The JC reports:

In a guest appearance on conspiracy theorist Infowars online TV show, Kanye West praised Adolf Hitler during an interview with host Alex Jones. …

During the show on Thursday, which featured Mr Jones, Mr West, and Nick Fuentes, a holocaust-denying white supremacist, the host attempted to defend the hip-hop star, saying: “You’re not Hitler, you’re not a Nazi, so you don’t deserve to be demonised.”

Mr West instead pushed back, saying: “Well, I see good things about Hitler also.

“The Jews… I love everyone, and the Jewish people are not going to tell me, ‘You can love us and you can love what we are doing to you with the contracts, and you can love what we are pushing with the pornography”, but this guy [Hitler] that invented highways, invented the very microphone that I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good and I am done with that.”

Mr West, who recently announced his intention to run for president in 2024, added: “I am done with the classifications. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.”

Especially Hitler!!

And this is Donald’s good mate and dining companion. The upside is Ron DeSantis is looking a better and better prospect.

Following the outrageous comments, Mr Jones, in an attempt to distance his own views, said that he did not like Nazis or Hitler, to which Mr West replied, “I like Hitler.”

When Alex Jones starts trying to distance himself from you, you know a line has well and truly been crossed. And then West goes further and declares he actually likes Hitler.

“The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world.”

Funny that.

The Herald reports:

The man today sentenced to three years in prison on New Zealand’s first-ever charges of sabotage was motivated by one purpose; causing as much disruption as he could in an effort to draw attention to his cause.

That cause was a catalogue of fanatical conspiracies surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic and the roll-out of vaccines.

His conviction in his beliefs saw him turn into an almost fulltime campaigner. He had hundreds of followers online, with his postings garnering significant traction within Aotearoa’s conspiracy and “doomsday prepper” circles.

We can now reveal, what many knew, that he tried to bring down part of the national electricity grid. Sabotage was the appropriate charge, as is a jail sentence.

If he had succeeded, he may have killed scores of people, and done tens of millions of damage to families and businesses.

According to one of Philip’s many books, his childhood was marred with abuse and fear. His father, a steel-fabricator he described as a “schizophrenic communist”, emotionally manipulated Philip and his brother David, he wrote, referring to them both exclusively as his “little swines”.

Sounds terrible.

In 1988, his brother David was tried after being alleged to have killed Kyung Eup Lee, a South Korean fisherman, at the Melbourne Railway Station. He was sprung after a letter he wrote saying he had “done in a Korean” was intercepted by New Zealand authorities.

Philip, still in London, flew to Melbourne weeks later to visit his brother.

He arrived to discover it had been alleged David also cooked the man’s body parts in a wok and displayed Lee’s severed penis in the station’s female bathrooms.

Not a healthy family.

In late November, he began to undertake his own attacks. While the details of those attacks remain subject to strict suppression orders, today those orders were relaxed slightly, allowing media to report it was Transpower infrastructure that had been targeted.

The only other facts that can now also be reported are that the offending caused $1.25 million in damage and one of the acts led to a fire.

A lot of people don’t like the Government’s response t Covid-19. But most of them don’t take the law into their onw hand, let alone decide to try and bring down the electricity grid.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern attended a Labour Party caucus meeting where a last-minute entrenchment clause in the Government’s controversial Three Waters legislation was discussed, despite her saying on Monday it was “not necessarily something I would be aware of”. …

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta confirmed, through a spokesperson, the change to the bill was discussed with the Labour caucus – a meeting of all its MPs – in advance of the House sitting.

“We knew it was novel and may not pass the constitutional threshold, but it was still worthy of consideration,” Mahuta said, in an emailed response to questions.

This is Nanaia throwing Jacinda under the bus, after Ardern and Hipkins said they knew nothing about the amendment they voted for. Everyone assumed that the SOP by the Greens was tabled at the last minute, and Mahuta as the Minister in charge decided to have Labour vote for it, on the fly.

But the reality is that Mahuta took the Green SOP to the Labour caucus, and it was either explicitly approved, or there was no objection to it.

This makes it a huge credibility issue for the Prime Minister. I can only think of four explanations, to reconcile what she said, to what we now know.

She wasn’t listening in caucus

Maybe she was bored with Three Waters, and despite the fact she chairs Caucus, she wasn’t listening to Mahuta and didn’t think she had to pay attention to what was being said.

She didn’t understand

Maybe she simply didn’t understand what Mahuta was saying. She may have got confused.

She forgot

Maybe she forgot it was discussed at caucus, even thought it was just a week ago.

She lied

This is the fallback option, if none of the other three explanations are credible.

Bill Bennett writes:

One day shortly before Christmas, a Chorus contractor will connect a slender strand of glass fibre to a family home and power up the hardware needed to drive it.

When that line lights up and the data starts flowing, the 11-year Ultra Fast Fibre project will finally end.

From where we are in late 2022, the wisdom of building a nationwide fibre network looks obvious. That wasn’t the case when Sir John Key and Steven Joyce first planned the network in 2008 while preparing that year’s election manifesto. Critics saw it as a high-risk project.

The Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) programme they developed has been a success by any standard. The initial goal was to connect 75 per cent of the nation — in cities and towns — to the network over a nine-year build. As the network grew, and people saw the benefits of fast, reliable broadband demand soared well ahead of initial projections. It was so popular successive governments revisited the plans twice and funded the UFB2 and UFB2+ extensions.

At an event to mark the end of the project, Chorus CEO JB Rousselot noted that 87 per cent of New Zealanders will now be able to access the fibre cable passing their gate

I was one of those early advocates, and recall significant scepticism. Some people claimed there was no need, for speeds that fast, and others that VDSL would be just as good,

It was a hugely ambitious project, and delivered huge results for New Zealand. 87% of homes can now have fibre connections, Telecom got split into Spark and Chorus, and it was all done within budget. Steven Joyce and Amy Adams oversaw an incredibly competent and vital project, which stands in huge contrast to today’s Government that promised light rail to be completed by 2020, and now are saying they may approve a business case by 2025.

The UFB project is a good reminder of what Government can achieve when it works with the private sector, and when it is competent.

NewstalkZB reports:

Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr stated that New Zealand’s relatively strict border rules were a handbrake on his ability to rein in inflation.

Adrian Orr said that the border restrictions and subsequent immigration reset forced him to raise the mortgage rates higher than he otherwise would have gone for.

People should remember this as their mortgage rates head towards 8%.

Steven Joyce writes at NZ Herald:

The die is looking increasingly cast for this Government. In a range of crucial policy areas they have resolutely refused to change course in response to changed circumstances, despite people jumping up and down and telling them they are sailing on to the rocks. Now they are in the process of reaping the consequences of their intransigence. And at this late stage it seems there is precious little they can do about it.

The economy is a case in point. Grant Robertson’s refusal to alter his spending plans, his lack of interest in a more welcoming immigration policy to unstick the labour market, his failure to hold back his colleagues’ tsunami of increasing regulation, and his unwillingness to require discipline on government-mandated wage increases, have all contributed to a glum economic prognosis. He has sat on his hands blithely assuring everyone we are in good shape, and now can only watch as the Reserve Bank does what it must do to rein in runaway inflation.

Instead they have passed a law which will allow unions to demand industry wide national awards, so a small business in Invercargill has to pay the same as a multinational in Auckland.

I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the Media Council has not upheld my complaint about the bogus poll prominently pushed by the Dominion Post.

I respect the outcome, as a member myself of the Media Council.

The decision will be on their website.

Stuff reports a Media Council ruling:

In addressing Ms Hickson’s more general complaints that Stuff lacked balance on transgender issues, Stuff said it took the view that giving a voice to certain opinions on transgender issues amounted to giving a platform to prejudice and views that might cause harm. Stuff went on to say a similar issue arose in the reporting of climate change where it was not a requirement to include comments from climate change deniers for balance.

While the Media Council did not uphold the complaint under principle (1) it noted the debate about the treatment of gender dysphoria in children is slightly different from other transgender issues and it rejected Stuff’s argument it is analogous to climate change. In the case of climate change there is an overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion whereas on the issue of childhood gender dysphoria there appears to be a variety of genuinely held and differing opinions internationally. The Council hoped all media outlets would consider whether they are taking a balanced approach overall.

Quite extraordinary that Stuff has openly said we will not allow contrary views on the issue of treatment gender dysphoria in children, when you have had damning reports from overseas about treatment in the UK, including from a High Court judge.

The attendance data that Associate Minister of Education, Jan Tinetti, stated was the most important in terms of policy impact was the Term 2 data this year:

Full attendance is 90%.

Results for full attendance were:

Decile 1: 23%

Decile 2: 26%

Decile 3: 31%

Decile 4: 37%

Decile 5: 39%

Decile 6: 39%

Decile 7: 43%

Decile 8: 46%

Decile 9: 48%

Decile 10: 50%

All deciles were well down on previous years.

There were approximately 128,000 students “chronically” absent in that they missed 30% or more school days.
Going to school either matters or it doesn’t. Schools, teachers and the Ministry of Education says that it matters and data certainly supports that view. You would think then it would be all hands on deck to maximise students coming to school in these fractured times.
So – I have been somewhat stunned to hear from a range of families where schools have taken 12, or more teacher only days (TODs), this year. All children are marked present for these but it is, in effect, forced absenteeism. The TODs are also rarely coordinated so a working parent, with three children, could have had up to 36 days to revamp their lives for. I am hearing of working people who have used up all of their annual leave through the impact of TODs. Some schools retort that “they are not a baby-sitting service”. No one expects them to be – just that when schools are “open” and during term time that children should be able to go and be well taught.

Add to that the full-on round of paid union meetings at present …

Is it any wonder that so many children/families are seeing school as an option not an imperative?

The Herald reports:

Finance Minister Grant Robertson padded Budget 2022 with $2.05 billion from the remnants of the Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund contrary to his undertakings that the enormous pot of emergency money be limited to direct, pandemic-related spending and over the Treasury’s objections. …

Proactively released Treasury documents show the money was tipped directly into Budget 2022, against the Treasury’s advice, and uncounted in the Budget allowance and consequently obscured from New Zealanders as new spending. …

Former deputy chief economic adviser to the Treasury, Tony Burton, said the Government’s move was an “abuse of process” as it is laid out in the Public Finance Act and that it had effectively turned Covid-19 emergency funds into “an election slush fund that will force the Government after 2023 to either put up taxes, borrow or cut spending”.

This is terrible transparency from the Government, and is fiscally reckless.

They used the one-off Covid fund to fund non-Covid activities in the 2022 budget. That was bad enough, but what is worse is that they have made no allowance for future funding of them, so have created an unfunded liability.

Basically it is a poison pill for the next Government.

Graham Adams writes:

It takes a large dollop of brazenness — and perhaps desperation — to deny reality quite as readily as Jacinda Ardern was willing to do last Tuesday, but the Prime Minister did not resile from the task.

When Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper asked her why the three waters (fresh water, storm water and waste water) had suddenly become five waters (with the late addition of coastal and geothermal water) in the amended Water Services Entities Bill, Ardern flatly denied that was the case.

Denying observable facts is typical of very young children before they understand that bending the truth beyond breaking point is an art that requires at least a modicum of plausibility to avoid ending up deeply and shamefully embarrassed.

Ardern’s denial reminded me of a three-year-old niece who, when asked why her name had appeared on the wall of her bedroom written in red crayon, claimed a visiting friend had done it — even while she was clutching a red crayon in her own hand. Her young friend had yet to learn to write.

While this might be seen as an amusingly naive ploy in a child anxious to avoid the consequences of being caught red-handed, such behaviour is plainly alarming in an adult — and especially when that adult happens to be the Prime Minister.

Ardern told Soper — in a strained voice: “The reference [to coastal and geothermal water] in the legislation does not change the scope of Three Waters. It’s only about the drinking water, waste water and storm water.”
Soper: “It extends into coastal and geothermal, if you read the legislation, which I’ve done this morning.”

Ardern replied, with such stilted diction it sounded as if she was reading from a press statement: “I have read the legislation. It does not change its scope… However, I can see, based on your questions, that it has caused, potentially, some confusion. So we’ll ask the drafters whether there’s a way to make it much clearer…”

“So you’re going to have it changed, are you?” Soper asked.

Ardern: “No, [I’m] just going to ask the question whether or not it could be drafted with more clarity because it’s obviously created some confusion.”

In fact, the clause Soper was referring to is perfectly clear. Confusion has only arisen because the Prime Minister decided to argue black was white.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time ….

Jamie Mackay writes at NZ Herald:

Fieldays 2022, Covid-postponed until summer for the first time in its more than 50-year history, will be a real litmus test for the Government and its often-fraught relationship with rural New Zealand.

I witnessed first-hand at AgFest in Greymouth, the only other rural field days to have got off the ground in 2022, the frustration and negativity that greeted O’Connor. And that was in his own home patch! But Damien, with his fiery Irish heritage, is nothing if not up for a scrap.

The reception Ardern gets, providing of course she’s there, will be interesting. Like Key, she’s a consummate performer in public. Regardless of your political leanings, there should always be respect for the office of Prime Minister. How much is shown at Mystery Creek will be intriguing.

I believe it is important to show respect to the office.

So I hope farmers show the same level of respect to the PM, as say the NZEI shows to a National Minister of Education when addressing an NZEI conference.

The Daily Mail reports:

Protesters calling for an end to the rule of President Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have clashed with police in violent scenes – as officers also assaulted a BBC journalist covering the demonstrations.

China is facing its largest anti-government protests since the Tiananmen Square massacre with protests erupting in at least seven cities over the country’s strict Covid rules – which many believe contributed to the deaths of ten people after a fire broke out in the city of Urumqi, capital of the western Xinjiang region.

The largest of the demonstrations has taken place in Shanghai – home to 26 million residents – with many also boldly demanding that President Xi resign.

China has a terrible problem.

Their Covid lockdowns are failing and generating huge hostility.

However their vaccine has been pretty rubbish compared to western ones, and if Covid spreads rapidily, their health system will collapse.

My pick is that they will persist with the lockdowns, but there will be more and more protests up until the point when they start mass killing of protesters.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the Government will go to Parliament’s business committee to discuss its controversial clause in a Three Waters bill, deemed “dangerous” by constitutional law experts.

This is a welcome step, if it means that the bill will be sent back to Committee of the Whole to have the entrenchment clause removed.

I am glad the Government appears to have listened, in this case.

The Guardian reports:

Democrats, anti-racist groups and some Republicans have condemned Donald Trump for having a dinner with American white supremacist and anti-semite Nick Fuentes after details of their encounter at the former US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida emerged. …

David Friedman, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel, tweeted disapproval of the meeting with both Fuentes and Ye, who has also recently made antisemitic comments that have seen him lose a raft of valuable corporate endorsements.

“Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable. I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong,” Friedman tweeted.

Fuentes is a very nasty anti-semite. Some examples:

• Referred to Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh as “shabbos goy race traitor” because he works for Jews (Ben Shapiro)
• Denied the Holocaust and compared Jews burnt in concentration camps to cookies in an oven
• Said he doesn’t see Jews as Europeans or as part of Western civilization

Dairy owners across New Zealand have closed shops for two hours to highlight how unsafe it has become for them. Some quotes from a Stuff article:

• “We worry quite a bit because this year lots of dairies in Taranaki have been robbed. We were robbed. It is horrible.”
• A question to the crowd, asking who had been affected by crime in Wellington, saw most raise their hands. Some in the crowd said it was something they hoped not to see in Wellington.
• “That heinous crime is devastating. There has been a shift towards violence towards anyone on the frontline, from ED nurses and doctors, fire and police, teachers to [people] fronting retail and hospitality. Everybody is having to shield themselves from what is going on,” Bhana said.
• “Every day when you start working you hope that nothing goes wrong and you don’t want to feel like that. We are very exposed but we can’t do much about it. The Government can but we can’t,” Desai said.
• Sunny Kaushal, president of the Dairy and Business Owners Group, said Patel’s death happened because a culture of impunity for offenders exists.

That last point is a key one.

The Herald reports:

A group of the country’s top public law academics is urging the Government to change an entrenching provision in the controversial Three Waters legislation they say could set a “dangerous precedent”. …

The issue has sparked the attention of public law academics, who have today published an open letter (see the bottom of the article for a full letter).

Authors include Professor Janet McLean, Professor Paul Rishworth, Professor Andrew Geddis, Associate Professor Dean Knight, Associate Professor John Ip, Dr Eddie Clark, Dr Edward Willis and Dr Jane Norton.

Bravo to them for doing this. As it happens many of them are quite left leaning, but this is an issue beyond partisan politics. It is like letting the genie out of the bottle. Once you turn entrenchment into a partisan weapon (rather than a bipartisan protection), then you can never go back.

In fact if the Government doesn’t do a u-turn, I will run a series of polls on Kiwiblog where readers can vote on what law they would most like a future centre-right Government to entrench. There have already been dozens of suggestions with my favourite to date being a law to ban union deductions from pay packets.

A quote from the open letter:

We urge government to think about the dangerous precedent that this legislative action may set. It extends the use of entrenchment protection from a very limited range of matters fundamental to our constitutional system to a matter of contested social policy. Not only does this move invite similar attempts in the future, it also risks undermining the seriousness with which entrenchment is taken by Parliament and the public generally.

Spot on.

The Herald reports:

The Act Party is proposing on-the-spot fines, akin to speeding tickets, for parents of children deemed chronically absent from school.

The idea is part of its policy launched today to address what it calls the “Truancy Crisis”.

The National Party has also shown an interest in similar legislation, while the Government has said such punitive approaches had been tried in the past and failed.

Actually it is the status quo which has failed, as attendance rates have plummeted.

Act’s policy includes five ideas to get children back in the classroom regularly. This includes daily national attendance reporting, and whether any absence was justified or unjustified. The Ministry of Education would publish this daily attendance, building a national focus on the issue.

Act would also change the law to make it easier to fine parents for poor attendance from their children.

The party says that currently parents cannot be fined for student non-attendance without a court conviction, but they can be fined on the spot for speeding to school.

Act would change the Education and Training Act to allow the Ministry of Education to introduce an infringement notice regime for truancy. They would ensure police could work with schools on truants and take children they see out of school during school hours to either the school or home.

Act also proposed a traffic light system for unjustified attendance at schools. At the red setting, more than 30 per cent truant, the student would be referred to the Ministry of Education, which would decide whether to fine parents and/or refer the matter to police.

Schools would also receive funding to deal with poor attendance, weighted through the Equity Index so schools with more vulnerable student populations would receive more funding.

Seems a good mixture of carrot and stick.

On wider issues, including the massive inequities, Tinetti said their attendance strategy, launched this year, was designed to re-engage students, while the Government was on track to meet the first target of 70 per cent regular attendance by next year, and 75 per cent by 2026.

They are not on track. The regular attendance rate has dropped from 63% in 2017 to 40% in 2022.