The Herald reported:

Shelly Bay has divided an iwi, launched a mayoral campaign, and been the subject of a 525-day land occupation, but famous filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson has managed to have the final say.

In a shock announcement, Shelly Bay Taikuru Limited and The Wellington Company said they would not be going ahead with a planned development at the site and had instead sold the land to Jackson and his partner, Fran Walsh.

Shelly Bay has been a rotting eyesore for decades. I thought the proposed development was exciting, but it is not to be. I just hope Sir Peter moves quickly to do something with such a potentially beautiful area rather than just allow it to continue to a series of decrepit buildings.

I like pledge cards. Voters can only remember a few policies, so it is a good way to emphasise the key ones. The key pledges to me are the tax cuts and credits, the infrastructure commitment, school achievement and health waiting times.

A very good article at the Herald about the woes of Ruapehu. They trace much of it back to the decision by RAL to spend $25 million the the Sky Waka. They couldn’t find it themselves, so persuaded the Government through the PGF to lend them the money. And then they went back for $5 million more and their debt grew and then as they went bust the Government has put in a further $28 million.

If the Government had never done corporate welfare in the first place with the loan for the Sky Waka, it is inevitable RAL wouldn’t have proceeded with it, and would not have built up so much debt.

The article concludes:

I’m from the Government and I’m here to help’ – those have been called the nine most terrifying words in the English language. That was in a different time, and a different place, but New Zealand seems determined to give the old adage fresh resonance.

Corporate welfare is bad for companies as it encourages them to make uneconomic decisions.

A useful report from TDP on the problems with the Smoked Tobacco Amendment Act. It is on behalf of tobacco companies, but that doesn’t mean the facts are wrong. They find:

• On current trends, New Zealand is projected to achieve the smokefree target of no more than 5% of adults smoking by 2026, even without the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022
• The Act is likely to increase illicit market activity and associated crime; increase unemployment and cause financial stress to retail store owners
• The costs imposed on New Zealanders from the Act that are considered quantifiable are estimated to total around $1.3 billion in present value terms over the next ten years.
• Other countries examined in the report where governments have attempted to control the use of tobacco or other addictive products by across-the-board supply-side controls have seen little or no reduction in consumption as users switched to illicit markets. Instead they have experienced increased illicit-market related crime, a loss of revenue to government and other perverse or negative outcomes.

Donald Trump was not the first person to coin the iconic and well used term “fake news”. It was actually his opponent in the 2016 election Hillary Clinton who first uttered the term a mere month after her defeat. Two days later Trump used the term and hasn’t stopped using it ever since. How accurate is his appellation? In this 4-part series I am going to examine a number of important issues where the mainstream media (MSM) straight up got it wrong. One of Trump’s repeated contentions is that the “fake news” knowingly publish falsehoods for the sake of the agenda of the progressive left and their political leaders, in the case of the US, the Democrat Party. For decades anyone that is not thoroughly and deeply partisan knew that the MSM exhibits a left leaning bias. Much of this bias can be put down to the inherent ideological leanings of prominent journalism schools and the reporters, editors and most of the opinion writers of MSM outlets. Rather than it initially being an overt conspiracy to favour politicians and narratives from the left over those of conservatives, more it was a ubiquitous group think that was personified in the famous quote from a Manhattan, NY based 60 Minutes producer at CBS News who was shocked by Richard Nixon’s 1972 49 states to 1 landslide re-election victory over Democrat George McGovern by saying that she didn’t know a single person that voted for Nixon!

As I examine these issues, I think it is clear that we have come to a point where the MSM have gone beyond mere bias and have now strayed into blatant narrative shaping and control designed to more directly influence public opinion than ever before. The other episodes will cover:

2 – The Hunter Biden laptop

3 – Russia Collusion

4 – Covid lab leak origin

In this first episode I will examine six issues that received widespread MSM coverage where, in every case, the media peddled what came to be proven to be hoaxes.

1 – Justice Brett Kavanaugh Rape Hoaxes

In early September 2018 the US Senate hearings held to confirm President Trump’s nominated replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy (Brett Kavanaugh) became ground zero for the progressive pro-abortion left as they pulled out all the stops to block his nomination. No fewer than four women came forward to make accusations of rape or sexual assault, the most prominent of which was Christine Blazey-Ford.

The MSM uncritically believed Ford’s version of events as evidenced by these articles in the LA Times, Washington Post and left leaning Vanity Fair magazine. Ford tried to avoid testifying before the Senate Judicial Committee where her claims could be questioned by claiming she had a paralyzing fear of flying until it was revealed that she’d lived in Hawaii (accessible overwhelmingly only by air), had holidayed in Tahiti and other Pacific destinations and had regularly flown from the west coast where she lived to visit family on the east coast. Over time her narrative as to how Kavanaugh came to assault her fell apart due to no corroborating witnesses (a named friend and witness said she never knew Kavanaugh and had no recollection of the party) and inconsistencies in her recollection of date and place of the teenage party alleged to have been the scene of the ‘assault’, multiple details as to events in her life such as her marriage breakup, her second front door installed due to her fear of assault and her trauma counselling, most of these ‘facts’ fell apart as did any credibility of her claims against Kavanaugh.

As the hearings wore on, the claims became wilder and more specious. Deborah Ramirz alleged sexual assault at a college party, but The New Yorker magazine (a left leaning icon) interviewed a number of her college acquaintances who had no recollection of the event she claimed happened. Publicity hungry New York attorney Michael Avennetti claimed his client Julie Swetnick had been raped multiple times at multiple parties by Kavanaugh and others. The Wall Street Journal contacted dozens of her former classmates and not one could corroborate the allegations and Switnick herself went on to claim that her lawyer twisted her words. Finally, the most farcical claim came from Judy Munro-Leighton via then Senator Kamala Harris’ office, who alleged in a letter that Kavanaugh raped her. When questioned by committee staffers, Munro-Leighton admitted to fabricating the story to “get attention”.

A raft of prominent national Democrat politicians constantly intoned, “we must believe the woman” and the MSM breathlessly reported every twist and turn of these allegations as if they were true and became part of a drum beat of calls for Trump to withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination. Avanetti appeared on news shows so many times opining on Kavanaugh’s guilt and Trump’s perfidy in nominating him that he was farcically touted as Presidential material ….. until he was convicted of multiple counts of fraud and extortion of footwear company Nike. The narrative of a woman-hating anti-abortion rapist like Kavanaugh was so compelling to progressive media types that no lies or fabricated stories that could possibly derail the nomination of a reliable conservative to replace a wishy-washy RINO like Justice Kennedy could be ignored and so they went all in on the Kavanaugh rape hoaxes.

2 – Covington Kids racism hoax

On January 18, 2019 students from a Catholic prep high school from Covington, Kentucky were on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC at the annual pro-life March for Life rally and footage appeared on Twitter showing a Native American cultural protestor called Nathan Phillips advancing to the group of white conservative school boys and the camera focused on 16 year old Nicholas Sandman wearing a Trump MAGA hat appearing to be disrespectful even mocking to the seemingly harmless cultural drumming of Phillips and how Phillips, who claimed to be a Vietnam veteran, said he felt threatened by this mob of judgmental Catholic conservative white kids. The MSM went into a frenzy of accusations of racism and went on to decry the culture of racism and disrespect inherent with Trump’s supporters and the whole MAGA movement.  Here is a sample: Detroit Free Press, Daily Beast, and NPR (National Public Radio).

There was massive and swift condemnation of Sandman across social media and left leaning media types dug into anything controversial at the Catholic school in Kentucky magnifying fairly normal but foolish high school pranks into a narrative of conservative Catholic racism and bigotry.

As time went by, the truth began to emerge particularly as the full video footage of the incident emerged not the highly edited versions that were at the centre of the MSM frenzy. The Covington students were minding their own business and it was Phillips who came deliberately over to them, and it was Phillips who came up the steps and drummed right in the face of Nicholas Sandman who tried his best to remain calm despite this unusual provocation. His smile was not of mocking Native American culture but of a teenage boy nervous to not do anything to inflame the situation.

It turned out that Phillips was never a veteran of the Vietnam war and had had a history of involvement in ideological and racially charged protests and of exaggerating his time in the Marine Corps. It also turns out that the Covington kids were not jeering at Phillips but reacting to the loud and aggressive provocations of an adjacent group calling themselves the Black Hebrew Israelites.

Once again, the MSM fell for a hoax that presented a narrative too delicious for left leaning reporters and editors to ignore, that of MAGA supporting privileged Catholic white kids from red neck Kentucky engaging in racist mocking of a poor hapless Indian Vietnam vet. Whilst some MSM outlets did walk back their claims once the full footage began to circulate, the damage to particularly Sandman’s reputation was such that he sued various MSM outlets for defamation and won settlements to date from CNN and the Washington Post, whilst never disclosed, said to be in the tens of millions of dollars. In this instance, the MSM’s rush to believe any anti-right wing, anti-religious, anti-Trump narrative has cost them (and their liability insurers) dearly.

3 – Jesse Smollett’s hate crime hoax

In January 2019 gay black actor and star of the “Empire” series Jesse Smollett contacted Chicago Police and claimed that he was attacked on the street by two white ‘Trump supporters’ who hurled racist and homophobic epithets and placed a rope noose around his neck to threaten him and allegedly said “this is MAGA country”. The MSM duly reported Smollett’s claims of a hate crime uncritically such as CNN and USA Today.

These reports predictably provoked a firestorm of sympathy from media and prominent black politicians and leaders who called it a modern-day lynching and all attacked Trump and his supporters as being perpetrators or tacit encouragers of such a heinous racist crime. However, CPD examination of the CCTV footage showed the alleged attack to be staged with the assistance of two Nigerian brothers who were fitness consultants and gym acquaintances of Smollett’s. When the home of the brothers was raided by police, they found the fake noose and other props. The next month Smollett was charged with five felony counts of disorderly conduct, paying the brothers to fake the crime and for misleading police. A year later he was found guilty at trial and served 150 days in the Cook County jail, and he was also successfully sued civilly by the City of Chicago for $130,000 for wasting the CPD’s time.

Once again, the prospect of white racist homophobic seeming Trump supporters (rare in that part of Chicago) harassing a gay black man was too good a story for the Trump hating predominantly liberal leaning press and social media luminaries to pass up. Given the speed at which the hoax unraveled, many of the high-profile politicians who voiced disgust at the seeming racist attacked backed off their support of Smollett, but the fact remains, large swaths of the MSM were happy to label Trump and his supporters as being the inspiration behind a fake hate crime and once again, they fell for the hoax hook line and sinker.

4 – NASCAR Noose Hoax

In June 2020, black NASCAR driver ‘Bubba’ Wallace said that the FBI were investigating a possible hate crime when he claimed a rope noose was found attached to the pull cord of his garage at the SuperSpeedway at Talladega, Alabama. This provoked the usual howls of Deep South racism from Hollywood and media elites across social media. Wallace himself stoked the inference that this was a racially motivated act of malice on ABC’s “The View”, a favourite show of liberal housewives, and denied it was a hoax. The local FBI office investigated and stated that the so-called noose was actually a, “garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose” and that it had been there since 2019.  Despite the findings, Wallace continued to insist that it was a noose but eventually acknowledged the reality as investigated by law enforcement that he wasn’t a victim of a hate crime. 

The MSM all faithfully reported the incident with Wallace’s racially motivated hate crime slant. As usual, the reporting of the FBI findings that the matter was essentially a hoax never received the same prominence as the alleged incident. Predictable the legacy media couldn’t wait to publish supposed evidence of racism still deeply embedded in America’s Deep South.

5 – Trump’s “very fine people” hoax

On August 12, 2017 an avowed neo Nazi and white supremacist Alex Fields deliberately drove into a group of people protesting at a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina (held to oppose proposals to pull down a statue of Confederate leader Robert E Lee) killing one person and injuring 35 others.  At a press conference 3 days later, President Trump was questioned about the incident and specifically the neo Nazis and said, “you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides”.  When questioned further Trump clarified that his comment about “very fine people” did NOT apply to the white supremacists. The full press conference is here: the portion in question is around the 11’ mark.

The MSM and Trump’s political opponents immediately accused him of calling the white supremacists “very fine people” igniting a massive wave of liberal outrage and protest. The Atlantic, a reliable left leaning magazine, typified the left’s distortion of Trump’s words in this article and it became an article of faith on the left that Trump defended neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Three years later during the 2020 election campaign, Biden tweeted the hoax yet again.

Trump is renowned for bring inartful and his initial choice of words was clumsy but, with reference to the extreme right-wing group that lay behind the inexcusable actions of Fields, Trump was clear on how unacceptable their behaviour was. Even prominent mostly liberal leaning ‘Fact Checkers’ like USA Today, Snopes and Politifact accurately portrayed the totality of Trump’s comments and described the claims that Trump called the white supremacists “very fine people” as inaccurate. The MSM and the liberal left have long held the view that Trump was and is racist and this mischaracterization was too good to be true for his opponents to pass it up and so the mischaracterization lingered for some time and was re-litigated even during the 2020 Presidential debates.

6 – “Hands up Don’t Shoot” hoax

On August 8, 2014 and young black man by the name of Michael Brown was shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri after he resisted arrest for the theft of cigars from a local convenience store. A couple of witnesses to the incident claimed to the media that Brown’s hands were up at the time of the shooting as he supposedly attempted to surrender and at the subsequent large protests and riots in Missouri that the incident provoked, protestors invoked the emotive chant “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”  raising their hands in the air thus promoting the explosive insinuation that Brown was innocent and was shot in the back in cold blood by a racist white cop as he tried to surrender. The racial overtones in such an inference were obvious and the MSM has an absolute field day interviewing black activists and protestors and uncritically covered the marches and protests that made this false accusation. Whilst the Black Lives Matter protest movement had begun after the Trayvon Martin incident in Florida in February 2012, the Brown shooting in Missouri and the subsequent protests greatly accelerated the growth of BLM and they very much adopted and widely disseminated the chant. MSM buy in to the story line was best personified in the CNN Newsroom show of December 12, 2014 when four panelists raised their hands in the air and intoned Hands Up Don’t shoot.  It became a potent symbol of the struggle against racism by black activists totally supported across the country by white liberals but the incident it involved was entirely fabricated.

The truth was that Office Wilson, a slightly built white man, was struggling for his life against the young, strong, huge, and undoubtedly high on drugs Michael Brown and the discharge of his weapon was in self-defense. Given the explosive nature of the incident, the Federal Department of Justice went over all aspects of the case, bodycam footage and ALL of the witness testimony and concluded that none of the witnesses’ testimony that accorded with the physical and forensic evidence ever stated that there was an attempt by Brown to surrender. Eventually all the major MSM outlets did publish these facts, and all now consider the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” chant to be a fabrication. The claim was made up by friends of Brown with racially motivated intent, likely anxious to cover his violently resisting arrest. Sadly, such hoaxes fuel a commonly held but erroneous belief that many hundreds of back men are killed by white cops all the time when in reality, the vast majority of black men are killed by other black men and that more white people are killed by police in incidents like these than black people.

Conclusion

The common thread with all these hoaxes is the immediate rush to judgement by the MSM that conservative Trump supporting MAGA types have perpetrated some kind of racist act or slur. The history of actual racist legislation, practices and attacks in the Jim Crow South are quickly invoked with hints at the horrors of lynch mobs and all the manifest ways African Americans were badly treated always with attempts to tie Trump as the inspiration for extreme right wing sentiment when the truth is that neo Nazi and white supremacists attitudes that spill over into actual racist attacks are extremely rare. In every instance (and I could cite a dozen more), the media has been wrong. In the event that a left leaning celebrity, a black activist or a Democrat politician or leader makes racist slurs, the MSM either don’t report the incident, give it only a passing brief mention buried at the back end of more important news or they give any left leaning accused individual the benefit of the doubt if there is the inevitable denial and the matter goes no further. Most of the hoaxes above were fueled and even hyped by frequent multiple leading headline MSM attention and only after the damaging inferences concerning conservatives were made were there the eventual retractions and publishing of the truth.

It is sad that there are still many people in New Zealand, even some on the centre right who, despite knowing this tendency of the MSM, are still inclined to believe any lies and distortions told about Trump so widespread is the TDS. In the next episodes, I will examine very much more consequential issues where media ‘fake news’ came to influence the very core of Presidential politics.

Wille Jackson thinks Labour will win five of the seven Maori seats. His picks:

• Te Tai Tōkerau: it’s Kelvin all the way
• Tāmaki Makaurau: I don’t expect Tāmaki Makaurau to be close
• Hauraki-Waikato: “Nanaia Mahuta will win. Nothing more to be said,”
• Te Tai Hauāuru: Ngarewa-Packer is favourite and as a first-term MP has had a good one. But I say, don’t write off Soraya,” 
• Waiariki: “Rawiri Waititi is the favourite to hold his seat but like Soraya, don’t write off Toni Boynton
• Ikaroa–Rāwhiti: Ikaroa-Rāwhiti has deep Labour roots and I expect that to be the case come election night.
• Te Tai Tonga: In Māoridom, names carry a lot of weight and there’s no bigger than Tirikatene in Te Tai Tonga

They will be very interesting because how well the Māori Party does could affect the number of seats in Parliament.

From beginning in teaching I have coached sport – both within that job and for clubs. I have coached rugby (U15, U16, 1st XV, club U21, Premier Club with University of Auckland), soccer (school 1st XI), athletics, cross country, cycling, triathlon.

I have enjoyed success as a coach but that is not the base reason for doing it. People of all ages should be as fit and healthy as they can. Winning and losing are both teachable moments. Like academics – if you do not have significant purposeful practice and thorough preparation – your goals will not be met. Role-models are important. Friendships are formed.

Sometimes schools get their approach out of kilter with “it is just a game”. I discuss some of that here – and other education matters with Michael Law’s on The Platform. Not everything will be as you expect.

Below I list 10 things that are believe are imperative to school sports.

Ten Sporting Principles

1. Cheating, in all forms, should never be tolerated.

2. The word “talent” should be treated with contempt. “Developed ability” is a much better term and reflects the effort required by every person to become good/great at what they do.

3. The value of the individual far exceeds the reputation of the school. A school’s job is to propel young people into successful adult – not to give Principal’s bragging rights.

4. All young people should be encouraged into sports and physical activity.

5. The most basic principles of coaching are:

…….. this is what good looks like.

…….. I think being good at this is worthwhile.

…….. If you agree – this is how you get there – and I will help.

6. These are the greats in your sport – and sport in general. They have created a pathway for you to follow along. There is no road to that “happy hunting ground” without an incredibly amount of hard work.

7. Injuries, losses, non-selections are deeply challenging. How you deal with them gives you great opportunity to become a better human being.

8. A great deal of ability is hidden because a young person has never tried something (think of Mahe Drysdale only starting to row when at University).

9. A great school/coach does not set out to discover “talent”. Their job is to develop ability in every person they have the privilege of working with.

10. Parents are important but one of their clearest statements has to be “you don’t have to do this for anyone but yourself.” Vicarious achievement is no achievement at all.

Alwyn Poole

www.innovativeeducation.co.nz

www.cambridgefestivalofsport.co.nz

www.alwynpoole.substack.com

From the latest Free Speech Union newsletter:

Several months back, I had the opportunity to meet with Andrew Coster, the Police Commissioner, following the Posie Parker affair. As you’ll know, we were concerned by the inaction of the Police to protect speech rights (which includes the right to receive information). Following that meeting, the Commissioner invited my team and I to return and brief the Police Leadership Forum.  

We were given a generous portion of time on Thursday last week to unpack the importance of free speech in a democracy and the crucial role Police had in defending it. This was to the top brass, including the Commissioner, Deputy and Assistant Commissioners, Directors, and each of the District Commanders. Ideally, we’d live in a country where our police are already fully sold on why law enforcement should defend this basic freedom, but at least we’re able to work towards that. 

It’s great to see the FSU able to meet with the Police leadership team and talk about the role of the Police in defending free speech. It’s a reminder that the value of groups like the FSU don’t just lie in their public advocacy, but also in their ability to engage with others.

TVNZ has announced five debates:

1. Tues 19 Sep: PMs debate No 1
2. Mon 25 Sep: Young Voters’ Debate (online)
3. Tue 26 Sep: Kaupapa Māori Debate (online)
4. Thu 5 Oct: Multi-party Leaders’ Debate
5. Thu 12 Oct: PMs debate No 2

Personally I think it is ridiculous to have two of the three televised debates occurring after advance voting starts. By Thu 12 October, over half the country may have voted.

A guest post by Gary Benner:

As recently highlighted, the Maui Emergency Management Agency boss Mr Andaya resigned after the debacle that saw the loss of over 100 lives. New Zealand shares a similar potential clusterF*** with respect to emergency alerting.

I was part of a team that developed a system called Tsunado that used the existing radio broadcasting network to deliver messages to a small battery powered radio, fitted with a small microprocessor to interpret commands sent over the radio network. Also included was a screen to give a short succinct message telling people what to do,  and an 85db alarm similar to a smoke alarm, to get attention, one capable of waking even deep sleepers. As a radio receiver, users could hear what was going on in fuller detail.

The system was fully trialled in Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Coromandel, and even over SkyTV (with an adapter) to reach all remote areas.

In 2014 at a meeting of the heads of all 16 regional civil defence groups adopted the Tsunado system as one of their preferred methods of alerting, alongside sirens (where appropriate) and internet based tools. For convenience they made the decision to have one body, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management (MCDEM) manage the project. Unbeknown to the regional heads and ourselves, MCDEM had their own plan.

Shortly thereafter MCDEM was surprisingly taken out of the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and moved to the Prime Ministers department, and almost immediately, a policy change was made to use only one form of alerting, that being cell broadcasting where the mobile phone network sends our alerts to mobile phones. This is known as the Emergency Mobile Alert System or “EMAS”.

Consequently Sirens and Tsunado did not figure in their thinking any more. I do not believe it was a co-incidence that the USA had just implemented the Presidential Alerting system (some overseas phones used in NZ still title our alerts as “Presidential Alerts”). John Key had been in Hawaii, no doubt playing golf with Barack Obama, and I’m sure this “vote winner” came up in their discussions. Why else move MCDEM into his own department on his return?

Whatever there were considerable objections to having only one system of alerting, and the Maui experience has highlighted the issues with alerting:

Sirens: These make people reminisce about the London bombings and how everyone was successfully alerted to go into bomb shelters. However today’s world is very different. First there are multiple threats, and a siren, even with different tones, cannot effectively inform the public of what to do. At Maui the Emergency Management Agency boss Mr Andaya was reluctant to use the sirens, lest people think there was a tsunami and head for the hills, right into the fires. Since tsunamis were the more prevalent risk, from their perception anyway, this could have caused more deaths. Secondly our insulated homes effectively keep out sounds as well as the cold, so street based sirens are hard to hear, and do not wake many people up at night.

Emergency Mobile Alert System (EMAS): This uses the mobile network to “broadcast” an alert to every connected mobile phone, causing the phone to make a loud bleeping noise, and showing a message. This all sounds so amazing, and certainly the politicians thought that this was a vote winner. You know the line, “we’re from the Government, we’re here to help you!” Sadly this system is deeply flawed:

1. Mobile phones are often at light switched off at night, or placed in another room to charge, and removed from the person for “work life balance”. Notoriously John Key claimed “the system would even turn on phones that were turned off”. Not! Also the sound of the mobile phone is limited, and is often not able to he heard above daytime sounds (stereo, lawnmower etc). Tsunado and smoke alarms sounds at 85dB. Mobile phones are around 65db, and given the logarithmic nature of hearing and the dB scale, that is way less power, and hence ineffective.

2. EMAS alerts go to everyone in a particular region, and hence they have to go through significant curation before they are sent out. In the case of tsunamis there may only be minutes to react, and many people would be getting their alerts while they floated out to sea. So targeting of alerts is very broad, and slow.

3. EMAS alerts will fail if there is any compromise of the mobile phone and internet network that underpins it. Power is one of the first things to go in a disaster, and that was a factor in Maui. Most cell towers have only 2 – 4 hours of capacity before they require a generator to be delivered on-site. Most phones will only last 12 – 24 hours before they die, and if the local tower goes down the less, as they use more power to communicate with a distant tower. So continuing communication is less likely to happen. Fibre optic cable that cell towers use to communicate is more susceptible to damage than old style copper wires, as they found out in the Kaikoura earthquake.

Having stated all of that, the EMAS system has it’s uses, and to date it has been put to use during the pandemic, and worked with other non-critical events. However when it came to Cyclone Gabrielle, in certain areas it proved not fit for purpose. 

The TSUNADO system addressed many of these deficiencies by using the device which is often called an “in-house siren”, one that can wake sleepers, and be heard above the lawnmower outside, and above most expected ambient noises. Noise-cancelling headphones may be an issue. 

Alerts can be graded to three levels, possible, probable, and certain. So users can select themselves to get alerted the instant an earthquake occurs in the Kermadec Trench, that may possibly case a tsunami here, and where there is less than 45 minutes before the waves arrive on our shores. For those responsible for others, such as Rest homes, Hospitals, young families and carers of all sorts, this is a desirable feature. Better to be prepared. Also it provides for targetted alerts, so it can send separate messages to firemen, police, hospital managers and of course the CD staff themselves, who often have to be waken up. Geographical targetting can be done to almost a street level.

Most importantly the Tsunado Alert Radios continue to work for the duration. In almost all disasters in recent times, the broadcast radio network has continued to serve the public, whereas the first system to go down was the internet and mobile phones. Tsunado Alert Radios can be unplugged and taken with the individual, and operate in a low power mode to give them up to 5 days use without having to recharge. This is critical as knowing when it is safe to return home is just as important as knowing when to leave.

In light of the devastating loss of life in Maui, and the documented failings of the systems there, that are present with the very same systems currently in use here in New Zealand, and the failings during Cyclone Gabrielle, we ask that a major review is made of the current policies regarding emergency alerting, and to support a range of systems technologies, not just mobile phones, especially in regions vulnerable to fires, floods, and tsunamis.

Getting really desperate.

Newsroom reports:

On Monday, Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson announced a $4 billion savings initiative, including spending cuts to existing policies, a direction to agencies to reduce their baseline budgets by 1 to 2 percent and slashing future Budget allowances. As part of this, $236 million for climate policy was culled.

Climate Change Minister and Green Party co-leader James Shaw told Newsroom after the announcement that he had no idea it was coming. He knew the Government was working on a savings programme and had reviewed some of the policies he was directly responsible for, which ended up not being cut. He was also told about a $10 million cut to a waste programme. But the remaining $226 million in cuts came out of the blue.

Now, Robertson says he will apologise to Shaw for not notifying him ahead of time, but Hipkins says there’s no issue.

It’s Mickey Mouse levels of running a Government. First they come up with some last second spending cuts, and they don’t even tell the Climate Change Minister of $236 million of cuts to climate change spending.

Then the PM and Finance Minister can’t even agree on whether they should have told the Minister in advance.

I guess this is what happen when you put student politicians in charge of trying to run a country.

A peer reviewed evidence brief from ASH (UK) dispels six common myths about vaping. They are:

1. Vaping nicotine is more harmful than smoking tobacco
2. Vaping is more addictive than smoking
3. Disposable vapes deliver as much nicotine as 50 cigarettes
4. Vaping is a proven gateway into smoking
5. Nicotine damages brain development in young people
6. The main reason children vape is because they like the flavours

The summary is:

The Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, has put the case very succinctly, “The key points about vaping (e-cigarettes) can be easily summarised. If you smoke, vaping is much safer; if you don’t smoke, don’t vape.” 

So don’t smoke or vape, but if you do smoke, you’re better of switching to vaping.

The Herald reports:

A former Sergeant of Arms of the Waikato Mongrel Mob has been jailed for 10 years for spearheading a commercial drug operation that saw methamphetamine distributed around the country.

Mark Griffiths, 53, will have to serve a minimum of five years in jail before qualifying for parole after being arrested as part of Operation Oakville, the police sting on Griffiths’ group of dealers selling class A and B drugs in Waikato, Auckland, and Wellington.

And while Griffiths’ lawyer Scott Mills told Justice Andru Isac in the High Court at Hamilton today that his client’s association with the gang was now over, Waikato Mongrel Mob president Sonny Fatupaito told NZME the door was still open for him on his release.

Griffiths and Fatupaito, who is known as Fatu, have been vocal about their opposition to drug and alcohol abuse and spoken at several events, or hui, that have also included MPs.

So how sincere do we think they were? How gullible are the MPs who may have believed them?

This is from The Facts.

It’s not just that we have the largest current account deficit, but it is so much larger than all the others. A modest current account deficit need not be a huge problem but one approaching 10% of GDP can be.

15% of Kiwi kids now leaving school without any NCEA qualification

ALL • Education • Equality • Jobs

August 29, 2023

KEY INSIGHTS
From the 2022 School Leavers data recently released:

• 15% left without any NCEA qualification (up 50% since 2017’s 10% figure)
  • 25% left without getting NCEA Level 2 (not shown in graph above)
    • 48% (~1/2) left without getting NCEA Level 3 or UE (not shown in graph above)
• 21.5% left before turning 17-years-old (up 36% since 2017’s 15.8% figure)
  • 33% more 16-year-olds left school
  • 63% more 15-year-olds left school
    (data for 14-year-olds wasn’t provided)

KEY QUESTIONS

1. Are these declining retention and qualification metrics a concern? If so, how much? If not, why not?
2. How do we apportion the cause of these declining metrics between our:
   1. Covid response
   2. Education policies/governance
   3. Teacher-only days/strikes
   4. Cost of living pressures
   5. Other social factors?
3. Can we determine from this data that National-led Governments outperform Labour-led Governments on education matters?
4. How do we improve these metrics again? (Assuming we want to.)

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HAVE YOUR SAY

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FULL DATA ANALYSIS
Please contact us if you would like the full data set and research.

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NOTES:

• All publicly available years have been published. We have asked the Ministry of Education how to source data before 2012.
• Multiple NCEA achievement levels could have been graphed.
  • We choose to show the % of Kiwi kids who are leaving school without any NCEA qualification at all, as we felt that was the most important insight.
  • In the insights section above, however, we have also showed the % not achieving NCEA Level 2 (widely considered to be the bare minimum needed when leaving school), and also the % not achieving NCEA Level 3 or UE (University Entrance).
• 17 years of age has long been considered the key retention age because, by law, 6-16 year-olds must be enrolled in school (there are some exceptions).
  • In the insights section above, we have also shown the increase in 16 and 15-year-olds leaving school.
  • There was no figure for 14-year-olds leaving school, but we have asked the Ministry of Education for that too.
• We compared 2022 results to the 2017 year when National was last in power. Even though the 2017 election took place on the 23rd of September with a couple of months in the school year left to run, we felt it was fair to consider the 2017 education results as Nationals. The announcement of a Labour-NZ First coalition Government came on the 19th of October, almost a month after the election.
• We reduced the vertical axis to a narrower range containing the data, because:
  • Qualification and retention metrics are never close to 0%.
  • This view helps us see the changes more easily.
  • Small % shifts can have a significant impact on individual lives and social outcomes.
• We have also included an inset image that shows the full 0-100% scale.
• There are many variables that impact school retention and qualifications, including:
  • Covid response/lockdowns
  • Education policies/governance
  • Teacher-only days/strikes
  • School closure days, e.g. bad weather
  • Cost of living pressures
  • Other social factors
• We chose blue for National-led governments and red for Labour-led governments, being their party colours.
• We use the Covid yellow stripes to represent that period of lockdowns.
• All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.

Thank you to the Factors who helped pull this together.

…

SOURCES:

• School Leavers Data = https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/school-leavers > Pivot Tables: School Leavers (2012-2022)

Data published by The Ministry of Education
(c) Crown Copyright
Licensed for use under the creative commons attribution licence (BY) 4.0

• Covid lockdown history = https://covid19.govt.nz/about-our-covid-19-response/history-of-the-covid-19-alert-system/

National has released a 29 page tax plan. The key details are:

Incomes

• A family with children earning the average household income of $120,000 will be $250 a fortnight better off
• An average income child-free household up to $100 a fortnight better off
• Full-time minimum-wage workers get a $20 boost to their fortnightly incomes, and paying lower rates of tax on extra hours worked.
• Anyone earning over $78,100 gets the same tax cut of $40 a fortnight
• A superannuitant couple will get up to $26 a fortnight more

Tax Cuts/Credits

• 17.5% threshold moves from $14,000 to $15,600
• 30% rate moves from $48,000 to $53,500
• 33% rate moves from $70,000 to $78,100
• Extend eligibility for Independent Earner Tax Credit from $48,000 maximum income to $70,000
• Previously announced childcare tax credit of up to $150 a fortnight for 25% of costs of early childhood education for low and middle income families
• Increase WFF in-work tax credit by $25 a week

Canceled taxes

• Fully restore interest deductibility for rental properties
• Bring the brightline test back to two years
• Cancel Labour’s planned fuel tax hikes which would add 12 cents per litre of petrol, or $8 for a full tank
• Remove the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax which adds 11.5 cents per litre of petrol
• Cancel Labour’s new App Tax

Spending reprioritisations

• $594 million on average per year reduction in spending on back-office functions in government departments, excluding non-core and frontline agencies
• $400 million on average per year reduction in government spending on consultants
• $590 million on average per year Climate Dividend, returning taxes raised on climate polluters to Kiwi families rather than giving subsidies to large corporates

New revenue

• $740 million on average per year from introducing a 15% foreign buyer tax on the purchase of houses worth over $2 million
• $525 million on average per year from ending the commercial building depreciation tax break
• $179 million on average per year from closing a tax loophole and ensuring offshore operators delivering online gambling to New Zealanders, pay tax
• $123 million on average per year from moving to user-pays immigration levies, excluding tourist visas

This is a great policy package both economically and politically.

Over the next four years there would be $14.6 billion of tax relief, funded by $8.5 billion of spending reprioritisations and $6.3 billion of new revenue or tax measures.

It is large enough that it will make a meaningful difference to struggling families – far more than $1.50 off the cost of fruit and vegetables.

Politically it is quite cunning with the extra revenue measures being ones few New Zealanders would object to – foreign house buyers, overseas gambling sites, commercial building owners and migrants.

I am disappointed that they have not committed to automatic future indexation of tax thresholds. They will review them every three years, but my preference would be automatic annual indexation – just as we do with benefits.

Nicola Willis and National should be very happy with the policy. Shows a lot of hard work has gone into it, and it is well calibrated.

This is an interesting exchange. ASH specialise in the smoking area and take a principled harm reduction approach to policy. They are calling out Health Coalition Aotearoa for fear-mongering over vaping and misrepresenting data from ASH’s own survey.