As you could expect there has been an outcry, especially as New College has been very left leaning. But Rufo and one of the other new trustees decided to have an open meeting with any interested staff member and student. Scores and scores turned up.

But the Provost and President tried to stop the meeting, on the basis of a vague threat made by e-mail. You’ll see in the video below how Rufo just refuses to be cowed by them, and points out that the threat was against them, and they’re happy to continue, and the importance of not rewarding those who make threats.

Rufo won, and the meeting was held. The lesson is to stand up to bullies.

Jacinda is only 42 years old, so obviously will have a career post-politics. She probably won’t want much at first, as family time will be a priority. But with her international recognition, there are a number of roles she could do. The Christchurch Call is obviously important to her, so just around that, the possibilities are:

1. Become the Executive Chair of the Christchurch Call, and continue to meet with heads of governments and tech companies to reinvigorate it. Her working FT on this would make a huge difference.
2. Take up a second level role in one of the giant tech companies, such as Nick Clegg did with Facebook. Not only would she earn squilliions, she could make change from within.
3. Be appointed by the NZ Government as its global ambassador for cyber-security and cyber-responsibility.
4. Take up a UN role such as head of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, which deals with cyber issues and violent extremism.
5. Ambassador to the US. They love her there. She would gain huge profile for NZ and have massive access to top US officials

Stuff reports:

Andrew Little says he is happy to stick it out as the health minister, arguably one of the toughest gigs in politics, as Prime Minister Chris Hipkins meets with Labour MPs to allocate portfolios and set up his Cabinet ahead of a reshuffle next week.

If Hipkins does keep Little on in Health, then the only people happy about it will be Andrew Little and the National Party caucus!

The Herald reports:

NZ Police Association president Chris Cahill has backed the officers involved in an incident which led to a 10-year-old boy being tasered in Rotorua last week after allegedly attempting to stab an officer, claiming alternative “touchy-feely stuff puts people at risk”.

“When officers are encountered with this situation they have to go through a full risk assessment… If you’ve got someone with a knife and they’re running around and they’re clearly panicking, you’re gonna have to take some action,” he told Newstalk ZB this afternoon. …

“He’s waving it around at the police. They’re asking him to put it down, and talking to him, they’re not touching him, they’re just talking to him. But he’s swinging the knife around them, trying to stab them and kick them and all that.

“They were instructing him to put the knife down, put the knife down, he wasn’t listening he was still trying to go for them.”

I’m not concerned that the Police tasered someone who was trying to stab them.

I’m concerned that a 10 year old boy was trying to stab police officers. Unless there is a serious intervention with him, he is going to end up in a ver bad place.

A guest post by Owen Jennings:

“Climate change is creating a generation of climate distress and hopelessness,” says Dr Epel, chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioural sciences and a faculty lead of the Climate Change and Mental Health Task Force at the University of California. “That climate distress”, she continues, “is a complex conglomeration of aspects of emotional distress, including depression, anxiety, and hopelessness.”

It is a sobering reality that among the many pressures young people encounter today the constant barrage or doomsday predictions is taking a devastating toll.  Being told the world will end removes the will to live especially if accompanied by a plethora of other negative impacts.

Many of the predictions are simply rubbish, a product of scientists desperate to hang on to funding or a tenure combined with a media using sensationalism to try and stay profitable.

The psychological pressure is becoming worse.  Not content with playing havoc with young vulnerable minds by piling fear upon fear using unusual weather events as weapons the climate change monsters are now setting impossible targets that they already know full well will be missed creating greater panic and feelings of hopelessness.

This manipulation of impressionable minds is unforgivable. 

‘Net zero’ by 2050 is blatantly unreachable.

Take one sector – cars.   NZ born, Cambridge Professor Michael Kelly figures replacing all the United Kingdom’s 32 million light duty vehicles with next-generation EVs would require more than half the world’s annual production of copper; twice its annual cobalt; three quarters of its yearly lithium carbonate output; and nearly its entire annual production of neodymium.  That’s way before you factor in the USA’s 300 million vehicles or the EU’s 240 million. That is without trucks, trains and other vehicles.  It looks like a lot of people will be on bikes or staying home watching Netflix.

Having aided and abetted the Extinction Rebellion nonsense the catastrophic propounding scientists and their media lapdogs are now teasing the fearful with unobtainable goal setting.  It is evil mind games.

Can we generate today’s electricity usage from current renewables or alternatives if we stop all fossil fuel use?

It has been calculated and, not yet disputed, that to do so would take:

•          One average size nuclear power plant built and commissioned each and every day until 2050 or

•          4,000 typical sized wind turbines built each and every day plus the above nuclear back up for still days or 

•          250 square kilometres of solar panels built and working each and every day plus the above nuclear back up for the cloudy days and night time.

It is generally reckoned that to allow for peak demand plus maintenance, breakages, load balancing etc we require 1.6 to 1.7 times average capacity so the above projects will need resizing up by 70%.

Even with some hitherto unknown technological breakthrough there isn’t a dog show of that happening.  Goals set without a plan or a clue how to achieve them.  Idiocy.  More anxiety.

In NZ the youth suicide stats reveal 23% of our young people had significant depressive symptoms, up from 13% in 2012 – a damning indictment.  In the USA suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people.  A disturbing factor is that self harm numbers and suicide attempts among teenagers are growing and are 3 to 4 times higher than other age groups.

This is a case of “blood on their hands”, surely?  

The most sensible way to assess the level of the minimum wage, is to compare it to the median wage. In fact I advocate we should stop the annual lolly scramble in setting the minimum wage, and simply have a law stating it is x% (say 65%) of the median wage. This would mean that lifting the median wage would lift the minimum wage, so politicians would focus policies that are good for improving the productivity of the economy (which is how you lift wages) rather than passing a feel good law.

The current minimum wage in New Zealand is exceptionally high already. The OECD calculates the levels in 2021 to be:

1. New Zealand 68%
2. France 61%
3. UK 57%
4. Australia 52%
5. Germany 51%
6. Canada 50%
7. Ireland 46%
8. Japan 45%
9. US 29%

Minimum wage workers in NZ are better paid, relative to the median wage, than almost any other developed country.

As I predicted in my 2023 predictions, Grant Robertson is standing down from Wellington Central to go List only. I heard this was likely in mid December.

This is obviously to allow him to bail after the election, without causing a by-election. It is an implicit sign that he thinks it is likely they will lose.

It is fair to note that Bill English also went List only in 2014, but this was done at a time when National was way ahead in the polls, and his electorate was very distant from Wellington. By contrast Grant is MP for Wellington Central – he can walk out the door and be at any electorate function within five to ten minutes.

A guest post by Jeremy Callander:

Imagine a city with a population of 1,000,000 people.  I have chosen this number because I think it is large enough to be useful, but small enough to be imaginable.  Let’s call this city Utopia.

Imagine that the people of this city are somehow perfectly representative of the wider population of NZ in general – that is, in terms of demographic proportionality re age, gender, ethnicity, mental and physical ability, addiction, etc.

Now imagine that each household – however it might be constituted – owns its own home (debt-free), its own vehicle (running well and debt-free) and has a million bucks in cash assets.  In other words, equality of outcome – at least economically.

Furthermore, imagine that every member of every household has the same unimpeded access to the same educational and employment opportunities, and the same services (health, etc).

Now press “Play”.

The people of Utopia will begin living – as people do. 

Some will attend to their responsibilities with conscientiousness and humility.  Of these, some will reap success, while others will be murdered in their beds.

Some will prove themselves to be unemployable.  Of these, some will scurry around in perpetual poverty, while others will live in comfort as a result of unearned inheritance, the generosity of strangers or just blind luck.

Some will create incredible works of art, while others will drink themselves to death.

Some will drive cautiously and be killed in car accidents.

Some will drive too fast, sleep too little and eat too much……and live happily to a ripe old age.

Some will be born into privilege, only to die in the gutter.

Some will go through their lives without receiving a single word of encouragement.  Of these, some will choose to take their own lives, while others will choose to fight every day to be a loving parent and a faithful partner.

Some will experience catastrophe – perhaps of more than one kind and on more than one occasion.

Some will be fortunate and some will not.

All will be human.  None will be equal.  For to be human is to be unequal.

How long will it take for those houses, vehicles and cash assets to be redistributed?  For that equality of outcome to become inequality?

How long?  Not long.  And why?  Because there is no equality of outcome.

There is just human nature and the arbitrariness of the Universe.

There is no equality, no fairness and no real justice. 

There is simply Life and the living of it.  And Life is what it is.

The harder we fight and scheme and legislate and cheat and lie and meme in the hope of molding it into something else – into something that we think it should be – the worse it will get. 

The worse it always gets.

I’m not suggesting that we each give up trying to make our little corners of the world slightly better places to be.  But being honest with ourselves and with each other about the Reality within which we all exist?  That would go a long way.

Anything else is just dreaming.

Parliament recently changed the law so that NZers of Maori descent can change between the General and Maori rolls at any stage, except for the three months before a local or general election (or by-election). The law used to only it allow it after each census, so that the electoral populations would be equal.

The law change is not one I was keen on, as my worry is you could get tactical enrolments where people swap from a general to a Maori roll or vice-versa based on which seat is most competitive.

I was interested in how often NZers of Maori descent have swapped between rolls, so I asked the Electoral Commission. They have data for the 2006, 2013 and 2018 Maori options. They calculated:

• 724,424 have not swapped at all (91.6%)
• 61,881 swapped once (7.8%)
• 4,427 swapped twice (0.6%)
• 144 swapped three times (0.02%)

I found this data reassuring that in the past there appears to be few people who have been tactically swapping. I would define anyone who swapped twice or three times as probably doing it for tactical reasons. Fewer than 5,000 over the country is unlikely to make a big difference.

It is of course possible that now the law has changed, we may get more roll swapping. I will follow future data with interest. But for now, it is fair to say that my concerns do not appear to be likely to evenuate.

Amna Khalid (who is Muslim) writes on the insanity where an art history professor was sacked because he showed an image of a 14th century painting to his art history class.

The painting depicts the Archangel Gabriel delivering to the Prophet Muhammad his first Quranic revelation.

The professor even warned his students that he would be showing the image (so those offended could avoid seeing it) and explained that the so called prohibition on images of Muhammad is not universal in Islam.

But he got sacked all the same. For showing a painting to an art history class.

Khalid notes:

But most of all, I am offended as a Muslim. In choosing to label this image of Muhammad as Islamophobic, in endorsing the view that figurative representations of the Prophet are prohibited in Islam, Hamline has privileged a most extreme and conservative Muslim point of view. The administrators have flattened the rich history and diversity of Islamic thought. Their insistence that figurative representations of Muhammad are “forbidden for Muslims to look upon” runs counter to historical and contemporary evidence. As Christiane Gruber, a professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, reminds us, Muslim artists since the 14th century have depicted Muhammad visually — images that were painted “by Muslim artists for Muslim patrons in respect for, and in exaltation of, Muhammad and the Quran.” Such images were, “by definition, Islamophilic from their inception to their reception.” Far from being forbidden, many Muslims, even today, appreciate such figurative representations. While more common among Shia Muslims, even Sunnis are known to have made such images. (In fact, the painting the professor showed was commissioned by a Sunni king in the 14th century.)

In dismissing the instructor for alleged “Islamophobia,” Hamline has revealed its reductive and simplistic view of Islam, Islamic societies, and Islamic art. In an age when administrators are eager for faculty members to decolonize their syllabi, Hamline’s position is a kind of arch-imperialism, reinforcing a monolithic image of Muslims propounded by the cult of authentic Islam. What administrators at Hamline fail to realize is that in privileging this particular version of Islam, which looks to theology for sanction, they have reinforced the very version that is the product of colonial codification.

Stuff reports:

Is having cake in the workplace really a health hazard? It seems Britain’s top food regulator thinks so.

Susan Jebb is the chairperson of the Food Standards Agency in the UK, and a professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford. …

“If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub.”

Jebb argued that passive smoking inflicts harm on the people around you “and exactly the same is true of food”.

No end to their desire to control our lives!

Henry Cooke has gone through NZES data to look at who voted Labour in 2020 but not 2017, on the assumption they are the ones who have now left Labour. The true situation will be more complicated than that, but Henry is right that most of those who have abandoned Labour probably fall in this group. He identifies a number of attributes to them:

• Older than the average voter
• More likely to be female (58% were)
• Have household income over $100,000
• Own their own home
• European
• Lean right – 46% rate themselves a 6 to 8 on a 0 to 10 left to right scale, compared to 33% of all voters
• On policy issues they are less focused on income inequality, are more liberal on abortion, more likely to think Treaty settlements have gone too far
• On Jacinda they were massive fans – 93% rated her 7/10 or higher compared to 70% overall

These are the voters Hipkins needs to win back.

1. Richard Sedan 4,791 days
2. Wiliam Massey 4,687
3. Keith Holyoke 4,157
4. Peter Fraser 3,548
5. Helen Clark 3,267
6. Edward Stafford 3,248
7. Robert Muldoon 3,149
8. John Key 2,945
9. Sidney Holland 2,838
10. Joseph Ward 2,595
11. Jim Bolger 2,593
12. George Forbes 2,018
13. Harry Atkinson 1,943
14. Jacinda Ardern 1,912
15. David Lange 1,839

This blog post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and sometime contributor to Kiwiblog.

In recent times there has been a lot of discussion of a worker shortage. Statistics say that we have a high workforce participation rate (there are as many workers as pre-COVID), and we know some industries such as tourism are employing fewer people than pre-COVID. How can we be short of staff?

This post is an attempt to unpick what’s going on.

Stats NZ has reported that annual inflation remains high at 7.2%. Components are:

• Non-tradeable 6.6%
• Tradeable 8.2%
• Home ownership 18%
• Food 11%
• Fruit and vegetables 20%
• Transport 8.4%

The cumulative effect of quarter after quarter of high inflation is significant. The cost of living is 14.1% higher than the last election and 19.8% higher than when Labour took office.

In most developed countries, inflation is now declining. It has dropped in France, Canada, Germany, EU, US, Ireland and UK.

Titewhai Harawira has died aged 90. My condolences to her eight children and many many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

My views on Titewhai changed over time. I have to admit to a degree of admiration for her sheer determination where she appointed herself in charge of accompanying the Prime Minister onto Waitangi, and no amount of kaumata could stop her.

She was a force of nature and made a real difference to the cause she believed in.

When someone dies, you should mainly focus on the positive things they did, but also not whitewash their life.

I am disappointed (but not overly surprised) that as far as I can tell none of the half dozen stories on her in the main media sites mention her nine month prison sentence for a “vicious and violent” assault on a mental health patient in her care. This should not define her legacy, but it is significant.

I’ll finish with a quote from a Herald story which reflects her personality quite well:

“People like Kingi Taurua, telling the media he’s afraid of me. He has a tattoo on his face like he’s a warrior but he should have it on his bum.”

Heh.

Just before Jacinda resigned, this news broke:

Experts say there is no evidence inflation pressures are easing after Stats NZ revealed annual food prices jumped the highest in 32 years.

Food prices rose 1.1 per cent in the month of December and were 11.3 per cent higher than a year earlier, the highest increase since April 1990.

ANZ economist Finn Robinson said, “What we’re seeing in that data is no evidence that inflation pressures are easing. At this stage, it’s not encouraging.”

He said Stats NZ’s findings were much stronger than expected.

“When you consider that food prices are usually flat or falling in December because of seasonal patterns in vegetable prices, to see such a strong positive number in December month, that’s a very strong print for the data.”

So a 32 year high for food inflation. Can this all be blamed on Putin?

This graph is fascinating as it shows world food prices started to decline significantly around two months ago, yet food prices in New Zealand are still skyrocketing. So the problem is mainly domestic.

It is no secret that the new Prime Minister was a long term opposition spokesperson for education. He must have been champing at the bit to get in to the Minister’s role with note books full of researched ideas and advice from the very best.

Attendance is one measure of the quality of the system. Attendance data would have been expected to be released in December for Term 3 (and even that is the proverbial – “go down to the hardware store and ask for a long wait”).

It is hard to get school qualifications if you don’t attend.

This is where full attendance had got to in Term 2:

Term 3 MUST be out soon.

I hope there are exceptions to Doulas Adams’ political rule.

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Interesting to see the double standards at play again.

Over on Newsroom, there is a book review that is headed:

Victor Billot reviews a biography of a great New Zealand Communist

Could you imagine any media outlet ever talking about a great New Zealand Fascist?

Fascism and Communism are equally repugnant and extreme. Both have killed tens of millions or more. Both lead to all powerful authoritarian states with almost no human rights. But if you subscribe to the far left, then you get feted and praised and even get a book written about how great you are.

Would Colin King-Ansell ever be described as a great New Zealand Fascist? Of course not, and nor should he.

But neither should we describe as a great New Zealander someone who was a shill for the evil Soviet Union.