Ro Edge

Utterly heartbreaking. A must watch.

A transgender school bus driver in Canada has filed a human rights complaint after losing his job for wearing a pink schoolgirl uniform while on duty and calling his bus "the Lolita Line." Parents confronted the driver last year, leading to his dismissal. reduxx.info/ontario-bus-driv…

Dr David Smylie spent almost 40 years as a doctor in Britain, Australia, the US and New Zealand, including two years in Aboriginal health in the Australian outback. By 2022 he was a senior partner at Cambridge Medical Centre in the Waikato. He’d never had a single complaint made against him to the Medical Council. That November, a sales rep emailed him an invitation to a sponsored education evening. Her email opened “Ate Marie Everyone”. She meant “ata mārie”, good morning. He replied the moment he read it, late at night, to her alone. Four sentences: a joke about the typo, a grumble about how much te reo was in her email, and a request to be taken off the mailing list. He’s the first to admit it was a knee-jerk reaction, and he regrets sending it. Nine days later she wrote back calling it “offensive and inappropriate”. The same day, her manager reported him to the Medical Council. Within days, Dr Smylie had written an apology for her. The Council never passed it on, at one point claiming it would “interfere with an active investigation”. When a Professional Conduct Committee later interviewed the rep, she said an apology would have made her feel a lot better. His was sitting in the Council’s file. Nobody had told her. When the committee’s chair suggested she meet him, another member warned her off, saying it could be bad for her mental health, and added: “it’s tough calling out racism.” In September 2023 the committee ruled his email “objectively racist, offensive, and insensitive”. Whether he meant any harm was “of little consequence”. His four sentences had “the potential to contribute to current health inequities”. The penalty was a year-long “educational programme”: monthly sessions with a supervisor who reported on him to the Council, readings on colonisation and institutional racism, and strategies for managing his “implicit biases (which are inevitable)”. He was expected to pay for it, at $125 an hour plus GST. To finish, he had to write two essays, including 1,000 words on structural racism in New Zealand health care. Before the programme even started, he’d apologised to the rep directly, and she had accepted. His lawyers asked for the programme to be halved and the essays dropped. It went ahead anyway. He sat through all twelve sessions. He refused to write the essays, as a matter of principle. “It is the nastiest thing I’ve ever gone through in my career and my life,” he told the Free Speech Union. Dr Smylie now practises overseas. Health NZ is short-staffed and recruiting from abroad. The Medical Council spent a year re-educating a GP with almost 40 years’ experience over one private email, and New Zealand lost him in the process.

Australia’s challenge could be New Zealand’s opportunity - but only if we get our policy settings right. 🇳🇿 What is happening in Aus should be a wake-up call for NZ. Around the world, govts are making policy choices that risk driving away the very people their economies need most: talented professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, business owners and wealth creators. The lesson is simple: you cannot tax your way to prosperity by continually making it harder to work, invest, build a business and get ahead. Too many left-wing govts appear to believe that taxing success more heavily is an easy way to fund their ambitions. But talented people and investment are not captive. They can move. Businesses can expand elsewhere. Capital can be invested in other countries. And when people feel that the rewards for their hard work and risk-taking are no longer worth it, they make different choices. NZ should be paying close attention. We have an enormous opportunity to attract back the Kiwis who have moved to Aus and elsewhere - along with talented people and investment from around the world. But we cannot expect them to return simply because they love NZ or miss home. We must give them compelling reasons to choose us. That means getting the fundamentals right: Competitive tax settings that reward work, ambition, enterprise and investment. A govt that lives within its means, rather than continually increasing the tax burden to fund ever-expanding spending. Less red tape and unnecessary regulation, so businesses can grow, innovate and employ more people. Policies that encourage investment, build confidence and make it worthwhile to establish and expand businesses here. A genuine focus on productivity, opportunity and rising living standards, rather than treating wealth creation as something to be penalised. This is not about opposing a fair contribution to society. It is about understanding that a successful economy needs people who are willing to take risks, create jobs, invest capital and develop new ideas. Without them, there is less prosperity to share and a smaller tax base to support the public services we all rely on - and that there is ever increasing demand for. NZ has the chance to learn from the mistakes of other countries rather than repeat them. Imagine if we became one of the most attractive places in the developed world to build a business, raise a family, invest, innovate and get ahead. Imagine the impact of bringing home experienced Kiwis, attracting international talent and encouraging investment that creates high-value jobs and lifts wages. We should be competing for talent and capital - not giving them reasons to leave. The opportunity is there, but it will not last forever. Other countries are competing for the same people and investment. NZ needs the ambition and political courage to do things differently. Let's make NZ a country where success is welcomed, hard work is rewarded and the next generation can see a future worth staying for - and worth coming home to. Get the policy settings right, and we can turn the outflow of talent into an opportunity for national renewal. 🇳🇿 Australia is no longer the lucky country - watch for your self. 👇 youtu.be/wLjghnqoO9c

#BREAKING: Big news for Kiwi households. The Reserve Bank has just decided to hold interest rates steady. That means the rate is now half what it was under Labour. National's plan is working, so let's stick to it and get the job done.

Today marks 100 days since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister. Keir Starmer led the most hostile government towards free speech in modern British history. Andy Burnham’s first 100 days suggest he could be even worse. Different Prime Minister. Same hostility towards our fundamental right to free speech.

🚨Here's what the media aren't telling you. In the 6 most recent polls, Opportunity have dropped in 5 of them. Only one of them has Opportunity above 6%. So, all within the margin of error of oblivion. 🔴1 News Verian last week 🔽1 to 7% 🔴Freshwater The Post 🔽1 to 5.4% 🔴Curia Poll 🔽.3 to 4.8% 🔴Anacta Talbot Mills 🔽2 to 5% 🔴Reid Research RNZ 🔼0.2 to 5.5% 🔴1News Verian poll tonight 🔽1 to 6% Prediction: The Opportunity Party are in freefall and will sink into oblivion with less than 5% in the election, based on this trend. The media will start to get desparate. #PeakedTooEarly

Results to one decimal point are: National = 28.9% Labour = 27.3% Green Party = 14.8% ACT = 12.4% NZ first = 10.0% Opportunity Party = 6.3% TPM = 0.1%