The Herald reports:

A man who killed a woman after crashing into her car at 117km/h, and while under the influence of alcohol, had five previous drink driving convictions at the time of the fatal accident.

If he has six drink driving convictions them almost certainly he has driven drunk at least 600 times, as you only get stopped less than 1% of the time.

This was Nepia’s sixth drink driving offence and last week Nepia breached his bail by drinking, the court heard.

Who thinks he will stop drink driving?

Graham Adams writes at The Platform:

The accusation that “Māori had their language beaten out of them at school” has become common shorthand for the widespread belief that it was Pakeha who were almost entirely to blame for the dwindling fortunes of te reo over the past 180 or more years.

For that reason, many people are shocked or disbelieving when they are told that prominent Māori were among those pushing most energetically for English to be the only medium of instruction in Native Schools. These were set up in 1867 as a nationwide system of secular primary schools for Māori children, for which hapū provided the land while the government provided the buildings and teachers.

It is an equally inconvenient fact that it was Pakeha missionaries who, from the early 19th century, were determined to teach Māori children in te reo — often against the wishes of Māori themselves, who saw proficiency in English as the key to success in trade and politics and as a gateway to the outside world.

In 1871, the newly elected MP for Eastern Māori, Karaitiana Takamoana, pointed out in Parliament that missionaries had been teaching children “for many years, and the children are not educated. They have only taught them in the Māori language. The whole of the Māoris in this island request that the government should give instructions that the Māoris should be taught in English only.”

Nowhere in the legacy media do we learn these inconvenient facts. It is just easier to paint a childish picture of Pakeha Government bad.

Sir Apirana Ngata — who served as Minister of Native Affairs, was ranked third in Cabinet and whose image graces our $50 note — mounted a  campaign in the 1920s and 1930s to have English given priority in Māori primary schools. He argued that proficiency in the English language was “the key with which to open the door to the sciences, the mechanised world, and many other callings”.

Furthermore, it was an approach enthusiastically endorsed by Māori parents. In 1930, Ngata stated that the primary purpose of the Native Schools was to teach English. “Māori parents do not like their children being taught in Māori even in the Māori schools, as they argue that the children are sent there to learn English and the ways of the English.”

Again key information we never learn elsewhere.

Stuff reports:

Now, teachers’ unions are joining forces to call for streaming in schools to be abolished. …

Webber cited evidence which showed “how educationally harmful [streaming] is for male students”. …

Albany Senior High School English teacher Philippa Wintle has worked in education for 15 years, and said any system where male students were at the bottom was “by design, inherently sexist”. …

“Any system where students who predominantly boys are over-represented in negative statistics has got to be a system that by design favours non-male students.”“Any system where students who predominantly are boys are over-represented in negative statistics has got to be a system that by design favours non-male students.” …

“It is really damaging because you have the underlying unconscious bias with teacher perceptions so more boys end up in the bottom classes,” Prendergast said. …

“This contributes to inequitable outcomes, especially for male learners who are disproportionally placed in lower streams.”

The appalling education outcomes for boys at school can no longer be accepted, so it is right to stop streaming because so few boys make the top streams.

This post is by PaulL, a regular commentor and occasional contributor.   It is the first post in a series on the financial incentives to work and the impacts of our tax and transfer system on household formation. The index for the full series is here.

Adam Smith in 1776 famously said “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.”  His point was that in a free market we don’t appeal to the good will of the baker to bake our bread.  They bake bread because they can sell it – they do it because it’s in their interest to do so.

Society benefits when people work.  Many of the things we want in life are produced by other people through their work.  Working also creates social cohesion and gives people a stake in society.  It often leads to a sense of purpose and improved mental health.  Parents working provide a role model to their children and to others in the community.

Having said that, I’m also well aware that It’s called work for a reason.  While we may enjoy our work, who amongst us would choose to spend our time (or as much time) at work if we didn’t get paid for it?  Perhaps we’d instead stay at home and play video games, or buy a Transit van and tour NZ enjoying our incredible country.

This post series on the financial incentives to work, and the impacts of our tax and transfer system on household formation is by PaulL, a regular commenter and occasional contributor to Kiwiblog.  This post is the index post for the overall series and will be updated with links to each post as they are released. Some posts are planned but not released yet.

Story arc 1: What do our tax and transfer incentives look like at the moment?

• Why do incentives to work matter? Why do we care whether people have an incentive to work?
• What is an effective marginal tax rate? How do you calculate an effective marginal tax rate, what’s included in it?
• Example 1: Sole parent, 2 kids. Illustration of the income and clawbacks facing a sole parent moving into work, or considering increasing their hours of work
• Example 2: Sole parent, 2 kids. Illustration of the income and clawbacks facing a sole parent increasing their hourly pay rate (i.e. returns to increased productivity)
• More examples: Other demographics. Illustration of the EMTRs facing single people with no children, couples with children with one person working, couples with children with neither working.
• EMTRs and household formation. What impact does the tax and transfer system have on incentives to form stable relationships?
• Summary of EMTR impacts. What do all the preceding posts tell us in general?

Story arc 2: What could we do about that?

• What sorts of policy are available to us? An attempt to categorise and describe the interventions we might choose to use
• Universal basic income: would this help and can we afford it?
• Universal child support: could we afford to make the child support portions of the benefit system universal? These are the cause of much of the EMTR problem.
• Tax free threshold: this may be politically advantageous, but does it help with incentives to work?
• Adjusting thresholds or marginal tax rates: can this let us improve incentives to work?
• Adjusting abatement rates: what would this cost and does it help?
• Lowering benefits: could this help fix abatement rates, and is it politically possible or a good idea?
• Non-financial incentives: what can we do to encourage work that doesn’t rely on financial changes?
• Recommendations: what would I do if I was in charge of things?

Related Posts:

• Number of people on a benefit over time
• Housing costs
• Productivity
• Employment from the community you’re serving
• EMTR on the recent minimum wage increase

I’ve calculated how better or worse off people might be under TOP’s innovative tax policy.

If you do not own a house (skipping over indirect effects such as rents for now), then you save money at every income level.

Those on $80,000 would save the most with a $4,320 reduction in their tax bill. The lowest income earners would benefit the most in percentage terms with someone on $40,000 having their tax bill drop 25%.

If you own a house it looks different. I’ve assumed the median land value is $500,000. Sometimes you may own with a partner so your share would be half. Broadly if you live on a median value section, then you will pay more in tax at almost every income level except $80,000 to $100,000.

If you own multiple sections, your tax bill would significantly increase (which is an intended consequence).

At a systemic level education is in crisis in New Zealand. Often this has been sensed but the Ministry/Government work so hard to keep data/rankings/effects of policy from the public that often people can only speak in anecdotes.

Chris Hipkins says that the decline in attendance began in 2015. It did a wee bit – however the decline has been so massive under Labour he is simply deflecting. Under-national there was a relatively quickly solvable trajectory. He has flown the plane into a stalled-dive.

From Term 2 2019 to Term 1 2022 – decile 1 full attendance declined from 37% to 22%. All other deciles declined also.

When questioned in the House on this Jan Tinetti stated that Term 1 data was far less relevant than Term 2 data and that Term 2 data will show the effect of their wonderful policies.

It took less that 11 weeks from the end of Term 1 to get anonymised attendance data for NZ schools through Education Counts.

Because the data is so important and number of people, including myself, have been asking for the Term 2 attendance data. There has been a flat refusal to release it with the latest answers saying “November” – approx. 19 weeks after the end of Term 2. There can be no real expectation for it taking at least 8 weeks longer. Unacceptable from the most transparent government ever.

Sometimes they pre-load this hiding of policy effects. With the new Equity Index (EQI) numbers to determine funding for schools – there is no requirement for schools to inform the Ministry and/or taxpayer on what they will spend extra money on. There is also no requirement to show improvement across and range of measures. Hipkins says this change to EQI numbers is bi-partisan because National started the change away from deciles. That is true but I would pretty much guarantee they would have had goals, measures and incentives – and a much greater opportunity for improvement for students. By not having public measures schools will now be known by a number that indicates the proportion on students at risk in their population. More stark than deciles were.

Labour has become the anti-education party.

Ian Harrison of Tailrisk economics looks at the economics of the Wellington Golden Mile revitalisation proposal. He notes:

This paper reviews the cost benefit analysis of Lets Get Wellington Moving’s (LGWM)
Golden Mile ‘revitalisation’ proposal. It is presented in the paper ‘Economic
Assessment of the Preferred Option’ that was prepared by MRCagney (NZ) Ltd, an
Auckland transportation consultancy.
Their conclusion was that the costs (capital and increased maintenance) were $86
million and the present value of the benefits was $399 million. The net benefit is
$313 and the benefit to cost ratio was 4.6.1

This looks too good to be true, and it is.
The benefits are substantially generated by a ‘pedestrian realm’ benefit. Pedestrians
were assumed to be prepared to pay $ 247 million just so they did not have to walk
alongside cars on the Golden Mile. This was an absurd result. When we inspected
the Waka Kotahi modelling that MRCagney used to generate this number we found
that it was not fit for purpose and and should not have been used.
On the other hand the street closures were estimated to cause almost no
congestion. Each vehicle journey would take an average of only about three seconds
longer.

It’s ridiculous. This smells like just manufacturing as big a number as possible to please the decision makers.

Then there were a string of omissions, errors and optimistic assumptions that all
generated positive outcomes for the project.
Once these and other issues are addressed a very different picture of the benefit
cost ratio energes. Our estimate is 0.38. The costs well exceed the benefits and the
economic loss is $ 121 million.

And Harrison pulls apart the details:

The per journey time impact and the reduction in the number of journeys do not
seem to jell. Why would 10 percent of car journeys be abandoned when the
journey time has gone up by less than three seconds?. If the fall in demand
estimate of 10 percent is correct then this would imply a travel time cost of $500 –
600 million.
There is no explaination in the paper of why there is 10 percent reduction in
journeys when the underlying model reports a 2 percent reduction. We recently
attempted to get an explanation from MRCagney. They did not provide one.

Garbage in, garbage out.

It was announced in June that then Justice Minister Kris Faafoi would not see out the term of Parliament he was elected for, but would retire early so he could “spend more time with his family“.

This week we learnt:

Fresh from the Cabinet table, former justice minister Kris Faafoi​ has started a public relations and lobbying firm with a powerful media industry investor. …

On a new website for his soon-to-launch lobbying firm, Dialogue 22, Faafoi has listed his experiences in Parliament as proof of his deep connections in the halls of power.

Its tag line reads: “Results through relationships.” …

Faafoi is listed as chief executive officer of Dialogue 22, which, according to the Companies Register, is wholly owned by the Waitapu Group.

The company offers crisis management, lobbying and media relations services. It promises the ability to get clients “in front of decision-makers, the public and the media”.

Of Government, it promised unique insights from “the highest level”.

This sits uncomfortably with me – having a Minister resign part-way through a parliamentary term and barely a few weeks later setting up a lobbying company that boasts of his relationships and ability to get clients in front of his former colleagues.

In no way do I think former MPs should be banned from becoming lobbyists. But there should be a longer gap than a few weeks (Roger Sowry became one but it was three three years after he left, not three months, and he was CE of a major charity before that) and I can’t ever ever recall an MP becoming a lobbyist after resigning midway through a term.

The media at the time of the resignation was all about how Faafoi wanted more time with his family, and that he was over politics. So it seems incongruent that he moves almost immediately into a role critically involved in politics.

Many countries have a cooling off period to prevent what has just happened here. The period is often 12 – 18 months or longer and prevents former Ministers from immediately becoming lobbyists. This is the case in Australia (18 months), Canada (five years), the EU (18 months), UK (two years) and the US (two years).

So what Faafoi has done would be prohibited in almost every other developed country. A three months gap is simply not long enough.

Perhaps a journalists should ask the PM if she is comfortable with having one of her former Ministers lobbying his colleagues so soon after he sat around the Cabinet table with them?

I like Kris. He is a good guy, and maybe the opportunity just came up unexpectedly. But to be honest it is a terrible look to resign from Parliament midway through a term and then a few weeks later turning yourself into a lobbyist.

A guest post by Tom Hunter:

I doubt that the Labour government will be willing to do it but there must be a Royal Commission on this subject. Perhaps it’s best delayed until 2024 anyway; as time removes us from this situation there will be fewer concerns about criticising poor decisions by both government and its bureaucracy. People will feel able to speak up and be heard.

As Lord Sumption, a British historian and former Supreme Court judge, said about instilling fear back in April while Britain was still in the grips of another lockdown:

What we have got at the moment is a desire to instil fear in people… It’s not been a total clampdown, but there has clearly been a serious reduction in the space for debate. I get many, many emails, some of them from people in senior positions in politics and the health service, who say that they agree entirely with what I’m saying, but they don’t dare say it themselves. I hear from hospital registrars and consultants, pointing out things that are happening in their hospitals, about the misclassification of deaths or the long-term effects of lockdown on cancer diagnoses and other illnesses.

So what should the topics be and what are the key questions in each case? Here’s my list.

Lockdowns

I already looked specifically at this in posts last year here, here, here, and this one that focused on the fight by epidemiologists against the concept when the Bush Administration introduced it in 2006. But since then there have been studies done of the current situation, including 2021 data. The following article looks at a group of them, Covid-19 Lockdown Cost/Benefits: A Critical Assessment of the Literature:

An examination of over 100 Covid-19 studies reveals that many relied on false assumptions that over-estimated the benefits and under-estimated the costs of lockdown. The most recent research has shown that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid-19 deaths. Generally speaking, the ineffectiveness stemmed from individual changes in behavior: either non-compliance or behavior that mimicked lockdowns. The limited effectiveness of lockdowns explains why, after more than one year, the unconditional cumulative Covid-19 deaths per million is not negatively correlated with the stringency of lockdown across countries.

There’s also the open letter to the UK government signed by a large number of doctors that makes several key points, of which this is just one:

It is for this reason that lockdown policies were never part of any pandemic preparedness plans prior to 2020. In fact, they were expressly not recommended in WHO documents, even for severe respiratory viral pathogens and for that matter neither were border closures, face coverings, and testing of asymptomatic individuals.

Aside from weighing the costs and benefits it was nice to see some experts who, unlike Baker, Bloomfield and Wiles, were not autistic fanatics or publicity hounds and thus had a grasp of the non-medical side of nationwide lockdowns.

South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice,” says Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University.

New Zealand was no exception to that rule, as shown by the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan, last updated by the MOH in 2017. In its 193 pages you will search in vain for the word “lockdown”, or any suggestion that standard practices such as quarantining infected and exposed people could be translated into such.

KEY QUESTIONS:

1. What were the decision criteria that basically dumped that plan in favour of the national lockdown strategy in 2020.
2. Assuming that one of the key decision criteria was the epidemiological computer modelling used to make forecasts of cases, hospitalisations and deaths under different scenarios, are those models being revised for future use and how can we determine that they are fit for purpose, given the huge variations in their forecasts?
3. What were the decision criteria for the the 2021 lockdown, when it was already well understood by mid-2021 from overseas experience that the Delta variant was more infectious than the Alpha and unlikely to be stopped by a lockdown? Did the MOH and government think it would work a second time?
4. Was there any single decision criteria for the second lockdown that overrode all others, a likely candidate being the very low vaccination rates?
5. Was the traditional “Focused Protection” approach ever considered and if so, why was it rejected?
6. When the extreme L4 lockdown approach was abandoned in September 2021 what were the decision criteria? Was there any beyond the simple fact that, unlike 2020, the L4 had failed to “crush” the Delta variant and that therefore Covid-Zero had failed?
7. A complete assessment of the benefits and costs of the New Zealand lockdowns is required, given the need to move beyond a simple death count in assessing any public health strategy.

Masks and Virus Transmission(inc. fomite transmission)

In this post I looked at the lack of medical experimental data supporting the wearing of masks, citing multiple studies as well as the CDC (early on) and other medical experts, plus the complete lack of correlation between mask mandates and case numbers across nations, also here and in particular the problem of pro-maskers citing observational studies rather than Randomised Control Trials. At best the N-95 masks showed some effect but their expense and lack of availability made them a non-option.

Including the hypocrisy of experts and politicians who clearly did not believe their own bullshit about masks, there was clearly a startling lack of evidence for wearing masks and much evidence that they were useless (hence the Fauci comments & CDC recommendations of early 2020).

KEY QUESTIONS:

1. What medical experimental evidence did our NZ experts use in recommending cloth masks?
2. What evidence existed that they should also be worn outdoors?
3. What medical evidence existed that the virus was transmitted by surface contact, requiring “deep cleaning” of hotels and warehouses?
4. When it became clear through 2020 that no cases of SARS-CoV-2 transmission could be traced to fomite transmission why did deep cleaning continue into 2021? Why did the MOH not advise in at least 2021, if not 2020, that this was unnecessary.

Vaccination programme

I’m not going to delve into the well-known problems with the government roll-out of this programme in 2021 as they are raised by the questions that need answering.

KEY QUESTIONS:

1. Why was the programme so slow after promises had been made about NZ being first in the queue turned into us being almost last in the developed world, with a very low vaccination rate?
2. Was the rollout slowed by the lack of Covid-19 in the community through late 2020 and early 2021 – as the government publically rationalised?
3. Did the government officially decline a speeded up delivery because it felt other nations were in more need – as the government publically rationalised?
4. The supply contracts with Pfizer must be revealed to the Commission so it can be determine that the government’s negotiators did not come “late to the party, did a poor job and got a raw deal“.
5. Why was Pfizer the only vaccine chosen and was this decision re-visited as other nations such as Israel discovered in 2021 that its efficacy waned in just a few months?
6. As the understanding of waning efficacy grew through 2021, what discussion took place in the MOH and government as to the need for booster shots? Also, when were orders placed for booster shots and what was the government’s desired timetable on these?
7. Was any modelling done on the parallel development of immunity in the NZ population via vaccine and via acquired natural immunity, which is the typical track for reaching herd immunity for transmissible diseases or was vaccine immunity considered to be the only option here?
8. Was any discussion held with any of the vaccine makers regarding the possibility of evolutionary pressure on the virus resulting from a mass vaccination programme, as raised by Andrew Pollard, one of the developers of the AstraZeneca vaccine,
9. What studies of the vaccine for children aged 18 or less were looked at, or did we simply rely on FDA approval in the USA? What level of attention was paid to the near-zero incidence of Covid-19 sickness and death in this demographic? What were the decision criteria here for a large-scale vaccination programme to be enforced with this age group, particularly those aged 5-11 (I am assuming the government will do this in 2022)

Testing, Tracing and Quarantine

A key argument for the need to lockdown in early 2020 was that New Zealand lacked the sophisticated track and trace capability of nations like Taiwan that would have enabled a traditional track, trace and quarantine approach of infected and exposed people.

KEY QUESTIONS:

1. What steps need to be taken to provide such a system so that in future the recommendations of the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan can be followed rather than the lockdown approach?
2. Will the WHO definition of Covid-19 deaths – that people who died WITH the virus must be counted along those who died FROM the virus – be followed for future pandemics, including seasonal flu? Does this increase the possibility of making poor public health decisions in the future by overstating the risks of sickness and death from some future virus?
3. Why was the PCR test the only one used for detecting the virus, especially given that its own inventor recommended against non-laboratory use given its well-known extreme sensitivity and high rate of false positives? Related to this is a detailed breakdown of how decisions were made about the PCR test cycle rates used.
4. Why was the saliva testing of Rako, available by January 2021, rejected by the MOH? What lessons can be learned from this to prevent similar MOH mistakes in the future?
5. Why were antibody testing kits not purchased from overseas and made available in 2020 or at least 2021 so that people could privately test themselves for exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and subsequent natural immunity?
6. Why was the decision made that MIQ facilities would be used for positive cases rather than home isolation, especially given the tendency of respiratory viruses to spread more easily in AC-reliant indoor spaces like hotels?
7. What efforts were made to expand MIQ spaces when it became clear that the system was being swamped by New Zealanders attempting to get home? Was self-isolation considered as an option in this scenario and if so, when?

Therapeutic Treatments and Hospitalisation

KEY QUESTIONS:

1. Why was the ICU capacity of hospitals not expanded throughout 2020 and especially in 2021 when the Delta variant emerged overseas? Could this have been done with temporary facilities as Singapore has done over the years?
2. Was the actual constraint the number of ICU doctors and nurses? How many such people were trapped in the MIQ or immigration systems and could they have been given priority?
3. By mid 2020, monoclonal antibody infusion was demonstrated as an FDA-approved, safe, practical and highly effective means of treating patients with Covid-19. Were any efforts made to obtain these treatments, in sufficient numbers for the forecast numbers of cases, and if so, what became of these efforts?
4. What, if any, other therapeutic treatments for Covid-19 patients were proposed and/or studied by the MOH or other government bodies?

An examination of past flu pandemics

This would perhaps form more of a footnote for the Royal Commission but any studies of the pandemics of 1918 (Spanish), 1957 (Asian), and 1968-69 (Hong Kong) should be included. In particular I’d like to hear from Professor Geoffrey W Rice, whose study of the 1918 pandemic in New Zealand was deemed by the MOH “invaluable to our planning”.

A detailed study of excess mortality in the last two years would also be useful, so that in future we’re not guided by the politically useful but simple-minded counting of deaths or cases. Certainly the excess mortality of the nearest thing the world has to a control nation – Sweden – puts that criteria in perspective:

Assuming the excess mortality in 2019–2020 “fully balanced” the mortality deficit in the previous flu year, the true excess mortality in Sweden was less than 1% (about 700 deaths). And if we assume, absurdly, that the mortality in 2019–2020 was not affected at all by the mortality deficit in the previous flu year, then the excess mortality in Sweden did not exceed 4.1% (about 3,800 deaths).

To remind us, the hysterical response to the pandemic was not due to fear of an excess annual mortality of 4% or even 10%. The apocalyptic forecasts, which caused the world to shut down, predicted about 90,000 deaths from the coronavirus in Sweden by the summer of 2020: 100% excess mortality! No wonder policy makers around the world prefer to forget those predictions.

Eyal Shahar – Professor Emeritus of Public Health (University of Arizona); MD (Tel-Aviv University, Israel); MPH, Epidemiology (University of Minnesota) Readers are welcome to suggest other questions that might reasonably fall under the sway of such a Royal Commission.

The AA has a useful summary of the three main mayoral candidates on major transport projects.

The summary is:

My personal views on them are:

• Light Rail – oppose
• Regional Fuel Tax – oppose
• Congestion charging – support
• Charge for park & ride parking – support
• Pedestrianising Queen Street – support
• Lower speed limits – mixed

Stuff reports:

Former National MP Jami-Lee Ross has been found not guilty on fraud charges relating to donations made to the Labour and National parties.

On Wednesday, after hearing seven weeks of evidence, High Court Justice Ian Gault delivered his verdict in the trial.

Looks like his defence worked which was that everything he said about Simon Bridges was a lie motivated by anger over not getting to keep the Chief Whip role, and that in fact he didn’t know about the illegal donation.

Justice Gault found Zhang not guilty in relation to the National Party donation in 2017 but guilty of the donation in 2018.

Colin Zheng was found guilty in relation to the 2017 and 2018 donation.

Joe Zheng was found guilty in relation to the 2018 donation and guilty of obstructing a Serious Fraud Office investigation.

Ross was acquitted on all charges.

Zhang, the Zheng twins and the people with name suppression were all found not guilty over donations made to the Labour Party in 2017.

It is good that there will be consequences for those who try to subvert the laws around donation disclosure.

Stuff reports:

Hutt City mayor Campbell Barry has acknowledged signing the Labour Party pledge, which commits candidates to following the rules and policies of the party.

But Barry, who is seeking re-election, said that the city was always his priority – not the party.

“When I was elected mayor in 2019, I swore an oath and signed a declaration to serve in the best interests of Lower Hutt,” he said. “That was my number one commitment then, and that remains my number one commitment now.”

Barry had previously said he had not signed “anything that requires me to follow parliamentary party policy” and that his track record showed it was “nonsense” to claim otherwise.

Labour Party general secretary Rob Salmond confirmed that Barry has the backing of Labour and he had signed the pledge.

The track record is being one of only two Mayors in the region who supports the Three Waters reforms.

Both Labour and Greens require their local body candidates to sign a pledge that they will vote as the party wishes them to – to follow their policy platform. This means these candidates don’t represent voters to the Council but effectively represent their parties to the Council.

Barry is splitting hairs by stating he is not required to follow parliamentary party policy. He is required to follow Labour Party policy, and it is naïve to think there is a significant difference between the policy of the parliamentary wing and the policy of the party. He also misled in a debate on 12 September with the transcript below:

Tony Stallinger (Mayoral candidate):

I think it is a big issue. I as people know, I have a team of candidates also standing with me. We have been upfront from day one, what we stand for.  It’s only four things, four principles. They’re available on the website. They’re on our flyers, they’re everywhere. There are no secrets. I am concerned that the Labour Party Constitution has a requirement of candidates to sign a pledge. Now a pledge to faithfully observe the party policy and the public policy platform of the party. I don’t know if Campbell has signed that but the Constitution says he must. Now I don’t know what policy platform Labour Party is going to come up with over the next three years. I don’t think there should be any party endorsed candidates, whether it be from Labour, National or other ones, they should be free to advocate for the interests of the city.

Campbell Barry (Labour Mayoral Candidate & sitting Mayor):

Can I just give an example of why that statement is such a nonsense I’ve already been talking about why how myself and the council has been opposed to the government’s reform around blanket intensification of the city.   [Interjection – did you sign it?]      No.  [Interjection – then why does the Constitution say that?]      Let me be very clear, there is no obligation on me to follow the parliamentary party and the policies that they have. I absolutely put the people of our city first and all the decisions that I make and the and the values that I run on and I have a track record now three years of doing that, and no one around the council table has ever questioned me until we get to an election. Okay, another, another question.

He said no when the answer was yes.

The September 2022 Roy Morgan is out.

Party Vote

• Labour 29.5% (-5.5% from August)
• National 36.0% (+0.5%)
• Greens 12.5% (+3.5%)
• ACT 12.5% (+2.0%)
• Maori 3.5% (-1.5%)
• NZ First 1.0% (-0.5%)
• TOP 2.5% (+1.5%)
• New Conservatives 0.5% (nc)

Seats

• Labour 38 (-27 from election)
• National 46 (+13)
• Greens 16 (+6)
• ACT 16 (+6)
• Maori 4 (+2)

Governments

• Labour/Green 54/120
• National/ACT 62/120

Direction

• Right 37.5% (nc)
• Wrong 51.5% (-1.5%)

This is the first poll to show Labour in the 20s, an extraordinary decline from the 50% they got at the election. They would lose a massive 27 MPs on this poll. They would lose every single List MP, even if they lost three electorate seats.

We all know the state house waiting list has grown massively under Labour, but possibly we assumed that those on it were the lower priority families. Well the waiting list is divided up into Priority A and Priority B and within Priority A those in the most urgent need are category A20.

In 2017 those in urgent need waited an average of 45 days or six week to be housed. Not perfect, but perhaps a tolerable time. It means any emergency housing for them would be relatively brief.

Today as at the first quarter of 2022, those in category A20 are waiting an average of 421 days or 60 weeks.

And it isn’t just the time that has got longer. In 2017 when Labour claimed we had a housing crisis, there were only 3 families in category A20. This year there are 297 so an almost 10,000% increase.

Don Brash writes:

The Prime Minister pretends that local councils will still own the water infrastructure which their ratepayers have funded but by every measure on which “ownership” is judged, this is a total nonsense: local councils will have absolutely no authority over the water infrastructure in their area. Among other things, because any new urban development is dependent on water infrastructure being put in place in a timely way, this means that the great majority of the decisions which a council makes around urban development – where roads and houses should go – will be effectively determined by the four enormous “entities” into which all water infrastructure will be grouped.

This is a very salient and important point. By giving these entities control over water, they will also have de facto control over urban development. Now if they were controlled by Councils this would not be an issue, but Councils will not have control of these entities.

Stuff reports:

A Government project aimed at filling empty ‘ghost homes’ will not be pursued after a $500,000 investigation and trial. …

Drawing on 2018 Census data, Wise Group wrote there were nearly 95,000 empty dwellings across Aotearoa, however a survey of owners of empty homes suggesting only 10% intentionally kept their properties empty.

So the true number of so called ghost houses is 9,500 in a country of five million people. Hardly significant.

This shows how many children and young people managed to access specialist mental health and addiction services. Under the terrible evil uncaring National Government it went from 25,499 to 48,788 – a 91% increase over six years.

In the first four years of the lovely good caring Labour Government who announced $1.9 billion of mental health funding, the number of young clients seen increased 1.6% over four years.

Stuff reports:

The Opportunities Party has hung out its shingle for the 2023 election announcing a policy of $6.35 billion in income tax cuts, paid for by a land tax on residential housing, and welfare debt write-offs.

This is an excellent policy. I have long advocated a tax swap with income tax and land tax.

The rule of thumb is that anything you tax, you reduce. So:

• A tax on income reduces labour
• A tax on capital reduces investment
• A tax on goods and services reduces consumption

This is why the best tax system is broad based and low rate – to minimise distortions.

But a tax on land is a bit different, as land is a finite amount. So a tax on land won’t reduce the amount of land available – it will instead encourage land owners to get a better economic return from the land.

So TOPs policy will see people rewarded more for working more, and discourage people from land banking. I support it.

The NZH is currently carrying an article out of Britain re the tragic death (suicide) of a 14 year old girl under the headline: A tragedy foretold: How social media killed Molly Russell.

The family, and the coroner, with evidence and justification point to appalling content on the internet that had huge affects on the mental health of the child.

Parents have to understand the virtual world of the internet as if it is a physical world and that their child(ren) are living on the edge of a wild and shark infested ocean. With supervision and guidance swimming and fishing can happen but protecting them is a big part of parenting in 2022. Some practicals:

–          Children do not need a smart phone – regardless of Margaret down the road having one. You will get the age old generational arguments. I will lose my friends. I will be the only one in the whole school. The teachers say I need one. You’re the worst parents in the world. Message phones are fine and fit for purpose until 16 or so.

–          If you allow a smart phone and when students are on work-stations at home – they should NEVER be behind closed doors. Always visual and open to discussion – such as the kitchen table – not squirreled into a corner.

–          Any/all devices get packed away 30 minutes before bed-time. They should never been in a child/young person’s room. Don’t underestimate the cunning of a child who is addicted – or nearly so. They will borrow phones from friends, have a spare phone in their room and will swap the sim cards.

–          Work on replacing time children may have used surfing and swiping for activities, dinner at the table, reading books.

–          If you need help to deal with things then find it – for the sake of your family.

Something connected was a Newhub article yesterday: Youth mental health organisations inundated with callers concerned about world problems

The biggest, terrifying click-baits are often things people can do nothing about. Explained well that has an escape route – and I am not being trivial.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

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