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.

You might think the name “School Strike 4 Climate” would suggest an organisation is focused on galvanising students on the issue of climate change. But alas, they have morphed into just another hard left activist group.

No doubt soon they will also demand massive tax increases, abolishing prisons etc.

The Herald reports:

If you were one of the people to hold the role of New Zealand prime minister since 1984, one of the more unusual parts of your calendar would have been pencilling time to speak to an oral historian from the Alexander Turnbull Library’s Political Diaries project.

This routine, described by former prime minister John Key as “cathartic”, will become a thing of the past thanks to the library deciding to wrap the project up following the 2023 election.

Interviews for the project could last just a few minutes, or go for much, much longer. Prime ministers would unburden themselves of the day-to-day challenges of governing. But there was a catch. Unlike interviews with news media, destined for immediate consumption and the rapid metabolism of the 24-hour news cycle, Political Diaries interviews have never been released – at least not without significant restriction.

Not a second of the 1500 hours of interviews with 115 different participants, including prime ministers, party leaders, and significant MPs over 40 years has been made available to the wider public.

These interviews are a treasure trove for future historians. They’ll all be released eventually and will form a priceless unique commentary on major political events.

It is a real shame they are no longer seen as a priority by the National Library.

I blogged in 2018:

The WTO dispute resolution system is vital. It is what allows global trade agreements to be enforced. What the US is doing doesn’t just affect countries trading with the US, but every WTO member.

If the US cripples the appellate body, then (for example) Australia could once again start blocking our apples on spurious grounds. And it would be impossible for us to get a binding ruling preventing them from doing so.

This was in response to Trump refusing to allow the US to vote for more members of the appellate body, which means it would be inquorate and there could be no final determinations. What the USG was doing was especially bad as it harms the entire rules based system.

I assume that Biden would have returned the WTO appeals board to a quorum, but alas it seems he is just as protectionist as Trump and is continuing to cripple the WTO. Basically the US wants to be exempt from adverse decisions, so long as they claim what they are doing is justified on national security grounds.

So it is rather depressing that it is now the bipartisan policy of the United States that the WTO and the rules based trade system should be crippled. Time to set up a new WTO without them!

Haimona Gray writes:

This is how I feel about Māori media – if Māori were only informed by Māori media they would be intellectually starved to the point of mind rot.  

They would also have to listen to a lot of white men telling them what’s good for Maori. For them, but really for ’them’.

These shows exist to make left-wing pakeha feel good about themselves for tuning in. They do this by pitching shows directly at an audience that wants loud voices who will play the notes they expect to hear. 

In a ‘Te Ao with Moana’ panel debate on “who sets the election narrative”, the panel of four people was half pakeha men. 

This week’s ‘Te Ao’ episode covered the Treaty Principles Bill. To discuss it they brought on former Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson (pakeha man, but hugely respected in Māoridom), Matthew Hooton (pakeha man), Max Harris (pakeha man), and Heather Came (pakeha woman).  

This is a show on Māori Television, which receives public funding to produce Māori focused content. This is also a show where host Moana Maniapoto asked (pakeha) NZ Herald senior writer Simon Wilson “is the media just talking to itself?”

I would answer with a resounding “yes, you are, and you’re choosing to do so by prioritising ideology over Māori voices you or your audience might not agree with.”

They are not alone there.

Re: News – the most recent of Radio NZ’s expensive failed experiments in youth news – announced it was partnering with M9 for a Māori TED-style series. This would include nine Māori leaders discussing the role of Te Tiriti in the future of Aotearoa. 

These nine guests included a current Māori Party MP, a former Māori Party MP, the son of a current Māori Party MP, a former head of Greenpeace who was forced to resign as Human Rights Commissioner for disparaging Police, and an anti-dairy farming activist. 

Do you see a pattern? More specifically, do you see how this contributes to a racist idea of Māori as a hivemind? 

While I’ll never condone celebrating people losing their jobs, I’m not sure we as taxpayer dollars were getting any value from a media outlet so aggressively slanted and one which sees this as a balanced coverage of Māori thought.

An argument given to me by the hosts and producers of these shows is “well we can’t find different voices” and “there aren’t a lot of Māori who can speak eloquently about politics who aren’t affiliated to a political party on the left – we must have you on!” 

Spoiler alert: they never do. 

Diversity in everything except thought!

While James’ maiden speech was correctly lauded for its eloquence, his most powerful message was that there isn’t just one way to be Māori. 

He talked about how he is from “simple straightforward people”, and that his father had never set foot on the North Island. 

This is the real reason why James, who was long known about and rated highly by political dorks like myself – He is not the son of a current Māori Party MP. Not the heir to a Māori political dynasty like the Henare’s or Harawira’s or Jackson’s. 

He does not owe his place in life to whānau connections, and therefore he is not on the radar of those who gate keep these shows and use their influence to advocate for their own politics and a Māoridom weighed down by nepotism. 

In his speech James said, “members opposite do not own Māori.”

This is the issue facing Māori media – they have become so narrowly focused, so beholden to nepotistic practices, so ‘jobs for the bros’ it doesn’t matter if the bros aren’t Māori and/or if the show is publicly funded to be. 

They can’t see how this is hurting Māoridom, that we are metaphorically starving our youth while feeding others to the point of creating a slovenly elite that’s so out of touch it would rather hear pakeha voices in Māori spaces than Māori who may challenge them. 

Just because most Māori vote centre-left doesn’t mean all Māori do. And the current Cabinet is over one third Māori.

This is the issue – who gets to be Māori in the media is so deeply gate kept that the Māori experience is filtered through a lens so coloured by political bias and privilege that it bears no resemblance to the real views of many Māori. 

This wouldn’t be a problem if there was a diversity of opinions shown, but the regularity of Simon Wilson or Martyn Bradbury appearances highlight the sad reality that these are media pitching a singular point of view. One that is not Māori, just aristocratic. 

That’s the way these gatekeepers want to keep it. 

A challenge for the Māori media.

Anthony Albanese has appointed Samantha Mostyn as Governor-General.

Mostyn has a credible track record in business and the community but she is also a former Labor staffer.

She has worked for Labor MPs Paul Keating, Michael Lee and Bob Collins. To my mind that is not very compatible with the role of Governor-General.

Nicola Willis announced:

Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. 

Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital Strategic Advisors, replaces Peter Harris who retires from the MPC at the end of March. 

Professor Gai, the Professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Auckland and Head of the Departments of Economics, Accounting & Finance, and Property, replaces Caroline Saunders who is retiring at the end of June. 

Nicola Willis says Carl Hansen and Professor Gai are both highly-qualified and have been appointed on the recommendation of the Reserve Bank’s board on the basis of their professional knowledge, skills and experience, including in the areas of economics and monetary policy.

Two excellent appointments. I don’t know Professor Gai but he has excellent pedigree – a PhD from Oxford, 13 years at the Bank of England, a stint Advising the Bank of Canada and a monetary policy reviewer for the RBNZ.

I do know Carl Hansen. He was a very highly regarded Chief Executive of the Electricity Authority, but also has previously worked for the Reserve Bank for six years, where he worked on liquidity management policy and macroeconomic modelling.

It might seem a no brainer to be appointing people with monetary policy experience to the Monetary Policy Committee, but this has not been the case in the past.

Radio NZ report:

Sir John Key’s dream of a vast ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands has finally died, with work on legislation scrapped by the coalition government.

The proposal was announced in 2015 by the then-prime minister to great international fanfare but quickly ran into opposition. A backlash from fishing companies and iwi bodies saw it put on ice and ongoing opposition from the Māori Party and New Zealand First also prevented progress.

In a statement on Thursday, Fisheries Minister and NZ First MP Shane Jones said all work on the proposal would be stopped and the legislation removed from Parliament’s to-do list.

This is very disappointing. The legislation for this was supported by all 120 MPs at first reading. But then Te Pati Maori objected to it, and it stalled as they tried to get agreement. Then at the 2017 election, NZ First went with Labour partly because they would promise not to push through the sanctuary.

And now it is officially dead.

The proposed sanctuary would have been one of the largest in the world. It wouldn’t actually have negatively impacted fishing as marine sanctuaries allow fish populations to grow, and they move into non sanctuary areas. Also the level of commercial fishing in the Kermadecs was minuscule – an average of $109,000 a year.

If it was put to a vote in Parliament there would be over 100 MPs in favour. But both Te Pati Māori and NZ First have successfully blocked it and now killed it.

1 News reported:

Police are treating the vandalism of a rainbow pedestrian crossing on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd this morning as a “hate crime” and have carried out a search of a property in the city’s south.

White paint was spread across the design, which depicts the LGBTTQIA+ flag.

The incident was reported to police at around 3.20am.

The people who painted over the crossing are vandals, and should face consequences for it. Your political beliefs do not give you the right to vandalise either pedestrian crossings or displays at Te Papa.

But it is curious that when retailers fine it impossible to get police to investigate thefts, even with video footage, when shoplifters are ignored until media reports, when many crimes take months to be actioned, the Policer treat painting a pedestrian crossing as so high priority they have the search warrants out within hours.

There has been a 34% increase over six years in the size of the public service, in terms of EFTS. But not all agencies have grown by the same proportion. Here are the 10 with the largest relative increases between 2017 and 2023.

1. Pacific Peoples 269%
2. Environment 189%
3. Transport 101%
4. MBIE 87%
5. Statistics 85%
6. Women 78%
7. Public Service Cmsn 74%
8. Culture & Heritage 68%
9. Defence 65%
10. Education 64%

So 10 departments have had staff increases of greater than 64%. Amazing

By absolute growth we have:

1. MBIE 2,917
2. Social Development 2,277
3. Education 1,679
4. Oranga Tamariki 1,340
5. MPI 1,300
6. Justice 1,122
7. Corrections 1,073
8. Statistics 779
9. Environment 661
10. Internal Affairs 597

Recently the PPTA begged parents to be far more supportive of teachers and schools re the skyrocketing rates of “stand-downs” in NZ schools ( stand downs up 18% 2023 to 22,000). I agree to a significant degree that parenting is a huge factor in the behaviours of students – or at least those turning up – in our schools. I do not believing parenting skills have declined by 18% so something else must be going on.

Today the PPTA were in the news again. This time bagging David Seymour for suggesting parents might be fined for absent kids and that children with a sniffle should come to school. I happen to agree that both of those proposals have problematic aspects.

But then … PPTA President Abercrombie … outlined all kinds of family based reasons for kids not attending school.

The PPTA need to realise and take responsibility for their own actions:

• strikes.
• paid union meetings.
• moaning about teaching as a job.
• negotiating more teacher only days.
• having a nationwide collective contract that does not recognise the need to incentivize schools and regions that really struggle to staff well.
• they have actively worked against school choice – including pretty much putting all of their resources from 2011 – 2017 opposing 11 small Charter Schools (including spending millions of their members subs on this).
  
  

Where President Abercrombie really lost the small part of my brain I allocate to the PPTA is that he neither took any responsibility for the creation of the attendance crises … nor did he propose the two most obvious effective solutions:

• the improvement of teacher quality.
• the improvement of school quality (including a clear purpose for being there and highly credible qualifications pathways).

Knowing the NZ school system as I do … at least half of the high schools I would really struggle to recommend without caveats. At least 100 of our 460 high schools I would simply steer people away from.

If they actually want to make a difference the PPTA need to have a very big look in the mirror.

ps – good to see many voting with their feet – good to see that families are discovering the efficacy of online learning. (NB – no longer involved in Mt Hobson Academy but there fees are incredibly reasonable – as opposed to what was mentioned. They are brilliantly staffed and great curriculum).

Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/
www.wood2water.co.nz
www.russellinfo.co.nz

The Herald reports:

Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden is making inquiries after a high-ranking public servant messaged musician Fred Again about a Wellington DJ who needed to fast-track her passport so she could play a gig with him overseas. …

“I get emails every day from people when they need some form of assistance or there’s an issue or a problem.”

Robertson had no involvement with decisions on Hills’ passport.

“We did our job, and we do that job for urgent passport applications hundreds of times per week,” she said.

“There’s nothing particularly unusual about it.

“People have all manner of needs that are met. A really important part of our job . . . is to respond to the needs. Not everyone has three days’ warning.”

The Government passports website notes that people who need to travel urgently in less than three working days have an avenue to sort their urgent travel, by making the application then calling the passports office straight away.

“It is a really important part of our job.

“Our responsiveness is something we pride ourselves on . . . it doesn’t matter who you are, if you have an urgent need and we can meet that need, we will help everyone.”

I think this has had scrutiny because of the former Government’s decisions to prioritise DJs over pregnant mums for getting into NZ. But this is not the case here (if what has been stated is true).

The DIA passport system is one of the best online services in NZ and the world. You can do it all online, and even without urgency often get your passport within a few days. When it is flagged as urgent, they often have managed it within 24 hours. I know several families whose holidays were saved by DIA being so focused.

So the DJ wasn’t getting special treatment here. All that happened was a son of a DIA official told their mum about it, and she passed it onto the passports team (this was on top of the official application, not in lieu of).

I think DIA should be congratulated for being pro-active in helping someone who had an opportunity of a lifetime, and making it happen.

Newshub reports:

A union is slamming Government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40 percent as “brutal”, saying it’ll hit Pasifika communities hard.

The Public Service Association (PSA) said in a statement on Thursday that the ministry had told staff it was seeking voluntary redundancies.

The PSA said the ministry would cut 63 of 156 positions, of which 31 are vacant. It would look to redeploy and reassign staff.

So this would reduce the size of the ministry to 93 staff. Now in 2017 it had 37 FTE. So in just six years it had increased almost 400% and even after this reduction is 93 staff, that will still be 150% higher than in 2017. If current staff are not all FT, might be slightly less but still massively more than six years ago.

A good media report would include this information. It might even look at what better outcomes eventuated from increasing MPP staffing by 400% and whether this represented value for money. I won’t hold my breath.

The March 2024 Roy Morgan is out.

Party Vote

• National 38.0% (+2.5% from Feb 24)
• Labour 23.0% (+1.5%)
• Greens 13.5% (-2.0%)
• ACT 11.5% (-0.5%)
• NZ First 6.5% (-1.0%)
• Te Pāti Māori 3.5% (-0.5%)
• TOP 2.5% (nc)

Seats

• National 47 (-2 from election)
• Labour 29 (-5)
• Greens 17 (+2)
• ACT 14 (+3)
• NZ First 8 (nc)
• TPM 6 (nc)

Governments

• National/ACT 61/121
• National/ACT/NZ First 69/121
• Labour/Green/TPM 52/121

Direction

• Right 35.0% (-6.5% from Feb 24)
• Wrong 54.0% (+10.5%)
• Net -19.0% (-17.0%)

Radio NZ report:

Only one warning sign has been installed next to speed cameras four years after a government directive was issued.

The AA criticised the lack of signs aimed at reducing speeds and tickets.

The previous government in 2019 announced a “no surprises” approach to speed cameras to warn drivers to go slowly through high-risk areas.

The signs are to say “safety camera operating” next to fixed cameras.

Four years later only one of the 60 fixed speed camera spots has a warning sign.

This is astonishing. After four years, they have only put one sign up. These are not houses, they are signs.

All that had to be done was 60 identical signs to be ordered, and then contractors hired to place them next to roads.

Did the Minister’s office ask for progress reports? Were timelines set? Who was responsible?

Previous police minister Ginny Andersen said in a statement the signs were not a top priority when she was in the role compared to police recruitment, gang crime and youth crime.

So the former Minister is saying that they just did nothing.