The Government’s been making it increasingly clear over time that it doesn’t really give two-hoots about local democracy.

But, in the last 24 hours, it’s gone next level.

First up, we’ve got housing minister Chris Bishop, who announced yesterday that he’s going to be given special powers to ride roughshod over council plans if he doesn’t like them.

Essentially, if he thinks a council has a district plan that doesn’t support economic growth and development, or won't do anything to create jobs, then he can come in over the top and say “nah nah nah, you’re not doing that.”

In fact, from what I’ve been reading, it seems any government minister is going to be able to modify or remove aspects of council plans that they don’t agree with.

Talk about big brother.

But that’s not all.

Chris Bishop also got himself involved in a spat with the Christchurch City Council, saying that the council’s failed attempt to push back on the Government’s housing intensification rules was “nuts”.

He’s saying: “It is an inarguable, and sometimes uncomfortable, fact that local government has been one of the largest barriers to housing growth in New Zealand."

Going on to say: “Christchurch City Council just outright defied its legal obligations.”Signing off with the accusation that the council was “nuts” if it thought it could get away with not doing what the Government wanted it to do.

Now, even though I didn't have a problem with Chris Bishop declining the council’s request for Christchurch to be treated as a special case and not have to go along with the Government’s housing intensification policy, I think he needs to rein it in a bit.

But this attack on local democracy doesn’t stop with Chris Bishop.

Shane Jones is at it, as well. Saying in a speech to local government leaders that regional councils have had their day and he wants to get rid of them.

“What is the point of regional government?” That's what he said when he stood up at the lectern in Wellington last night.

He seems to think that, with all the changes the Government is making to the Resource Management Act, we won't need regional councils anymore.

Saying: “There is less and less of a justifiable purpose for maintaining regional government.”

Which I do kind of get. Because I know a few people in local government and I have asked them recently where they see the likes of Environment Canterbury going if the Government is going to give the resource management act the heave-ho.

Because that’s what regional councils were set up to do in the first place. To implement the Resource Management Act. There have been a few add ons since then - like running bus services.

And I’ve long been a fan of local government amalgamation. But for a government minister like Shane Jones to stand up and give a speech to local government people and tell them that he wants to ditrch regional councils - that is arrogant.

Just like this plan to let ministers interfere in council plans if they don't like what they see. That’s arrogant too.

But it’s more than just arrogance. It’s an attack on local democracy.

Which, apparently, is something the government values.

When it suits, it would seem. Because, when he was announcing these new powers - which are going to be in force until all the changes to the Resource Management Act have gone through - he admitted it was a significant step.

"But the RMA’s devolution of ultimate power to local authorities just has not worked.”

Which is code for saying: "Even though we say we’re all into local decision-making, we’re only into it when it suits Wellington".

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Christchurch’s Mayor is back with John MacDonald to discuss the biggest stories from the week that was.

The Government is giving the Housing Minister the power to overrule local councils, and Phil Mauger has some strong opinions on the topic.

Housing intensification is still on the docket, but he’s made it clear they’ll be pushing back against it all the way.

And why are there so many leafblowers out and about? Is that a good use of taxpayer money?

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How weird is it that there are different rules or expectations regarding life jackets, depending on where you are in the country?

I’m not the only one who thinks it’s weird. A coroner who has looked into the drownings of a 10-year-old boy and his mother thinks it’s weird too, and is calling for change.

And instead of local councils being responsible for setting lifejacket rules, she wants there to be a single rule for the whole country making life jackets mandatory on all small boats. Everywhere.

And I totally agree. I know there’ll be no shortage of people thinking that it’s pointless making life jackets mandatory because, even where you have local councils now saying they have to be worn, there are still people who don’t.

But this is why a single, blanket rule for the whole country is needed.

This follows the deaths of 10-year-old Ryder Ferregel and his mum Gemma Ferregel, in November 2022. They were on Auckland’s Manukau Harbour and they were out on a 4.8 metre boat doing some scalloping.

There were three other people on board the boat and what happened is it was hit by two waves in pretty close succession, and because of that, it capsized.

At the time, no one on board was wearing a lifejacket. What makes this more tragic —aside from the fact that a woman and her son lost their lives— is that before the boat capsized, Ryder had been wearing a lifejacket but his mum said he could take it off because it didn't fit him properly and was riding up on him.

So, by the time the boat capsized, there was no one wearing a life jacket.

And coroner Erin Woolley is saying today that if they had been, Ryder and Gemma would have had a much greater chance of survival.

And that’s why she wants to see life jackets to be made mandatory on small boats, everywhere. She thinks we need a single rule for the whole country – not just rules set in different areas by different local authorities.

It would also be clear to people who aren’t boaties what the rule was, giving them licence to call people out for not wearing life jackets.

For example: you’re at the boat ramp and you see some muppets about to head out with no life jackets – even people in the car park there just watching the boats, they would know what the rule was and they’d be much more likely to say something, wouldn't they?

What’s more, if there was a single rule for the whole country, it wouldn't be left to local authorities to have local rules that only they can enforce.

If there was a single life jacket rule for the whole country, the Coastguard —for example— could fine people for not wearing a jacket.

It's crazy, isn't it, that they can come up to you when you're out fishing and fine you if the fish in your bucket are undersized, but they can’t fine you for not taking the appropriate safety precautions.

That’s because lifejacket rules are set by local by-laws and it’s the job of the councils to enforce them. Which coroner Erin Woolley wants to see changed. And so do I.

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It was bad enough that a patient at Hillmorton Hospital who had threatened to kill was still allowed to come and go and ended up killing an innocent woman at her Christchurch home.

The fact this person had killed someone else previously, before taking the life of Faye Phillips last year, makes the circumstances behind the tragedy worse.

On both occasions he was a mental health patient, which is why Ruth Money —who is the Government’s Chief Victims Advisor— is saying that we must have a Royal Commission of Inquiry into our mental health hospital system.

And I’m with her. I think it has to happen.

Last week we were astounded to learn that Elliot Cameron had been allowed to leave Hillmorton as he pleased, because he was a voluntary patient.

Apparently, it had been decided at some point that he didn’t have to stay, but because he didn’t want to leave, he wasn’t forced out and he’d made all sorts of comments about killing people if he was forced out.

And from the reports I’ve read, it seems staff had been helping him clean up his room, which may have led him to believe that he was about to be moved on.

But who knows. Whether that was his motivation for murdering Faye Phelps, we’ll probably never know.

Either way, last week he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years. And today, we’re finding out that it wasn’t the first time he had killed someone.

In 1975, he killed his brother. Shooting him while he slept at his parents' house.

And when he committed that killing, he was a mental health patient. Just like he was a mental health patient when he murdered Faye Phelps.

We haven’t known this until suppression orders relating to the 1975 case were lifted last night, which means we now have more context for this terrible, terrible situation.

Last week, I couldn’t understand how anyone at Hillmorton could think that someone who had threatened to kill was fine to walk out the gate, get a bus to Mt Pleasant and do some gardening work for an innocent elderly woman.

There is just no way that should have been allowed to happen.

But the fact that he had already shown himself capable of killing someone makes that decision to let him come and go even worse.

And if I was a member of Faye Phelps family —or if I was a friend of Faye Phelps— I would be absolutely livid, given these new revelations.

What’s unclear to me, from the reports I’ve read, is how aware Hillmorton was that Elliot Cameron had killed his brother 50 years ago.

I think it’s probably safe to assume that the hospital had some knowledge of it, given he’s been a mental health patient for 57 years. And that he was found not guilty of murdering his brother back in 1975 because he was deemed to be insane at the time.

So it beggars belief.

As Faye’s daughter Karen said last week: “Public safety must come first and should always have come first. Sadly, it wasn’t prioritised, and the result is what happened to my mum.”

And that’s where the Government’s Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money is coming from too. She’s saying: “Another patient who has warned of his intent and distress numerous times and yet he too has gone on to kill for a second time.

"The public deserves an inquiry that can give actionable expert recommendations, as opposed to multiple coroners inquests and recommendations that do not have the same binding influence. The patients themselves, and the public will be best served by an independent inquiry, not another internal review that changes nothing."

And I couldn’t agree more because this is not the first time public safety has been compromised.

Three years ago, there was the case of the Christchurch woman walking home after getting the bus from work and being stabbed to death just a short distance from her home by a mental health patient at Hillmorton.

No updates on where the internal investigation into that is going. I understand it’s “ongoing”, but that’s exactly why Ruth Money wants a top-level inquiry. She wants more than internal inquiries and toothless coroner’s inquiries.

She thinks a Royal Commission of Inquiry into our mental health hospitals is way overdue. I think so too.

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I’ve surprised myself a little bit with my reaction to the news the police are looking at introducing body cameras.

Generally, I’m all for it. But the civil liberties people have raised some very good points about them being misused.

One example they’re giving is the potential for the cameras to be combined with facial recognition technology. Which I'm torn on, after finding out about facial recognition being used at the Richmond Club, in Christchurch, to keep an eye on people using the pokie machines.

They're are asking how we're going to know - once police start wearing body cameras - when an officer is filming and when they’re not.

Is there a chance, for example, that you or I might be walking down the street and get filmed by the cops walking towards us?

Which is why the head of New Zealand’s civil liberties council is saying that there needs to be robust policies in place before any officer starts going around the place wearing one of these things.

The bit Thomas Beagle is concerned about most, is the lines between body cameras and facial recognition getting blurred.

He’s saying: “Suddenly, it turns footage into data of who was where, what their names are, and what they were doing. In a way, that’s really quite worrying and can be put together to build up the surveillance society.”

So he wants clear, robust policies in place. Policies which make it clear, for example, who will be able to access any footage captured on the body cameras.

He says if we’re going to bring-in body cameras, we may need to look at the idea of having someone independent deciding when footage is released and who it’s released to.

He reckons that could be a job for the Independent Police Conduct Authority, making the very good point that the cameras not only need to serve the police well - but they also need to serve the public well.

And that’s the bit that has probably surprised me a bit. That I’m not as holus-bolus enthusiastic about police body cameras as maybe I expected myself to be.

The civil liberties people are spot on - referring to cases overseas where police have refused to release body camera footage when officers have been accused of things like misconduct.

I’ve also been reading a BBC report which talks about other ways these things have been misused. Or abused.

It reports more than 150 examples of camera misuse by police in England and Wales.

For example, officers turning the cameras off when they’ve been dealing forcefully with someone. Giving someone the old heave-ho. You know: “I’ll just turn this thing off for a minute while we give this turkey what he deserves.”

The BBC has also discovered cases where police have deleted footage and even shared footage with other officers on WhatsApp.

But, before you think I’ve gone totally civil liberties on it - I’m all for the police wearing body cameras.

For many reasons. For starters - it’s crazy that security officers and parking wardens can wear them, but police can’t.

And, even though there are a truckload of examples of these cameras being misused, you could say the same about any bad police behaviour.

There are dodgy cops everywhere - but that doesn’t mean we get rid of the police.

And, as police commissioner Richard Chambers is saying today, New Zealand is one of the few countries not using them.

He says body cameras are great for gathering evidence and they’re great for keeping staff safe.

So he’s going to have people working on options over the next 12 months and, hopefully, by that time - they’ll be ready to press go.

I see Chris Cahill from the police association is a bit worried about the cost.

He’s saying that some countries are getting rid of them because of how much it costs to store the footage.

And, not surprisingly, he doesn’t want to see the spending on body cameras meaning there’s less money to be spent on frontline officers and police vehicles.

He says: “It isn’t the game changer that we thought it might be, but it has certainly got significant benefits and many officers in Australia don’t want to deploy without it.”

But all up, when I consider what Chris Cahill is saying about the cameras not being the silver bullet and the many cases overseas of these things being misused, I still think is a great move by the police commissioner.

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Donald Trump won’t be too happy with Helen Clark right now, because she’s saying she doesn't want New Zealand to be an ally of the United States ever again.

I’m with her on that one – while Trump is president, anyway.

I’m also with Defence Minister Judith Collins who isn’t saying anything about Trump doing a review of the AUKUS military alliance with Australia and the UK, to make sure that it’s a fair deal for America.

I think Judith Collins going all quiet about this cloud over AUKUS is the approach we should be taking more broadly, as well. And New Zealand should be more like Switzerland and keep pretty much every country at arm's length.

As Helen Clark is saying, if you’re an ally, you can get dragged into all sorts of things you shouldn’t. Whereas, if you’re a “friend”, you can keep your head down, treat every country pretty much equally, and stay out of international dramas you don’t need to be involved with.

I heard former defence minister Wayne Mapp saying that the fact Trump has said this AUKUS review will be done and dusted in 30 days, shows that it’s unlikely that the U.S. is about to pull out.

Tell that to Dr Emma Shortis —who is a senior researcher in international affairs at the Australia Institute— who is pointing out that the submarine part of the AUKUS deal includes a “get-out clause” for the United States.

She reckons Trump is about to use that clause – not that she’s too upset about it. She’s saying today that AUKUS is "a disaster" for Australia and only ties Aussie ever closer to “an increasingly volatile and aggressive america”.

And, with respect to Wayne Mapp, I’m going to listen to this expert from Australia.

Understandably it’s caused a fuss in Australia, because they’re due to get a few nuclear subs from America as part of all this. Three second-hand submarines for $368 billion.

On this side of the Tasman though, the Government is keeping shtum, with Defence Minister Judith Collins not wanting to get dragged into it. Which makes sense, because —at the moment— we’ve got nothing to do with AUKUS.

The Government’s been making noises recently about doing a bit of tyre-kicking and seeing whether we might get involved at a lower level. “Pillar 2” is what they call it.

But there’s nothing coming from the Government about Donald Trump running his eye over AUKUS to check that America's getting the best deal. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark isn’t holding back though.

She says: "I would not want to see us back in the position where New Zealand is expected to spend a whole lot more money on defence; expected to follow the US into whatever its strategic venture is. I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War and New Zealand going into that for not a good reason at all and walking out the other end with Kiwis dying on the battlefield for no good reason. I don't want to see us ever in that position again."

I’m with her on that one.

Australia’s possibly feeling that way too, given that it signed up to the AUKUS agreement when Joe Biden was president. And, aside from wanting to get the submarines, and aside from the fact that it’s already ploughed $800 million into AUKUS, it might still be having a bit of buyer’s remorse given Trump’s unpredictability.

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Matt Doocey and Duncan Webb joined John MacDonald in studio for Politics Friday. They discussed Helen Clark’s recent comments around New Zealand’s relationship with the United States – do they agree?

On the topic of privacy versus safety, when it comes to mental illness, is keeping people safe a higher priority than keeping someone’s health private?

And Tourism New Zealand’s new 100% Pure marketing campaign has been launched, and Duncan Webb is not a fan.

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I’m all for the push to have wool carpet used in government buildings but I think it’s a mistake putting it in state homes.

Kāinga Ora has announced that, from next month, there will be woollen carpets in all new state homes. It’s also going to use wool if the carpet in existing homes needs replacing.

Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says Kāinga Ora has managed to get a deal that will mean the wool carpet won’t cost any more than nylon carpet.

Which is interesting because, in December last year, KO said it had done some cost analysis work which showed that it could save roughly 34% using nylon carpet. So the wool carpet people have obviously sharpened their pencils.

Nevertheless, is it practical? And my answer to that is no it’s not. And will it end up costing us in the long-term? Yes it will, and I’ll tell you why.

But first, here’s why I generally like the government’s move to use wool carpet, but why I don't think it's a good idea in Kāinga Ora properties.

It makes perfect sense for the Government to be doing what it can to support our farmers who grow wool, who’ve been pushing it uphill recently. Wool has almost become a burden for farmers because of the returns they’ve been getting.

So good on the Government for going down the wool route, because it has to buy carpet, so why not buy the carpet that does the farmers a favour, while it's at it? Especially, when you consider the amount of money the Government must spend on carpet.

I don’t have a dollar figure for you, but I was reading a briefing that was written for the incoming government after the last election, which said that the Government has approximately 1 million square metres of office accommodation around the country, costing approximately $330 million a year.

That’s a lot of potential floorspace for carpet and that’s a lot of potential floorspace to get our farmers' wool all over.

But here’s why I don't think it’s a good idea having wool carpet in state homes.

Government buildings —such as government department offices and schools— generally have cleaners going through pretty much every day. And so if the DOC office or the local primary school has wool carpet, they get cleaned pretty regularly, don’t they?

A Kāinga Ora property is different. The only time cleaners get sent into a state house is when someone leaves or is booted out.

And this isn’t me tarring every state housing tenant with the same brush, because most tenants are probably very good. But we’d be naive to think that every tenant vacuums the carpets every day. We’d be naive to think that every state house tenant is a cleaning freak and will do everything they can to keep stains out of the carpet.

I remember when we put wool carpet in —it was when the kids were still quite young— and we did everything we could to stop it getting marks and stains on it, but it still got stains and marks on it.

And I’ve seen nylon carpets in action, and you can’t deny that they are brilliant for keeping clean. I’ve seen red wine spilled on nylon carpet and you can pretty much just wipe it away.

That’s the kind of carpet that Kāinga Ora should be using.

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