Andrea Vance writes:

The polls might show support for the broad idea of taxing excess profits and capital gains, but when you dig into detail on asset classes, like shares and property, that diminishes.

It’s an aspiration paradox: people vote for the wealth they want rather than the lifestyle they have.

Or put simply: voters resent new taxes. Presented with a choice only a year ago, the electorate plumped for tax cuts.

This is correct. A CGT always falls down on the details as people realise it will affect their lifestyle block, their bach, their shares etc.

In theory a comprehensive CGT (no exemptions) which was offset by significant income tax cuts would be economically desirable. But politically a comprehensive CGT will never fly, and one with exemptions just leads to rorting.

And so, Labour has been sucked back into the capital gains tax doom loop. It’s an issue it has failed to resolve over four successive elections.

Next time around, whatever form it takes, the policy will be even harder to sell.

First, Hipkins will have to find the political courage that deserted him last year — and the two leaders before him.

He will have to explain why he changed his mind, without stating the bald, cynical truth that a new tax was undesirable.

Labour will also have to dissolve the prevailing narrative that in government the party wasted and mismanaged vast amounts of public money.

Exactly. They increased spending by $1 billion a week and made almost indicator go in the wrong direction as so much of it was wasted.

Robert Macculloch writes:

For all the volumes of articles written by rightist commentators about how folks like former PM Jacinda Ardern were trying to shut down personal freedoms and liberties by lockdowns and tightening laws on hate speech – and how NZ’s Universities had been taken over by groups that were inhibiting the freedom of speech of academics – where has one of the most direct full frontal attacks on free speech ever ended up coming from? From Auckland’s Big Law Firms and the Big Businesses that use those law firms to protect their interests. It has been recently reported that Chapman Tripp wrote a letter to the University of Auckland requesting they take down an article by my (just retired) colleague Emeritus Prof. Tim Hazeldine – threatening a defamation lawsuit for calling out the Supermarket Duopoly in a way it didn’t like. The article was called, “Foodstuffs Wants to Merge its Co-ops, but Consumers Need the Opposite”. BusinessDesk reports, “Foodstuffs North Island has made legal moves to silence an academic critical of its proposed merger”. I’ve already discussed – and been warned by Members of Parliament that Big Interests will come after the likes of this blog when they don’t like being exposed. But its ended up happening not to me, but to the (by contrast) gentle, mild mannered Tim Hazeldine, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He writes opinions about subjects he knows lots about and earnestly believes to be true.

So shame on Kiwi Blog; shame on the Free Speech Union; shame on NZ Initiative, shame on you all, for critiquing Universities for being hot beds of left-wing activism trying to close down academics free speech – but not calling out Big Business for using its Big Resources and Big Money to weaponize Big Law Firms (that happily take the fee-income) to threaten one of NZ’s leading academic economists for writing what he devoutly believes to be true.

Well it is hard to call out something that you are unaware of. I don’t have a subscription to Business Desk.

Secondly the law firms aren’t the problem. They act on behalf of clients.

As to the substance, yes I agree that Foodstuffs are acting ridiculously by pressuring organisations to remove an academic article critical of them. They should write an article in response, not try to silence critics.

I’m pleased The Post has ignored the legal threat and the article is still up. I encourage people to read and share it, so the intimidation backfires. It is interesting that the University appears to have succumbed to pressure to remove it, but not the media outlet.

The Taxpayers’ Union released:

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can report through an Official Information Act that Metlink has paid $1,300,245 dollars (inc. GST) for a project to install seven toilets in Wellington, exclusively for the use of bus drivers. The locations of the toilets include Houghton Bay, Darlington Road, Wilton, Mairangi, Lyall Bay, Highbury and Karori.

Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:

“This latest waste story is another example of government failing to deliver on the basics. Spending a penny is one thing, but spending 130 million pennies for just seven toilets takes the biscuit. 

“At an average cost of over $185,000 per toilet, it makes you wonder – are the seats made of gold? While looking after bus drivers is important, that money could have surely gone further if spent better.

That is a lot of money. Waimate DC managed to build six toilets for under $500,000. Other toilets look to be around $20,000 each. Dunedin is doing them for $100,000 each. And these are all for public toilets used by maybe hundreds of people a day – not a private toilet used by maybe 1 or 2 people a day.

Over the last year Curia has polled favourability ratings for every National Cabinet Minister, through our monthly poll. On my Patreon (paywalled) I show the favourability, unfavourability and net favourability for all 14 National Cabinet Ministers.

Over the next few months we will also poll on Labour’s Shadow Cabinet, and then Ministers from other government parties.

Did you know that in 2006 the entire Labour Party caucus voted at first reading for a bill that would delete all references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in legislation. They did this as part of a coalition agreement. Sound familiar?

Yet in 2006 you didn’t have the usual suspects declaring it as genocide and such a threat to New Zealand that it is repugnant to even allow the public a say on the issue. You didn’t have editorials demanding the bill not even be debated.

Here’s some of the MPs who voted for the bill in 2006:

• Helen Clark
• Phil Goff
• David Cunliffe
• Steve Maharey
• Annette King
• Chris Carter
• Marian Hobbs
• Damien O’Connor
• Parekura Horomia
• Nanaia Mahuta
• Michael Cullen
• Margaret Wilson
• Maryan Street
• David Parker
• Sue Moroney
• Darien Fenton

How many of these people are today condemning the current Government for doing exactly what they did in 2006?

Stuff reports:

Meta’s company-funded oversight body ruled Wednesday that the social media giant shouldn’t automatically take down posts using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” a decades-old rallying cry for Palestinian nationalism that has reignited a national debate about the boundaries of acceptable speech.

Meta’s Oversight Board, an independent collection of academics, experts and lawyers who oversee thorny content decisions on the platform, said posts they examined using the phrase didn’t violate the company’s rules against hate speech, inciting violence or praising dangerous organisations.

“While [the phrase] can be understood by some as encouraging and legitimising antisemitism and the violent elimination of Israel and its people, it is also often used as a political call for solidarity, equal rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people, and to end the war in Gaza,” the board said in its ruling.

I believe the majority of people who use this do seek for Israel to be destroyed, as the slogan implies. I regard any person who uses it very poorly.

But this doesn’t mean Meta should ban use of it. It is not a direct incitement to genocide. It is not saying “Kill all the Jews” even if the likely end result of the slogan would be a mass killing or exodus of Jews from the region. The threshold for stopping speech should be high.

The Government has published the Treaty Principles Bill, and it differs from the ACT policy is some significant ways, which also makes it closer to the actual Treaty text. For easy comparison I have done a table below.

The Treaty text is from the Te Papa translation of the te reo version of the Treaty.

As I said previously, the principles in the ACT policy were good principles for a democratic liberal government, but not necessarily principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. A case could have been made for them to a form of entrenched bill of rights.

But the version in the actual bill does steer much closer to the text of the treaty, and can be argued to be a good faith interpretation (but not the only one).

This is part of a larger question about the principles of the Treaty and how they are defined and interpreted. It is clear that these have changed over time from Sir Apirina Ngata to David Lange to the Court of Appeal to today’s prevailing interpretation. I think it would be good to have certainty, and the question then is who should decide the principles. Should it be:

• The judiciary
• The Waitangi Tribunal
• Parliament
• The people via referendum
• The people or Parliament via an entrenched constitution

Radio NZ report:

Few parts of the government’s plan emerged unscathed from the submission by Simon Upton, a former National Cabinet minister turned parliamentary commissioner for the environment.

He said relying on carbon pricing to drive down pollution in areas such as transport was “not coherent”.

He said the government was taking a “massive gamble” by relying on planting pine trees to offset carbon emissions instead of actually cutting emissions.

The PCE is correct that planting pine trees to offset carbon emissions is shortsighted.

The reason is that pine trees are usually harvested after 30 years. They can live longer but if pine trees are used as an offset against , that land has to be locked up for forestry for ever.

The reason is carbon emissions are very long lasting. They estimate that after 1,000 years a third to half of the CO2 stays in the atmosphere. So if one wants to keep using trees to offset CO2, then you’ll have to keep planting more and more and more, and keep them all there for 1,000 years or so (and replace the ones that die).

But this is not to say planting trees can’t play a useful role in reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions. Rather than allowing them to be a credit against CO2, we could allow them to be a credit against CH4 (methane).

You see methane does leave the atmosphere much more quickly. It is estimate to remain for just 12 years. Now using tree planting to offset methane makes more sense. The trees will last longer than the methane.

So a brave government would look at having two different ETSs. One for CO2 and one for Methane. And tree planting credits would only be available in the methane ETS. This would stop huge amounts of countryside being converted permanently to forestry. It would also allow farmers to plant to offer their own emissions.

NewstalkZB reports:

Watercare is under fire for keeping a $20 million deal with Waikato-Tainui under wraps.

It’s been revealed the Auckland Council-controlled water provider last year signed up to paying $1 million a year, for two decades.

You don’t need to own something, if the law requires your permission for consents to use it. You still can extract rental income from it.

The Herald reports:

Wellington’s three Pandoro cafes will today close their doors for the last time after 28 years in business.

Owner Tony Beazley said it’s a sad day for the company having to lay off more than 20 staff across their Willis St, Allan St, and Woodward St stores.

Beazley blames the struggling local economy with more people working from home and moves by Wellington City Council to install cycleways and bus lanes, removing car parking for customers.

What the Council has achieved on a small scale, they will achieve on a large scale with their plans to turn the Golden Mile into a bus lane only.

I’ve done my monthly analysis at Patreon of how the five Governments (Australia, Canada, NZ, UK, US) are looking in terms of re-election.

It is neck and neck in the US, while the NZ Govt is better placed than the other new Governments in the UK and Australia.

Let’s say you are a senior member of a faculty which has just surveyed faculty members and the results are that many say they are very unhappy in multiple areas – far more so than in other faculties.

Here’s a guide as to what not to do.

1. Dismiss the results as flawed and statistically insignificant (despite a 76% response rate)
2. Say that trying to find out what lies behind the results is “picking at our imaginary scabs”
3. Suggest that the high numbers saying they have been bullied may have nothing to do with the faculty
4. Argue over the definition of bullying
5. Dismiss those unhappy as a “small minority”
6. When those unhappy having had their concerns dismissed then leak the results, label them “uncivilised”
7. Tell the rest of the faculty that if they are unhappy, they should leave
8. Tell the rest of the faculty they are “Pathetic. Puerile. Pusillanimous”
9. E-mail your colleagues and tell them that AUT IT can trace which of them is leaking and that they are both stupid and immoral
10. Claim there is only one person leaking (there are in fact multiple) and that they are disaffected, petty and unprofessional and that him calling them this is in no way bullying!

I can only imagine what next year’s survey results will be like!

I wish this was made up, but it isn’t.

Jerry Coyne writes:

The government of New Zealand continues to throw away money by funding ludicrous projects involved indigenous “ways of knowing” (in this case Mātauranga Māori, or “MM”). …

One of the projects involves trying to stem the death of kauri trees(Agathis australis), the iconic tree of New Zealand.  Kauri deforestation, due to logging by Europeans and also burning buy Māori, is now exacerbated by “Kauri dieback,” the death of trees after infection by a funguslike organism. This has resulted in the closure of forests (the infection may be spread by humans carrying soil on their feet), but so far nothing has really been effective in curing the disease or stopping its spread.

But a new government-funded project based on Māori traditions involves trying to stop the disease by, yes, playing whale songs to the trees and dousing them with whale oil.  

The taxpayer funded project explains:

Māori whakapapa describes how the kauri and tohorā (sperm whale) are brothers, but they were separated when the tohorā chose the ocean over the forest. In this research area we looked at how this connection could possibly help save the kauri from kauri dieback disease.

They’re not fucking brothers. One is a tree. The other is a whale.

They are not the same species, the same genus, the same family, the same order, the same class, the same phylum or even the same kingdom!

Coyne points out:

Note that the video begins with the statement that there are “forms of knowledge” other than science, and that indigenous knowledge gets no respect because the “colonization process” has “tried to remove our knowledge” and outlawed it.  In my view, this is pure, ludicrous science-dissing.

The whale nonsense begins at about 2:50 with the claim that “the whale once traversed the face of the earth” (yes, on land, too!) and that there is a “sibling relationship” between whales and kauri trees.

This is what happens when “traditional wisdom” is used instead of modern science (which, by the way, discovered the organism causing the tree infection).

Well, who knows—the tattooed Måori man might be right: whale oil and whale bone might cure the trees, as he claimed it has. But I’m not betting on it.  How about a double-blind control test rather than legends and anecdotes?

Any entity that funds anti-science instead of science should lose all government funding in my view.

The BSA released:

A segment on ZM’s Fletch, Vaughan and Hayley show irresponsibly promoted alcohol and the broadcaster failed to take adequate action over the breach, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found.

The decision relates to a complaint over an on-air discussion by the show’s hosts about a Reddit post titled “Highest alcohol percentage for least amount of bucks, what’s the best from any liquor store?”.

The BSA agreed the item, aired on the morning of 15 March 2024, amounted to alcohol promotion that was socially irresponsible. It found broadcaster NZME was correct to have upheld the complaint by Communities Against Alcohol Harm (CAAH) that the segment breached the promotion of illegal or antisocial behaviour standard.* …

The Authority noted the hosts spoke about deliberately looking for the cheapest alcohol with the highest alcohol by volume, and referred to wanting “bang for buck” and “I’m not going to drink if it’s not going to get me drunk”.

I don’t want to comment on the wisdom of the radio hosts’ segment, but can comment on the bangs for the buck issue when it comes to youth drinking.

A while ago I did eight focus groups of young drinkers around RTDs and other products. And something that come up in almost everyone of them was the “bangs for the buck” mantra.

These 19 year old maths prodigies go around a store looking at the number of standard drinks in each product and the price, working out in their heads the cheapest price per standard drink (often spirits or cask wine).

The irony is that the requirement to list how many standard drinks is in a product was introduced as a health measure to promote people drinking less. Yet it has turned out to be something that helps young people to get drunk for the cheapest amount of money!

A good example of unintended consequences.

A bill for parliamentary nerds.

The Government has introduced a bill called The Parliament Bill. It brings together into one law the Clerk of the House of Representatives Act 1988, Parliamentary Service Act 2000, Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act 2013 and Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014. So just on e Act to refer to, instead of four.

There are also a few policy changes, ranging from trivial to significant. They include:

• A statutory basis for precinct security arrangements to provide parliamentary security officers (PSOs) with statutory powers of consent search, denial of entry, temporary seizure of specified items, and temporary detention (subject to statutory limitations).
• A new funding model for the parliamentary agencies, based on the Officers of Parliament model, recognising that the parliamentary agencies are part of the legislative branch of government, not the Executive, and that it is therefore appropriate to have a funding model that does not rely on executive power.
• transfer responsibility for determining members’ and eligible candidates’ accommodation services from the Remuneration Authority to the Speaker
• set out guiding principles applying to recipients of public funds (that is, members and Ministers) in the legislation:
• remove the requirement for members’ international travel costs to be met only from party leadership funding, which will allow party and group funding or an individual member’s funding to be used for this purpose.
• recognising, as dependants of a member, adult children who have a disability that means that they require ongoing daily care and remain dependent on their parents:
• Extends statutory immunity for good faith acts and omissions to staff of the Office of the Clerk.
• The Public Service Commissioner would be removed from most employment matters (as parliamentary staff are not public servants). T
• Requires the Parliamentary Service to take members’ wishes into account when appointing political office staff. It gives the parliamentary agencies the ability to ask potential appointees for corporate roles about their political activities, in order to maintain organisational neutrality and reputation.
• transferring the Clerk’s certification role under the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993 to the Electoral Commission:
• removing the upper age limit of 68 years for the Clerk:
• aligning the restrictions on the role of the chief executive of the Parliamentary Service to that
• increasing the term of a chief executive of the Parliamentary Service to 7 years—a chief executive will be eligible for reappointment after serving that term:
• consolidating and clarifying details about the roles of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker, including that the Speaker may generally delegate to the Deputy Speaker, and that the holders of those offices on the polling day of a general election retain those roles until the first meeting of the House: 
• changing the process by which membership of the Parliamentary Service Commission is arranged so that the House does not appoint members; membership will consist of the Speaker and 1 member of every recognised party, with parties with 30 or more members also being represented by a second member who is not a Minister or a Parliamentary Under-Secretary:

Seems like a sensible modernisation.

Sean Plunket writes:

A research company has been canvassing for participants in a survey as part of a post graduate thesis at Victoria. 

The thesis is entitled “Testing the Efficacy of Educational Modules for Reducing the Stigma Towards people with a sexual interest in minors.” 

Now I don’t have a varsity degree, but I’ll have a crack at putting that word salad into common parlance. 

“Can we teach people to be more accepting of those who want to sexually abuse kids?” 

As a researcher, I’m not quite so quick to rush to judge this project – it may depend on the details.

First of all it is important to differentiate between those with a sexual attraction towards children and those who act on it. Most people can’t control whom they are attracted to, but they certainly can control whether or not they break the law and commit rape or sexual abuse.

Paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder where someone is primarily attracted towards children. Not all paedophiles go on to abuse children, and not all child sex abusers are paedophiles (as in they are also attracted to adults).

Plunket continues:

I am all for research into what makes someone a paedophile, and how those blighted individuals might be helped to abandon their perverted urges.  Many of those who engage in such abhorrent acts are victims of similar abuse and in some sense deserve help and sympathy but rebranding them as “people with a sexual interest in minors” only normalises their evil behaviour. 

Again there is a difference between interest and behaviour.

I would like to take part in the research and see how Victoria University thinks I might be educated out of my views on child abusers. There is something in it for me as I could win one of ten $50 Prezzy vouchers if I take part. 

The “research” has been approved by Victoria’s ethics committee and has the blessing of its Vice Chancellor. 

I’m not educated enough to understand what the research is really about, and I’d love the University to explain it to me but so far……. crickets. 

I would be interested also to know exactly what the focus of the research is, and its intended use. Is the focus on those who have an attraction but don’t act on it, or on those who have an attraction and do abuse children?

A reader has sent me a copy of his very comprehensive submission to the Royal Commission.

The headline:

Kiwi billionaire boss Chris Ellison proposes stopping staff leaving the office for coffee

Makes him sound like a terrible human being doesn’t it. But if you actually read the story, what he is doing is:

• An in-house gym
• An in-house restaurant
• On-site nurses and doctors
• Nine psychologists to tackle any mental health issues
• A creche, which costs employees only $20 a day
• A special air filtration system that minimises germs
• Water that meets organic and pesticide-free thresholds
• An art gallery

Be nice to have a headline that reflected that.

An interesting comment on my Royal Society funding piece:

There is no biography of Sir Roger Douglas. As a Senior Lecturer in History, I asked the Marsden Fund to support my biography of Douglas. They ranked my application 62 out of 62, dismissing it with the shallow comment, “The topic of Rogernomics is not all that exciting.” This is political bigotry. It shows the poor quality of the Royal Society’s thinking, which has since been exposed on other topics. 

It does seem incredible that they would declare there is no interest in Rogernomics as even 40 years on it is vigorously debated and Douglas is probably the most influential MP in NZ history who was not Prime Minister. I bet you a biography on a left wing political figure of the same stature would not be ranked last.