The Daily Mail reports:

Tax credits to be limited to TWO children to cut bill that’s soared to £30billion

Meanwhile in New Zealand:

An “unrepentant, life-long member of the Mongrel Mob” who punched his pregnant partner unconscious has been handed a get-out-of-jail card – but it comes with a condition.

James Meha Te Ruruku Elkington, who has 16 children and now 13 family harm incidents next to his name since September 2020, must sign up to rehabilitation programmes aimed at getting his life back on track.

Soon to be 17 children, almost beyond doubt all supported by the taxpayer.

The Herald reports:

The Government has hired about 200 different consulting firms to work on its Auckland Light Rail project in the five years since 2017, costing over $50 million.

National’s transport spokesman Simeon Brown described the spend as a “gravy train”, noting that despite the volume of firms clipping the ticket, Aucklanders are a long way from having their hypothetical light rail tickets clipped themselves. Not an inch of the line has been built, despite an election promise from Labour leader Jacinda Ardern to have the first stage from Britomart to Mt Roskill built by now. …

Over 200 firms have billed $50 million, for a project which has only achieved a few score of press releases!

The Herald reports:

The Government introduced 130 pages of amendments to a piece of controversial Three Waters legislation, just hours after that bill was passed – and before it had even been given the royal assent by the Governor-General.

The Three Waters Entities Bill passed its third reading on the morning of December 8, ending its journey through Parliament, but just hours after it was passed, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta introduced two new bills, one of which – The Water Services Legislation Bill – included 130 pages of amendments to the bill that had just passed.

National’s local government spokesman Simon Watts said this was poor law-making and smacked of mischievousness. He alleged the Government was fixing mistakes it made in the original bill, hours after it was passed, and that Mahuta chose to include fairly contentious parts of the There Waters legislation in the subsequent bill to avoid public scrutiny.

I can’t recall this ever having happened before – 130 pages of amendment to a bill that itself had just been passed hours earlier.

It’s either incompetence or malice.

Stiveni Rabuka was elected Prime Minister of Fiji by a 28 to 27 vote of Parliament. This is basically the first peaceful transfer of power since 1999.

Frank Bainimarama has a very mixed record, but you have to give him credit that he has accepted the election outcome, and history should judge him well at least for his 2013 constitution that transformed Fiji from a race based government that treated non indigenous Fijians as second class citizens, to a true democracy.

Hoping all my readers have a wonderful Christmas with family and/or friends,

Stuff reports:

But National MP Dr Shane Reti, who is based in Whangārei, said official documents leaked to him showed the project would not meet Northland patients’ needs.

Neither stage of the project would meet the health target of 95% of ED patients being seen within six hours, according to the detailed business case presented to Te Whatu Ora board in August.

Little confirmed this in writing to Reti, saying the 95% target would not be met until about two years after the redevelopment was complete “as services at the hospital increase their staffing capacity”.

Te Whatu Ora confirmed the 95% target would be reached around May 2032

Under National almost all DHBs were achieving 95% of ED patients being seen within six hours.

Now under Labour, things have got so bad they say Whangarei won’t achieve that until 2032~

Newshub reports:

Government agencies are admitting having difficulty in their attempts to make roads safer, with officials last year advising ministers a target to reduce deaths and serious injuries by 40 percent over a decade was unrealistic.

The road toll has soared this year and is on par with 2018, the worst year for road deaths in recent memory.

Road to Zero is another triumph of spin over substance. Instead of putting up median barriers, they do press releases. They are building median barriers at 13% of the rate they promised.

The road toll was 318 when they launched their strategy. So far this year it is at 361.

Stuff reports:

Kāinga Ora has admitted it made mistakes and could have acted faster to solve problems with tenants described as “neighbours from hell”.

Up to a dozen people lived permanently at the Babich Hills address in West Auckland – a number that swelled to 20 at times – and they subjected local residents to a year of misery.

They occupied a six-bedroom property in Ranui, where the average asking price for a large house is $1.5 million, between July 2019 and October 2021.

They moved out after a garage fire made the home uninhabitable.

So they were never evicted, despite …

“There was constant fights at their house and around about 20 people living at the property from time to time,” an immediate neighbour – who RNZ has agreed not to identify – said.

“There were many cars turning up and it was starting to become a kind of a junk area, you know, with broken cars being parked on the kerb, rubbish lying on the street, parties breaking out onto the streets.

“Personally, I must have called noise control about 30 times.”

There were allegedly also violent threats.

“She came over with a garden spade and threatened my tenants. She came in the front, and then she went around the back and threw open the ranch slider door to the lounge where a four-year-old child was playing. She was absolutely drunk.

“So, she then came around and did some severe damage to the front door to the point that the door had to be entirely replaced.”

They spent $6000 replacing the door, and had CCTV installed and a fence built for a further $20,000 because they felt so intimidated.

Why should the poor neighbours suffer like this? The actions of King Ora over the last three years have meant that no one in their right mind wants to live near their houses now. The majority of tenants are absolutely fine, but if you end up next to one of the say 5% who are not, you know you are screwed as Kainga Ora will do nothing to make their tenants behave well.

The culture at Kainga Ora is so terrible, that I think a new Government will have to do more than simply replace the board. I think they have to seriously look at abolishing Kainga Ora and transferring the housing stock to a new provider or providers who will take their duties as a landlord seriously.

In a podcast Thomas Coughlan and Henry Cooke lay out who they think were the political winners and losers of 2022. Some extracts:

• Worst Performing Political Party: Labour
• Worst Performing MP: Gaurav Sharma
• MPs to watch in 2023: Maori Party, Nicola Grigg, Arena Williams
• MP of the Year: Christopher Luxon (runner ups Nicola Willis, David Seymour, Michael Wood)
• Likely promotions: Deborah Russell, Barbara Edmonds, Rachel Brooking

Stuff reports:

The Fijian military has been called in to help police maintain order as political turmoil continues after the Pacific nation’s election.

Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama lost power after 16 years when the kingmaker Social Liberal Democratic Party (SODELPA) sided with opposition parties to form a tripartite alliance.

The police force has now called in the military to assist with “the maintenance of security and stability”, citing reports of stonings targeting the homes and businesses of Fijians of Indian descent.

Bainimarama met with Policing Minister Inia Seruiratu, Military Commander Major General Jone Kalouniwai and Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho, where the action was decided unanimously.

This is a very bad sign. People on the ground say there has been no security issues – at best a couple of burglaries. The Police Commissioner is a former high ranking army officer, and not seen as independent.

I hope there will be a peaceful transition of power, but this is an ominous sign.

Here’s my 20 predictions for this year, which I’ll score at the end of the year. I got 14.5/20 right for 2022.

1. National will win more party votes and seats than Labour at the general election
2. ACT will win more party votes than the Greens at the general election, unless Chloe Swarbrick becomes a co-leader
3. There will be a National-led Government
4. NZ First will make 5%, but will not hold the balance of power
5. By the end of 2023 (after six years) the Government will not have achieved even 6% of its ten year targets for houses or trees
6. Ron DeSantis will announce he is standing for President of the United States
7. Joe Biden will announce he is seeking re-election
8. The Government will not pass its compulsory income insurance into law before the election
9. National will win at least 10 electorates off Labour
10. Construction will not have begun in light rail in Auckland
11. One or more major banks will have floating mortgage rates of 8% or higher in 2023
12. NZ will avoid a recession by having only one quarter of negative growth in 2023
13. Labour will deliver small tax cuts to the lowest rate or bracket in the Budget
14. At least two more Ministers will announce they are retiring at the election
15. The Maori Party will win at least two of the seven Maori seats
16. At least one Labour Minister who holds an electorate will go list only
17. Gerry Brownlee will become the 32nd Speaker of the House
18. Fighting will continue in Ukraine throughout 2023
19. The general election will be in November 2023
20. Stuff will introduce a paywall

Last December I did my usual 20 predictions for the year. Now it is time to see how I did.

1. Peeni Henare will not be Minister of Defence by the end of 2022. Wrong 0/1
2. There will be a by-election in 2022. There were two 1/1
3. NZ First will record at least 4% in at least once public poll. In more than one 1/1
4. By the end of 2022 (after five years) the Government will not have achieved even 5% of its ten year targets for houses or trees. They are at 1.5% and 4.3% so 1/1
5. The Republicans will win the House and the Senate in the mid terms. House yes Senate no so 0.5/1
6. Phil Goff will not be re-elected Mayor of Auckland. He did not stand 1/1
7. The Government will back down on Three Waters having equal co-governance between Councils and Iwi. They did not, silly buggers 0/1
8. Paul Eagle will be elected Mayor of Wellington. Came third 0/1
9. By the end of 2022, fewer than 7% of Government vehicles will be emissions free.At 5% so 1/1
10. Fleur Fitzsimons will be appointed the Labour candidate for Rongotai. She is not yet confirmed but little doubt it is here so 0.5/1
11. Construction will not have begun in light rail in Auckland. Easy 1/1
12. National will poll over 35% in at least one public poll. In many polls 1/1
13. Tim Shadbolt will not be re-elected Mayor of Invercargill. Thank goodness 1/1
14. Boris Johnson will be rolled as Conservative Party Leader. Called that one right 1/1
15. Labour will repeal the Three Strikes Law. Sadly 1/1
16. Donald Trump will announce his candidacy for 2024, if the Republicans gain at least 20 seats in the House and win the Senate. He did announce even though they fell short so 0.5/1
17. The Greens will change their rules so both co-leaders can be women. They have 1/1
18. Labor will win the Australian Federal Election. They did 1/1
19. At least one area of NZ will be moved into the red level of the Covid traffic light system in 2022. No, thankfully 0/1
20. There will be a state funeral in 2022. A lucky or unlucky call 1/1

My total score for 2022 is 14.5/20.

I will publish my 2023 predictions in the next few days.

The final results from Hamilton West are:

1. Tama Potaka, National 6,974 46.3% (+9.3% from 2020)
2. Georgina Dansey, Labour 4,541 30.1% (-22.9%)
3. James McDowall, ACT 1,515 10.0% (+7.0%)
4. Gaurav Sharma, Momentum 1,242 8.2%

The latest ANZ Business Confidence survey is out.

Business confidence has fallen to an all time low of -70.2

But if you think that is bad enough, look at the breakdown by industry:

• Services -64.0
• Retail -68.6
• Manufacturing -74.5
• Construction -75.7
• Agriculture -100.0

Yep Labour has managed to get it so that not a single farm or agricultural company in the entire country is optimistic over the next 12 months for the economy – a perfect 0, never before managed.

Richard Prebble writes at NZ Herald:

Crime is going to get a lot worse. In the end-of-year rush of legislation, Labour, the Greens and the Māori Party passed the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill.

The minister claims the bill will reduce nicotine in cigarettes, reduce the number of outlets able to sell cigarettes from 6000 to just 600 and make it illegal to sell tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2009. Actually, Labour has legislated to make New Zealand the only country to have prohibition for smoking.

Prohibition in America was a spectacular failure. Crime boomed. Alcohol consumption increased.

You almost have to wonder if the Government is working for the gangs, because that is who will benefit the most from prohibition.

Stuff reports:

A 501 deportee had several human rights breached by the Government and his treatment was unlawful, the High Court has found.

Two thousand people have been deported from Australia to New Zealand since 2014 under s 501 of Australia’s Migration Act 1958, giving them the name “501” deportees. …

The judgment, delivered by Justice Cheryl Gwyn in the Wellington High Court, found that the deportee’s treatment as a 501 returned prisoner from Australia breached the right to natural justice, freedom of movement, and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

Additionally the government had breached the prohibition against retrospective penalties and double jeopardy.

New Zealand law allows the Government to apply strict parole-like conditions to returning offenders, and was passed to deal with deportees from Australia like G. It applies to anyone returning from another country after serving a year or more in prison, within six months from when they were released from custody.

Just another sign that the justice system is here for criminals, not victims.

Parliament explicitly passed a law to allow authorities to do stuff like collect fingerprints from the deportees. But Justice Gwen has decided in an Alice in Wonderland like judgment that this doesn’t apply to deportees who had already committed crimes overseas, but only to future deportees who commit future crimes. This was very clearly not the intent of Parliament.

National MP of the Year

• Christopher Luxon 29%
• Nicola Willis 23%
• Erica Stanford 20%
• Shane Reti 16%
• Simeon Brown 13%

Labour MP of the Year

• Gaurav Sharma 66%
• David Parker 25%
• Nanaia Mahuta 9%

Minor Party MP of the Year

• David Seymour 66%
• Karen Chhour 19%
• Brooke van Velden 15%

MP of the Year

• David Seymour 56%
• Christopher Luxon 29%
• Gaurav Sharma 8%
• Erica Stanford 7%

Stuff reports:

Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson is facing widespread condemnation over an opinion piece he wrote for the Sun, in which he said he despised Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, “on a cellular level”.

In the column, Clarkson wrote that he was “dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”.

The full quote was:

“I hate her. Not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon or Rose West. I hate her on a cellular level,” wrote Clarkson.

“At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.

I think this reveals (amongst other things) that Jeremy Clarkson is a Game of Thrones fan, as what he wrote is akin to the punishment handed out by the High Sparrow to Queen Cersei Lannister!

The so called walk of shame did actually happen in reality in medieval times, but more often in France than England.

Anyway goes without saying that Clarkson went too far. I am no fan of Markle, but the best punishment for her would be irrelevance and ignoring her.