Claire Trevett writes:

The silence of the Green Party’s high-profile MP Chlöe Swarbrick should be the most concerning part of the developments around the leadership at the Green Party AGM.

Since the party delegates managed to rummage up enough support to force the re-opening of nominations for the co-leadership role held by James Shaw, Swarbrick has not said a word. She has not ruled out putting her hand up or indicated whether she is considering it.

There are three possible explanations for this, ranging from the perfectly innocuous to the opposite.

The first is that she has no intention of standing but wants to tell the party’s MPs and rank and file before telling the rest of the world.

That would please the rank and file, who like to hear these things before the media are told.

The second is she is waiting to hear what Shaw’s final decision is – he has said he is “inclined” to stay in the ring, but is talking to members and MPs before a final decision. If Shaw decided to withdraw, she would almost certainly stand.

The question is whether Swarbrick would force a contest against Shaw.

So the third possible explanation is that she is taking soundings on whether she has a chance of toppling Shaw in a vote.

The effective no confidence vote in James Shaw was not a coincidence. The changing of the rules to allow there to be no male co-leader was not a coincidence. And there would not have been a no confidence vote, without there being a contender willing to stand. The only question is who it is, and can they be pressured out of it?

If she has no intention of forcing a contest against Shaw, she needs to make that clear quickly and put Shaw out of his misery.

There can be no doubt that Swarbrick is ambitious and confident. You don’t stand for Mayor of Auckland as a 23 year old if you lack that.

She will be aware of the polling data released in late 2021 by the Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll which showed Swarbrick had three times the favourability of James Shaw with all voters – she was at 23% and Shaw at 8%, They both had similar unfavourability ratings of 38% and 37%.

It is really going to come down to timing. She will replace Shaw as co-leader, the question is when? In 2022 or 2023?

Yahoo reports:

Just 18% of Americans say President Biden should run for reelection in 2024, according to the latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll — the lowest number to date. Nearly two-thirds (64%) say he should bow out.

And for the first time, more Democrats now say Biden should pass on a second term (41%) than say he should pursue one (35%).

Those are terrible numbers, especially that only one in three supporters of Biden’s own party want him to stand again.

I think he will be a one term President.

Excellent meme comeback by Seymour.

TMZ reports:

Twitter is yet again proving it’s the worst for bulk bad takes — this time, debating whether Anne Frank, who was hunted and killed by Nazis, had white privilege while alive. 🥴

You might’ve noticed the late Holocaust victim was trending Saturday, but finding out why is disheartening … some, it seems, have floated an argument that Frank benefited from white privilege in Nazi Germany — an argument that is rightly being shot down left and right.

It’s disturbing that those who argue Anne Frank had white privilege get to have a vote!

A really interesting list. Some of the most interesting:

6. Kurtosis Risk: “More people are killed by bees than terrorists, so why do we spend so much fighting terrorism?” The answer is that death rates =/= risk. The most a bee can do is kill a person. The most a terrorist can do is nuke a city. Current rates ignore future potential.

Exactly. Annoys me when people say more people die from x than from terrorist attacks.

12. Granfalloon: We categorize people into meaningless groups: the physics “community,” the black “community.” The people in these “communities” often have little in common, but we treat them like they think with one mind, and shockingly, some even claim to speak for them.

Amen, brother.

29. Popper’s Falsifiability Principle: For a theory to be considered scientific, it must be possible to disprove or refute it. As such, for each of your beliefs you should have a clear idea of what would persuade you you’re wrong, otherwise your belief is immune to reason.

Often overlooked.

Yesterday this headline was in the NZ Herald: Missed opportunity: $3 billion lost in NZ each year due to lack of productivity,

There are two broad sides to determining the general price levels in an economy – the demand side and the supply side. Inflation can be caused by over pumping the money supply making interest rates low and spending relatively easy. Government spending can also play a huge part and there is no doubt that this government, under Grant Robertson, has borrowed a spent appalling amounts of money.

When challenged on this Robertson guffaws and repetitively asks people if they would prefer that the government wasn’t investing in Education and Health. It is a perspective that crumbles under the slightest scrutiny. “Investing” by nature implies a return. We are seeing no such return in Education (quite the opposite) and, although it is not my field, our Health system does not appear to be thriving. A very significant amount of what Robertson is allocating is poorly targeted and highly wasteful. It is a pet hate to hear members of government saying the “they are putting money into … such and such“. It is as if they genuinely forget that it is taxpayers, current and future, that the money belongs to and that it should by no means be spent with impunity.

On the supply side anything that can improve productivity and/or lower costs for business can increase supply and put downward pressure on prices. Possible measures to consider are free trade in business inputs, well targeted immigration, decreasing GST and other business taxes, reducing business compliance costs and, of course, a fabulous education system.

A fabulous education system is one that caters to the needs of every child and engages every family. It is one that provides deep foundations in numeracy and literacy. It is one where schools are well lead, where teachers are passionate experts. It is one where young people emerge highly informed, skilled at learning, free and critical thinkers and with high aspirations for life and careers. Our education system is, at present, far from fabulous.

We have become focused on attendance. It is a symptom of deeper systemic issues. That 57% of students only are attending fully is the number often quoted. For decile 1 & 2 students things are, of course, much worse. They attend fully at less than 40%.

One of the ridiculous things about the recent Education and Workforce Select Committee inquiry into attendance is that only 6/2600 schools bothered to submit. The recommendations Hipkins/Tinetti chose to implement were very poorly researched. The report is another bad education joke. I saw Jan Tinetti recently and asked why members of the committee did not go out to 15 schools where attendance is low and 15 where it is high and find out why in both? Surely the key thing they needed to know.

She had no answer because the truth is that a significant amount of fault would fall back on the quality of schools and their programmes, the quality of school leaders and teachers and the oversight of the Ministry. These are not things this government would wish to admit.

Why would a child go to school if the school is of poor quality, they are not learning much, and they just don’t see the point? So much happens in our schools that has nothing to do with the education of young people and kids see through it.

Long term improvement in attendance requires massive improvement in our schools. The children have to be drawn back and then effectively engaged. They, and their parents, need to see the point. This clearly does happen in some of our schools. New Zealand needs to learn from those exemplars.

It is no quick fix for current inflation but generating a highly productive and aspirational work-force through education, that works for children of all kinds and regardless of socio-economic background, is the key to long-term health of the economy and nation.

​Alwyn Poole

Innovative Education Consultants

www.innovativeeducation.co.nz

80 seconds of deciding whether or not to have the glass of water in the shot. Strangely compelling viewing.

The Herald reports:

The Kīngitanga has defended the public shaming by Māori King Tūheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII of his eldest son Whatumoana and his marriage to Rangimarie Tahana that featured a whānau walk out mid-ceremony and a bride-in-brawl at the reception.

Sources told the NZ Herald that the statement from the King’s office on June 25, 2022, of the disapproval of the marriage to Tahana, was an accumulation of 18 months of deep frustration and hurt, an attempted coup of the Kīngitanga by Whatumoana, mounting debts around the motu, and his dabbling in aspects of black magic.

There is of course no such thing as black magic. I am surprised the media would report it as a real thing.

The statue of the tribal God is on display at the Te Awamutu Museum. It is written that Tainui brought Uenuku’s spirit over from Hawaiki inside of a stone and then transferred it into the carving of Te Uenuku. Tainui used to invoke his spirit to temporarily inhabit smaller idols during times of war.

Spirits don’t inhabit idols.

It would be ok to report “Tainui used to invoke his spirit in the belief it would inhabit smaller idols” but they seem to treat this as a fact.

A Horizon poll of 502 Maori New Zealanders on the Police has found:

• 40% think some individual police are racist towards Maori
• 28% think there is institutional or systemic racism
• 22% do not think there is any racism within the Police
• 4% think all Police are racist
• 6% don’t know

Now there is a huge difference between thinking some individual Police may be racist and there is systemic racism in the Police. If I was polled I’d probably say some individual Police are racist as of course with 10,000 Police, some will be.

The most interesting aspect has been totally ignored by media. 68% of Maori do not think the Police are systematically racist, despite the claims of certain politicians and academics. So the claims of the elite are not backed up by the vast majority of Maori.

Newshub reports:

One of New Zealand’s most divisive political issues is back in the spotlight as the Government moves to review some aspects of our decades-old regulation on genetic modification. 

Widespread protests in the 90s and a Royal Commission in 2001 led to New Zealand adopting some of the most stringent genetic modification regulations in the world.

But since then calls have mounted, including from the Climate Commission and Productivity Commission, to review our stance in light of new technologies. 

Now Environment Minister David Parker is moving on the issue. 

“We are looking at whether some of the regulatory settings around biomedical research and laboratory research are a bit outdated,” he told Newshub Nation.  

However the changes will be narrow and focused solely on the health sector. 

What a shame the review will be so timid and minor.

We now have over 20 years of data on genetic modification. There has been zero adverse events. We are banning scientists from doing science and using science for no good reason.

Scientists like Professor Andrew Allan are frustrated by not being able to use every tool at their disposal to combat climate change.    

“New Zealand needs to be cleaner and greener in the future. I totally agree with that image. But with climate change it is going to be a brown wasteland if we don’t fight back. Fighting back on climate change requires technology,” he said. 

“Gene editing is revolutionary for plant biology. We can go in and make slight new variants of key genes, and then the resulting plant is better. Coping with climate change. It could be higher nutrition. All sorts of new features.”

I’ll believe the Greens are sincere on climate change being an existential threat when they scrap their opposition to GM and nuclear technologies.

“The time frames that it takes to develop these technologies and test them and prove them are not the timeframes we have. We need to act now on what we know will address the problem of climate change,” Greenpeace Senior Campaigner Steve Abel told Newshub Nation.

So even Greenpeace are saying we should make it easier to use GM. Good on them.

The Herald reports:

National is crying “waste” after Waka Kotahi – NZ Transport Agency spent $25 million on a fit-out for its new Wellington offices.

Questions to National transport spokesman Simeon Brown show the fit-out of 8700sq m of Wellington office space will cost $25m, or about $2870. That’s significantly higher than the roughly $1600 a square metre fit-out costs that got Kainga Ora in trouble earlier this year.

That’s an insane amount of money just for a fitout. Hell you can almost do a new build for less than that, and this is just a fitout.

Newshub reports:

An independent economist says the Government’s refusal to tweak immigration rules is a “mistake” that could make inflation worse. 

It comes as staff shortages are hitting nearly every industry including healthcare, agriculture, teaching and hospitality. 

But speaking with AM on Tuesday independent economist Cameron Bagrie said the Prime Minister’s refusal to tweak the settings is a “mistake”. 

“It’s a mistake, to be brutally honest,” Bagrie told AM. “It’s a really simple equation at the moment in regard to getting inflation down. Some inflation is beyond our control, we don’t control international oil prices so we’re sort of beholden to what’s happening globally. But if you look at what’s called domestic inflation…That’s a basic mismatch between demand versus supply and at the moment, we’ve got too much demand relative to supply.

A very astute point. The anti-immigration policies of the Government is adding fuel to the inflation fire.

Stuff reports:

The Ministry of Justice struck a deal with political parties to keep secret their submissions on donation law reform.

Last month the Government announced plans to overhaul the donations regime. The shake-up will cap anonymous donations to parties at $5000.

As part of the reform, political parties – and the public – were asked for their feedback on a range of policy options.

The ministry says it will release submissions from ordinary people. But it will not disclose those from three political parties.

That’s outrageous and I hope the Ombudsman intervenes.

If there are any submissions that should be public on donation laws, it is the submissions of those who are affected by it – the political parties.

There may be a case for a small portion of a submission to be redacted if it has confidential info such as overall income and/or membership levels, but the views of the political parties should not be kept confidential.

Brightwell did not say which three parties had requested anonymity and Stuff has asked for clarification.

However, last month National released its submission to Stuff when asked for it. The Labour Party refused.

Okay so we don’t have to be Einstein to work this one out.

I didn’t think Local Government New Zealand (an organisation that previously was very well respected, and I even was a guest speaker at) could shoot itself in the foot even more than they have over Three waters, but they have managed it.

The start of their troubles was when for some moronic reason they signed a contract with the Government where they agreed to not oppose the Three Waters reforms in return for a payment of $250,000. Such an agreement would be repugnant for any democratic organisation, but even worse for one that represents a local government sector worth tens of billions of dollars. Selling your soul for a paltry $250,000 was an own goal of monumental proportions.

But now they have gone one better. The Taxpayers Union had advised its 180,000 members and supporters:

I can’t believe I’m writing this – we’ve been banned from the Local Government New Zealand conference on “the future of local government” that opened this afternoon in Palmerston North. And LGNZ has even banned you!

Late yesterday, the Taxpayers’ Union was notified by LGNZ that our registration for the conference had been revoked and we were no longer welcome.

That’s 180,000 registered supporters like you, our staff, and board members – LGNZ has said that no one from or representing the Taxpayers’ Union is permitted to attend.

So why was NZTU banned from being able to attend the conference as observers?

To our astonishment, the justification for the banning was that “the Taxpayers’ Union has previously criticised LGNZ”. The President of LGNZ said that we are not welcome because “we don’t trust what you might say” about the event.

In short, without any appreciation of the irony, LGNZ is gathering together 400 stakeholders to discuss ‘the future of local government’, democracy, diversity, and Three Waters – but won’t allow groups who disagree with them or the Government!

This could qualify as a George Orwell novel.

Remember, LGNZ is 100% funded by ratepayer and taxpayer money!

What next will LGNZ do? Ban journalists whose reporting they don’t like?

If LGNZ – tasked with promoting local democracy – is banning ratepayer voices from discussions on proposed changes to local government, what trust do you have that ratepayers will be a part of the results?

So I am emailing to ask you to speak up for democratic control and accountability.

If you agree that democracy should include those who disagree with the government and their sock puppet groups like LGNZ, please take a moment to send an email to those who made this outrageous decision.

Tell the LGNZ President, Council, and the mayors that ratepayers like you should be at the table of these discussions. Local democracy shouldn’t be limited to a special club of people and organisations that the elite happen to agree with.

The team worked overnight and most of today to create an email tool to make contacting the LGNZ leadership easy. They are relying on you to deliver the message at www.BannedByLGNZ.nz

So readers, please click on the link above and tell the leaders of LGNZ what you think of them banning NZ’s largest ratepayer group from attending the LGNZ Conference.

The Herald reports:

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.

He has 16 children!! Sadly most or all of them will turn like their father. I can guarantee you he has not been working to support them, as most fathers do. Almost beyond doubt the taxpayer is supporting the all.

And he has 13 family harm incidents in under two years, and the judge thinks he just needs another chance!

The assault, which left her with two black eyes, happened only months after he was sentenced to prison on charges related to serious abuse against his partner culminating in strangulation, while subject to sentencing on similar charges.

Lovely guy.

These comparisons are stupid, with respect.

First of all, wearing a seatbelt has no real negative impacts on those who do so. The inconvenience is either trivial or nil.

Being forced to wear a mask has significant negative impacts. A few:

• Masks not cleaned properly can develop bacteria and fungi
• Some masks have microfibres which can get into your lungs as foreign bodies
• People with asthma or lung problems can find it hard to breathe well while wearing a mask
• If you have glasses, they can fog up while wearing a mask making it hard to see
• It is difficult to communicate clearly while wearing a mask
• It is harder to recognise people when they are wearing a mask
• Non-verbal communication such as smiling is lost when wearing a mask

These are not trivial things. Making it harder for people to breathe, to see, to hear and to communicate is significant.

Then we turn to the benefits. Wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of death and/or serious injury in a car crash by around 50%,

Wearing a mask does reduce your chance of getting Covid-19 and spreading it, which is good. But Covid-19 is endemic, and almost everyone is going to catch it at least once, if not several times. A mask mandate at best may slow down the speed of infection, but it doesn’t save your life like a seat belt does in a car crash.

I personally still wear a mask at various indoor venues, even when not legally obliged to. But I (and most people) are not going to spent the next 30 years wearing face masks indoors.

The chart above shows annual inflation for the last decade. Up until 2017 inflation remained under 2% (the midpoint target) and last year it took off smashing through 3%, 4%, 5%, 6% and now 7%.

What makes it more painful too isn’t just the peak, but how long it stays above 2%. If you have a year at 7%, a year at 5% and a year at 4% then over the three years prices will be 17% higher.

The Herald reports:

Most Aucklanders support Collins’ free public transport proposal in a survey of 772 Aucklanders conducted by the mayoral candidate and research firm Talbot Mills.

The poll showed 73 per cent support, 7 per cent opposed, 17 per cent neutral and 4 per cent unsure.

Who doesn’t want free public transport? I also want free apple pie and free Internet. If you asked another question, you would get a very different answer. Think if you asked:

“Public transport in Auckland costs $250 million a year. Who should pay for the cost of the trains and buses – ratepayers, motorists or bus/train users” and you would get a different answer.

If you asked “Would you be willing to have your rates bill increase by $500 a year so that bus and train passengers can travel for no charge” you would get a different answer.

The most useful question (and the one I would ask) would be along the lines of “There are three broad sources of revenue for public transports – fares from transport users, rates from ratepayers and petrol tax from motorists, what proportion of the $250 million a year to run public transport in Auckland should come from each”.