The WSJ reports:

Last week, a slow-burning selloff in France’s government bond market took an alarming turn as it spread across the continent, reviving memories of the eurozone debt crisis last decade. France’s 10-year borrowing cost has risen toward 5%, the highest level since 2002.

The more you borrow, the bigger the risk you become, and the higher the interest rates go.

With presidential elections approaching in the spring, leading candidates to replace President Emmanuel Macron, who is term limited, are showering voters with promises to expand government spending.

Sounds familiar? Two parties in NZ are promising over $200 billion each of extra spending.

The difference between paying 1% and 5% on your borrowing is, of course, massive. In NZ we were paying 3% in 2017, and we are now paying just over 5%.

In October 2023, Curia polled 1,000 NZers on whether they have heard of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power, and if they had a positive or negative view of them.

The results were:

• All voters: Mongrel Mob 3% positive/82% negative = -79% approval
• All voters: Black Power 4% positive/79% negative = -75% approval
• Green voters: Mongrel Mob 7% positive/82% negative = -75% approval
• Green voters: Black Power 5% positive/81% negative = -76% approval

Green voters are smart and get it. Green MPs do not.

Great article:

“Earlier this year the Ministry of Education awarded AGGS the Education Excellence Award for Raising Student Achievement after the school recorded NCEA and University Entrance results above 90% in 2025.”

“We need all the values that are important for young people to feel connected, supported and trusted. Māori students learn like everyone else. I don’t think we need to do things differently or make excuses for them.”

“In 2014 Tangaroa achieved an 88.1% NCEA level 2 pass rate, when nationally the average pass rate for Decile 1 schools hovered between 65% and 69%.”

“I knew how to lift achievement for Māori Pacific students.”

“[When I first got to AGGS] I felt there was a perception among some staff that these students weren’t as capable. I felt the students were being underserved.”

AGGS now has academic results ahead of Epsom Girls (EQI 397) and AGS (EQI 385).

To give you an idea of the progress for AGGS.

UE for LEAVERS

2022: 62%

2023: 67.1%

2024: 73.8%

2025: 84.6%

Retention until 17yo

2022: 87.2%

2023: 87.9%

2024: 89%

2025: 94.5%

Their Equity Index Number is in the high range (488) and many students will travel a long way to be on site each day.

Their ethnicity demographics in 2025 were:

21% Asian

19% European

20% Maori

72% Pasifika

(NB: Ministry stats allow double identification.)

A key thing about that part of the story is that the achievement differentials between ethnicities are minimal – as opposed to many high EQI schools.

The Minister, her MAG, the Ministry, many, many schools – should be beating a path to Ngaire Ashmore’s door.

For more information:

Each year as I do the leavers data process it reveals a range of examples such as above – and points in the direction of examples of great practice – such as AGGS.

Towards exams and final assessments in Term 4 schools also use the data for goal setting.

Many schools, and other organisations, have obtained the data this year. 

If you would like your copy – please see below. The cost is $400 plus GST and the data set will be sent immediately upon order and payment can be made in your normal time frames.

The seventeen sheets cover:

1. Base data by School Number

2. Base data by EQI

3. Listed by Size

4. Listed by L2 NCEA for leavers 2022 – 2025

5. Listed by L3 NCEA for leavers 2020 – 2025

6. Listed by UE for leavers 2018 – 2025

7. Listed by L3 NCEA to UE for leavers gap – 2028 – 2025

8. Listed by student retention until 17yo 2018 – 2025

9. Listed by Progression to L7+ degree study 2019 – 2024

10. Listed by UE results in EQI 10ths – 2021 – 2025

11. Listed by UE results with EQI coded – 2021 – 2025 (highlighted those doing well from higher EQI situations)

12. STATE only: Listed by UE results with EQI coded – 2021 – 2025 

13. National Measures – Attendance & UE Means by EQI 10ths (2022 – 2025)

14. Broad Sector Measures – Overall, Ethnicity, Gender, School Governance, School Type, Geographical Area.

15. Boys’ School Groups (Super 8, South Island) – UE and Retention 2024 – 2025.

16. UE Data for 59 Impressive Improvers – 2023 – 2025.

17. Data Summary and Goal Setting Sheet for Schools to Use. 

[email protected]

The Greens are campaigning on:

• Funding gangs to do drug rehabilitation
• Their right to campaign at gang pads for votes and selfies
• Repealing the gang patch law
• Allowing all prisoners to vote, even mass murdurers
• Abolishing life sentences for murder
• Abolishing preventive detention for repeat sexual offenders
• Allow home detention sentences for murder
• Ban imprisonment as an option for people who breach parole and bail conditions
• Have all defendants up to the age of 25 sent to the youth court instead of criminal court

This is all in their policy.

The Herald reports:

In 2017, Ngaire Ashmore walked into a school in crisis. Now Auckland Girls’ Grammar School is winning awards, fielding hundreds of out-of-zone applications per year, and 92% of its Year 13 students have gained University Entrance – compared to 48% a decade ago. 

The school’s first Māori woman principal spoke candidly to Carolyne Meng-Yee about becoming a mother at 19, challenging low expectations and the personal experiences that shaped her conviction that every student has potential – even when they can’t see it in themselves.

AGGS has an equity score of 487. This means it has a higher than average number of socio-economic barriers. It has fewer than 10% European students.

She has not just doubled their UE rate, but she has almost no difference in outcomes between Maori, Pacific and other students. So how did she do it?

The first two years were tough. There was a lot of resistance to change, and getting everyone on board — particularly the teachers — to believe every student could be an achiever was a challenge.

She overcome resistance to change, and raised expectations.

I knew how to lift achievement for Māori Pacific students.

[When I first got to AGGS] I felt there was a perception among some staff that these students weren’t as capable. I felt the students were being underserved.

She resisted the bigotry of low expectations for ethnic groups that traditionally don’t achieve as well.

Do you think the education system is still asking Māori students to fit into a system that isn’t designed for them?

I think there are things in the system that we need to do better. But I would hate to think the system isn’t working because we must have another system for Māori — because we don’t. 

[At school] we need all the values that are important for young people to feel connected, supported and trusted. Māori students learn like everyone else. I don’t think we need to do things differently or make excuses for them.

She explicitly rejects that there must be another system for Maori, and that Maori students learn differently. And she has almost 90% of Maori students at her school getting UE.

I learned that every student can succeed and that what happens outside the school gates should not define their success at school.

I think this is so important. Far too many people in education seem to think socio-economic success is destiny. They explain away everything as a function of poverty. They think that a school with a high equity number can’t be expected to get results as good as a low equity score.

This is not an argument that socio-economic factors don’t matter. Of course they do. But it is an argument that they are not and should not be determinative.

The Herald reports:

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick won’t say if she would have advised her MP Hūhana Lyndon against meeting with members of the Mongrel Mob.

After being asked the question twice, Swarbrick said she needed to “understand more of the context as to what has played out here”, although she earlier said having those types of engagements were important to understanding and addressing issues in the community.

Swarbrick’s co-leader Marama Davidson said meeting with the Mongrel Mob is “not a new thing” – she made headlines for meeting members in 2021 – and her party was “unapologetic” for engaging with marginalised communities.

The Greens seen gangs as a marginalised community. The reality is they are the ones who create victims.

Gangs are not some sort of community group or extended whanau. They are organised crime. The crime is not incidental to their existence. It is their defining characteristic. Can you name a single gang in NZ that isn’t part of organised crime?

The Greens see them as a marginalised community, and think it is fine to go to gang headquarters and campaign for their votes. There is no empathy for the law abiding New Zealanders who have been killed, raped, bashed or robbed by gang members, because in the Greens world, the gang members are the real victims – of a patriarchal racist society.

On the 2nd of October I wrote:

So the last six polls, all from different firms, have had ACT ahead of Opportunity by margins ranging from 1% to 6%, and the Herald-MOTU poll of polls says that the poll of polls means Opportunity is ahead of ACT.

On the 8th of October the Herald did an explainer, and have made some changes. Much of their explanation has nothing to do with why they had Opportunity above ACT, when every single pollster had them 1% to 6% behind. But there were some nuggets of useful info:

Well, most importantly, it means the Poll of polls is not a polling average.

Then don’t call it a poll of polls!!!

Crucially, the Poll of polls doesn’t just take polled values as is. Instead, it considers how polling values have changed in the recent past, which it uses to predict how voter sentiment may have evolved since the polls were actually conducted. The model’s predictions are then updated as new polls are included.

This seems to be saying that if a party has been going up in the polls, or down in the polls, then they predict that trend will continue. Now I’ve been following polling aggregators and forecasts for over 15 years, since Nate Silver made them famous (and prior to that Real Clear Politics). This is a very very rare practice, and would normally only occur in an environment where you have hundreds or thousands of polls, as inputs to a model.

Certainly some forecasters such as Nate Silver do include non polling information such as economic data, and even expert predictions. But they make it crystal clear that they are doing so, and in Silver’s case they provide different outputs (lite, classic, deluxe) so readers can pick between the simple polling average and that which incorporates other data.

Could you imagine what would happen if an actual polling company said “Hey National got 32% in this poll, but as they were at 30% in the last poll, they have momentum, so we are going to report they are at 34%!”

It is worth reflecting on what the actual polls since the Herald poll of polls had Opportunity ahead of ACT have said. They are:

• Roy Morgan: ACT 4.5% ahead
• Reid Research: ACT 3.5% ahead
• Verian: Act 2.0% ahead
• Curia: ACT 4.4% ahead

So if the momentum formula was a useful thing to do, then you would have expected the next set of polls to indeed show Opportunity ahead. But none of them do – the last 10 polls all show ACT ahead, but the herald poll of polls still shows Opportunity ahead of ACT.

This is not a trivial issue. Millions of people may have seen this forecast and thought it accurately reflected the state of the race.

The Herald will continue to use predictions of the outcome of a “hypothetical election held today” as the primary output of the Poll of polls. This is, after all, what we are most interested in.

However, to make it easier to understand what the model is doing, we will also publish two additional estimates. First, we will publish the model’s estimate of the polling average today to help readers understand the magnitude of pollster effects.

Second, we will publish the model’s estimate of the polling average one month ago to help readers understand the model’s sense of underlying momentum. It will also enable readers to check the model’s estimates against the most recent five or six polls.

Extra data is good, as is the explanation. But what the Herald should have done is made clear from the beginning that they were not just taking poll results and weighting them for size, recency or house effects, but also adding in an assumption about momentum (that is very dubious).

What has also been unacceptable is the refusal to actually release the formula being used, so people can judge for themselves. I do a simple polling average at Curia, and the methodology is published here.

If it is necessary to modify the underlying model to more accurately reflect voter sentiment, then we will make changes and explain the reasoning that prompted them to readers. However, at present we do not believe changes are necessary.

You’ve still got a “poll of polls” claiming Opportunity is ahead of ACT, despite the last 10 polls saying the opposite. I think changes were necessary some time ago.

Finally a note of caution. As the election gets closer, the Herald’s model will no doubt reduce the adjustments it makes for stuff like momentum, so that the final pre-election forecast is basically just a polling average (with house effects adjusted for). It is quite possible, even probably, that will be accurate. Polling averages done well, are often superior to any individual poll.

But that doesn’t mean their “poll of polls” six weeks out is at all accurate, or useful. In fact it is highly misleading. Readers should not have to read a 10 page article to understand what it is and isn’t. Do not call it a poll of polls when by your own words “it is not a polling average”.

Here is Labour’s fiscal plan:

You will see they are forecasting $365 million over four years from “reversing tobacco tax cut”.

This is the 50% reduction on excise tax for heated tobacco products. This was a minor change designed to incentivise smokers onto a less harmful product. So it is easy to calculate the “lost” revenue from the policy, as you simply double the actual excise paid on heated tobacco products, and subtract what was collected – ie the lost revenue is equal to the actual collected revenue.

Labour’s fiscal plan has $365 million from changing this excise tax back to what it was. So what has been the actual data?

A March 2026 OIA said that excise tax was $2.26 million in the 2024/25 year, which means the “cost” was also $2.26 million.

Now I wondered if there was data for the most recent 2025/26 year, so I asked. And I just got the reply. It was $3.45 million.

Labour’s fiscal plan says they will make $82 million from reversing the change, while the actual data is it will bring in $3.45 million. So the actual revenue is 4.2% of what they claim, or to put it another way their fiscal plan is out by 2377%!!

UPDATE: The fault may be Treasury’s, not Labour. It seems Treasury doesn’t even look at actual data and has kept in its forecasts a projection the HTP excise reduction will cost $82 million a year. This is clearly nonsense, as seen by the actual data.

So Treasury is under-estimating revenue data by $82 million a year. Labour is claiming that reversing the policy will magically bring in $82 million a year. It won’t. Both Treasury and Labour are wrong, as the Customs data is crystal clear the fiscal impact is less than 5% of that. But the greater blame lies with Treasury.

Also thanks to The Post who did check this out, and pointed me to the Treasury estimates.

Erica Stanford released:

New independent assessment results show primary and intermediate students made the equivalent of four months’ additional progress in mathematics between 2024 and 2026, signalling a turnaround in achievement, Education Minister Erica Stanford says.

The latest Progressive Achievement Test (PAT) data, released today by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER), show statistically significant improvements in mathematics and reading comprehension and vocabulary.

“Our number one priority in education has been raising achievement and closing the equity gap, and these results are incredibly encouraging.

“It means more children are building stronger foundations in literacy and numeracy. These are significant gains and another sign that we are finally starting to turn achievement around.

This is great news, and shows the importance of bedding in the reforms, rather than passing them or scrapping them.

Wow, that is some difference. This is just such great news.

The Guardian reports:

The man accused of murdering Ann Widdecombe has been charged with engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism including against Nigel Farage. …

So this young man didn’t just (allegedly) bludgeon a 78 year old woman to death because he hated her politics, but also wanted to kill Nigel Farage because Farage had the wrong beliefs.

Where are all the hundreds of articles bemoaning the rise of the extreme violent left? Where are the taxpayer funded documentaries about them?

Political violence is not unique got any one side of politics, but the focus on only one side is what stands out.

Parliament has replaced the RMA. It is dead and buried. Replacing it are a Planning Act and Natural Environment Act. They are both vastly superior to the RMA.

But the fight is not over. The new Acts allow Ministers to issue National Policy Statements that will have huge influence in the new system. A National Policy Statement by Chris Bishop will be far far superior to one by a Labour/Green/TPM/Opportunity Government.

Labour to their credit have said they will not repeal the new laws. But they can promulgate NPSs that will make it much harder for good projects to get consented. So the election outcome will matter.

The independent review of the monetary policy response to Covid-19 is here. It seems fair and balanced. The key takeaways are:

• MPC’s initial response was praiseworthy; rapid and, for New Zealand, innovative monetary accommodation was provided
• Reserve Bank and the banks were insufficiently well prepared for policy near zero interest rates
• As inflation accelerated away from target, MPC decided to stop adding stimulus, but without sufficient urgency
• Inflation rose as far as 7.3%, 5.3% above target, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.2%, an unsustainable historic low,necessitating a costly reduction in economic growth and employment to restore stability
• The law was altered to introduce a Dual Mandate, adding scope for discretion and guiding the MPC to focus less on price stability
• the combined stimulus, while appropriate in the early stages, was too strong for too long

So Labour’s introduction of a dual mandate was a contributing factor to the high inflation we had, along with the RB being too slow to act as inflation started to increase.

The latest update from the Taxpayers’ Union bribe-o-meter:

Two of the seven parties are being fiscally responsible. Two are being irresponsible, and three are just in the money goes on trees category.

The Herald talks to Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan:

A search of Hansard shows that, besides the Speaker, his assistants and deputy, Xu-Nan is the only one who comes close and is by far the MP with the most recorded speeches and questions this term, over 1100.

“Even in the House, you’re learning from your colleagues, you’re learning from each other in the committee stage, you’re learning from ministers, and there are some fantastic ministers who really know their portfolio and are really willing to share their expertise, and those are the ones that you’ll find where the committee stage is the most enjoyable.”

He cited Chris Bishop, Nicole McKee, James Meager and former minister Chris Penk as his favourites.

“There’s such an easy-flowing dialogue and conversation. You ask a question, they respond,” he said. “They’re not there to be political. They’re there to genuinely engage and answer questions.”

His favourite committee stage the whole term was a Statutes Amendment Bill in 2025 in the name of McKee – a bill that makes non-controversial technical changes or corrects or updates a variety of acts.

What he loves most about his job is “the infinite opportunity to learn”.

This is such a good attitude for an MP to have. Quite a few MPs think their job is to create outrage on Instagram and TikTok. But Xu-Nan sees his job as both holding the Government to account, but also an opportunity to learn. We could do with more MPs like him – in all parties.

Politico reports:

So the net support is:

1. Canadians on Carney’s reciprocal tariffs: +54%
2. Americans on Carney’s reciprocal tariffs: +2%
3. Americans on Trump’s tariffs: -30%
4. Canadians on Trump’s tariffs: -75%

Trump is looking to not only lose the House, but also lose the Senate. He managed to get a plurality of Americans backing Canada!

A really fascinating article by Erika Aliarez who went viral over footage of her at a ballpark game returning to her seat with a baby strapped to her chest and her hands full of ballpark food. She was dubbed Mother of the Year and her husband a lowlife who received death threats.

Her poignant article shows the damage that gets done by the viral lynch mobs who determine the entree worth of a person, based on one incident, especially one without full context.

LBC reports:

An investigation has revealed that a man known only as ‘Mr X’ worked as a personal bodyguard for Ismail Haniyeh, who was Hamas’ leader in Gaza between 2007 and 2017. 

He then successfully applied for asylum and eventually indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and was able to plot an antisemitic attack on the second anniversary of the October 7 attack perpetrated by Hamas. …

However, not only were his ties to Haniyah — who was assassinated in 2024 — reportedly well known, he also had a criminal history in Egypt where he was arrested for digging tunnels and smuggling weapons and gold into Gaza.

The UK Government knew all this, yet gave him citizenship!

As we draw closer to the 2026 US Congressional mid-term elections (where all US House of Representatives and 1/3 of Senators are up for re-election along with Statewide races but NOT the US President), the mainstream media’s rhetorical war with President Donald Trump is ramping up. Any incumbent administration is anxious to tout their successes and since Trump won the Presidential election in November 2024 he is no different. In a normal media environment, left leaning media tend to downplay any right leaning administration’s efforts and play up criticism from their left leaning opponents. In the right leaning media world, they do the opposite and will praise Trump’s 2^nd term and pan the Democrats. The current media environment is the most hostile and biased I have ever seen. Mainstream media no longer merely show a long standing left leaning bias, they engage in outright deceptive practices frequently telling blatant untruths about Trump and, more frequently, completely ignoring his achievements or significantly downplaying them. This post will illustrate this. Ask yourself, how many of these 45 demonstrable achievements that Trump has made since his swearing in on 20 January 2025 (so only 21 months ago) have you seen reported on in the New Zealand media? My guess is at best 5. If anyone claims Trump has done little to fulfill his campaign promises, here is the list with multiple links:

1. Illegal migration into the US has been entirely stopped. The Biden Administration’s catch and release policy has been ended and there have been 15 straight months of ZERO releases into the country. Illegal migrant entry in the US has dropped from a peak of 10,000 a day to zero. 2.6 million+ illegal immigrants are no longer in the US (including 650,000 ICE arrests) of which 400,000 had other often serious criminal convictions) plus over 2 million self-deportations induced by ending Federal government payments and offering a relocation subsidy of $2,500 plus a one-way airfare.

2 . Fentanyl trafficking into the US has dropped by 56% which has led to a decline in overdose deaths of 21%.

3. Largest one-year drop in reported homicides in U.S. history with violent crime (rapes, robberies, assaults) down significantly. Signed the Laken Riley Act to get dangerous criminals off American streets. It is not coincidental that such rapid reductions in violent crime have occurred as ICE detains and deports illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes.

4. Targeted crime operations in major cities are delivering record-low murders in several metros.

5. Federal government funding cuts to sanctuary cities to be implemented pending final SCOTUS approval.

6. Designation of Tren de Aragua (Venezuela), MS-13 (El Salvador), and 30 other international cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organisations since February 2025. Many hundreds of the most vicious and dangerous gang members were amongst the first targeted by ICE for arrest and removal.

7. Antifa designated a Domestic Terrorist Organisation. They have been responsible for some of the most persistent violent attacks on law enforcement and government buildings in key US cities. This has enabled them to be charged with Federal crimes resulting in lengthy sentences and not released on the street as had been the case in a number of liberal cities with permissive District Attorneys.

8. Record U.S. energy production and exports at all-time highs (US is now a net energy exporter). There has been a vitual doubling of US oil capacity with the recent agreement to ramp up once compromised and faltering Venezuelan oil production.

9. 600,000+ new private sector jobs added since January 2025.

10. Largest blue-collar wage growth in 60 years.

11. Inflation tamed to 2.6% (2025 average) down almost 70% from 8% peak under Biden (2022 average).

12. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed (July 2025) making the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent plus no tax on tips, overtime or Social Security.

13. $5 trillion + in deregulation savings

14. $215 billion in government efficiency cuts ($1,335 per taxpayer) – said by Government Accounting Office (GAO) to be closer to $120B. If the two figures are averaged, it’s still an impressive amount of saving of taxpayer dollars.

15. $10 trillion + in re-shored/domestic investments and secured domestic manufacturing (semiconductors, autos, heavy equipment) expanded.

16. Trade deficit at its lowest level since 2009 and $300 billion+ in tariff revenues collected.

17. Stock market hit record highs. Dow Jones and NASDAQ.

18. Trump has brokered 7 peace deals:

(i) Gaza ceasefire + hostage release secured

(ii) Armenia-Azerbaijan lasting peace

(iii) India-Pakistan cease fire

(iv) DRC-Rwanda peace agreement

(v) Cambodia-Thailand border conflict resolved

(vi) Kosovo-Serbia dispute resolved

(vii) Egypt-Ethiopia dam dispute resolved

19. Abraham Accords proposed to be expanded to: Azerbijan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon,

20. Iran’s nuclear capability significantly degrade plus a maximum pressure campaign waged (450+ sanction designations) with the financial sanctions having the most teeth and reach.  I’m going to analyze the Iran war in more detail in a separate post.

21. Trump brokered a groundbreaking deal with Denmark regarding Greenland enabling the US complete and independent ability to bolster necessary security with permanent basing rights, non-NATO bases banned and blocked from investments deemed not in US interests and these rights in perpetuity even if Greenland gains full independence. The deal was praised by both the Greenland and Danish Prime Ministers.

22. NATO allies now working toward 5% GDP defense spending greatly reducing the total US defense bill required to be spent defending allies overseas.

23. Over 100 foreign detained Americans released and returned to the US.

24. Destruction of 69 narco-terrorist drug carrying vessels

25. Nicolás Maduro captured and stabilization of Venezuela gradually from previous status as the world’s most corrupt narco state.

26. Record surge in military recruitment and the largest military investment ($5 trillion) in decades

27. Veterans Administration hospital backlog reduced 60% and 51,936 homeless veterans housed.

28. Employment, benefits and back pay restored for those discharged from the military due to Biden era vaccine-mandates.

29. Transgender enlistment barred and transgender treatments to military personnel stopped.

30. DEI eliminated across the military.

31. DEI discrimination banned in federal contracting and agencies and race-based hiring ended.

32. Men/boys banned from women/girls sports and upheld by SCOTUS

33. Federal government no longer funds chemical/surgical transgender procedures for minors.

34. Trump reduces prescription medicine costs with “Most Favoured Nation” drug pricing in the US with 16+ major pharma companies.

35. Eight artificial food dyes phased out (40%+ industry compliance).

36. Childhood vaccine schedule revised from 72 to 11 consensus shots in line with European nation average.

37. US withdraws from the World Health Organization (WHO).

38. Created a lasting transparent crypto regulatory framework via GENIUS Act and a strategic Bitcoin Reserve created.

39. Election integrity and citizenship verification measures expanded nationwide. The DOJ is aggressively cleaning up state voter rolls bloated by ineligible voters. US military cyber security experts will monitor election integrity. DOJ/ODNI seized Fulton County, Georgia 2020 ballots over suspected fraud and FBI 2020 fraud investigations in Maricopa County, AZ.

40. Energy dominance unleashed: National Energy Emergency declared and Green New Deal progressively scrapped. 6,000+ drilling permits approved (55% increase) and 13.1 million acres opened for coal leasing and record LNG exports (>100 million tons) and record new nuclear projects advancing toward online status.

41. Trump Accounts launched for newborns with federal seed funding + corporate matching.

42. 175,000 visas of criminals, fraudsters and foreigners calling for violence against the US revoked.

43. 275,000 illegal aliens removed from Social Security rolls; and benefits terminated for 1.4 million illegal aliens.

44. Crackdowns on the rampant rorting of the H1-B business visa programme with the Admin aiming to curb H1-B abuse with a $100,000 application fee.

45. 62,000+ missing migrant children rescued.

A guest post by Ian Boag:

Anyone fortunate enough to own a Pak’N’Save or a New World has an annual income measured in millions. The business model is relatively low margin (4% after tax) plus rebates (maybe 2% or so) for a total of maybe 6% – on a turnover of $100m that is a few millions. Nice for them. There are some novelties about how you get there – eg I can’t just rock up with $10m and tell Fred I want to buy his New World. Even if he likes the number – he can’t sell it to me. And if I already own a New World I can’t buy a Pak’N’Save as well. 

Co-op rules and all that – it is what it is. A “worthiness” check. It would be novel if Fonterra worked that way …

When a small non 4-square grocery gets to buy stuff retail from Pak’N’Save for less than what the (Foodstuffs) wholesaler will sell it for you can see that small non Foodstuffs groceries don’t have much future.

The bottom line is that knocking 50% or whatever out of that tsunami of owner income might drop prices at the till by maybe 3%. Not enough to get excited about. So anyone who wants to make the supermarkets less profitable and give significant savings to customers – by splitting this or that – be that Chris, Chris, Nicola, Chloe or Winston  – is just pushing shit uphill.

All these creative ways to supposedly improve competition and lower prices are hot air and the only real option is to just suck it up. 

The only action that would dent it is to take GST off food and have that passed along. The “what is food?” argument could be dealt to by adopting the Australian classification list. There would be a few classification grizzles that would be dealt with relatively quickly (the Aussies dealt with their big ones a long time ago) and probably an ongoing dribble of complaints that would not really amount to a lot.  The Australians have had 25 years to sort it out. All their big ones were sorted years ago. There will always be a few funnies (hot pie vs cold pie) but they don’t amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of things.

Maybe it is unfair (?) that high earners would get much of the benefit because they spend more on food. I’ve seen numbers that suggest a 2% tweak in the top income tax rate would equalise that and fix the revenue loss. Low income earners would be significantly better off and high income earners would be relatively unaffected – savings from GST removal balanced by a small tweak in their top income tax rate. Whatever.

I can afford the supermarket prices, so they don’t keep me awake at night.  I am just suggesting that removing GST from food is the only lever available to reduce prices significantly within a reasonable timeframe. It could be done quickly, unlike the other ideas being floated. To be pernickety about it, food would be zero-rated rather than exempt. A technical issue.

 We can go on forever debating break-ups, economies of scale,  concerns about foreign investors, lockups of suitable land – yadda yadda –  and any consequent changes would take years. Probably a Royal Commission, appeals, and more. Years and years. The Think Tanks would pontificate. The legal profession would do well. Every man and his dog would pile in. Years and years and years.

GST off food would essentially be “now” …. but the ideological purity of “GST on everything” seems to be more important.  Economists at the OECD praise NZ and they would know. The rest of the world is taking  a while to catch on but we lead

To be clear – all I am saying here is that zero-rating food with a small tweak to the top tax rate would be more or less revenue neutral for the government, help those at the bottom and not be all that punitive to those at the top because they benefit more from the cheaper food. Far simpler than targeted benefits here and payments there and whatever.