One of Nevada’s Senate seats is up for grabs this year with the Democratic incumbent at risk of losing to a Republican canddiate.
The favourite for the Republicans has been Adam Laxalt who is endorsed by Trump. He is a former Attorney-General of Nevada and his father and grandfather were both US Senators and for the latter Governor of Nevada.
An interesting clash between a career politician and an outsider.
But now we find out that not only are they advertising for a brand and designer manager, but they have an entire brand and design team. Why the hell does a central bank need a brand team?
If once every say three to five years you want to do a brand refresh, then you can contract someone in for that. But this is just another example of the explosion in non critical public sector jobs.
Stuff reports:
Chinese officials in Beijing and Wellington have warned New Zealand “all is not rosy” with its largest trading partner, heavily criticising New Zealand for creating “disinformation” with the United States.
The remarkable criticism from Beijing came after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and US President Joe Biden met on Wednesday morning (NZT) and issued a joint statement expressing “concern” that China might establish a military presence in the Pacific and listing “grave concerns” of rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
The statement also said New Zealand and the US would expand their defence co-operation as “the security environment in the Indo-Pacific evolves”.
China foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, at a press conference on Wednesday evening, spoke at length about the NZ-US statement, saying it “distorts and smears China’s normal co-operation with Pacific Island countries” and “deliberately hypes up” China’s internal issues.
This is inevitable. China bullies countries that offend it. This doesn’t mean we should not speak truthfully. Ardern was right to do so. What it means is we should be prepared for the consequences. It is almost inevitable that China will impose some non tariff sanctions against us in the next wee while, as they did against Australia. We need to be prepared for that.
Newshub Nation did a poll in Tauranga. Results:
Party Vote
By-Election Vote
Pew has a 12 question quiz on international affairs. They are all meant to be fairly basic questions. I got 12/12 right. I was certain on 10 and optimistic on two.
Take the quiz and see how you do.
The average American got 6.3 answers right out of seven. Men got 7.3 and women 5.4.
Only 5% of Americans got 12/12 correct. 32% got 4/12 or less.
Newsroom reports:
With the grainy photo and vaguely unnerving music, it seemed for a moment like an artefact from an American political campaign.
But the Labour Party’s social media takedown of Christopher Luxon didn’t exactly reach Willie Horton levels of inflammation: “He’s not announced a single new policy,” the text blared of the National Party’s new leader after six months in the role.
Nonetheless, the decision to try out a negative line on Luxon caught the attention of many – particularly coming less than an hour before the release of a 1 News Kantar Public poll showing National again holding a slender lead over Jacinda Ardern’s Labour.
The last time I can recall a Government running attacks ads against an opposition leader 18 months before an election was when John Key was Opposition Leader.
It is a sure sign that the Government is worried about the polls.
When National was in Government, the strategy was to ignore Phil Goff, David Shearer, David Cunliffe Andrew Little until the election campaign. You want to look like you are focused on governing, not trying to take down the opposition leader.
Newshub reports:
There are calls for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to declare a crime crisis as Auckland business owners grapple with a spate of violent robberies and ram raids.
It comes after a customer was stabbed at Sandringham Food Market during a robbery on Wednesday night. It’s the second time the store has been robbed recently and business owners are scared.
And it’s not the only store, Auckland has been gripped by a crime wave over the past few weeks with an increase in ram raid robberies.
Dairy and Business Association chair Sunny Kaushal told AM’s Ryan Bridge it’s time the Government acknowledged how serious the situation is.
“A sense of lawlessness is now gripping all of New Zealand and the soft on crime approach is not working. We are calling the Prime Minister to declare a crime emergency in New Zealand, it is that serious,” Kaushal told Bridge on Friday.
He said businesses are scared and angry and something has to be done.
“There is a lot of anger and frustrations among these businesses and communities now…It’s very serious because now even the customers aren’t safe.
“It’s very frightening and the business owners, you can imagine how seriously they are frightened and feeling fear and anger.”
He said several dairies are employing their own security guards but it’s just adding costs to businesses that are already struggling to stay afloat.
“It’s very hard to run a business in New Zealand at the moment because the state is failing to provide them security and safety.
“I can tell you 30 percent of the business owners who call me are asking how to get a gun licence. It’s become that serious because if the police and authorities are not able to save them they have to save themselves.”
Kaushal accused the Government of failing to keep business owners and customers safe.
“Yesterday when people were getting stabbed and robbed and assaulted on the other hand in Parliament the Government was wasting Parliament time repealing the three strikes law.”
Gun violence is occurring nightly, sometimes seven times a night.
Ram raids are occurring all the time.
Gang numbers and violence is exploding
Violent crime has skyrocketed 37% in the last three years
And the Government’s response is to ram through a law change which will reduce sentences for repeat serious violent and sexual offenders.
Juliet Samuel writes in The Telegraph:
They have been awfully quiet recently, the purveyors of those “modern” and “progressive” economic theories that were so in vogue before the pandemic. Not long ago, after all, we were being forced to listen to proponents of ideas like “modern monetary theory” (MMT) and “universal basic income” (UBI) tell us why there was little practical constraint on printing or spending money and that the problem was that governments spend too little, not too much.
Then along came the pandemic and, quite suddenly, the moment arrived for us to experiment with these miraculous, economic cure-alls. Governments and central banks unleashed a wall of cash and for some of it, like furlough money, they had good reason. The chief advocate of MMT, a US professor called Stephanie Kelton, declared victory and told economists warning about the inflationary consequences to “take a hike”. Various forms of stimulus and furlough in the US and Europe were discussed as just the start of a massive expansion in the welfare state that would pay everyone to do nothing. Now, the reckoning has arrived. …
Likewise with the enormous expansion in quantitative easing (QE) by central banks during the course of the pandemic. MMT, a series of tautologies masquerading as a new economic theory, appeared to suggest that any government with its own currency could print money to its heart’s content and never worry about ballooning deficits. No wonder the idea was embraced by the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, whose manifesto included a proposal for a “People’s QE” to fund all sorts of spending goodies. Not even in Mr Corbyn’s wildest dreams could he have imagined seeing a Conservative government effectively pursue the same policy – except that instead of spending the cash on infrastructure, as Labour was supposedly planning and which would in theory generate returns, it was handed out to households. Yet as The People’s QE has duly generated The People’s Inflation, promoters of MMT like Professor Kelton have begun to obfuscate and backtrack. She never said that inflation wasn’t a risk, she claims. All she meant was that governments could print and spend lots and lots more money without any ill effects. This is the rhetorical equivalent of a dog chasing its own tail. …
Few would argue that the Government should simply have done nothing in response to the pandemic. As the virus spread and the economy closed down, households needed emergency support to avoid catastrophic economic damage and it is likely they would have needed help even without the lockdowns imposed from above. But for a large segment of the British Left, pandemic relief schemes were not a one-off lifeline and a massive gamble. They were the fulfillment of long-held dreams about the way they want society to be governed.
It is only fair, then, to judge them on their outcomes. The resounding conclusion is that, far from being harmless and manageable, the vast expansion in state spending and monetary policy trialled by Covid policies have had profoundly damaging effects on the cost of living, the security of public finances and the resilience and working culture of our economy. Nor did it take years to generate this result. The effect has been almost immediate.
If this cabal of self-righteous spendthrifts had any sense of dignity left, they would take a well-earned break from dispensing advice on how to run the economy and stop trying to build a façade of intellectual credibility to disguise their pie-in-the-sky notions.
Instead, we have to listen to the Labour Party haranguing the Government simultaneously for failing to bring down the cost of living, not spending enough, and failing to address “climate justice” and “structural inequalities” all at the same time.
The Left, however, has failed to learn the lesson of its own delusions: if a pet theory looks too good to be true, then it’s almost certainly false. There is nothing progressive about crashing the economy
A guest post by William J Hall:
As the war in Ukraine continues on its southern and easter borders, Finland and Sweeden continue to draw closer to Nato with both countries having signed mutual defence pacts with the United Kingdom and Finland announcing its intention to join Nato. As a consequence Nato’s border will the Russian Federation will inevitably grow by some 1,340 km.
Is it time that New Zealand’s leaders do more to support the Ukrainian military defence of their nation and look to further condemn Vladimir Putin’s invasion? CCTV footage released by the BBC has shown Russian Federation soldiers shooting two unarmed Ukrainian civilians, with one dying from the initial shots fired and the other dying of his injuries. Russia has been accused of over 10,000 war crimes 10 weeks into the conflict. Approximately 6 million Ukrainians have fled across Europe with 12 million having been displaced from their homes. In comparison, the civil war in Syria which has been going on since 2011 has seen 3.8 million Syrian flee the country, mostly into Europe and Turkey.
For Europe, this is the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, and just as we did then, New Zealand in March enabled Ukrainian born New Zealanders to sponsor entry visas for family members. Immigration New Zealand has received 835 sponsorship requests and 782 visa applications, for a total of 1,617 applications as of May. Unforchantly only 575 have been approved. In comparison, Ireland has taken 27,000 Ukrainian refugees in that same period. One Ukrainian here in New Zealand who is struggling to get her brother the proper paperwork to come to New Zealand has said that “[The] Government doesn’t even want to help these people with anything… there is absolutely no financial support.”
The New Zealand Government under Jacinda Ardern tells New Zealanders that they are a government of kindness, but yet when a sovereign democratic country is under an attack unlike anything Europe has seen in 77 years, New Zealand fails to do enough. By not sending lethal aid, beauricratic and slow processing of visas New Zealand fails to show the level of support expected by the New Zealand people. Amnesty International believes New Zealand isn’t doing enough either saying that “They [The New Zealand Goverment] need to be ensuring that they’re putting effort in… to make sure we’re doing everything we can to support the people who need it over there,”
New Zealand has deployed 50 defence personnel to Europe to support Nato’s and Ukraine’s response to the invasion. But yet refuses to send 24 Javelin missiles to the Ukrainian Defence Forces, due to disagreements in Cabinet. Defence Minister Peeni Henare has told New Zealand media that “could be the difference between life or death to Ukrainian people.” Although relatively small compared to the 7,000 Javelins that the United States has so far supplied to the Ukrainians, it’s not the only lethal aid the Defence Force has surplus to requirement.
In 2020 the Defence Force was reported as struggling to sell 30 light armoured vehicles (LAV3s), of which the New Zealand Army current has all 105 remainings. Australia is supporting Ukraine with A$91 million in military aid, sending 20 Bushmaster armoured vehicles to Poland for deployment with the Ukrainian Amered Forces. Then comes New Zealand’s L119 105mm howitzers light gun artillery, also surplus to requirement. All three of this surplus defence equipment are sitting here in New Zealand, while millions of Ukrainians are fleeing for their lives, yet New Zealand’s government continues to act like a possum in headlights, unable to act in this time of dire crisis.
Jacinda Ardern and ACT leader David Seymour have refused to call Vladimir Putin a war criminal. Yet as more evidence comes to light and the war in Ukraine looks unlikely to end anytime soon, what is the plan going forward? The video footage released by the BBC shows a small but tragic example of what is happening on the ground over the past 10 weeks. Similar reports have been made throughout every region of Ukraine where Russia has operated in. This month, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited the town of Bucha, where Russia has been accused of having unlawfully killed more than 300 men, women, and children. She vowed to ensure accountability for crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine, saying that these were “the worst crimes imaginable”. The evidence is in Ukraine and Europe have 6 million refugees to show just what an impact Putin’s war is having.
Then comes New Zealand’s ‘Neutrality’, something that has never really been true, we have worked to use our Defence Force in a capacity of peacekeeping rather than armed conflict. New Zealand has since 1984 and our declaration as a nuclear-free zone looked to have a more independent foreign policy from our larger allies; Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. However, Russia has changed everything, with Historically natural Sweeden having signed a mutual security deal with the UK and Finland a country that threw out the Cold War worked to balance its position between the Soviet Union and its Eastern Block and with Britain, America, France and Nato. Finland has announced a systemic change with their defence strategy, applying for Nato membership. This at a time that Russia has continued to signal retaliation’s towards their Nordic neighbours for any attempt to join Nato, we are yet to know what form the retaliation will take. But it shows that Neutral countries threw out the post-war period are acting decisively to adapt to the world as it is today.
New Zealand needs to understand that the world has changed. Diplomatic measures have failed, and Putin has been backed into a corner, with none of the outcomes being very positive. New Zealand’s deployments to Europe are a positive sign of action so far in this conflict, our ever-increasing sanctions on members of the Russian elite. However, we are failing in so many other areas. We have equipment gathering dust here in New Zealand that is sorely needed by the Ukrainians. We have failed to get Ukrainians with family here in New Zealand out of a war zone when given the numbers. Only 1/3 have had their visas processed and so far no announcement on helping take any of the burdens of our European allies in dealing with 6 million refugees.
US intelligence suggests that Putin is preparing for a long war and with the Ruble at a two year high against the US dollar, it seems the sanction proofing that Russia has been preparing since the annexation of Crimea has paid off, for the moment. A long war won’t be good for New Zealand, high flower and oil prices will likely continue, extending the cost of living crisis. There is also the likelihood that a long war would also lead to Europe, the UK and the US being drawn into a more direct conflict, further pushing prices up and worsening inflation. In any event, it is in New Zealand’s best interest for the West to support the Ukrainian war effort in every way we can.
New Zealand is small and our economy, population, and global standing. However, Kiwis have always looked to stand up to tyrants. In both of the Great Wars, New Zealanders sacrificed a lot to support our European allies. To stand up to Vladimir Putin’s Russia is important to defend Ukraine and the global rules-based order. Europe, the UK and the US are making significant sacrifices to support Ukraine, but will New Zealand? Or will we continue our mediocrity and
The Miami Herald reports:
Public school teachers in Florida will soon be required to dedicate at least 45 minutes of instruction on “Victims of Communism Day” to teach students about communist leaders around the world and how people suffered under those regimes.
Speaking at Miami’s Freedom Tower before a crowd of local lawmakers and supporters, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 395, which designates Nov. 7 as the state’s official “Victims of Communism Day,” making Florida one of a handful of states to adopt the designation.
I’d love New Zealand to establish a Victims of Communism Museum which details all the mass deaths caused by communism. It could even include half price entry for people living in Aro Valley.
Stephen Hickson at The Conversation writes:
But the beauty of New Zealand’s tax system is its simplicity. Removing GST on food, or some types of food – for example, “healthy food” – makes that system more complex and costly. …
In Australia, the quesion of whether an “oven baked Italian flat bread” is a bread (so not subject to GST) or a cracker (subject to GST) went to court, and involved flying a bread certification expert from Italy to testify. The only reason why that job exists is due to complexity in tax systems around the world.
In Ireland, the court was required to rule on whether Subway was serving “bread” or “confectionery or fancy baked goods” due to the difference in GST treatment.
In the UK, guidance on how GST on food is applied runs to 40 pages with 130 example categories; in Australia, an 87 page document covers some 1500 food types.
Removing GST on food would be wonderful news to tax lawyers, but terrible for everyone who sells food.
The NZ Law Society’s Rule of Law Committee has been considering the issues raised by the interference of two Bench Heads with a case before Judge Peter Callinicos. Unlike the terrible report from the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, the Rule of Law Committee has found much to be concerned about. Some extracts:
I’ve embedded below the full memo. This is very significant. The criticisms by the Rule of Law Committee are strong and hopefully the full Law Society had taken them up with the Chief Justice and Attorney General.
I was stunned and saddened to hear that Neil Miller or Millsy had died on Wednesday after a few days in ICU for a previously undiscovered illness. Neil was loved by pretty much everyone who knew him. He was one of the funniest and kindest people around. As news of his death spread, I got messages from former colleagues to former Prime Ministers about him.
Neil and I worked together in Parliament for many years. He was, I thought, the most talented researcher I had seen. He trained up a generation of MPs on standing orders, on speaking in the House and more. And he brought joy to all those who worked with him – through his terrible Hawaiian shirts, his indoor cricket playing in the corridors and his great sense of humour.
Neil was passionate about beer, wrestling, politics, debating, karaoke and cricket. He turned his love of beer into an occupation becoming NZ’s leading beer writer and teaming up with chefs like Martin Bosley to match beers to restaurant menus. He even ended up as a part-owner of a bar, and we would always joke whether his share of the profits ever matched his bar tab.
I doubt there was a bigger fan of professional wrestling in New Zealand. Many of us had watched Wrestlemanias at his old apartment on Molesworth Street, where his Tui couch had pride of place. Neil and I saw the new millennium in at his apartment on 31 December 1999.
Neil was also a legend in debating circles. He was often a celebrity adjudicator and his adjudicating remarks were often the highlight of the debate. A few years ago Neil and I got to travel to most of the National Party Regional Conferences where I would chair the after dinner humourous debate and he would adjudicate it. This basically meant we got to mock John Key and Bill English over dinner and get wild applause for it. To be fair John and Bill would mock us back also.
Neil was very kind, and had a great love for animals. The one thing he couldn’t abide was cruelty to animals. He could often be found feeding the birds at Parliament.
As I said pretty much everyone who knew Neil loved him. He will be missed by so many, and all his friends will have a dozen or more Millsy stories to share. He truly has left us too soon, and we’re all thinking of his family, especially his fiancée Tamsyn who was the love of his life.
Rest in Peace Neil.
The Christchurch Council should can the project. Christchurch ratepayers are facing a bill of over $5,000 per household!
Radio NZ reports:
Cigarettes are being seized at the border in relentless quantities: more than quarter of a million a month, along with an average of 129 kilograms of loose tobacco.
Customs is bracing for the problem to increase as smoking laws get stricter – and promising to put the heat on the people responsible.
Government policies have led to a huge increase in the black market. This means that instead of smokers buying a regulated taxed product, they are buying an unregulated untaxed product.
Anti-smoking group ASH said there were some estimates that illicit trade could make up about 10 percent of the total tobacco market.
“So you can imagine what that is in the loss of tax take. And it’s probably increasing,” director Deborah Hart said.
As the cost of legally purchased cigarettes creeps up – to a current average of $38 a packet – Hart said illicit trade was becoming more and more lucrative.
The tax increases worked well for many years as a tool to discourage smoking. But they reached a point where they no longer discourage the remaining hard core smokers – they just fuel the black market.
One News reports:
Māori medicine and health science students from the University of Auckland say they’re tired of receiving racist comments from other students, and the public, suggesting they get special treatment and easier admission into the course.
1News has heard from several students who have been subject to racist remarks both online and during their lectures, singling out their entry into the degree through the Māori and Pasifika Admissions Scheme (MAPAS).
MAPAS is an initiative by the university which sees it allocate 30% of its entries to Māori and Pasifika students.
Such comments claim Māori get special treatment over other students because of the scheme, and that it is easier for them to get into the course.
It is rude and worse to comment to a fellow student about how they got admitted. Anyone who does this should stop. If you don’t like the admissions policy, you should target your comments at the policy makers, not the students. No student should be made to feel unwelcome.
But I’m no expert on the admissions schemes, but as far as I know the “claims” are in fact factual. There is a different academic standard for admission for those who enter through MAPAS. There may be very good public policy reasons for this, but that doesn’t mean the claim is wrong.
This 2020 article states that general entry students at Otago need a 94% average mark while those in a scheme only need 70%.
Now again there may be very good public policy reasons to have the MAPAS scheme. I don’t think admission should be based purely on grades. But this is a legitimate area of debate and discussion. However the debate should be with policy makers, not targeted at students.
MSN reports:
Students trapped in a classroom with the gunman repeatedly called 911 during this week’s attack on a Texas elementary school as nearly 20 officers waited in the hallway for more than 45 minutes, authorities said Friday, according to the Associated Press.
The Police response to the gunman is probably the worst in recent history. Almost everyone is shocked that the Police spent an hour outside while an active shooter was in a school.
Geoffrey Miller writes:
As a new “Great Game” for control of the Pacific escalates, New Zealand’s foreign minister is coming under pressure from all sides.
For those keeping score, China has now signed co-operation agreements with Samoa and Kiribati, while the US has convinced Fiji to join its new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF).
It’s staggering that we learn through the media that Samoa and China have signed an agreement. This is a huge diplomatic failure.
In New Zealand, foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta was left to respond to the developments from the bigger players – and to fend off volleys of criticism from New Zealand’s former foreign ministers and diplomats over her perceived inaction. …
While defenders of Mahuta might write off criticism from Brownlee and Peters as standard partisan fare, the views of the former New Zealand diplomats are harder to ignore.
Marion Crawshaw, a former New Zealand diplomat with extensive Pacific experience gained in postings to Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea (PNG), tweeted: “Maintaining the ability to follow our own path in the Pacific has always required focus, attention & careful prioritisation. The need right now is for a visible lift to our attention & [relationships] right across the Pacific.”
For her part, Suzannah Jessep, a former New Zealand deputy high commissioner to India now working for the Asia New Zealand Foundation, wrote: “Feels weird that the Chinese foreign minister is visiting the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, PNG, and East Timor, but NZ has hardly done any ministerial in-person diplomacy. Hard to argue that the Pacific is our priority.”
And another former senior New Zealand diplomat, Nicola Hill, tweeted that Jacinda Ardern was offering “word salad diplomacy on the global stage at a critical moment about China in the Pacific” that was “incoherent”.
Like Jessep, Hill also highlighted inconsistency in New Zealand’s face-to-face diplomacy: “How often does New Zealand’s MFA [Minister of Foreign Affairs] visit PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu or Kiribati? A flurry of visits in 2019.”
Diplomats tend to be, well diplomatic. For three senior former diplomats to speak out, shows how bad they think things are.