Liam Hehir writes:

Unpopular stances held by politicians can come under intense scrutiny. Sometimes.

Consider Christopher Luxon’s pro-life position on abortion. Under repeat questioning, he painted himself into a corner by saying that the termination of a pregnancy is tantamount to murder, which is not the pro-life position. This sparked relentless questioning by the media and the controversy is still cited by his enemies today.

Such scrutiny isn’t unwarranted. After all, Luxon’s view is not a popular one, which I say as someone who is staunchly pro-life myself. 

The media’s role, among others, is to dissect controversial positions, especially those held by political leaders, and to hold them accountable for their views. That often involves the initial posing of the controversial subject then followed by probing supplemental questions and attempts to push them into difficult positions. This allows news consumers to make informed judgments about the consistency and sincerity of the politician’s views. 

So far, so good.

However, what is very notable is the apparent asymmetry in the treatment of unpopular politico-ideological positions. Right-leaning stances like Luxon’s are rigorously grilled. Equally if not more unpopular leftist positions, however, usually escape intense scrutiny.

Consider the case of Chloe Swarbrick, who is on the cusp of becoming the co-leader of the Green Party. Swarbrick has, in the past, voiced her support for prison abolition – not simply reform to make prisons more humane – but complete abolition. No more prisons, even for those convicted of terrible crimes.

Try running this concept by the average person, not those within the echo chamber of social media, and you’re likely to be met with a bewildered look of incredulity. People are often open to reduced sentences or non-custodial sentences for nonviolent offenders. But for violent criminals? That is a fringe position.

The idea of a society without prisons, particularly for murderers, rapists and the perpetrators of such terrible crimes seems, to normal people, bonkers in the extreme. And yet it is almost impossible to imagine Swarbrick facing anything like the media grilling Luxon received for his own unpopular views.

If the media were fair, then they would be asking Chloe the following:

• Would a Government you lead release Brendon Tarrant from prison?
• Why do you think mass murderers should be out in the community?
• Do you think serial rapists such as the Hooch rapists in Christchurch should be at large?
• Do you honestly think that every criminal can be rehabilitated?
• How would you protect abused women from their former partners who constantly break protection orders?

Of course this will never happen.

Joel MacManus at The Spinoff writes:

To start, the panel considered two very tricky questions: would making it easier to build more houses lead to more houses being built? And would an increase in housing supply help improve housing affordability? 

It might seem like a simple question for anyone who learned about supply and demand in NCEA level one economics, or even a toddler who has grasped the basic concepts of cause and effect. Not so much for the Independent Hearings Panel: “We agree that enabling intensification does not, of itself, improve or even address affordability.”

Astonishing – they think supply doesn’t impact price.

One of the biggest battlefields in the War for Wellington is around the Johnsonville rail line, a 10km route between Wellington city centre and the northern suburbs of Johnsonville, Ngaio and Khandallah. 

The areas around train stations are some of the best places to build apartments, because people don’t need cars in order to get to work in the city; they can just walk down to their stop. That’s why the NPS-UD required councils to upzone to six storeys within walking distance of any “mass rapid transit station”. 

In fact, the Ministry for the Environment’s own guide, written to help councils implement NPS-UD, explicitly states: “Examples of existing rapid transit stops include train stations on the commuter rail services in Wellington.” 

But don’t worry: the independent hearings panel managed to wriggle its way out. The panel “put little weight on the MfE guidance document”. In a piece of Suits-level legal analysis, it discovered: “It does not say all rail stops qualify.” There’s also no rule saying a dog can’t play basketball.

The law is clearly designed to include area around train stations, which is sensible.

One of the most important decisions of the entire District Plan is the central city walking catchment. Anywhere close enough to town for people to walk to work should be zoned to allow six-storey apartments. But “walkable” is a very subjective term, and once again the panel was determined to allow as little new housing as possible. 

Kāinga Ora argued it should be a 20-minute walk. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development wanted a minimum of 15 minutes, ideally more. Waka Kotahi pushed for the walking catchment to be a minimum 1.5km from the edge of the centre city zone. 

During the hearings, Waka Kotahi provided census data showing that vast numbers of Wellingtonians walk to work, even from suburbs as far as Newtown (which is not that far). The panel rejected that census data with a truly spellbinding feat of argumentative trickery: the census had only asked how people get to work. It didn’t ask how they got home. 

“We can readily believe that people might walk a reasonable distance to work, because that is generally downhill. That did not tell us, however, how they get home (back up the hill from which they have come). We do not consider that an area can be considered within a walkable catchment if people have to rely on other modes of transport to travel in one direction.”

The Panel looks ridiculous as it tries to argue the sky is not blue because sometimes it is cloudy.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have been running a Doomsday Clock since 1945. This used to be a very useful thing, as it was a group of experts in an area, advising how close we were to a global nuclear war.

From 1945 to 1989 it ranged from two minutes to 12 minutes to midnight, reflect9ng changes in technology and the Cold War.

The Cold War ended in 1989, and with it any significant risk of global nuclear war. It moved to 17 minutes to midnight in 1991.

But then in 2010, as they faced irrelevance, they decided they needed to move the clock closer to midnight so decided climate change was an event akin to global nuclear war. Then. they over the next few years moved it to 90 seconds before midnight.

In 2024, they have kept it at 90 seconds and justified this on the basis of the risk of AI. So what once was a useful measure of the risk of nuclear war has become a useless scaremongering device where they look for anything scary to include in the clock.

A guest post by Scott Guthrie, CEO, Justice for Kiwis:

As the country transitions into a new government, now is the time to watch in earnest and see what election promises are followed through, which will give us a clear understanding of what Winston has managed to rape on his way through.  

We have all heard National, Act and Winston pledge to make our communities safer, through building new prisons and eradicating gang patches publicly, which all makes spoken common sense, but does it make economic sense.  

We all know gangs are a scourge of society, and all agree the sooner they are eradicated the better, but building new prisons and locking people up forever? Is that the real solution? Isn’t it time that we started looking for a solution that actually works, because clearly our current judicial system is not, and has not been working for decades.  

If we look at Sweden as an example of a like minded and populated country, we see a very successful judicial system where since 2004 prisoner numbers have fallen from 5,722 to 4,500 out of a population of 9.5 million, and they are at a stage of closing prisons not building new ones.  

Sweden’s reoffending used to be similar to that of our own, some 70% of convicted people went on to reoffend, where now it sits at less than 40% and is dropping yearly.  

For me the proof is in the pudding, so lets start the conversation to see if there is actually an appetite to change a system in this country that is aloof, tired and seemingly out of align with likeminded constitutions.     

Simeon Brown announced:

The Coalition Government is continuing work to restore council ownership and control of water assets by repealing Three Waters and appointing a Technical Advisory Group to provide expert advice on the implementation of Local Water Done Well, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says.

“The Government will pass a bill to repeal Labour’s divisive and unpopular Three Waters legislation by 23 February 2024 as part of our 100-day plan. This will restore continued local council ownership and control of water services, and responsibility for service delivery.

“Local Water Done Well will then be implemented by progressing two further bills through Parliament.

Great news.

This is the famous photo of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing Captain Nguyễn Văn Lém of the Viet Cong.

Like many, I always assumed it was a terrible war crime. but I’ve found out the case is more nuanced.

Lém was in civilian clothes, despite being an armed solider. This arguably makes him a spy, for which there is a long history of summary executions.

Also Lém was accused of murdering South Vietnamese Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Tuân, his wife, six children, and 80-year-old mother. Only the first was a legitimate target.

Now don’t get me wrong. I still think he shouldn’t have been summarily executed. He should at least have been given a quick military trial. But it does make you understand better why he was executed – because he was not in uniform, and had slaughtered a family.

The Herald reports:

Bright orange, 61m long, and 16m wide, the Anuanua Moana jars against the crystal blue waters of the Cook Islands. Kelvin Passfield hasn’t seen the research vessel head out to survey the ocean floor so much recently, but when he does it serves as a bad omen: its work is making the small island nation the new frontier of environmental extraction.

Its survey work is part of the first steps towards seabed mining, a controversial practice where machines trawl up to 6000m below the surface for nickel, manganese and cobalt. These metals are in demand for building electric cars, wind farms and batteries, and advocates argue sea bed mining could speed-up the green transition away from fossil fuels.

They are needed not just to speed up the transition, but to make it possible. You can’t make batteries out of plastic. You need metals.

He sees deep sea mining as the latest existential threat to life in the Cook Islands, a group of 15 islands with more than 17,000 inhabitants, and a realm country of New Zealand. Cook Islanders have New Zealand passports, and use the New Zealand dollar.

This is hysterical. Mining has an environmental impact, but to call it an existential threat is ridiculous.

The mineral-rich nodules offer a way to boost its revenue, outside of tourism. Odyssey, on its website, claims the region boasts the world’s largest collection of polymetallic nodules estimated “at a staggering 6.7 billion tonnes”.

This is huge and if one doesn’t mine it here, then it will come from other locations such as the Congo which actually uses child labour.

And while deep sea mining will have an impact on the ecosystem, it is unlikely to be major as they basically just trawl the minerals off the seabed – they don’t actually dig or drill. And this occurs kms below the surface. Any environmental impact should be studied and monitored, but you can only that by allowing it in the first place.

The Post reports:

Wellington’s mayors can agree on one thing — water meters are coming.

Greater Wellington Regional Council chairperson Daran Ponter on December 14 issued mayors in Wellington, Hutt City, Upper Hutt, and Porirua an ultimatum: His council would consider a higher charge for water supply beyond allocated limits if it did not see plans for water meters by January 31.

Hutt City Mayor Campbell Barry and Porirua Mayor Anita Baker responded within days, while Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau waited until nine days before the deadline and Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy waited two days before deadline.

But all agreed that water meters — by which users pay for the amount of water used — were inevitable. The cost of installing water meters has previously been put at $1500 to $2000 per household ‒ up to $300 million for the 151,000 households across the region. Kāpiti, where water supply is not under threat this summer, already has meters.

It is a lot of money, but a necessary investment. Water meters are a good form of user pays which encourage water conservation, and also allows leaks to be much more easily detected.

The grandmother who uses 50 litres of water a day shouldn’t pay the same as the family of five using 400 litres a day.

Stuff reports:

Donald Trump has suggested that as US president he would encourage Russia to attack American military allies who do not spend enough on defence, in a significant escalation of his rhetoric against the Nato alliance.

This is why the Democrats must replace Biden. Trump doesn’t understand that NATO is about protecting freedom – it isn’t a pay for protection scheme.

The Herald summarises the impact of Hipkins’ expensive first year free fees policy:

The Herald last year reported the number of decile 1 students in first-year tertiary study has halved since the policy started, with students from wealthier backgrounds making up an increasingly greater share.

Government data shows bachelors-level students made up two-thirds of fees-free enrolments. Most were aged 18 to 19 years. And most were European.

And the “parity gap” has increased, according to a summary on educational performance indicators, as the qualification completion rate fell for Māori and Pacific peoples in 2022.

He spent over a billion dollars, with the result being fewer students from poor areas attending tertiary education, and lower qualification completion rates.

The Times of Israel reports:

Beneath the Gaza Strip headquarters of the controversial United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known commonly as UNRWA, the Hamas terror group hid one of its most significant assets, the Israeli military has revealed.

The subterranean data center — complete with an electrical room, industrial battery power banks and living quarters for Hamas terrorists operating the computer servers — was built precisely under the location where Israel would not consider looking initially, let alone target in an airstrike.

The revelation of the server farm comes amid other accusations of UNRWA collusion with the Gaza-ruling terror group and the entanglement of the UN body that provides welfare and humanitarian services for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars and their descendants.

It is becoming clear that UNRWA is in no way a neutral relief agency. Its schools teach Jew hatred. Its staff cheer terror or actually take part in it. Its HQ provides cover for Hamas.

Hamas has built around 500 kms of tunnels in Gaza (if they turned peaceful we should hire them for the Auckland City Rail Loop!). The cost of such a huge amount of constructions would surely run into the billions. Where do you think this money has come from?

The Herald reports:

The estimated time that work-ready Jobseeker recipients will spend on income support until they reach retirement age has jumped by 23 per cent since 2019, amid a “worrying” slowdown of the benefits system that could strain government finances and trap thousands of people in poverty.

Growing up in a household where no adult is working, is one of the main indicators of likely problems later in life.

For example, Sole Parent Support clients are projected to spend an average of 17 working-age years on a benefit (up from 12.5 years in 2019), but the upper quartile of this group – about 18,700 people – are expected to spend more than 25 years in the system.

We should;d have a maximum time limit for welfare, for people who are work capable.

about 2000 teens on the Youth Payment or Young Parent Payment now expected to spend an average of 24 working-age years on a benefit – a 46 per cent increase from the 2019 estimate. 

Labour’s legacy again.

In June 2022, Taylor Fry predicted Māori would make up nearly half of work-ready Jobseeker clients by the end of this decade, up from 35 per cent in 2010.

Absolutely the wrong trend.

A guest post by David Garrett:

I have long detested gangs, particularly the “ethnic” gangs – not because their membership is largely Maori and PI, but because by and large they are the most vicious, and have no hesitation attacking members of the public going about their lawful business.

I am prompted to write this piece by the awful story published on Stuff recently. It was headed Mongrel Mob prospect laughed as he stomped man to death. The victim was a young teacher – who looks as if he was Maori – walking home with friends after a night out celebrating his sister’s birthday.  The attack – on both the victim and a female member of their party – resulted  in the death of Darcy Strickland, and the woman being kicked unconscious. When some members of the public approached, Alizaye Todd asked for a knife so he could “finish it”, clearly meaning he wished to ensure the victim was dead. Given the facts, he had little choice but to plead guilty if he wishes to escape what in New Zealand are laughingly described as  a “long” minimum non parole periods.

Gangs have been a blight on our society since at least the early 70’s, with their behavior getting worse and worse as our hopelessly criminal centred justice system fails to punlish murders such as described above with very lengthy non parole periods (NPP’s)  such as in Australia or the UK.  In both of those countries,  30 year plus NPP’s are routine, and “whole of life tariff” or LWOP sentences for murder are not uncommon. (Other than Tarrant, the longest NPP in New Zealand is 30 years – reduced on appeal from the original 33 – imposed on William Dwane Bell, for a triple murder at the Panmure RSA  in 2001).

Since the 1972 Labour government, successive governments have pledged to crack down on gangs – back then it was “we’ll take the bikes off the bikies” – but in my view  there has never been a serious attempt to drastically curtail their barbarous behavior let alone eliminate them. I believe that time is long overdue. That said, I believe some gangs are very much worse than others in terms of their danger to the public, so first a little history.

 Gangs can – very roughly – be classified as the “outlaw motorcycle gangs” and the “ethnic” gangs, chiefly the Mongrel Mob (Mob) and their sworn enemies, Black Power (BP). The ethnic gangs are no less “outlaws” that their brethren who get around on over-powered motorbikes The most prominent and earliest outlaw motorcycle gang in New Zealand is the Hells Angels, set up in 1961, and reported to be the first “chapter” of the gang outside the US. Very little is heard these days about “the Angels”, chiefly because they realise that bashing, killing and raping people is very bad for their other criminal enterprises, chiefly drug distribution, “chopping” stolen vehicles, and prostitution.

The Angels were formed in the US in  1948, their first members mostly being returned servicemen who liked to ride large motorbikes and “raise a little hell”. The origin of  the “1%” on their patch is a declaration by a “respectable” organization of bike riders in the US stating that only 1% of motorcyclists were thugs looking to cause trouble. The outlaw motorcycle gangs seized upon that “distinction” and some still proudly proclaim it.  

During the 1960’s and 70’s, various outlaw motorcycle gangs were formed throughout the country in cities large and small. Some were shortlived, some survive and have thrived, such as the Head Hunters. The Head Hunters “patched over” the Wellington  based Sinn Fein MC in 2011, the Satan’s Slaves MC in 2014 and the Epitaph Riders  from Christchurch. The Satan’s Slaves gang had been formed in Wellington in 1969. 

To be clear, ALL outlaw gangs – including those who purport to simply  be “motorcycle clubs” are engaged in criminal activity to a greater or lesser extent. In 2000 a policeman said this of the Headhunters (aka the “88’s” because H is the eight letter of the alphabet):

“The Head Hunters Motorcycle Club is considered one of the most dangerous organised criminal operations in the country. It controls the West Auckland crime scene… …They are responsible for the manufacture, sale and distribution of Class A, B and C controlled substances, with deals taking place throughout the country…

Detective Sergeant Turley also held the gang responsible for “murders, serious assaults and suspicious disappearances” as well as “extortions, home invasions and robberies”. Although the police almost never make a distinction, the outlaw motorcycle clubs almost exclusively prey on their own kind – a man or woman with no connection to any outlaw motorcycle gang is most unlikely to be targeted by any of those gangs

So to what I call the “scum gangs”, primarily the Mob and Black Power. Although like their motorcycle riding fellows they are outlaws – and proud of it – ordinary people such as the murdered teacher referred to above are much more likely to fall victim to them, usually for little or no reason – other that earn a patch, as was the case in the unlucky Darcy Strickland’s case. As an aside, it would be most interesting to learn – perhaps someone could ask the female PR spokeswoman for the Mob – whether Mr Strickland’s murderer has now been or will be “patched” after his brutal and cowardly crime. 

The Mob was formed in the mid sixties. Their name purportedly arose from a sentencing of a group of thugs in Hastings in 1965, when a Magistrate noted that the defendants before him had  “acted like a pack of mongrels”. As with the “1%” referred to above, this label was seized upon by the Mob, and now “Mongrelism” – or acting in every way totally alien to civilized society – is an integral part of the life of every Mob member. A member or prospect who didn’t display “Mongrelism” at every opportunity would not remain a prospect or  member for long.

In my opinion, no-one should be fooled by claims such as those by one Sonny Fatupatu of the “Kingdom” chapter of the gang that they are fundamentally different from other chapters, and operate much more like the “alternative form of whanau” as claimed by some useful idiots as Tariana Turia, and various academic apologists for gangs such as Jarrod Gilbert, a Christchurch academic who holds himself to be an “expert” on gangs and their behaviour. In short, such actions as giving school lunches to deprived children – with gullible media in attendance – are no different from the soup kitchens maintained by Al Capone and his gang in the 1930’s, viz. whitewashing to disguise what the gangs are really about. Only the gullible and naïve should be fooled.

So what can be done, and what new laws do we need to come down hard on all gangs, but the scum gangs in particular? The answer is we can do quite a lot without any new laws. A number of laws already exist which the police don’t bother to enforce.  Police may search premises without warrant on a number of grounds, including looking for drugs and weapons. Police may “turn over” anyone on the street – i.e. check vehicles and the passengers within them to determine whether vehicles are registered and warranted, and whether the passengers have any outstanding warrants.

 And here in step “human [criminal] rights lawyers” eager to ensure that their odious clients are not unduly bothered. I cannot name the lawyers I refer to for fear of a defamation suit against our esteemed host – I myself own nothing so am not worth suing – but they are names which pop up regularly in the MSM. Suffice it to say they seem far more concerned about the “rights” of their scum clients than those upon whom they prey with devastating effect.

Regular turnovers work: a couple of years ago some Mob member whined to the media in a small town in Hawkes Bay that the police were “picking on us”. This undoubtedly arose from some old style local police chief ignoring the instructions emanating from “bullshit castle” in Wellington, and rather than “policing by consent”,   giving regular  attention to known criminals and their associates, including gang members.

There should be no police escorts of fleets of overly loud motorcycles  having traffic stopped for them so 200 bikies can proceed in an uninterrupted stream,  disregarding  traffic lights and signs so they can all stay in one group when proceeding from the site of a funeral of some  gang member to the cemetery. Rather there should be a large police presence ready  to pounce on any misdemeanour large or small. In short, with the laws we already have, police can quite easily make every single gang member in the country aware that the patch on his back is catnip to the police, who are just waiting for an excuse – or an opportunity to manufacture one – to turn them over, perhaps for the third or fourth time that day.

Local authorities can assist by passing strict bylaws governing “gang pads” in their areas, and growing the balls to rigorously enforce building codes – even if they need to obtain the assistance of police to do so. In short, much can be done with laws which already exist, but some gang-specific legislation would certainly be useful – but only in a deliberate political decision is made to make gang members’ lives a misery.

Part Two – New laws to tackle gangs?

Matt Nippert at the Herald looks at the average salary for executives at various charities in NZ, and how many staff they have.

The ten highest paying charities are:

1. Te Whānau o Waipareira Group $510k, 178 staff
2. University of Auckland $428k, 6,246 staff
3. VUW, $369 staff, 6,301 staff
4. Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust, $368k, 172 staff
5. Massey University $353k, 3,351 staff
6. St John, $321k, 3,622 staff
7. Ngai Tahu, $312k, 779 staff
8. Canterbury University, $302k, 2,620 staff
9. Lincoln University, $287k, 614 staff
10. St Kentigern Trust, $284k, 415 staff

An average salary of $500,000 for senior leadership is astonishing for such a small organisation.

ANZ forecasts:

We are now forecasting 25bp hikes in both February and April, taking the OCR to 6%. We are now forecasting cuts from February 2025, ultimately taking the OCR back to 3.5% as before.

This is not a huge surprise to me. Non-tradeable inflation is still at 5.9%. The job isn’t yet done.

I recently came across Dimitrios Papandreou, who was the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, making him the head of the Greek Orthodox Church. He served from 1941 to 1949.

He was almost the only major religious figure in occupied Europe who called out the Nazis for their persecution of Jews. He wrote a public letter which stated:

In our national consciousness, all the children of Mother Greece are an inseparable unity: they are equal members of the national body irrespective of religion… Our holy religion does not recognize superior or inferior qualities based on race or religion, as it is stated: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek’ and thus condemns any attempt to discriminate or create racial or religious differences. Our common fate both in days of glory and in periods of national misfortune forged inseparable bonds between all Greek citizens, without exemption, irrespective of race

This obviously angered the Nazis, so the local SS Commander threatened to execute him by firing squad. The reply was:

According to the traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church, our prelates are hanged, not shot. Please respect our traditions!

A great man.

The NY Post reports:

But, perhaps most damaging for the president, Hur — a former Maryland US attorney — suggested that jurors would not hold Biden liable for his actions on account of his perceived mental decline, even though he is seeking a second four-year term in November.

“[A]t trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report says. …

Biden “did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),” the report says.

“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died [May 2015]. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. 

The Guardian also reports:

Joe Biden has twice made gaffes this week in which he told anecdotes wrongly identifying dead European leaders as having talked to him about the events of the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021.

On Wednesday at a campaign fundraiser in New York, Biden reportedly referred to the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl as talking to him about European concerns about the attempt to stop the certification of his 2020 election win, when he apparently meant Angela Merkel. Kohl died in 2017.

Previously on Sunday, Biden in Nevada apparently confused François Mitterrand, the former French president who died in 1996, for France’s current president, Emmanuel Macron, while recounting a similar anecdote about the events of 6 January and European fears over them.

It may be unfair, but the upshot people will take from this is Biden was not prosecuted as he was unfit to stand trial. It is false, but you can;’t ignore his multiple memory failings that go beyond gaffes.

Unless the Democrats wants Trump to be re-elected President, they need to convince Biden to stand down.