Radio NZ report:

Whangārei’s acclaimed, but controversial, Hundertwasser Art Centrecould run out of money by October 2025 – which means ratepayers may have to stump up to keep it open.

That is despite an undertaking during the long-running campaign to build the centre that it would pay its own way rather than rely on council funding.

It cost around $33 million and got over half of that from taxpayers as corporate welfare. They said they expected it to attract 450,000 visitors a year.

The trust’s half-yearly report, presented to Whangārei district councillors last month, showed the centre had 19,800 paying visitors in the second half of 2023 – a sharp drop from the 37,000 in the first four months after the doors opened.

So they are likely to get 40,000 visitors over a year, less than 10% of what was claimed. I don’t know why government keeps falling for these fantastical claims of patronage that never eventuate.

Reduced admission fees and shop sales led to a half-year loss by the Hundertwasser Art Centre of $765,000.

So a possible annual loss of $1.5 million. There are 30,000 households in Whangarei so each household will have to subsidise it on average by $50.

Liam Hehir skewers Chloe’s Swarbrick repeated claims she is a reluctant politician. He notes:

Swarbrick was born in the year of Our Lord, one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-four. She completed university studies in 2016. It was that same year, with great reluctance, that a political career was essentially forced upon her as made a high profile run at the Auckland mayoralty at just 22 years of age. Generating significant media buzz, she placed a very creditable third. …

What followed was an intense contest for Swarbrick’s political loyalties. Both Labour and the Greens courted the very reluctant candidate. Somehow the Greens were able to coax her into a reluctant continuation of her political journey. Swarbrick was no doubt horrified when she received an extremely comfortable list placing that all but assured her reluctant election to Parliament in the 2017 election. 

Success has continued to follow Swarbrick. She won a brilliant if reluctant insurgency for the seat of Auckland Central in 2020, which she won despite a massive shift towards Labour. With great reluctance, she went on to successfully defend it last year. 

Things were looking up for Swarbrick when her career looked stymied by the ascent of Marama Davidson as female co-leader of the party. This made it very hard for Swarbrick to advance because, even if James Shaw retired, there would not be another space in the ruling diarchy for another female identifying candidate. 

However, destiny intervened once more. The Greens actually changed their rules in 2022 so that there could be two female co-leaders. That meant, in the event of Shaw’s retirement from the leadership, the path would be open for Swarbrick to reluctantly resume her political ascent. …

And so, with great reluctance, Swarbrick was forced to take climb yet another rung of the ladder. “[We] need everyday people to not leave politics to the politicians,” she reluctantly announced, drawing a firm line between herself as a non-politician politician and the career politicians who treat politics like a career.

Hehir concludes:

The cynics have been quick to point out that that Swarbrick has spent almost all of her of her post-university life either running for office, getting ready for office or holding office. This is a bit misleading, however. Because while political success and glory has pursued Swarbrick relentlessly, that’s not her fault. 

The record is clear, this is a very reluctant politician.

Would be nice if the media adopted the same scepticism to such ridiculous claims.

After I blogged how segregated study areas could lead to serrated tutorials and lectures, a reader alerted me to the fact this has already happened. The Law Faculty AT Canterbury University advised:

This email is to let you know that the Faculty of Law, with our support is piloting a dedicated LAWS206 tutorial group for ākonga Māori who want to be in a like-minded group for the tutorials in this subject.  We are only running one group in the pilot to see how it goes so we are not able to accommodate everyone.  So, sorry if we cannot fit you into the group. The long-term goal is to have such a group operate in all the LAWS 200s, but we are starting with the pilot in Public Law only this year.

This is well intentioned but I think a very bad idea. What does it teach future lawyers if you start by saying, hey do you want to be segregated from other races? It also potentially leads to groupthink, and a filtering of contrary views.

Simeon Brown announced:

The Coalition Government will restore the rights of communities to determine whether to introduce Māori wards, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says.

“The Government will introduce a Bill in the coming months that will restore the ability for communities to petition their councils to hold binding polls on Māori ward decisions. This will include holding binding polls on wards that were established without the ability for local referendums to take place.

Residents, not politicians, should determine the constitutional structure of their local council. Introducing race based wards is a constitutional change, just as changing from FPP to STV is. Both types of changes should be ones for voters, not Councillors.

As signalled in our coalition agreements, affected councils will be required to hold a poll alongside the 2025 elections. The results of these polls will be binding on councils and will take effect for the local government term beginning October 2028.

“If councils do not wish to hold a poll, those councils will be given the opportunity to reverse their decision to establish Māori wards or to disestablish those wards prior to the 2025 local body elections.”

There are some Councils who voted for introducing Maori wards purely because they knew there was no ability for a referendum to sustain or veto their decision. If they know the community is against such a change, they can avoid the cost of a referendum by repealing their decision.

This will also allow voters to make informed choices in who they vote for in 2025, as all Council candidates will be on the record about whether or not they support race based wards.

I’ve often blogged on how the media will call numerous people or organisations far right our hard right, but never do so with those on the left.

Take an example – the Fabians are holding an event to discuss abolishing the NZ military. This is as far left or fringe as you can get, but I guarantee you such a term would never be used against them.

The Daily Mail report:

A Jewish woman who confronted a Met Police officer after he said that swastikas ‘need to be taken into context’ when she reported seeing them at a pro-Palestine protest has said the force needs ‘basic education’.

Jocelin Weiss, 30, was blown away after being told by police that the Nazi symbol was ‘not necessarily anti-Semitic or a disruption of public order’ when she saw it being displayed on a poster of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Met has sparked a major backlash, including on US news websites, after video emerged of an officer seemingly justifying the use of swastikas to Ms Weiss at Saturday’s march.

Now it shouldn’t be illegal to display a swastika, but the fact the Met Police will arrest someone for peacefully counter protesting a pro-Hamas march, and defend and justify the display of swastikas is telling.

I’ve (in order) been arrested, started a business and have had kids so somewhere between libertarian and conservative!

Katharine Moody writes:

Not good enough, Simon Court.  In a recent article, the Undersecretary for Resource Management Act (RMA) reform warned Councils that picking extreme climate scenarios in the conduct of regulatory decision-making “risks lawsuits by requiring developers to design and build to overly stringent climate warming models”.

By pulling out a yellow card, Simon Court assumes it will prevent further ‘screwing the scrum’ by over-zealous local experts and those local authorities who follow their guidance.  In my experience as a consultant planner, it won’t be enough.  

For years, I have observed a small group of local experts pushing the worst-case emission scenario, Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on businesses and home owners across New Zealand.

And yes, councils have already been taken to court on this matter; and yes, the use of these extreme scenarios have already been found to lack scientific rigour on merit review. 

The RCP 8.5 scenario is an extreme one. It assumes both that no country on earth implements any policy at all to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and that the impact is at the 90th percentile (ie the most pessimistic 10%).

Yet, her recommendations were largely ignored by the Ministry for the Environment (MFE) two years later in publishing its update to the Coastal hazards and climate change guidance for local government. This updated guidance recommended not only the use of the ‘high end’ RCP8.5 scenario, but additionally a ‘high end’ extreme of that extreme scenario, which they refer to as RCP8.5H+.  The Ministry has further updatedthat guidance this year, still persisting with the recommended use of the ‘high end’ RCP8.5 scenario in coastal hazard planning.

RCP8.5 is the climate scenario that Professor Dave Frame, an IPCC lead author, describes in the article as “a scenario that nobody really believes in” ̶  except for, it seems, a small cohort of experts who appear to have secured undue influence on MFE.

To my mind, there is no remedy aside from expunging all reference to RCP8.5 from local government guidance and hence, from current planning practice.  The cost to individuals, business entities and communities of ratepayers has been more than enormous already. 

If Governments force developers to plan for a scenario that has no real possibility of occurring, the cost can run into the billions.

Nate Silver has data on how Americans have voted by their income levels over time. He says the divide is now on culture, not income.

The proportion of the lowest income group that votes Republican has been:

• 2008: 26%
• 2012: 36%
• 2016: 43%
• 2020: 43%
• 2024: 52% (polls)

We see similar patterns here, but less pronounced with more blue collar workers voting National than Labour.

The 52% in just a polling average at the moment, so it will be interesting to see the actual results in November.

A US research company asked Americans how many unarmed black men are killed by the Police each year. The actual number is around 10 a year (which is of course still too high) but they asked people if the number was 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000 or more than 10,000. So each is different by an exponent.

So how many Americans thought the actual number of annual shootings of unarmed black men by Police was 1,000 or more. They break it down by political orientation.

• Very liberal: 40%
• Liberal: 28%
• Moderate: 25%
• Conservative: 18%
• Very conservative: 16%

Now this is the proportion who over-estimate deaths by a factor of 100!

The Canterbury Socialist Society are launching a campaign to justify the slaughter, rapes and torture of Jewish men, women and children on 7 October. They claim it is resistance, not terrorism.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a Palestinian revolutionary Marxist group. It has been designated a terrorist organisation by the EU, Japan, Canada and the US. It used to be part of the PLO but left when the PLO abandoned its goal of destroying Israel. They do not support any two state solution.

The woman pictured on their pamphlet is Leila Khaled. She has taken part in two aircraft hijackings and has been banned from entering many countries.

Now personally I wouldn’t ban the CSS from having their pro-terrorism meeting. It isn’t against the law. But considering that Massey University tried to ban Don Brash from a public event on the basis he was too extreme, and two Canadian provocateurs had venues cancel on them after political pressure, do you think we will hear a peep from any of the usual suspects that a public meeting to justify terrorism isn’t a great idea?

AUT have published their 5th annual trust in news report and the results are devastating. Rather than blame their woes on Google and Meta, every media organisation in NZ should be critically self-reflective on how they have contributed to this distrust, and what they could do differently to improve things.

Some key data:

• NZers who trust the news has fallen from 53% in 2020 to 33% in 2024
• The drop just in the last 12 months was 9%
• This is not due to international trends. In 2020 NZ was 11% above the global average of 42% and in 2024 NZ was 7% below the global average of 40%. This is about NZ media.
• Trust in news is significantly lower than Australia and Canada
• NZ has the highest proportion (75%) of people who actively avoid the news or selected media
• The only news brand with a (just) positive score is ODT on 5/10
• Radio NZ has gone from 7.0 to 4.9
• TVNZ from 6.8 to 4.8
• NZ Herald from 6.3 to 4.7
• Stuff from 6.1 to 4.6
• 87% of those who distrust news think the news is biased and not balanced
• 82% think news too much reflects the political leanings of newsrooms
• 59% think Government support for the media means you can’t trust media to hold Govt to account

In any normal industry this would be seen as a crisis. When so many think you are biased and not balanced, your number one priority should be how to fix it, rather than deny it.

Amusingly one journalist in a fit of irony tweeted that the 20% drop was all due to the Atlas Network. You couldn’t be funnier if you tried.

Here’s some things media could to restore trust:

• Welcome diversity of political views amongst staff (and by that I don’t just mean diversity between hard left and centre left) so centre-right people would feel welcome in your organisation
• Abolish corporate policies that forbid people to have conservative views on issues such as whether men can get pregnant
• Don’t have topics where you don’t allow debate such as on the Treaty, trans issues, preferred climate change response etc
• Ensure you have some journalists who don’t automatically think equality of outcome is desirable, as opposed to equality of opportunity
• Have more journalists who understand economics
• Have more journalists who will as aggressively interview Te Pati Maori and Green MPs as they do ACT and NZ First MPs

Or you can ignore all off the above and conclude the public, like me, are the ones who are wrong and there is no need to change anything – you just need more money from taxpayers or social media companies.

The free speech debate over Rainbow story time is somewhat different to the free speech debate over allowing guest speakers to speak at a venue, but the principles are similar.

First my personal view on Rainbow story time is that in NZ it is pretty harmless. My kids have been to a couple of them, and they enjoyed them. They were totally non-sexual and they are more akin to children’s pantomimes where leading female characters are often played by men for humorous effect.

But I understand that some people are worried about them. In the US there are instances of highly inappropriate drag shows and the like which are highly sexualised in front of children. But don’t assume that what happens in the US is the same as what is done in NZ. In fact anyone who did perform a sexualised show in front of children could face prosecution under our laws.

Now if you don’t like Rainbow story times in public libraries, you should have the right to lobby against them. There is a difference between these and a controversial guest speaker at a public venue.

If a public venue is being used just as a commercial venue for an outside organisation to host someone that people want to hear from, it is wrong to say that Councils should determine who can use their meeting halls on the basis of their personal preferences.

Rainbow storytime is slightly different. This is the Council hosting the activity directly. It is organised by Council staff and presumably any costs are met by the Council. People who think it is an inappropriate activity for a Council to organise and host should be able to lobby Councillors and ask for a different policy.

But if a Council has approved a Rainbow story time, then even if you disagree with their decision, you do not have the right to disrupt it and prevent it occurring, That prevents parents who do wish to have their kids attend what they see as harmless fun doing so. Conservatives should be very wary of deciding they know better than parents what their kids can attend.

If a Rainbow story-time was inappropriately sexualised, then it could potentially break the law and the correct response is to gather evidence and present it to the authorities. If you think the law is not strict enough, then you can lobby to change the law. But don’t use the thug’s veto to close down these events.

Lucy Rogers has done a two part post (Part 1, Part 2)on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

I don’t agree with all of Lucy’s takes, but it is a rare example of an article that doesn’t try to portray one side as blameless.

Personally I am very supportive of Israel’s right to respond to the October 7 attacks. But I am concerned about the humanitarian toll, and whether there is an end game that can allow civilians to try and rebuild their lives.

Don Brash writes:

Successive New Zealand governments, as governments in many other countries, have adopted policies designed to discourage the emission of greenhouse gases, or to encourage measures which would absorb such gases. By far the most logical of these measures is the Emissions Trading System (ETS). Other policies, such as subsidies for electric vehicles, have no logic at all: if switching to electric vehicles were the lowest cost way of reducing emissions, the ETS would already be encouraging that switching without subsidies. And if it isn’t, the subsidies push us into higher cost ways of getting to Net Zero.

Yep, the ETS should be our major vehicle to reduce emissions.

But what of the greenhouse gases which banks themselves generate?  With effect from this year, banks must report publicly on the greenhouse gases which their own operations generate – how much petrol they use, how much electricity, how many plane flights, how many car journeys, and so on.  Well, calculating that is apparently not terribly hard, whatever you might think of the value of doing the calculation, and the small (in New Zealand) bank that I chair has just paid a consultancy some thousands of dollars to make that estimate for us.

Silly, but not to hard to do.

But as of next year we will need to report also the emissions which our lending activities create or make possible.  And we paid the same consultancy some more thousands to do a rough estimate of that figure for a recent year.

This is absolutely nuts, and the sooner the new Government does away with the crazy law which requires such a meaningless calculation the better.

Meaningless?  Well, how does one estimate the greenhouse gases involved in, say, a loan to help build a new motorway?  I suppose it is possible (if meaningless) to estimate the greenhouse gases emitted in the construction of the motorway, but what about the effect of the traffic on the motorway?  Is there more traffic created because the road makes travel much faster?  Does the new route actually reduce the greenhouse gases generated by the traffic, perhaps because there is less stop-start traffic or a smoother gradient than on the older road which the motorway replaces?

Requiring banks to do this will just make money for consultants and produce meaningless data. Does anyone sane actually think the way to fight global warming is to have banks lend less money for people to buy houses etc?

The Serious Fraud Office said:

The SFO welcomes the Court of Appeal’s decision today which corrected the High Court findings in its New Zealand First Foundation (NZFF) case and reinforced the importance of transparency around political donations in a democratic system. 

Following the NZFF trial in 2022 the High Court found “if the money is ‘party donations’, there is comprehensive evidence [the accused] deployed the dishonest scheme in order to deceive the party and party secretary as to their better claims to the money…”.  

However, the Judge concluded that because the nearly $750,000 of funds were not deposited into the party’s account, they were not party “donations” under the Electoral Act, despite the clear intention of donors.  

The Crown argued that this finding was wrong and today the Court of Appeal agreed that the Judge erred in finding the donations were not party “donations” under the Electoral Act. 

It is very good that the Court of Appeal over-ruled the High Court that a donation for a party is somehow not a party donation if the party redirects it to another entity.

Ultimately, the appeal was dismissed on the basis of the second ground of appeal regarding claim of right. Due to “an unfortunate lacuna in the [High Court] Judge’s reasoning”, despite the finding that the respondents had acted dishonestly, the Court held that Crown was not in a position to advance an argument of error of law on this point.  

Which means the respondents were again found not guilty.

In my opinion the SFO made an error by trying to turn what was a simple electoral law case into a more complex fraud conspiracy case. If they had merely charged people with breaches of the Electoral Act, then the outcome may have been quite different.

This shows very clearly how our problem is too much spending, rather than not enough tax. Labour and Greens in 2000 pledged to keep spending to below 30% of GDP. You do this by not increasing spending faster than the rate the entire economy is growing. The more economic growth you have, the more you can spend.

If they had kept their word, then we would be facing a large budget surplus with tax revenues well in excess of spending.

ACT MP Todd Stephenson writes:

Last year, protestors at Albert Park assaulted women attending a speech on gender issues, and effectively chased the controversial speaker off stage.

And recently in Wellington, a US diplomat was forced to abandon a talk on international security due to disruption from pro-Palestine protestors.

Activists have celebrated these cancellations, but ACT has warned time and time again that the same tactics could easily be turned against the political left.

And now it’s happening.

Destiny Church, who oppose rainbow story time events, have successfully shut down two events with the threat of protest, and even vandalised a public crossing. Hastings District Council said they could no longer guarantee the safety of attendees.

It is sad, but no surprise, that Destiny Church has adopted the tactics of the left to shut down events they disapprove of.

We need a more principled approach that respects the freedoms of left and right, conservative and progressive.

If the “woke” left wants to stop reactionary speakers, they ought to prove those speakers are breaking laws – such as by inciting violence.

If conservatives want to stop rainbow events, they ought to prove that children are being put at risk – and take those concerns to police.

If protestors on either side of politics believe current laws are inadequate at protecting the rights of the vulnerable, they need to propose specific law changes that can be scrutinised and discussed.

I agree, of course.

Stuff reports:

Is it possible to have too much wealth? To be too rich? And should we therefore have a cap on wealth?

Dutch political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns believes the answer to those questions are: yes, yes and yes! …

Robeyns has written a book arguing that we’d have a vastly better world if we had a hard limit on the wealth that any one person can accumulate – a cap on the rich. She calls the concept Limitarianism – and she’s willing to put a number on it.

She says the idea of people being below the poverty line is morally unacceptable and wants an upper threshold too.

This is like arguing that as it is unacceptable some people die at a young age, it should be unacceptable some people live to an old age!

What Robeyns promotes is basically Marxism – the notion that all wealth belongs to the state, and you can only keep what it allocates to you.

Imagine her $14 million limit in real life. Rod Drury made more than that from Aftermail. So under this worldview, any surplus wealth would have been confiscated. So how likely is it Drury would go on to create Xero, if every cent he made from it gets taken by the Government? Almost zero – he’d just go surfing instead.

So under this system, we would not have a Xero. Thousands of jobs would not have been created, and the world’s best accounting software would not have been created making life so much better for millions of small businesses.