The latest death rates per million for people with Covid are:

1. Victoria 803
2. NSW 606
3. New Zealand 580
4. Australia 549
5. South Australia 444
6. Queensland 387
7. Tasmania 335
8. ACT 293
9. NT 286
10. WA 229

Steven Joyce writes:

The suggestion seems to be that the decision to charge GST on KiwiSaver fees slipped into the regular tax bill without the top echelons of government being fully aware of the ramifications of it. And that the failure to mention it in the press release announcing the bill was an unfortunate oversight. …

Unless all the officials involved were incompetent, which is highly unlikely, and the Prime Minister and Finance Minister can’t read, also unlikely, there is no way they didn’t understand that the Inland Revenue were lodging a bill to increase the tax take by $200 million and reduce people’s KiwiSaver balances accordingly.

Joyce detailed the numerous steps at which Ministers are briefed on what is in a bill.

So unless there is a total breakdown of the normal decision-making processes within government, which is highly unlikely, this decision and the underhand way it was announced was premeditated.

They knew what its impact would be, and made a deliberate decision not to include it in the press release, hoping no-one would notice!

Whatever the final cause of the Government’s awry political antennae, it appears very likely the die has been cast and the public have made up their minds about this lot, and ministers increasingly know it.

For the evidence of that, see Grant Robertson’s regular personal attacks on Opposition leader Christopher Luxon. It is likely Robertson realises the public’s perception of his government as out of touch and ineffective is now baked in, and the only chance they have of surviving next year is to make the alternative government look as shop-worn as their crowd.

Expect to see much more attacking of the opposition over the next 12 months. Labour’s strategists may not have been able to work out that adding GST to KiwiSaver this way was political poison, but they are aware that the only way to level the playing field for the next election is to drag the alternative government down and create as much doubt about them as there is about Labour. It’s the 2005 and 2008 playbook all over again. And it won’t be pretty.

Yep they will be looking for their H-Fee!

The Herald reports:

The opposition is unhappy Finance Minister Grant Robertson ignored their calls to enhance the expertise represented on the Reserve Bank’s (RBNZ) new board.

National Party Finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis and Act Party leader David Seymour in May raised concerns over the mix of people Robertson proposed be appointed to the board.

Emails they sent Robertson, who was obliged by law to “consult” them before recommending candidates for the Governor General to appoint, have been made public under the Official Information Act.

“The candidates you propose each have impressive records in their individual areas of expertise and have skills that would positively contribute to the board,” Willis told Robertson.

“However, based on the information you have provided to us, the candidates appear to have limited experience in central banking and prudential regulation and supervision. We believe these competencies are essential and could be under-represented on the proposed board.”

Seymour was more specific: “Your appointments to date look sensible, as do your proposals to appoint Byron Pepper and Hinerangi Raumati-Tu’ua.

“However, your other two appointments are dubious. Jeremy Banks and Rawinia Higgins (the latter in particular) appear to have no background whatsoever in economics, finance or banking.”

There are few boards more important than the Reserve Bank Board and it is a huge worry that appointments have been made of people with no experience in banking or even economics.

The Daily Mail reports:

The University of California, Berkeley has introduced a mask mandate for students who have not taken a seasonal flu shot.

‘Masks are required during flu season if not vaccinated for flu,’ an announcement on the school’s website read.

I hope this doesn’t give the Government here ideas. We have already had activists call for measures used against Covid-19 to be used against the flu.

Stuff reports:

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has decried “fascism” and challenged Sydney’s oldest university to protect free speech on campus after he was yelled and sworn at by student protesters during a function and escorted out by police.

Turnbull left the Sydney University Law Society event on Thursday without speaking, following the boycott by members of the Student Representative Council and student body, who called him “ruling class scum” who “wouldn’t listen to anyone below” him.

He said it was a “dreadful state of affairs” and “a very sad day” for his alma mater and argued free speech no longer existed on campus if it was in the hands of protesters with loudspeakers.

“It’s just complete fascism. Just extraordinary,” Turnbull told the Herald. “One of the things they accused me of being was anti-queer, which didn’t seem to match the fact that I legalised same-sex marriage. It was literally a litany of objections.”

Turnbull correctly describes those responsible as fascists.

And as he says he was an advocate of legalising same-sex marriage. Basically those students and others just want to deny freedom of speech to anyone they disagree with.

Matthew Hooton writes:

The Ardern administration has finally confirmed — were confirmation required — that it is the most incompetent New Zealand Government in living memory, and perhaps ever. …

National’s Muldoonist era might rival Jacinda Ardern’s circus. But, however controversial, the Clyde Dam, the Waitara and Motunui methanol plants and the Marsden Point expansion were built — in contrast to Ardern’s 100,000 KiwiBuild houses, the $30 billion Auckland tram, and the $6.4b Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme, for which the Government has allocated a further $120 million for yet another business plan.

Perhaps we’re better off those projects are doomed. But the Ardern Government’s inability to deliver anything it says it values is surely unique.

Not only can’t I recall a NZ Government that has been so incompetent at delivery as this one, but even globally it is hard to think of examples. Most project failures mean they happen a few years late, but this Government’s failures means they are literally centuries behind with their projected completion.

From mid-2020, real wages began falling and have done so for eight quarters. Since the Labour Cost Index (LCI) began in 1992, that has never happened before.

By mid-2021, real wages fell below where they were under National. A year later, they have fallen a further 3.7 per cent, so that New Zealand wage and salary earners have experienced a 3.3 per cent cut in their real wages since Ardern has been Prime Minister — the worst five-year change since the series began 30 years ago.

Another fine achievement.

Prolonged border controls destroyed the international education industry, putting the viability of universities at risk. Trades training faces collapse following the bizarre project to set up a Wellington-based super-polytechnic, at a cost so far of $200m, with nothing to show for it.

No one knows what the billions for two new health bureaucracies in Wellington will deliver. We don’t know where the $1.9b for mental health went. There is wild talk of writing off student loan debt as an election sweetener.

It won’t work. The defeat of the Ardern Government is increasingly likely, and more than deserved.

Labour governments can do many things and survive. Enriching property owners while slashing workers’ real wages isn’t one.

Hopefully just one year to go.

My Stateline reports:

With California’s power grid under strain due to extreme heat and high demand, the utility grid operator is asking residents to avoid charging their electric vehicles. This comes days after the state announced a plan to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035.

They really are muppets.

Stuff reports:

National and the ACT Party have labelled a bill which seeks to make all public sector agencies use clear, concise language when communicating with the public as “stupid” and one which will create “language police”. …

Her plain language bill, which passed its second reading in the House on Thursday, would mean every public service and Crown agency must make sure it communicates in plain language and have a designated plain language officer. 

Language officers – just what we need!

Bishop said the issue didn’t need to be legislated against.

“Why not send out an email from (state services commissioner) Peter Hughes saying we need to make sure we are writing clearly and concisely?”

Bishop is right. You don’t need an Act of Parliament to tell staff in agencies to use plain language.

I have no doubt this law will end up creating bureaucracy within the bureaucracy.

This is the Prime Minister of Finland dancing.

This is (then) New Zealand Labour Cabinet Ministers Pete Hodgson and Trevor Mallard dancing.

Finland wins, hands down.

Luke Malpass writes:

Just as it looked like Labour might be getting out of its own way and hewing back to creating some sort of economic story, it tabled a bill in Parliament that would have literally jacked up the tax on almost every KiwiSaver account.

That plan was swiftly abandoned less than 24 hours later.

Labour do polling every week night, so one can only assume the results were dire on Tuesday night!

The accompanying Regulatory Impact Statement even provided some helpful figures and examples about what this would cost – some $225 million a year in extra tax, or $103 billion to 2070. Both the Regulatory Impact Statement and common sense say the same thing – at the end it was a tax on retirement savings, paid for by KiwiSaver members through higher fees.

Remember that this got signed off by Cabinet. They were told there would be over $100 billion taken from KiwiSaver accounts through this tax change, and they said “Great, let’s do it”

Labour promised no new taxes, and there it was, in black and white. Not only that but it was a proposal to increase the costs of one of Labour’s legacy projects – the Michael Cullen-created KiwiSaver.

Dr Cullen would not have been impressed.

For National this is the closest thing to a political free lunch there is. Both Luxon and finance spokesperson Nicola Willis will try to hang this around Labour’s collective neck until the next election. “Can they really be trusted?” will be the refrain.

They tried and failed with a CGT. They have tried and failed with a KiwiSaver Tax.

What will they try next?

The last leader of the USSR has died, aged 91.

We owe him a great debt. He showed the world that communist regimes can’t survive daylight. Repression isn’t just a coincidental aspect of communist regimes, but a key element of them.

Gorbachev allowed freedom of speech and media, and the result was the collapse of not just the USSR but also the freeing of Eastern Europe from their slave nation status. Few figures have had a larger impact on world history than Gorbachev, even if not by design.

Please, oh please, let it be. It worked so well last time.

I went to a boys’ high school back in the day. It wasn’t flash (it is worse now – the leavers get UE at 1.4%). But at no point was I told that there were certain parts of academia (e.g. English) that I was unsuited to through being male.

Roll ahead six years after leaving that school and I was sitting in the staff room of another boys school. As the external exam results were discussed the HOD English excused the English results (in comparison to Math and Science) on the basis that “after all we are teaching boys.”

Three examples give us that state of play that our approach has got us to in 2022.
1.

2. Matched single sex schools. Here are five examples (I can find no matched example where the boys school is ahead).

3. Retention. One myth is that in South Auckland – and other low decile areas – that it is the girls leaving early.
   
   

Into Year 13 only 38% of the males remained while 73% of the females did?

What is happening here people and what are the solutions?

For the full processed data set for all NZ High Schools’ leavers contact: [email protected]

Newshub reports:

The government intends to charge GST on fees paid on KiwiSaver accounts from April 2026, potentially netting it hundreds of millions more in taxes. …

Financial Markets Authority modelling showed it could also shave an estimated $103 billion from KiwiSaver funds by 2070.

So $100 billion less in people’s saving accounts and $100 billion more in the Government’s coffers.

Jamie Mackay has six reasons why Labour will win in 2022 and 13 reasons why they will lose. The six in favour are:

1. Jacinda
2. Possible economic recovery
3. Sam Uffindell saga
4. Election before the Rugby World Cup
5. Greens gets 8%
6. Robertson, Hipkins and Woods

The 13 against are:

1. Jacinda
2. The economy
3. Chris Luxon
4. The All Blacks
5. The Greens
6. Nicola, Bish and Erica
7. Primary sector
8. Three Waters
9. Co-governance
10. Winston and Seymour
11. Sharma Karma
12. Wokeness
13. Lethargy

Not a bad list!

The Auditor-General writes:

As Controller and Auditor-General, I assess whether public spending is within the scope and amount of appropriations (spending authority) set by Parliament. In this case I have needed to determine whether payments made to ineligible people were outside the scope of the appropriation and consequently unlawful.

Giving money away to ineligible people can be both unlawful and wasteful.

Inland Revenue does not know, and has said it may never know, how many ineligible people might have received the payment.

So we don’t even know how to assess how big an issue it was.

It was not intended that the payment would be made to people who had died.

LOL that he even has to state this!

Inland Revenue noted that some of the information it holds might not be up to date, which meant there was a risk that some eligible people might not receive the payment and, conversely, some ineligible people might receive it.

I am concerned that the Government does not know how significant the scale of payments to ineligible people is. The Minister of Revenue has been quoted by media as saying that it could be around 1% of payments. Inland Revenue told my staff that it is doing some work to improve the accuracy of future payments, but does not know, and may never know, how many ineligible people might have received the payment. This is, in my view, unacceptable.

Unacceptable is strong language from the AG.

So the Government was warned.

Aaron Gilmore has sent me his proposed polices for Wellington. I like many of them, so am sharing them here:

My Key Policies for Wellington:

– Stop wasting your money. Stop spending that is uneconomic, subject all spending over $5 million to the same benefit cost rigor that Treasury uses for Central Government. Require a ‘regulatory impact statement’ for any project of significance

– Generally refocus WCC to be a regulator of the provision of local services not a property developer (Private Sector role) and social agency (Central Govt role)

– Cap rates to 3% per annum, provide greater certainty and less volatility (ie 3% fixed over ten years of each Long Term Plan not changing rates every year all over the place)

– Switch infrastructure spending to match asset life. So borrow long term (30+ years) not short, stop using annual rates to fund 100 year assets

– Defer all new cycleways (saving $200 million) until the benefits can be proven and until all pipes etc are fixed (poo and water are more important than cycleways)

– Don’t build light rail, it does not stack up, do designate transport corridors and implement the Spatial Plan and bus mass transit (saving over $1 billion) work to progress new infrastructure where its needed. Work to redevelop more high rises where it works (e.g. Te Aro and Kent/Cambridge Tce) and less suburban heritage destruction

– Don’t make Mt Victoria tunnel walking and biking only, it won’t work and would destroy access to Hataitai

– Do build another tunnel for all transport users

– Stop hating cars, one of the long term options for Wellington is more focus on zero emission transport of all types, start process of making the Capital the world’s first drive-less zero emission vehicle and public transport capital

–  Make Council meetings, papers more transparent and open, with less waffle more work

– Greater work to identify and improve resilience of natural hazard risks and management with 3rd parties including EQC and others (flooding, earthquakes and sea level changes)

– Build the Miramar Regional Park, not turn the peninsula into a housing estate

– Sell the convention centre for the $200 million spent, to a professional operator

– Sell the WCC encroachment land back to users ~$100 million 

– Evaluate the re-development and exit of Wellington’s marinas to a better long term owner and instead focus on regulatory powers

– Work with Central Government and 3rd parties better on Social Housing (WCC is the 2nd largest landlord in NZ and still loses money)

– Repeal the Wellington Milk Supply Act with support of a local MP

– Work with the local 5,000 strong local Greek community into the summer festival programme like we do with other large ethnic groups.

– Have a transition to better match Commercial vs Residential rate loadings to other main Centres

-Reform Wellington Water (it took me 13 letters and calls to confirm who owned a pipe on my own land – nuts!), but I oppose the Government 3 Waters Plans as a misguided solution to the problem. 

Dr Sharma has done a lengthy post on Facebook providing details of what he claims was poor performance by staffers which he repeatedly complained about. It is too long to summarise here, but I will note a few things.

1. The reference to raising 66 specific issues regarding a staffer seems over the top at best or obsessive at worse.
2. It does seem rather bad luck (at best) to have had three staffers who were all so bad at their jobs.
3. One aspect worth exploring is the allegations that the Parliamentary Service Relationship Manager was not (as you would expect) a neutral public servant, but a Labour Party activist who had tried to stop Dr Sharma from being selected. This should be easily verifiable. When I worked at Parliament, the core PS staff were absolutely politically neutral.
4. Dr Sharma has only one real request – an independent inquiry into the employment issues. This could well find he was at fault and a bad boss, or it could find that he had legitimate issues about the staff and he was totally let down by PS and Labour. Why not give him the inquiry he wants, as it would provide closure to the issue?