summers.
Next, a warmer south equatorial Atlantic triggers atmospheric waves – large-scale movements of air that travel across the globe. These waves lower air pressure over northern Australia, pulling in more moisture and making summer rainfall even heavier.
At the same time, a weaker AMOC disrupts the usual tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean dynamics, altering wind patterns and pressure systems in the Southern Hemisphere. High pressure systems shift southward, affecting storm tracks. The overall effect is fewer storms reaching southern Australia and New Zealand, leading to drier winters.
Last, as the Atlantic currents peter out, heat builds up in Southern Hemisphere oceans rather than being carried to the poles. This results in hotter summers, particularly in southern Australia and New Zealand.
Deluges and droughts
It’s likely we will see these important currents weaken this century, bringing major change to both hemispheres.
Those in Australia and New Zealand are likely to see a magnification of some existing climate shifts, such as a drier south and wetter north.
Policymakers and resource managers need to prepare for a future where water becomes an increasingly uncertain resource.
In the north, more rain over summer could mean a greater reliance on water storage and flood mitigation. In the south, drier conditions may force increased water use efficiency and drought planning.
In New Zealand, a year-round drying trend could challenge farm productivity and hydropower generation. Long-term water management will be critical.
What happens in the North Atlantic doesn’t stay there. It ripples through the atmosphere and oceans, with far-reaching consequences.
Himadri Saini receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Laurie Menviel receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Some of Australia’s major professional sports – such as the Australian Football League (AFL) and its clubs, the National Rugby League (NRL) and its clubs and Cricket Australia – are treated as not-for-profits. This means they do not pay income tax.
Not-for-profits and charities
The not-for-profit sector in Australia consists of about 600,000 organisations, 59,000 of which contributed $43 billion to Australia’s economy in 2010 (2010 is the most recent available data).
Some not-for-profit organisations receive special designation as charities and must have a charitable purpose that benefits the public.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is aware of more than 200,000 entities that receive one or more tax concessions. But only 61,010 are registered charities.
Professinal sports and tax
Within the regulation of not-for-profits exists professional sport.
Sports receive an exemption from income tax if, under section 50-45 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, a club or association encourages or promotes a game or sport.
In addition, the organisation must not conduct business for the purpose of profit for members.
The sports exemption does not differentiate between professional and community (or amateur) sport, as is the case in New Zealand, where charities and taxation law limit a sports charity to an amateur organisation.
Therefore, major Australian professional sports are considered not-for-profits and do not pay income tax.
None of these entities are registered charities.
This raises questions of fairness: these organisations receive revenue that ranges from tens of millions of dollars in the case of clubs to hundreds of millions and even billions for leagues.
When the sports exemption was introduced in the 1950s, it was designed to assist small community clubs. This might include the local golf club that operates on a public course and has operating revenue of $10,000, or the local tennis or football club with similar revenues.
The big business of pro sports
In recent years, the revenues of professional sport have ballooned, primarily due to lucrative broadcasting deals.
Also, the AFL and NRL receive a percentage of the income of betting agencies, reportedly $30 million a year for the AFL and $50 million for the NRL.
Half of the NRL clubs are sponsored by betting companies and three NRL stadiums are named after betting agencies.
Some non-Victorian AFL clubs, such as Brisbane and Greater Western Sydney, have gambling sponsorships, but Victorian clubs have signed up to the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation’s “Love the Game, Not the Odds” program.
This reliance on sports betting revenues raises issues as to the public benefit of these organisations and whether they should receive tax exemptions.
The issue of unrelated business income (the income a not-for-profit earns from commercial activities not related to its charitable purpose), especially from gambling and poker machines, raises concerns.
North Melbourne was the first Victorian AFL club to sell its poker machines in 2008. In 2016, it was the only club without pokies.
Collingwood sold its machines in 2018 and Hawthorn sold its two poker machine venues in 2022. But Carlton, Essendon, Richmond and St Kilda earned a collective $40 million from poker machines in 2022/2023.
The profits of poker machines by Victorian AFL clubs can be distinguished from sports clubs in New South Wales, where not less than 0.75% of poker machine profits must be distributed to charities under community development and support expenditure.
Poker machine venues are a considerable source of revenue in the NRL. In 2021, rugby league received $9.8 million from regional licensed clubs – $7.28 million to grassroots rugby and $2.52 million to NRL clubs.
Metropolitan venues gave $29.67 million to rugby league – $17.09 million to grassroots rugby and $12.58 million to NRL clubs.
A possible solution
Unrelated business income tax (UBIT) is a tax on the unrelated business income of not-for-profits. Related business income for a not-for-profit is membership fees and services directly related to the members such as restaurants or meals.
However, the major source of unrelated business income for sports are sponsorship and income from gambling companies and poker machines.
In the context of professional sport, a UBIT would fairly treat leagues and clubs, which increasingly engage in commercial activities outside their charitable activities, with a public benefit without removing the tax exemption.
For example, a UBIT would tax the profits of clubs with poker machines. It would also tax some of Australia’s most profitable professional sports clubs and leagues for revenue not related to promoting the sports.
It would also help distinguish between “real” not-for-profits and professional sports.
In doing so, it would also create a fair regulatory environment for the operation of for-profit and not-for-profit businesses.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: United States Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico)
Washington, D.C. – A slate of Tribal water rights settlement bills introduced by U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and U.S. Representatives Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), and Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) passed unanimously out of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs today. The legislation next heads to the Senate floor for consideration.
The full slate of Tribal water rights settlements legislation includes:
The Rio San José and Rio Jemez Water Rights Settlements Act;
The Ohkay Owingeh Rio Chama Water Rights Settlement Act;
The Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act; and
The Navajo Nation Rio San José Water Rights Settlement Act.
Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Amendments;
The Technical Corrections to the Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects Act, Taos Pueblo Indian Water Rights Settlement Act, and Aamodt Litigation Settlement Act;
“I’m proud to fight for these bills to finally unlock critical water infrastructure funding from these water rights settlements and ensure Tribes have the resources to use the water they own,” said Heinrich. “These settlements are supported by all parties involved, including Tribal and non-Tribal communities. Congress should pass these urgently needed bills to help communities manage their precious and limited water resources.”
“Water rights are part of the federal trust responsibility for our Tribal communities,” said Luján, a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. “I’m proud to have helped advance this critical legislation, allowing our Tribal communities to promote water security and complete much-needed water infrastructure projects. I’m particularly proud that my legislation to amend the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project has advanced, ensuring the resources and time needed to deliver clean drinking water to communities in northwestern New Mexico. These pieces of legislation will help fulfill our trust responsibility and promote water security for Tribes and Pueblos, as well as non-Tribal users, in New Mexico.”
“This legislation upholds our trust responsibility to Tribes and helps bring certainty to disputes about water across the Southwest. The settlements included in these bills secure clean, reliable water for Navajo Nation, Jicarilla Apache Nation, 11 pueblos, and the rural communities that are their neighbors across New Mexico,” said Leger Fernández. “It is with great expectation that I reintroduce this legislation which reflects decades of negotiation and collaboration. We must pass these bills so the scarce water resources our communities need to thrive for generations to come are available to all.”
“In New Mexico, we know water is life,” said Stansbury. “That’s why these Tribal Water Settlement bills are so important. These pieces of legislation will give water rights back to our Tribes and Pueblos, ensuring the federal government upholds our Trust and Treaty Responsibilities. Indigenous people have been stewards of the land and water since time immemorial, and now is the time for them to lead these efforts.”
“New Mexicans know the importance of safe and reliable water access, and today’s progress brings us one step closer to securing these fundamental resources for our Tribal communities. I’ll continue to honor my commitment to our Tribes and Pueblos to ensure they have the water infrastructure they need to thrive,” said Vasquez.
The Rio San José and Rio Jemez Water Rights Settlements Act is led by Heinrich and Leger Fernández. Luján, Stansbury, and Vasquez are original cosponsors. The bill would implement two fund-based water settlements: one between the Pueblos of Jemez and Zia, the United States, the State of New Mexico, and non-Tribal parties; and another between the Pueblos of Acoma and Laguna, the United States, the State of New Mexico, and non-Tribal parties. The settlements are strongly supported by all parties involved.
Heinrich and Leger Fernández previously introduced this legislation in March 2023. The bill received a hearing and was reported out of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in December 2023. The House version of this bill received a legislative hearing in the House Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee in July 2024.
Read the full bill text here.
The Ohkay Owingeh Rio Chama Water Rights Settlement Act is also led by Heinrich and Leger Fernández. Luján and Stansbury are original cosponsors. The bill establishes a trust fund to implement the negotiated settlement between the United States, the State of New Mexico, the City of Española, the Asociación de Acéquias Norteñas de Rio Arriba, El Rito Ditch Asociación, La Asociación de las Acéquias del Rio Tusas, Vallecitos y Ojo Caliente, the Rio de Chama Acéquia Association, and Ohkay Owingeh to settle the Pueblo’s water claims in the Rio Chama Basin. The funding will be used for Ohkay Owingeh’s development of water resources to ensure the Pueblo has appropriate water infrastructure to use the water that they have claim to in the basin.
Heinrich and Leger Fernández initially introduced the bill in June 2024. The bill then received a key hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in July 2024.
Read the full bill text here.
The Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act is led by Heinrich and Vasquez. Luján, Stansbury, and Leger Fernández are original cosponsors. The bill authorizes $685 million to support a trust for sustainable water management and infrastructure development that upholds the federal government’s trust responsibility while protecting the sacred Zuni Salt Lake. The bill ratifies the settlement between the federal government, State of New Mexico and Zuni Tribe that affirms their water rights for irrigation, livestock, storage, and domestic and other uses.
Heinrich and Vasquez initially introduced the bill in July 2024. The bill received a key hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in September 2024.
Read the full bill text here.
The Navajo Nation Rio San José Water Rights Settlement Act is led by Heinrich and Leger Fernández. Luján, Stansbury, and Vasquez are original cosponsors. This bill would approve the water rights settlement for the Navajo Nation as well as participating non-Tribal parties in the Rio San José watershed.
Heinrich and Leger Fernández initially introduced this bill in September 2024. The bill then received a key hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that same month.
Read the full bill text here.
The Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project Amendments is led by Luján and Leger Fernández. Heinrich and Stansbury are original cosponsors. The bill amends the Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project to ensure it has the resources and time needed to reach completion to deliver drinking water to northwestern New Mexico communities.
The Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project was first authorized as part of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which settled the Navajo Nation’s water rights in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico and funded the design and construction of the waterline to reach an estimated 250,000 people by the year 2040. Upon completion, the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project will provide a long-term, sustainable water supply from the San Juan River to roughly 43 Chapters on the eastern Navajo Nation, the southwestern portion of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, and the City of Gallup, which currently rely on a rapidly depleting groundwater supply of poor quality.
Luján, Leger Fernández, and Heinrich initially introduced the bill in June 2023. The bill was passed out of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in November 2023.
Read the full bill text here.
The Technical Corrections to the Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects Act, Taos Pueblo Indian Water Rights Settlement Act, and Aamodt Litigation Settlement Act is led by Luján and Leger Fernández. Heinrich and Stansbury are original cosponsors. This bill authorizes the appropriation of $6.3 million for the Navajo Nation Water Resources Development Fund; $7.8 million for the Taos Pueblo Water Development Fund; and $4.3 million for the Aamodt Settlement Pueblos’ Fund, which covers Nambé, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, and Tesuque Pueblos. It will support water resources development projects for the Tribes.
Luján and Leger Fernández initially introduced this bill in December 2023.
Read the full bill text here.
Strong demand and favourable export prices combined with new export opportunities in Europe and the Middle East will see New Zealand’s beef and lamb farmers add an extra $1.2 billion to their bank accounts this year as the primary sector helps to grow the economy, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay said during a farm visit in Canterbury today. “This is extremely positive news for sheep and beef farmers who have been doing it tough over the last six years,” Mr McClay says. “Red meat exports are forecast to grow by 13 per cent this year which will have a positive economic impact on many of our provincial towns. “New Zealand’s trade is extremely diversified with our network of FTAs offering exporters choices about where they send their products. For example, the newly enacted trade agreement with the European Union has seen goods exports to Europe increase by more than 24 per cent over the last year with sheep meat playing a big part in this growth.” Mr McClay says lamb prices have increased by 20 per cent over the last year and mutton prices up by 70 per cent. “It’s good to see farmers starting to receive recognition for what their high quality product is worth.” Total red meat exports are expected to reach $10.2 billion this year with increased demand from key markets seeking high quality, safe, grass-fed food and fibre from New Zealand. “New Zealand red meat is some of the safest environmentally friendly food produced on the planet. We can continue to meet our environmental and climate obligations without shutting down farms or sending jobs and production overseas.” Mr McClay says that the Government will continue to back sheep and beef farmers by reducing red tape and compliance costs and ensuring they can farm on a level playing field. “We have already announced a ban on full farm to forest conversions from entering the ETS on some of our most productive food producing land from 4 December last year and will shortly introduce legislation to Parliament to enact this decision. “The Government has set an ambitious goal of doubling exports by value in 10 years. It’s important to recognise that our hard-working sheep and beef farmers are doing their bit to grow the New Zealand economy.”
The Government is demonstrating its commitment to prioritising treaty settlements with the Te Korowai o Wainuiārua Claims Settlement Bill passing third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “It is a privilege to conclude eight years of negotiations between the Crown and the three central North Island iwi who comprise Te Korowai o Wainuiārua: Tamahaki, Tamakana and Uenuku ki Manganui-o-te-Ao, nā Tūkaihoro. “The settlement addresses the historical grievances endured by the three iwi, which include 19th century warfare and land purchased or taken for public works. “The settlement includes an agreed historical account, Crown acknowledgements of its historical breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and a Crown apology. Te Korowai o Wainuiārua will receive financial and commercial redress of $21.7 million, a cultural revitalisation fund of $6.85 million and cultural redress, including the return of 19 sites of cultural significance. “The settlement will contribute towards supporting the aspirations of Te Korowai o Wainuiārua. The redress will help the iwi to grow their economic base, provide housing for their whānau, develop their culture and enhance the natural environment. “The historical grievances of Te Korowai o Wainuiārua with the Crown relate to 19th century warfare and land purchased or taken for public works. That land was then used for the North Island Main Trunk railway, power generation projects and it was included in two National Parks. “This led to Te Korowai o Wainuiārua becoming virtually landless. “It is my hope that this settlement can form the basis of a positive future for the people of Te Korowai o Wainuiārua, and a renewed relationship with the Crown. “I want to acknowledge Te Korowai o Wainuiārua for working so tirelessly during the negotiations process to reach this significant milestone.” Copies of the Te Korowai o Wainuiārua Deed of Settlement are available at Te Tari Whakatau – Central Whanganui (Te Korowai o Wainuiārua)
The Te Korowai o Wainuiārua Claims Settlement Bill can be found at: Te Korowai o Wainuiārua Claims Settlement Bill 286-2 (2023), Government Bill – New Zealand Legislation
Source: United States Senator for Iowa Chuck Grassley
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is pushing the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide clear and accessible information on inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPFs) to better support patients and their families. While CMS has supported web-based tools to find and compare providers, the agency lacks a tool for comparing IPFs so that families can make fully-informed decisions.
“This is the kind of information that patients and their families care about…In all states, patients and their families deserve to have access to all IPF inspection/survey reports through a user-accessible website, no matter whether the survey was performed by a state or local survey agency, CMS, or an accrediting organization,” Grassley wrote.
Grassley is an outspoken advocate for improved oversight and transparency at health care facilities that care for vulnerable Americans, such as nursing homes and IPFs. His past work revealed that inspection reports are completely inaccessible to consumers in most states. Grassley has previously called for improving the quality of information available to the public about nursing homes. He’s also pushed for greater transparency of financial relationships between drug makers and providers and of the misuse of psychotropic drugs in nursing homes and foster youth.
“Currently, a search for an IPF on the Care Compare website yields little to no information that would allow a consumer to determine the safety of the facility…There is no information regarding assaults, abuses, suicides, and [unauthorized departures], particularly information regarding facilities that have had repeated and/or potentially preventable events. There is no information regarding Medicare Conditions of Participation violations, citations, penalties, or enforcement actions,” Grassley continued.
Grassley requested the agency provide details on plans to improve public access to IPF data and any possible barriers to CMS’s progress.
Text of the letter to Acting CMS Administrator Carlton follows:
February 28, 2025
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
The Honorable Stephanie Carlton
Acting Administrator
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Dear Acting Administrator Carlton:
I have long advocated for improved oversight and transparency at health care facilities that care for vulnerable Americans, such as nursing homes and inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPFs).[1] My oversight has resulted in improvements to the Nursing Home Care Compare website, which has been found to help consumers find their way to higher quality nursing homes and encourage providers to improve quality.[2] Yet, after more than twenty-five years of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) supporting web-based tools for consumers to find and compare providers, the mechanism for comparing IPFs is still lacking. [3] Like nursing home residents, psychiatric inpatients are at high risk for abuse, neglect, and harm, and the public deserves to be able to readily access information regarding quality, safety, and regulatory citations at IPFs in all states.[4]
According to a recent report, it took weeks to compile information regarding safety and regulatory issues at two IPFs because there is no place to readily access that information.[5] The report noted that, “the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has a robust database of hospital inspections, quality of care and staff ratings. However, when you try to search many inpatient mental health hospitals, every category says information is not available.”[6] In response to questions about the lack of information, the prior administration stated that “although CMS doesn’t give star ratings for psychiatric hospitals, consumers can still find valuable quality information by using [other] CMS resources.”[7] However, a review of those resources found them to be insufficient.[8]
Currently, a search for an IPF on the Care Compare website yields little to no information that would allow a consumer to determine the safety of the facility. After searching for an IPF on Care Compare, the website launches a webpage showing that the facility’s “Overall Star Rating” and “Patient Survey Rating” are not available.[9] Under a drop down, Care Compare primarily presents process measures, including COVID-19 vaccinations for providers, influenza vaccinations and body mass index screenings for patients.[10] While there is information regarding potentially harmful mechanical restraints and seclusions, there is no data regarding physical holds and chemical restraints, which surveyors have also found to be used inappropriately and with incorrect technique.[11] There is no information regarding assaults, abuses, suicides, and elopements (unauthorized departures), particularly information regarding facilities that have had repeated and/or potentially preventable events. [12] There is no information regarding Medicare Conditions of Participation violations, citations, penalties, or enforcement actions.[13] This is the kind of information that patients and their families care about.
While Care Compare provides access to inspection reports for nursing homes, this capability is missing from the hospital section of the website.[14] In all states, patients and their families deserve to have access to all IPF inspection/survey reports through a user-accessible website, no matter whether the survey was performed by a state or local survey agency, CMS, or an accrediting organization, such as The Joint Commission. While some hospital inspection reports may be accessible through the CMS 2567 Statement of Deficiencies data file, this is not a consumer-facing or readily accessible resource.[15] Additionally, my past oversight work revealed that inspection reports from accrediting organizations are completely inaccessible to consumers in most states.[16] Despite my advocacy on the issue, in 2017, CMS reversed course on a proposal to require accrediting organizations to post provider survey reports on their public-facing websites, but noted that, “CMS is committed to ensuring that patients have the ability to review the findings used to determine that a facility meets the health and safety standards required for Medicare participation.”[17] Seven years later, it still doesn’t appear that patients, or even CMS, have the ability to readily conduct that review.[18] There also still appears to be incongruity between safety violations and accreditation.[19]
For Congress to understand CMS’s current actions to increase the relevance of information regarding IPFs on the Care Compare website as well as any barriers impeding CMS’s progress, please provide answers to the following questions no later than March 14, 2025.
Does CMS plan to take steps to improve how information regarding IPF quality, safety, and regulatory issues are displayed on Care Compare? If not, why not? If so, please describe.
Are there any barriers to displaying information regarding patient harm, including abuses, assaults, suicides, and elopements with harm, for IPFs on Care Compare?
Are there any barriers to displaying citations, safety violations, licensure suspensions or limitations, immediate jeopardy findings, Medicare program terminations, monetary penalties, enforcement actions, or any other remediation actions for IPFs on Care Compare?
Are there any barriers to integrating the CMS 2567 Statement of Deficiencies data file in a user-accessible way on Care Compare?
What surveys are included in the CMS 2567 Statement of Deficiencies data file and which surveys are excluded? For example, does the data file contain surveys conducted by all state and local survey agencies? Are there any circumstances in which the file would contain surveys conducted by accrediting organizations?
Why are the findings from the following surveys/inspections not included in the 2567 Statement of Deficiencies data file posted on the CMS Hospital website?[20] What are the barriers to making the following reports accessible on Care Compare?
The survey that corresponds with the nine patient rapes at Options Behavioral Health Hospital.[21]
The February 2022 survey with immediate jeopardy findings for Brynn Marr Hospital.[22]
The survey that corresponds with the sexual assault at Psychiatric Institute of Washington.[23]
The survey conducted at Holly Hill Hospital after the escape of five children in March 2024.[24]
The survey that corresponds with Aurora Vista Del Mar’s loss of permission to admit involuntary patients.[25]
The survey that corresponds with the suicide at Morton Plant North Bay Hospital Recovery Center.[26]
How does CMS assess the usability and relevance of the information regarding IPFs on the Care Compare website from the perspective of patients and their families?
How does CMS validate the data currently contained in Care Compare for IPFs? For example, what was CMS’s process for validating Harborview Medical Center’s 2022 restraint rate of 22.44 hours per 1000 patient care hours, when the national average was 0.32, and the 2022 seclusion rate of 81.73, when the national average was 0.36?[27]
How does the data currently contained in Care Compare for IPFs inform the survey/inspection process? For example, have surveyors examined the restraint and seclusion practices at Harborview Medical Center?[28]
How does CMS “ensur[e] that patients have the ability to review the findings used to determine that a facility meets the health and safety standards required for Medicare participation,” including when those findings come from accrediting organizations?[29]
What role does CMS play in the accreditation process for IPFs? How do the deficiencies listed in the CMS 2567 Statement of Deficiencies data file factor into accreditation?
How does CMS partner with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) on the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting (IPFQR) program and ensure consistency between the IPFs listed on the Care Compare website and the IPFs listed on the FindTreatment.gov website?[30] How does CMS use data collected through the National Substance Use and Mental Health Services Survey (N-SUMHSS)?[31]
Thank you for your prompt review and response. If you have any questions, please contact my Judiciary Committee staff at (202) 224-5225.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary
[1] Press Release, Warren, Grassley Lead the Call for Greater Transparency in Nursing Home Ownership, Off. of Senator Charles E. Grassley (May 19, 2023), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/warren-grassley-lead-the-call-for-greater-transparency-in-nursing-home-ownership; Press Release, After Year-Long Push for Transparency In Nursing Homes, Grassley Urges Improvements to CMS’s Care Compare, Off. of Senator Charles E. Grassley (June 21, 2023), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/after-years-long-push-for-transparency-in-nursing-homes-grassley-urges-improvements-to-cmss-care-compare; Press Release, Grassley Welcomes CMS Action Following His Decades-Long Push to Increase Nursing Home Transparency, Off. of Senator Charles E. Grassley (Nov. 15, 2023), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-welcomes-cms-action-following-his-decades-long-push-to-increase-nursing-home-transparency; Press Release, Grassley: Alarming Pattern of Conduct Reported at UHS Facilities, Off. of Senator Charles E. Grassley (Dec. 18, 2017), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-alarming-pattern-conduct-reported-uhs-facilities.
[2] R. Tamara Konetzka, Kevin Yan, and Rachel Werner, Two Decades of Nursing Home Compare: What Have We Learned?, Medical Care Research and Review (June 13, 2020), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077558720931652?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed.
[3] Report, Nursing Homes: CMS Offers Useful Information on Website and Is Considering Additional Steps to Assess Underlying Data, Government Accountability Office, GAO-23-105312, (May 2023), https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105312.pdf.
[4] Morgan Shields, Maureen Stewart, and Kathleen Delaney, Patient Safety in Inpatient Psychiatry: A Remaining Frontier for Health Policy, Health Affairs (Nov. 18, 2018), https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.0718; Hospital Surveys with 2567 Statement of Deficiencies through 2024 Q3 data file, Hospital webpage, Ctrs. for Medicare & Medicaid Services (accessed Feb. 3, 2025), https://www.cms.gov/files/document/hospital-surveys-2567-statement-deficiencies-through-2024-q3.xlsx, (Surveyors described findings of abuse, neglect, or harm during numerous surveys listed in the 2567 Statement of Deficiencies data file, such as 6G7O11/October 16, 2023, 52U911/March 4, 2024, VN4211/June 13, 2024, QD1O11/January 6, 2021, ZX8G11/April 8, 2022, YMU211/June 7, 2021, SSIO11/February 23, 2023, 00IG11/June 10, 2022, P33211/April 10, 2024, RKRS11/October 5, 2022, and CYVY11/September 23, 2022).
[5] Randall Kerr, WRAL Investigates why the truth about mental health hospitals remains hidden, WRAL News (May 7, 2024), https://www.wral.com/story/wral-investigates-why-the-truth-about-mental-health-hospitals-remains-hidden/21418636/.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id, (As described by WRAL, “those resources included with the statement were a spreadsheet you could download, but can’t even decipher considering all of the categories, acronyms and codes that don’t necessarily reflect the actual quality of care. The other resource was the same online database that again has no information about the hospital’s performance.”).
[9] Care Compare entry for Aurora Vista Del Mar, Care Compare, Medicare.gov (accessed Feb. 3, 2025), available at https://www.medicare.gov/care-compare/details/hospital/054077?id=a96bf388-2fd6-460f-bca4-d70b1eeb862d&city=Ventura&state=CA&zipcode=.
[10] Psychiatric unit services drop-down for Aurora Vista Del Mar, Care Compare, Medicare.gov (accessed Feb. 3, 2025), https://www.medicare.gov/care-compare/details/hospital/054077?id=a96bf388-2fd6-460f-bca4-d70b1eeb862d&city=Ventura&state=CA&zipcode=&measure=hospital-psychiatric-surveys.
[11] Surveys ZF7G11/June 4, 2024 and D0SD11/July 11, 2024, 2567 data file, supra note 4, (For example, during an inspection of Destiny Springs Healthcare in June 2024, surveyors found that “the Hospital failed to ensure staff did not utilize a chemical restraint as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience or retaliation for one (1) patient.” One month later, surveyors found that “the hospital failed to ensure restraints were conducted safely, resulting in Patient #1 suffering a fractured humerus.”).
[12] Ross Jones, Congressman, local leaders want answers over Detroit hospital patient abuse, suicide, ABC WXYZ Detroit (Oct. 10, 2024), https://www.wxyz.com/news/local-news/investigations/congressman-local-leaders-want-answers-over-detroit-hospital-patient-abuse-suicide; Surveys 366M11/June 6, 2024 and 31M611/July 3, 2024, 2567 data file, supra note 4, (In 2024, at Detroit Receiving Hospital, in the span of 73 days, two different female patients were sexually assaulted by two different male patients while sedated and confined to four-point restraints, which is a time when patients should be continuously monitored by staff, and another patient died by suicide in her room in the setting of missed safety checks.); Maddie Kirth, ‘Were they not trained?’ Family of missing Hammond Alzheimer’s patient demands hospital reform, Fox 8 (June 23, 2023), https://www.fox8live.com/2023/06/24/were-they-not-trained-family-missing-hammond-alzheimers-patient-demands-hospital-reform/; Survey 1UQQ11/June 21, 2023, 2567 data file, supra note 4, (In 2023, a patient with severe dementia was able to walk out of a locked unit at Oceans Behavioral Hospital of Hammond in Louisiana and was found dead in a field one day later. It took nearly an hour for staff to realize that the patient was gone and another ninety minutes to call 911.).
[13] Heather Catallo, ‘He didn’t deserve this.’ Patient dies after being restrained in psych ward, family speaks out, WXYZ (Dec. 19, 2024), https://www.wxyz.com/news/local-news/investigations/he-didnt-deserve-this-patient-dies-after-being-restrained-in-psych-ward-family-speaks-out; Medicare notice to the public regarding termination of Pontiac General Hospital effective November 24, 2024 (Nov. 8, 2024), https://www.cms.gov/files/document/michigan-pontiac-general-hospital-11/08/2024.pdf, (There is no information regarding Michigan’s Pontiac General Hospital’s termination from the Medicare program on November 24, 2024, after a patient died in the setting of improper restraint technique and a delayed and disorganized resuscitation effort.); Surveys R5UY11/March 22, 2024, 24E111/April 3, 2024, M4B411/June 6, 2024, QORQ11/July 31, 2024, and NB8H11/August 15, 2024, 2567 data file, supra note 4 (There is no information regarding the 30 deficiencies, including three condition-level deficiencies and two immediate jeopardy findings, listed in the CMS 2567 Statement of Deficiencies data file for Oceans Behavioral Hospital of Hammond in Louisiana during the first three quarters of 2024.); Alex Lubben, State gives troubled Mandeville psychiatric hospital one last chance to stay open, NOLA (Apr. 19, 2024), https://www.nola.com/news/northshore/what-is-the-future-of-northlake-behavioral-health-system/article_e5218958-f90a-11ee-ab91-072e26520f37.html, (There is no information regarding Northlake Behavioral Health System’s reported agreement with the Louisiana Department of Health to “pay an $18,000 fine, hire a consultant, cover the cost of all future LDH inspections, and suffer additional penalties for any repeat deficiencies found in the course of those inspections” in order to maintain a provisional license.).
[14] GAO-23-105312, supra note 3.
[15] 2567 data file, supra note 4.
[16] Press Release, Grassley Presses Agency On Statutory Changes Needed to Make Hospital Inspection Reports Public, Off. of Senator Charles E. Grassley (Sep. 20, 2017), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-presses-agency-statutory-changes-needed-make-hospital-inspection-reports.
[17] Charles Ornstein, Secret Hospital Inspections May Become Public At Last, ProPublica (April 18, 2017), https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-hospital-inspections-may-become-public-at-last; Fact Sheet, Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 Medicare Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long Term Acute Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective Payment System Final Rule(CMS-1677-F), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Aug. 2, 2017), https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/fiscal-year-fy-2018-medicare-hospital-inpatient-prospective-payment-system-ipps-and-long-term-acute-0; Charles Ornstein, Accreditors Can Keep Their Hospital Inspection Reports Secret, Feds Decide, ProPublica (Aug. 3, 2017), https://www.propublica.org/article/accreditors-can-keep-their-hospital-inspection-reports-secret-feds-decide; Letter from Senator Charles E. Grassley to Administrator Seema Verma, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Sep. 18, 2017), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2017-09-18%20CEG%20to%20CMS%20(Joint%20Commission).pdf.
[18] Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Proposed Rule, Medicare Program; Strengthening Oversight of Accrediting Organizations (AOs) and Preventing AO Conflict of Interest, and Related Provisions, Section G, Federal Register (Feb. 15, 2024), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/02/15/2024-02137/medicare-program-strengthening-oversight-of-accrediting-organizations-aos-and-preventing-ao-conflict#footnote-4-p12000.
[19] Press Release, Grassley, Stark hold officials accountable for improper approval of specialty hospital in West Texas, U.S. Comm. on Finance (Mar. 6, 2007), https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/grassley-stark-hold-officials-accountable-for-improper-approval-of-specialty-hospital-in-west-texas; Letter from Senator Charles E. Grassley to Mr. Mark Chassin, The Joint Commission (Apr. 14, 2017), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2017-04-14%20CEG%20to%20Joint%20Commission%20(UHS).pdf; Stephanie Armour, Hospital Watchdog Gives Seal of Approval, Even After Problems Emerge, The Wall Street Journal (Sep. 8, 2017), https://www.wsj.com/articles/watchdog-awards-hospitals-seal-of-approval-even-after-problems-emerge-1504889146; Surveys 2DCB11/March 5, 2024, S6IC11/June 13, 2024, WKNI11/July 12, 2024, 7VB511/April 11, 2024, DICQ11/July 12, 2024, ZF7G11/June 4, 2024, and D0SD11/July 11, 2024, 2567 data file, supra note 4; Search for Mesa Springs, Crestwyn Behavioral Health, Del Amo Hospital, and Destiny Springs Healthcare on The Joint Commission’s “Find Accredited Organizations” webpage, The Joint Commission (accessed Feb. 11, 2025), https://www.jointcommission.org/who-we-are/who-we-work-with/find-accredited-organizations/#q=mesa%20springs&numberOfResults=25, https://www.jointcommission.org/who-we-are/who-we-work-with/find-accredited-organizations/#q=Crestwyn%20Behavioral%20Health%20&numberOfResults=25, https://www.jointcommission.org/who-we-are/who-we-work-with/find-accredited-organizations/#q=Del%20Amo%20Hospital&numberOfResults=25, https://www.jointcommission.org/who-we-are/who-we-work-with/find-accredited-organizations/#q=Destiny%20Springs%20Healthcare&numberOfResults=25, (For example, Mesa Springs in Texas is currently shown as having a gold seal on The Joint Commission website, while the hospital had 14 condition-level deficiencies across three surveys listed in the CMS 2567 Statement of Deficiencies data file for the first three quarters of 2024. Crestwyn Behavioral Health in Tennessee with four condition-level citations in the first three quarters of 2024, Del Amo Hospital in California with three condition-level citations, and Destiny Springs Healthcare in Arizona with three condition-level citations are also currently shown as having Joint Commission accreditation.).
[20] 2567 data file, supra note 4.
[21] Joe Ulery, Whistleblower exposes dangers at Indiana facility, Public News Service (Dec. 18, 2024), https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2024-12-18/mental-health/whistleblower-exposes-dangers-at-indiana-facility/a94122-1.
[22] Letter from the Ctrs. for Medicare & Medicaid to Universal Health Services regarding notification of possible termination from the Medicare program (Mar. 27, 2023), https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Brynn-Marr-Hospital-CCN-344016-90-day-3-27-2023.signed-002-3.pdf; Taylor Knopf, NC psych hospital failed to provide ‘safe and therapeutic’ environment, feds say, NC Health News (May 10, 2023), https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2023/05/10/nc-psych-hospital-failed-to-provide-safe-and-therapeutic-environment-feds-say/.
[23] Peter Herman, Psychiatric health aide in D.C. charged with sexual abuse of a patient, The Washington Post (Dec. 21, 2023), available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/21/sexual-assault-dc-psychiatric/.
[24] Heidi Kirk, WRAL Investigates: Holly Hill violated standards of care that could’ve prevented patient escapes, inspection says, WRAL News (July 15, 2024), available at https://www.wral.com/story/wral-investigates-holly-hill-violated-standards-of-care-that-could-ve-prevented-patient-escapes-inspection-says/21526230/.
[25] Nick Welsh, Santa Barbara County’s Psych-Bed Pinch Tightens as Key Mental-Health Safety Valve Shuts Down, Santa Barbara Independent (Nov. 1, 2023), https://www.independent.com/2023/11/01/santa-barbara-countys-psych-bed-pinch-tightens-as-key-mental-health-safety-valve-shuts-down/.
[26] Adam Walser, Florida grandmother outraged after 13-year-old dies by suicide inside mental hospital, ABC Action News (July 11, 2023), https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/lutz-grandmother-outraged-after-13-year-old-commits-suicide-inside-mental-hospital.
[27] “Inpatient psychiatric facility quality measure data – by facility” data set, Ctrs. for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Oct. 30, 2024), https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/dataset/q9vs-r7wp; “Inpatient psychiatric facility quality measure data – national” data set, Ctrs. for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Oct. 30, 2024), https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/dataset/s5xg-sys6.
[28] Id.
[29] Fact sheet, supra note 17.
[30] Mental health and substance use treatment locator website, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admin. (accessed Feb. 11, 2025), https://findtreatment.gov/locator.
[31] National Substance Use and Mental Health Services Survey, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admin. (accessed Feb. 11, 2025), https://info.nsumhss.samhsa.gov/.
Heavy restrictions on the sale of vapes will soon be in place, but some vape companies are already searching for loopholes in the law.
The Asthma and Respiratory Foundation is calling out vape retailers for their blatant attempts to bypass the new laws aimed at protecting our tamariki.
Between March and June, a flurry of new laws will take effect, including the ban of disposable vapes, a ban on displaying products (in store and online), and a ban on discounts and giveaways.
The Foundation, however, is aware of some vape retailers exploring website redesigns and new customer engagement strategies to continue marketing their products despite the law changes.
Foundation Chief Executive Ms Letitia Harding says any attempt to undermine the regulations will only reinforce the need for stronger enforcement.
“Vape companies have been given clear rules to follow, and yet some are already looking for loopholes.”
While the Foundation supported the new laws, it urged the Government to invest in enforcement so they have the intended impact of reducing youth access, limiting exposure, and preventing nicotine addiction in a new generation, Ms Harding says.
“We have been calling for tighter restrictions since 2017, so it is good to finally see many of our recommendations come into law, including banning in-front-of-store window advertising and product display by retailers.”
“However, the Government can’t drop the ball and let retailers dodge the new laws.”
In addition to the new laws, the Foundation wants the Government to halt the establishment of further Specialist Vape Retailers (SVRs), limit the nicotine content of all vape products to 20 mg/mL and re-look at the prescription model.
Global data released from the World Energy Council today highlights urgent concern for affordable energy and the importance of future energy infrastructure.
The BusinessNZ Energy Council (BEC) is New Zealand’s representative to the World Energy Council. Executive Director Tina Schirr says more than 3,000 energy leaders from more than 100 countries participated in theWorld Energy Issues Monitor 2025, a survey providing critical insights into the challenges facing the energy sector at home and abroad.
“New Zealand is not alone in its desire for more affordable and reliable energy. This year’s Monitor shows this is the number one growing concern for businesses and households around the world.
“The report also identifies areas which require urgent action including energy storage, grid upgrades, and climate mitigation. These infrastructure and climate issues are crucial for energy security and economic growth.
“While New Zealand shares many global concerns – including the need for economic growth alongside energy transition, key differences emerge in areas like supply chain disruptions and the development of future fuels.
“The World Energy Issues Monitor is a valuable tool for understanding the key uncertainties and priorities shaping energy strategies worldwide. BEC looks forward to the release of regional data in May, which will offer more detailed insights into New Zealand’s current situation.”
The BusinessNZ Network including BusinessNZ, EMA, Business Central, Business Canterbury and Business South, represents and provides services to thousands of businesses, small and large, throughout New Zealand.
Consumer NZ is calling on the Commerce Commission to consider a ban on card payment surcharges due to growing concerns about excessive and hidden fees.
While the Commission is considering lowering interchange fees – to reduce merchants’ costs for accepting card payments, – Consumer says there’s no guarantee this will reduce card surcharges for consumers, and that should be the priority.
Currently, there are no regulations in New Zealand on surcharges, only guidelines. The guidelines recommend surcharges be transparent, avoidable and not excessive. Unfortunately, these recommendations are often ignored, to the detriment of shoppers.
“The surcharging situation in New Zealand is a mess. We have received hundreds of complaints showing merchants are not complying with the guidelines. It’s time to introduce new surcharge rules,” says Consumer acting head of research and advocacy, Jessica Walker.
Although the Commission has said it will consider some form of surcharge regulation, an outright ban doesn’t appear to be one of the options being considered. Yet Consumer thinks a ban would be a simple and effective solution, with the benefits outweighing the risks.
“Less thought would be required about what card to use, whether to swipe, insert or tap; what the surcharge amount is and whether there’s a way to avoid the surcharge.
“You could just leave the house with your phone in your pocket, knowing you wouldn’t have to pay a hefty surcharge for the convenience of not carrying any cards. A ban makes things simpler for merchants too,” Walker says.
Issues with surcharging
Complaints to Consumer about surcharges include:
Excessive fees: Merchants are charging well over what it costs them to accept the card payment. In the worst cases, card payment surcharges have exceeded 20%. The Commission estimates New Zealanders are paying up to $65 million per year in excessive surcharges, with Mastercard estimating this figure to be $90 million.
Lack of transparency: Some merchants don’t mention the fact they add surcharges. Others have terminals that simply state “surcharge applies”, without specifying the amount.
Fixed fees: Some merchants charge flat fees rather than percentages, which don’t always reflect their actual costs.
Hidden fees: Additional costs, like service fees, are often bundled with surcharges, confusing consumers.
To address these issues, Consumer is calling on the Commission to consider a ban on surcharges.
The benefits of a surcharge ban
Transparency: A surcharge ban would eliminate unclear and hidden fees, allowing consumers to more easily compare prices.
Consistency: Consumers would have a consistent experience across merchants, with no nasty surprises at the counter.
Simplicity: A ban would be easy for consumers and businesses to understand and easy for the Commission to enforce.
Fairer: A ban would incentivise merchants to search for better card deals that allow them to reduce their payment costs. While surcharging is allowed, there’s no incentive for merchants to do this. Lower interchange fees also mean businesses could more easily absorb payment costs.
Encourages competition: Transparent pricing would allow consumers to shop around more easily, fostering competition.
Alignment with other jurisdictions: The United Kingdom and European Union have banned surcharges, proving such a ban can work.
The case for banning surcharges in New Zealand is strong.
Consumer lodged a submission with the Commission this week supporting further interchange regulation and calling for the Commission to consider a ban on surcharges.
Firefighters have worked through the night at the scene of a fire at a metal recycling plant in Papakura and are making good progress.
Crews have been rotated at the fireground, with seven fire appliances including three aerials still in action.
Fire and Emergency Assistant Commander Katie Pocock says that “firefighters have worked diligently on the deep-seated burning” in piles of metal waste up to 10 metres high. The piles are being pulled apart by heavy machinery.
She says that due to the amount of water firefighters are using, there is “more steam than smoke” coming from the site now. The warning for people to stay inside and avoid exposure to smoke is no longer in force.
Consumer NZ is calling on the Commerce Commission to consider a ban on card payment surcharges due to growing concerns about excessive and hidden fees.
While the Commission is considering lowering interchange fees – to reduce merchants’ costs for accepting card payments, – Consumer says there’s no guarantee this will reduce card surcharges for consumers, and that should be the priority.
Currently, there are no regulations in New Zealand on surcharges, only guidelines. The guidelines recommend surcharges be transparent, avoidable and not excessive. Unfortunately, these recommendations are often ignored, to the detriment of shoppers.
“The surcharging situation in New Zealand is a mess. We have received hundreds of complaints showing merchants are not complying with the guidelines. It’s time to introduce new surcharge rules,” says Consumer acting head of research and advocacy, Jessica Walker.
Although the Commission has said it will consider some form of surcharge regulation, an outright ban doesn’t appear to be one of the options being considered. Yet Consumer thinks a ban would be a simple and effective solution, with the benefits outweighing the risks.
“Less thought would be required about what card to use, whether to swipe, insert or tap; what the surcharge amount is and whether there’s a way to avoid the surcharge.
“You could just leave the house with your phone in your pocket, knowing you wouldn’t have to pay a hefty surcharge for the convenience of not carrying any cards. A ban makes things simpler for merchants too,” Walker says.
Issues with surcharging
Complaints to Consumer about surcharges include:
Excessive fees: Merchants are charging well over what it costs them to accept the card payment. In the worst cases, card payment surcharges have exceeded 20%. The Commission estimates New Zealanders are paying up to $65 million per year in excessive surcharges, with Mastercard estimating this figure to be $90 million.
Lack of transparency: Some merchants don’t mention the fact they add surcharges. Others have terminals that simply state “surcharge applies”, without specifying the amount.
Fixed fees: Some merchants charge flat fees rather than percentages, which don’t always reflect their actual costs.
Hidden fees: Additional costs, like service fees, are often bundled with surcharges, confusing consumers.
To address these issues, Consumer is calling on the Commission to consider a ban on surcharges.
The benefits of a surcharge ban
Transparency: A surcharge ban would eliminate unclear and hidden fees, allowing consumers to more easily compare prices.
Consistency: Consumers would have a consistent experience across merchants, with no nasty surprises at the counter.
Simplicity: A ban would be easy for consumers and businesses to understand and easy for the Commission to enforce.
Fairer: A ban would incentivise merchants to search for better card deals that allow them to reduce their payment costs. While surcharging is allowed, there’s no incentive for merchants to do this. Lower interchange fees also mean businesses could more easily absorb payment costs.
Encourages competition: Transparent pricing would allow consumers to shop around more easily, fostering competition.
Alignment with other jurisdictions: The United Kingdom and European Union have banned surcharges, proving such a ban can work.
The case for banning surcharges in New Zealand is strong.
Consumer lodged a submission with the Commission this week supporting further interchange regulation and calling for the Commission to consider a ban on surcharges.
ASB has appointed Kristen Ashby as its new Head of Food & Fibre, a newly established role within its Rural Corporate Banking team.
Kristen joins ASB from Fonterra where she was most recently Director of Capital Strategy. Starting her career as a Chartered Accountant, Kristen has worked across a variety of roles at organisations including Fonterra, Turners & Growers and Goodman Fielder.
Born and bred in Waikato, Kristen’s rural upbringing and breadth of experience mean she brings a unique perspective to this role. She is passionate about helping Kiwi businesses to reach their goals, as well as future proofing for tomorrow.
Kristen says, “I’m excited to be joining the team at such a crucial time. I see so much opportunity in the Food & Fibre sector and feel privileged to help build on the work already being done at ASB.
As a bank we can make a real difference for our rural communities, uplift regional economies and put New Zealand-grown products on the map globally.
I’m looking forward to getting on the road soon to meet our customers and broader industry participants to tackle these ambitious goals.”
ASB General Manager Rural Banking Aidan Gent says “Kristen is a passionate leader with a proven track record of success, genuinely interested in making a difference for our customers.
We are so excited to have her on board in this pivotal role as we bring our full-service banking proposition to the Food & Fibre sector – a critical component of our economy.
With Food & Fibre making up more than 80% of our global exports, there is significant opportunity in this sector. This is not just farmers – it is the innovators looking at new foods & fibres and future uses of land, processors, logistics companies moving goods, all the way through to the electrician in Gore fixing a woolshed.
Food & Fibre represents an opportunity to truly accelerate the social, environmental and financial progress of New Zealanders.”
Kristen Ashby started in her new role in February 2025.
The Kate Sheppard National Memorial to Women’s Suffrage has been entered on the New Zealand Heritage List Rārangi Kōrero as a Category 1 historic place.
The 2.1-metre-high bas-relief sculpture depicts a life-sized Kate Sheppard, flanked by five other influential suffragists. The artwork was created for the 1993 commemorations of the momentous achievement of New Zealand women gaining the right to vote one hundred years earlier.
The creation of the memorial was a true group effort, much like the original 19 th century suffrage campaign. In June 1990, 44 women representing many women’s groups and organisations met to discuss how they could celebrate the upcoming centenary. One outcome was the establishment of the Kate Sheppard Memorial Appeal Committee.
The national memorial was partially funded through a public campaign. Supporters of the fundraising appeal had their names recorded on a Time Capsule Scroll (reminiscent of the suffrage petition) which was placed inside the Memorial. Fundraising was so successful that there were extra funds which established a Kate Sheppard Memorial award.
The Kate Sheppard Memorial Appeal committee developed a clear concept and invited sculptors to submit a design. They were looking for a bas-relief and asked that there should be “a deeper relief and a focal position for Kate Sheppard whose importance in the fight for women’s suffrage cannot be exaggerated.”
The committee eventually selected South Canterbury artist, Margriet Windhausen. In her Maungati studio, Windhausen first sculpted the work with clay, from which she made a polyester resin mould, which was filled with wax to become the positive impression. The impression was then cut into pieces for casting at a foundry in Invercargill. After casting, these were then welded together, cleaned and sandblasted. Windhausen said of the six main figures at the centre, “I wanted the faces and the stance of the figures to be timeless for I believe it’s important these women should be able to speak to us today as contemporary women… They both look out at the audience and beyond into the future.”
Although Kate Sheppard takes the central spot, the other five women flanking her demonstrate the shared nature of the suffrage campaigns. These women are: Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia, of Taitokerau who requested the vote for women from Te Kotahitanga, the Māori Parliament; Amey Daldy, a foundation member of the Auckland Women’s Christian Temperance Union and president of the Auckland Franchise League; Ada Wells, of Christchurch, who campaigned vigorously for equal educational opportunities for girls and women; Harriet Morison, of Dunedin, vice president of the Tailoresses’ Union and a powerful advocate for working women; and Helen Nicol, who pioneered the women’s franchise campaign in Dunedin. The text panels identify other key individuals.
The presence of Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia is significant. Her inclusion reflects the broader story of the impacts of colonial settlement on Māori. While Māori women and Pākehā women shared similar concerns in late 19th century New Zealand, such as the harms of alcohol, their situations differed. Many Māori women saw their prior rights eroding under colonial rule. Land issues were a key problem, and Māori women were vocal in raising concerns that so much of their lands and resources was being taken into colonial ownership. When Te Kotahitanga, the Māori Parliament, was established in 1892, Māori women were involved and able to speak from its inception.
Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia brought forward a motion to Te Kotahitanga that women be allowed to vote and stand in the Māori Parliament in 1893, but deferral of the motion meant this wasn’t put in place until 1897. By this time, all women – Māori and Pākehā – had already been granted the right to vote in national elections.
For Ngāi Tūāhuriri and for the descendants of Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia, the memorial is a maumahara, a memorial to wāhine toa who successfully helped shape the end of both Māori and Pākehā women’s suffrage in Aotearoa New Zealand’s colonial history.
Heritage Listing Advisor at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, Robyn Burgess, says, “There’s something very inviting about this memorial. In Christchurch there are only two memorials of women, and one of those is Queen Victoria, up high on a column, representing the empire. Unlike the male statues, where men are presented larger-than-life, up high on plinth, the Kate Sheppard National Memorial to Women’s Suffrage is at ground level, near life-size and accessible. Its position encourages visitors to interact closely with the sculpture.”
The site of the memorial, tucked away behind the Municipal Chambers on Oxford Terrace, might seem too modest a spot for a national memorial. But the location has some very significant connections. The first colonial timber building on the Municipal Chambers site had been the Land Office or Survey Office, built in the early 1850s. This Land Office, like others around the country, was associated with Pākehā land acquisition through colonial settlement, which was one of the reasons why Māori women sought to become active in the political sphere.
Kate Sheppard and her husband Walter would also have been directly associated with the timber municipal buildings and its 1886 brick replacement. Ada Wells, one of the women on the memorial, entered this brick building as the first woman member of the Christchurch City Council in 1917. In 1921 Elizabeth McCombs entered this same municipal building to begin a 12-year term on the Christchurch City Council, subsequently becoming, in 1933, New Zealand’s first woman Member of Parliament. The memorial also looks across to the Canterbury Provincial Chambers Building, where the National Council of Women held their first meeting in 1896 and planned their lobbying for further reforms.
The memorial sculpture was unveiled on 19 September 1993 in a special ceremony attended by up to 3000 people. As Governor General, Dame Catherine Tizard unveiled the memorial, doves were released, accompanied by choirs. The crowds then enjoyed a street party along Worcester Boulevard.
Today, the Kate Sheppard National Memorial to Women’s Suffrage is a place of gathering and reflection. Each year on Suffrage Day, 19 September, the Christchurch Branch of the National Council of Women still hold a celebration commemoration. “We feel that this is the best place to reflect and to acknowledge the many women who have gone before us, who have worked to advocate for issues that are important to women and girls in our communities. Kate and the other women on the memorial inspire us to keep pushing towards our aim of true gender equality,” says the co-president of Christchurch branch of NCW, Louise Tapper. “It is always an honour to be able to lay white camellias, the symbol of women’s suffrage, at the foot of the memorial each Suffrage Day.”
Robyn Burgess, who conducted the research for the heritage recognition has been impressed at the positive response from the public. “We have had 18 submissions, all of them positive, and many from organisations and interest groups. People see this as a very significant memorial not only for Christchurch, but for all of Aotearoa New Zealand.”
Tairangahia a tua whakarere; Tātakihia ngā reanga o āmuri ake nei | Honouring the past; Inspiring the future.
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is the leading national historic heritage agency for Aotearoa New Zealand, operating as an autonomous Crown Entity. Our mission is to identify, protect, and promote heritage – Kia mōhiotia atu, kia tiakina, kia hāpaingia ā tātau taonga tuku iho.
We actively engage with communities, foster partnerships, and provide valuable resources to support those who are passionate about exploring, learning, and connecting with our rich cultural heritage. For more information, please visit our website atwww.heritage.org.nz
The Interim Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the seven months ended 31 January 2025 were released by the Treasury today.
The January results are reported against forecasts based on the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2024 (HYEFU 2024), published on 17 December 2024, and the results for the same period for the previous year.
Year to date
Full Year
January 2025 Actual1 $m
January 2025 HYEFU 2024 Forecast1 $m
Variance2 HYEFU 2024 $m
Variance HYEFU 2024 %
June 2025 HYEFU 2024 Forecast3 $m
Core Crown tax revenue
70,193
69,583
610
0.9
120,623
Core Crown revenue
77,804
77,122
682
0.9
134,038
Core Crown expenses
80,125
80,717
592
0.7
144,638
Core Crown residual cash
(5,051)
(4,337)
(714)
(16.5)
(16,610)
Net core Crown debt4
180,603
180,669
66
–
192,810
as a percentage of GDP
42.8%
42.8%
45.1%
Gross debt
203,070
195,257
(7,812)
(4.0)
206,558
as a percentage of GDP
48.2%
46.3%
48.3%
OBEGAL excluding ACC (OBEGALx)
(3,669)
(5,041)
1,372
27.2
(12,868)
OBEGAL
(4,994)
(6,233)
1,239
19.9
(17,317)
Operating balance (excluding minority interests)
1,087
(2,223)
3,310
148.9
(10,161)
Net worth
188,883
185,654
3,229
1.7
177,492
as a percentage of GDP
44.8%
44.0%
41.5%
Using the most recently published GDP (for the year ended 30 September 2024) of $421,702 million (Source: Stats NZ).
Favourable variances against forecast have a positive sign and unfavourable variances against forecast have a negative sign.
Using HYEFU 2024 forecast GDP for the year ending 30 June 2025 of $427,252 million (Source: The Treasury).
Net core Crown debt excludes the NZS Fund and core Crown advances. Net core Crown debt may fluctuate during the year largely reflecting the timing of tax receipts.
Core Crown tax revenue, at $70.2 billion, was $0.6 billion (0.9%) higher than forecast with the largest variance relating to GST being $0.3 billion (1.9%) above forecast.
Core Crown expenses, at $80.1 billion, were $0.6 billion (0.7%) below forecast. This variance is mostly timing in nature and was spread across a range of functional spending areas.
The operating balance before gains and losses excluding ACC (OBEGALx) was a deficit of $3.7 billion, $1.4 billion less than the forecast deficit. When including the revenue and expenses of ACC, the OBEGAL deficit was $5.0 billion, $1.2 billion less than the forecast deficit.
The operating balance surplus of $1.1 billion was $3.3 billion better than the deficit forecast. This reflected both the favourable OBEGAL result and favourable valuation movements. Net losses on non-financial instruments were $1.6 billion less than forecast (largely owing to a $0.6 billion net actuarial gain on the ACC outstanding claims liability compared to a forecast net loss of $1.0 billion), partly offset by net gains on financial instruments being $0.2 billion above forecast.
The core Crown residual cash deficit of $5.1 billion was $0.7 billion more than the deficit forecast and was largely owing to lower tax receipts.
Net core Crown debt at $180.6 billion (42.8% of GDP) was broadly in line with forecast ($180.7 billion or 42.8% of GDP). While the core Crown residual cash deficit was higher than forecast, its impact on net core Crown debt was more than offset by valuation changes and higher issuance of circulating currency.
Gross debt at $203.1 billion (48.2% of GDP) was $7.8 billion higher than forecast, largely owing to higher than forecast unsettled trades, derivatives in loss and the issuances of Euro Commercial Paper driven by short-term cash requirements. However, this increase in gross debt was broadly offset by a corresponding increase in financial assets, therefore this has not flowed through to the net core Crown debt measure or to net worth.
Net worth at $188.9 billion (44.8% of GDP) was $3.2 billion higher than forecast largely reflecting the operating balance result.
Top Asia experts from across New Zealand and the Asia region will meet in Auckland from 9 to 11 March to share their perspectives on New Zealand’s Asia relations.
The experts are part of the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Honorary Advisers Network and include current and former ministers, academics, businesspeople and other sector leaders.
As a network, they help to guide the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s work and support its mission of being one of New Zealand’s leading non-profit, non-partisan providers of Asia insights and experiences that help New Zealanders to excel in Asia.
During the two-day meeting, members of the network will meet with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Minister Winston Peters (who is also chair of the network) and a range of New Zealand’s top public and private sector leaders.
Attendees from Asia will include key figures such as Dr Ng Eng Hen, Singapore’s Minister for Defence; Ms Heekyung Jo Min, Executive Vice President of major Asian media and entertainment company CJ Cheiljedang; trade expert and former ASEAN Secretariat head Dr Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria; and Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Thailand’s leading international relations authority.
“The advisers are vital advocates for New Zealand in Asia, bringing deep expertise and longstanding ties. As New Zealand’s relationships with Asia evolve and as the Foundation’s work develops across the region, their contributions become even more critical,” says Foundation Chief Executive, Suz Jessep.
“At a time of profound change in our region, this in-person meeting provides an opportunity to really unpick how other small and medium sized countries are responding to challenges and opportunities in Asia and to hear free and frank assessments from trusted advisers who know us well and who want to see New Zealand succeed.” Jessep noted.
The advisers have supported New Zealand’s connections with Asia in several ways. In addition to their honorary role, they have also supported educational scholarships, paid internships for New Zealand students in Asian companies and facilitated and participated in Track II (informal diplomacy) dialogues between New Zealand and Asian experts.
List of Honorary Advisers attending:
Asia Honorary Advisers
Ms Adaljiza Magno – Timor Leste
Mr Amane Nakashima – Japan
Mr Guillermo M. Luz – Philippines
Ms Heekyung Jo Min – South Korea
Ms. Helianti Hilman – Indonesia
Prof Jolan Hsieh – Taiwan
Dr Ng Eng Hen – Singapore
Prof Pavida Pananond – Thailand
Ms Pham Thi My Le – Viet Nam
Dr Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria – Malaysia
Dr Reuben Abraham – India
Mr Stanley Tan ONZM – Singapore
Prof Thitinan Pongsudhirak – Thailand
New Zealand Honorary Advisers
Rt Hon Sir Anand Satyanand
Mr Danny Chan
Rt Hon Sir Don McKinnon (Foundation Founder)
Mr Josh Wharehinga
Mr Kyle Murdoch
Hon Lianne Dalziel
Prof Manying Ip
Ms Nicola Ngarewa
Ms Paula Tesoriero
Hon Philip Burdon (Foundation Founder)
Ms Sachie Nomura
Mr Sameer Handa
Mr Simon Murdoch
Ms Tania Te Whenua
Ms Traci Houpapa
Mr Warrick Cleine (Viet Nam)
About the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono
Established in 1994, theAsia New Zealand FoundationTe Whītau Tūhono is New Zealand’s leading provider of Asia insights and experiences. Its mission is to equip New Zealanders to excel in Asia, by providing research, insights and targeted opportunities to grow their knowledge, connections and experiences across the Asia region. The Foundation’s activities cover more than 20 countries in Asia and are delivered through eight core programmes: arts, business, entrepreneurship, leadership, media, research, Track II diplomacy and sports.
Today, Health Coalition Aotearoa, Child Poverty Action Group and NZEI sent an open letter to Prime Minister Chris Luxton, Hon David Seymour (Associate Minister of Health) and Hon Erica Stanford (Minister of Education).
In the letter, we raise concerns about the Prime Minister’s comment about “marmite sandwiches and an apple” regarding the litany of problems with the Ka Ora Ka Ako school lunch programme.
Residents of Katherine will have more opportunities to walk or cycle through their community thanks to funding from the Albanese Government.
The Katherine Town Council will receive $756,000 under the government’s Active Transport Fund to build the Zimin Drive Shared Pathway.
The project will see the construction of a 2.4-metre wide, 5.7 kilometre-long, shared bicycle and pedestrian sealed pathway along Zimin Drive.
This will provide a safer, healthier travel option between the Stuart and Victoria Highways, looping around Katherine South.
The Albanese Government is making our cities and regions even better places to live, building social infrastructure, connecting place and designing healthier, more liveable towns.
Our new Active Transport Fund is one part of this, providing safe and accessible transport options that are good for the planet and good for ourselves.
The Active Transport Fund supports the government’s commitment to invest in infrastructure planning, design and construction that improves safety outcomes for vulnerable road users under the National Road and Safety Strategy 2021-2030.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King:
“The Albanese Government is investing in active transport infrastructure, to make it safer and easier to walk, cycle or push a pram to work, school or anywhere else.
“We’re ensuring more opportunities for the people of Katherine to be more active and connected by providing better ways for them to walk and cycle across town.”
Quotes attributable to Federal Member for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour:
“Students, pedestrians and cyclists will now have a far safer way to travel in Katherine.
“We are making the community of Katherine healthier and more liveable by improving active travel connections to create opportunities for moving around town using physical activity
When Donald Trump’s benefactor and cost-cutter-in-chief Elon Musk recently supported a call for the United States to quit NATO and the United Nations, it should perhaps have been more surprising.
But the first months of the second Trump presidency have already seen key parts of the current international order undermined. Musk’s position fits a general pattern.
The drive to slash the federal deficit dovetails with this general abandonment of expensive international commitments. If the Trump regime follows through on its apparent strategy of manufacturing crises to advance its agenda, then leaving the UN entirely is a logical next step.
Undermined ideals
This is all in stark contrast to the central role the UN has traditionally played within the US-led international order since 1945.
Along with other institutions, the UN allowed the US to shape the international system in its own image and spread its domestic values and interests across the world. Along with NATO, the UN was designed as a global security institution to produce global stability.
In theory at least, the political and economic values of the US and other democracies enabled the construction of the postwar order. According to political scientist John Ikenberry, this was based on “multilateralism, alliance partnerships, strategic restraint, cooperative security, and institutional and rule-based relationships”.
But by the 21st century, US actions had undermined many of these principles. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 bypassed the authority of the UN, causing then secretary-general Kofi Annan to declare that “from the charter point of view [the invasion] was illegal”.
This undermined the legitimacy of the UN and America’s place within it. But it also diminished the organisation as a force for maintaining international security and national sovereignty in global affairs.
The subsequent human rights violations by the US through its use of rendition, torture and detention at facilities such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib further weakened the UN’s credibility as a protector of liberal international values.
Since the 1990s, several Republican politicians have argued for the US to withdraw entirely from the UN. In 1997, senator Ron Paul introduced the American Sovereignty Restoration Act, aimed at ending UN membership, expelling the UN headquarters from New York and ending US funding.
Although it received minimal support and never reached committee hearings, Paul reintroduced the act in every congressional session until his 2011 retirement. It was then taken up by other Republicans, including Paul Broun and Mike Rogers.
Americans’ hard-earned dollars have been funnelled into initiatives that fly in the face of our values – enabling tyrants, betraying allies, and spreading bigotry.
In 1920, US isolationists blocked the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, and with it US participation in the League of Nations (the predecessor to the United Nations). Although the US would interact with the League of Nations until the UN’s formation in 1945, it never became an official member.
Criticism of the UN also has a bipartisan angle, with the US withdrawing funding of UNRWA in 2024 during Joe Biden’s presidency after Israel accused the agency of links to Hamas.
A diminished UN
If Trump harnesses these historical and modern forces to pull the US out of the UN, it would fundamentally – and likely irrevocably – undermine what has been a central pillar of the current international order.
It would also increase US isolationism, reduce Western influence, and legitimise alternative security bodies. These include the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which the US could potentially join, especially given Russia and India are both members.
More broadly, the reduced influence of the UN will endanger general peace and security in the international sphere, and the wider protection and promotion of human rights.
There would be greater unpredictability in global affairs, and the world would be a more dangerous place. For countries big and small, a UN without the US will force new strategic calculations and create new alliances and blocs, as the world leaps into the unknown.
Chris Ogden is a Senior Research Fellow with The Foreign Policy Centre, London.
