Stuff reports:

The next phase of the Let’s Get Wellington Moving project – a detailed business case involving no construction – will cost more than $120 million.

I’m all for business cases. You should definitely do one for major (and minor) projects. And they will cost in the millions for large projects.

But $120 million is an obscene amount for a business case. Let’s say you pay $2,000 a day for consultants. That is 60,000 days of consultants. That would be 240 consultants working every workday for 12 months to cost $120 million.

And taxpayers and ratepayers will be funding it.

The Daily Wire reports:

A coffee shop in Philadelphia known for its LGBTQ brand identity closed its doors after employees revolted against the owners and demanded that they “redistribute” the company.

Mina’s World, located in the neighborhood of West Philadelphia, was characterized by Bon Appetit as a business that doubled as a “hangout spot for people of marginalized identities.” Sonam Parikh, who ran the company alongside partner and co-owner Kate Egghart, told the outlet that Mina’s World was the city’s first coffee shop owned and operated by queer, trans people of color (“QTPOC”) …

Parikh blasted other coffee shops for neglecting to “protect their Black and trans employees” and allow customers to enjoy coffee in a space that was not “whitewashed.”

Sounds like they were rather sanctimonious.

An Instagram page called the “Minas World Workers” began posting accusations against the ownership last month, claiming that they had subjected workers to “manipulation, abuse of power, exploitation, anti-blackness, ableism,” and other charges summarized in a “List of Grievances.” The employees demanded “immediate payment” and told the owners to “redistribute the business.”

Ableism!

Egghart and Parikh apologized in an Instagram video, which has since been removed from the Mina’s World account. “We’re going live as part of a radical accountability process. We’re complicit in the gentrification and anti-blackness on 52nd Street. We put our community at risk with our presence as well as our workers,” the pair said, per Libs of TikTok. “With the guidance of the workers and Black and Brown Workers Collective, we’re trying to raise funds to buy the business and turn it over to our staff.”

So rather than tell their staff who demanded they hand the business over to them to go work elsewhere, they tried to appease them.

Days later, the building that hosted Mina’s World was listed for sale. According to the workers, Kate Egghart’s mother, Eunjoo, was the owner of the building as well as an 18% owner of the company. The workers claimed that despite Parikh and Egghart’s best efforts, she “refused” the request to redistribute the business.

The workers attempted to raise $200,000 via GoFundMe to purchase the building, as well as the share of the business allegedly owned by Eunjoo Egghart. They managed to raise over $11,000 by July 6. In early July, however, Mina’s World said it did not “have enough money to continue operating” and closed its doors.

How surprising that Mummy wouldn’t let her woke daughter hand over the building and business to the even more woke staff.

“Egghart and Parikh’s surrender to the outrage shows a point proven again and again — no matter how many times you bend the knee to the mob, you will never be able to adhere to their insatiable standards for progressive enlightenment,”

So true.

The Daily Mail reports:

An Australian journalist has blasted Jacinda Ardern and said he doesn’t know any other leader in the world who ‘talks so much nonsense so consistently’ and ‘gets such lavish, wonderful praise for it’.

Appearing on Sky News, The Australian’s Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan was asked for his take on recent comments from Ms Ardern on the Pacific and climate change.  

Host Peta Credlin played a clip of the New Zealand Prime Minister addressing the Lowry Institute in Australia on Thursday. 

In her speech, Ms Ardern warned against ‘positioning the Pacific in such a way that they have to pick sides’.

Describing the speech as ‘a shocker’ Ms Credlin asked Mr Sheridan for his view. 

‘I don’t know what she’s taking in her morning coffee. We’re trying to give the Pacific an alternative from being conscripted into debt traps and hegemony by the most ruthless, authoritarian dictatorship in the world,’ Mr Sheridan replied.

That is a good way of describing it. China’s strategy is to make small states so dependent on them, they can’t risk getting offside with China.

‘And she says ‘don’t cast this struggle as one between authoritarianism and democracy’ – she might as well say ‘don’t describe the sky as blue and the trees as green’. I have no idea what she’s on about.

‘She comes from the worst, woke, unreal, fantasy-dwelling strain in New Zealand politics. I just think she makes no sense about anything, really.’ 

The lessons from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is it is a struggle between authoritarianism and democracry.

The NZ Initiative released:

It is very rare for a former Governor to be critical of the performance of their successor. To be fair this report isn’t about the NZ reserve Bank so much as central banks generally.

A couple of extracts:

The main cause of inflationary pressures lies in the errors of judgment made by central banks in conducting monetary policy during the Covid pandemic. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accentuated the rise in inflationary pressures, commodity prices were already high because of the rapid global expansion in liquidity and debt.

So Ukraine contributed but was not the primary cause.

In the US, the size of the Federal Reserve’s asset portfolio increased from USD $4 trillion in early 2020 to almost USD $9 trillion in early 2022-equivalent to around 23% of pre-Covid GDP. (In three rounds of quantitative easing in the six years following the global financial crisis the Federal Reserve’s asset portfolio increased by USD $3 trillion). New Zealand also had a large program of quantitative easing with $53.5 billion of asset purchases – equivalent to 17 % of pre-covid GDP.

And we are now paying the price for it.

Confident in their ability to maintain low inflation, central banks in recent years began diverting resources to other topics such as climate change and inequality (and in the case of the RBNZ also embracing New Zealand’s indigenous history and culture and adopting a Māori world view in the operations of the central bank). Such issues bear little if any relationship to the reasons why central banks exist — ensuring
price stability and financial stability.

It is a very good and easy to read paper. Sadly the Reserve Bank of New Zealand maintains their stance that they made no errors at all.

NZTU released:

The New Zealand Transport Authority have targeted a Featherston family with threats of enforcement action over a “Stop Three Waters” banner erected on private property.

Here is a photo of the banner in question:

The idea that motorists might mistake this sign for a stop sign is farcical.

Dr Jerry Coyne writes:

The latest effort to “indigenize” knowledge is the bestowing of a huge pot of money on Māori organizations to use “ancestral knowledge” to help cure mental health issues among the indigenous people.  …

What are these treatments? It’s not clear, but they’re based on lunar cycles and what can only be called psychoastrology.

Yes the health budget is going to be used to teach psychastrology.

Mental health is a form of health, and this is like treating diseases using astrology and “traditional methods” that have never been subject to genuine scientific tests. Doesn’t it seem wise, before investing $100 million in mental-health treatment, that the government of New Zealand be sure that those treatments actually work? 

This is the key – test and assess. Don’t just throw $100 million at something as a gesture. You could use that money on things proven to work.

The latest attendance data is a shocker. Some lowlights:

• Regular attendance rate in Term 1 was a record low of 46%
• That is 380,000 students not regularly in school compared to 160,000 in 2019
• The Maori regular attendance rate is 33% and Pacific 30%
• Around 25% of Maori and Pacific students are not even attending 70% of the time
• Only 25% of Decile 1 students are attending regularly and one in three are not attending even 70% of the time

We live in a country where fewer than 1 in 2 students regularly attend school. Incredible.

Stuff reports:

He donated $50 million for Wellington’s new children’s hospital, now Mark Dunajtschik is giving a further $40m to $50m to build a mental health unit in Lower Hutt.

The money, donated by Dunajtschik and his business and life partner Dorothy Spotswood​, will finance a new 34-bed adult mental health facility on the Hutt Hospital campus.

I am in awe of the generosity of Mark Dunajtschik and Dorothy. He has funded the Life Flight Trust as well as the two hospital wings. And his background is a toolmaker who turned to property when he was aged 57.

He has probably done more to improve health outcomes for people in Wellington than the Government (of either stripe). It shows the difference an individual or couple can make.

David Seymour responds to Simon Wilson:

We understand that liberal democracy, the idea that one person should have one vote, and every human being is born alike in dignity, is the best system of government humans have discovered, period.

William Wilberforce’s opposition to slavery, Kate Sheppard’s campaign for votes, Fran Wilde’s Homosexual Law Reform, Louisa Wall’s marriage equality. They are all part of a liberal democratic project to end discrimination and make human rights universal.

Equality of suffrage is a fundamental human right that is in both global human right declarations.

He believes that if you don’t believe in the co-governance of, say, Three Waters or healthcare, you are not honouring the Treaty.

As he correctly notes, Act has always supported Treaty settlements. Many of them have returned property that was wrongly taken from contemporary New Zealanders’ ancestors.

That was done after careful consideration by the Waitangi Tribunal and Parliament.

That our country has been prepared to look back 180 years for injustices and breaches of property rights, and offer redress where possible, is a triumph. In some cases, rather than giving back land fee simple, an interest in governing the asset has been offered.

The co-governance of Auckland’s volcanic cones is an example of that. It was an appropriate way to recognise a specific loss.

Wholesale co-governance of councils, healthcare, Three Waters infrastructure, and resource consenting decisions is quite different. There is no historic grievance, such a grievance is impossible. For example, the Auckland Drainage Board built the first known three waters infrastructure, in 1845. Public healthcare as we know it was established by the first Labour government in 1938.

These modern public institutions were created in a democracy, post-Treaty. They should be governed democratically. Co-governing them means that Māori have inherently different political rights, rather than the same rights to their property as everyone else.

I wish more politicians would be this forceful in pointing out the fallacy behind the argument that public services should be co-governed.

Proponents of that view want a “tiriti-centric Aotearoa”, with “tangata whenua” (land people), here by right and “tangata tiriti” (Treaty people), here by permission. Assigning different races different rights is racist.

Again it is a universal human right that someone born in a country to citizens of that country has full rights of citizenship. This is not dependent on race or bloodline.

Our best future is a modern, multi-ethnic, liberal democracy. Each of those words matters. We should be a leading society with an equal place for all, no matter a person’s background.

Nobody should be born special, nobody should be born a second-class citizen. It’s a sad sign of the times that you can have a regular column in the country’s largest paper, and think such beliefs are “racist”.

Sad but not surprising.

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.