1. US 7.5%
2. New Zealand 5.9%
3. Ireland 5.5%
4. UK 5.4%
5. Germany 4.9%
6. Canada 4.8%
7. Singapore 4.0%
8. Sweden 3.9%
9. Australia 3.5%
10. France 2.9%

The Government claims that our high inflation is solely due to international issues such as the global supply chain. And of course that is a partial factor. But as you can see above, we are much higher than many of the other countries we often compare ourselves to. The Australian rate is 2.4% lower, and that is because they didn’t go on a massive debt funded spending spree, such as NZ did.

Recent post on my (pay walled) Patreon are:

• 14 Feb: Re-election prospects in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and US.
• 13 Feb: How the Government could end the occupation in a few minutes
• 03 Feb: Luxon focusing on brand first

In the comments below, tell me the answer to each of the following questions:

1. Which party was the first to have an African-American Senator?
2. Which party was the first to have an Asian-American Senator?
3. Which party was the first to have a Hispanic Senator?
4. Which party was the first to have a Native American Indian Senator?

Stuff reports:

Speaker Trevor Mallard’s decision to turn the sprinklers on and blast music designed to irritate protesters camped outside Parliament will only escalate the standoff, a top crisis negotiator warns, while police say it’s “not a tactic they would endorse”. …

Wellington district commander Superintendent Corrie Parnell said it was “certainly not a tactic we would encourage and certainly endorse but it is what it is”.

This is pretty extraordinary. The district Police commander has implicitly condemned what the Speaker has done, implying it has made the situation worse.

This means that later today when the PM fronts media, she is going to be asked repeatedly whose side she is on – the Police, or the Speaker.

Stuff reports:

There are questions about whether Transport Minister Michael Wood’s wish, to have construction of Auckland’s light rail begin next year, is realistic.

When, in late January, he announced the Government’s plan to build light rail underneath Auckland city, Wood said early construction was expected to start in 2023.

They also promised it would be complete by 2021. The chance of it starting construction by 2023 is zero.

While Wood maintained early work would start next year, he said Cabinet was still waiting for “a detailed business case” – and that wasn’t expected until the end of 2023.

ACT’s transport spokesman, Simon Court, said ALR’s timeline was clear. Its timeframe had planning and consenting lasting up to four years.

“It’s going to take them years to relocate hundreds of kilometres of services along the light rail route, to buy land and then get planning permission,” he said.

“There will be nothing built before the next election. In fact, I would be surprised if anything was built before 2030.”

So Wood is saying they will consider a detailed business plan at the end of 2023 and also construction will start in 2023. They really do think we’re stupid.

Stuff reports:

The Government is asking all New Zealanders to leave Ukraine immediately, as fears of Russian invasion rise.

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, in a statement issued on Saturday afternoon, said the Government was calling on New Zealanders to take any commercial flight out of Ukraine in light of the “heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine”.

This is hypocritical. The Government has said New Zealanders in Ukraine should leave the country asap as it is about to become a war zone. Yet the Government won’t allow the same New Zealanders to return home, as it won’t give them automatic entry into MIQ.

So what are Kiwis in Ukraine meant to do? Go live in Russia?

It has been interesting to observe on social media many on the left labelling the protesters at Parliament as terrorists and demanding the full might of the state be used to disperse and arrest them. They seem unable to distinguish between the range of people involved in the protest.

Don’t get me wrong. Some of those there are dangerous people. Those who call for MPs or media to be executed are bad people. Kelvyn Alp is a radical dangerous activist (note he is Maori, so not a white supremacist). Brian Tamaki is a charlatan and is in it for himself.

But that is not the majority of those down there. They are people protesting vaccine mandates. Now many have no sympathy for them at all. They say it is their choice to not get vaccinated. Well yes it is, and let us remember that is a choice defined as a fundamental human right – not a nice to have.

I regard those who are anti vax (as opposed to anti mandate) as basically deluded. They are like the people who lose money in romance scams. You read about them in the paper, and say how could you be so stupid. However people who lose money in romance scams are not expelled from society, as some unvaccinated are.

If we continue to treat the unvaccinated as pariahs, we will damage the social cohesion of New Zealand immensely. This doesn’t mean we drop all the incentives to get vaccinated, but that we show a path forward. Consider what life looks like for someone who has decided not get vaccinated.

1. They have lost their job and now have no income
2. They are not able to gain employment elsewhere in the area they have skills and expertise
3. They face a future of being unable to gain almost any sort of employment (as vaccine mandates are so widespread and beyond the health sector) for the indefinite future
4. They are unable to eat or drink out at almost every cafe or bar in New Zealand
5. They are barred from scores of public facilities that they have part-funded through taxes and rates
6. They can’t enter most shops in New Zealand, except supermarkets
7. They have no idea at all how long they will remain unable to work, to go out, to shop or use public facilities

Is it any surprise quite a few of them are camped out at Parliament? What do they have to lose?

This is not an argument for immediately removing all the public health measures in place. It is an argument that the Government should provide clarity as to the criteria and timing of when such measures will be lifted, so those citizens who are not vaccinated can have a future to focus on. With no future, they will become more radicalised.

Thomas Coughlan writes:

While the Government spent much of this week claiming it had not been stealing businesses’ rapid antigen tests, the companies supplying those tests to the Government were telling businesses the opposite.

The Herald has confirmed that a minimum of 15 emails from two companies supplying Abbott tests were sent to businesses telling them the Government was diverting all test stock to itself.

New Zealand’s other major RAT supplier, Roche, has also said it told customers the Government had requested its orders be prioritised, although a formal prioritisation request was never made.

So who do we believe?

My blog post lamenting the minimum wage announcement was two months overdue seems to have done the trick, and the Government announced on Thursday it will move to $21.20 on 1 April.

Stuff reports:

Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) chief executive Brett O’Riley said the Government seemed intent on increasing the minimum wage to match the living wage by the next election.

But he said the announcement was a “kick in the guts” for many businesses, and ironic given that this week business groups had been discussing with Treasury what extra support there might be available for sectors struggling in the red setting.

“Many businesses are already on their knees, facing the impact of Covid, including disrupted global supply chains, inability to find skilled workers, rampant inflation… now they’re going to stoke the fire with this 6 per cent increase.”

He said his organisation believed the increase was likely to shut people out of work rather than result in more people earning more. “The callousness of this to small businesses beggars belief. This is just another body blow, a slap in the face. We know that businesses are already on their knees, is this designed to flatten them?”

This move will add fuel in the inflationary fire we already have. And we already had one of the highest minimum wages in the world. In 2020, the ratio of the minimum wage to the medium wage was:

1. NZ 65%
2. France 61%
3. UK 58%
4. Australia 53%
5. Germany 51%
6. Canada 49%
7. US 29%

Politicians should be focused on lifting the median wage for everyone, which you do through productivity gains – not legislation. The minimum wage should be set in statute as a percentage of the median wage so the focus will go on productivity.

Not entirely sure that the Speaker’s move in turning the sprinklers on was a good idea. Adversity often bonds people together and can make a group more determined. And they’ve responded with digging trenches, and even laying down plumbing pipes.

Reinforcements arrive over the weekend, so it will be interesting to see what the authorities do.

The only way this can become a bigger spectacle is if Winston Peters turns up on Sunday, and pitches a tent!

Stuff reports:

A left-leaning contender for the Auckland mayoralty, councillor Richard Hills, has announced he will not be running.

Hills, who has Labour affiliations, has been working on a possible campaign since mid-2021.

However, he’s now said he won’t pursue it, on family grounds.

He’s not pursuing it because Efeso Collins has pushed him out in a massive power play.

Hills was the pick of the Labour hierarchy. Everyone knows he was both Goff’s handpicked successor, but also the pick of Jacinda Ardern (they are good mates).

Collins announced a few weeks ago that as there was no transparency around how Labour was going to select or endorse a candidate, he was going to stand regardless of Labour’s endorsement. This created a huge problem for Labour. If they went ahead with endorsing Hills, they would have had two Labour aligned candidates standing, and the chances of Labour keeping control over the Mayor’s office was reduced as a centre-right candidate could come through the middle.

So Hills has pulled out, despite having spent a year putting a campaign team together. This leaves Collins as the likely sole candidate on the left. Whether he has enough name recognition outside South Auckland remains to be seen, but many will vote for him regardless if he is the Labour endorsed candidate.

People have a right to protest peacefully, especially against government decisions that directly affect them. Some people protest against or about wider issues that don’t impact them directly (such as an overseas conflict), and some protest on issues that have directly impacted them (employees wanting a pay rise etc).

It is hard to imagine a group more affected than those who have lost their jobs, maybe their careers through vaccine mandates. Also they have been affected by being barred from numerous public and private facilities. Their lives have been massively impacted, so it is no surprise at all they wish to protest against this. If you don’t protest against a law that has forced you out of a job, what would you protest against?

It is also important to understand that not everyone at the protest convoy is anti-vaccine. Many are, but some any merely anti-compulsion. I’m massively pro-vaccine and are tripled dosed, but I am sceptical of the vaccine mandates in force outside the health and education sectors. I think NZ should do what Biden did, and allow people in non essential industries to get regular testing as an alternative to a vaccination.

So I’m all for the right of those who protested this week, to have done so.

But there is a difference between peaceful protest and disruption. Those who engaged in violence against the Police should be prosecuted, and those who refuse to leave the grounds of Parliament after being trespassed should be removed forcibly. There is a difference between a protest rally and an occupation.

So the authorities have acted appropriately, in my view, in trying to remove those people still at Parliament.

However there is a huge double standard. Why are the protesters at Shelly Bay still there after many months of illegal occupation and trespass?

If the standard is that the authorities move in after 48 hours of occupation, why is this not applied across the board?

Newshub reports:

The Māori Party voted against a motion in Parliament on Wednesday to congratulate Queen Elizabeth II on her 70-year reign, while the Greens’ James Shaw says debate over New Zealand’s future constitutional arrangements is “overdue”. …

In New Zealand’s Parliament on Wednesday, members of the five political parties rose to speak on a motion to congratulate Aotearoa’s Head of State on the occasion. 

While Labour, National, ACT and the Greens all voted to support the motion, Te Pāti Māori’s co-leader Rawiri Waititi said his party “absolutely refute” it and voted against it. 

“We were disappointed when the Prime Minister acknowledged the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on Waitangi Day. We believe it was tone deaf and colourblind to the degradation of the rights of tangata whenua for 182 years.”

You can support NZ becoming a republic, but also appreciate the job the Queen has done for the last 70 years. It is pretty rude to vote against a simple motion congratulating her for her reign.

I am a strong supporter of New Zealand becoming a republic. In fact I used to serve on the national council of the Republican Movement. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think the Queen hasn’t been a model of a devoted constitutional monarch.

It is a shame two MPs were so churlish they can’t separate the wider issue from the person.

Just come across this article by Keith Lynch which has a table which shows you fatality rates for Covid-19 for different age groups by vaccination status. It is from November so is pre-omicron. Would be good to see one for omicron.

Some examples of the fatality rates:

• 5 – 9 year olds – 0.0007% unvaccinated and 0.00004% vaccinated
• 20 – 24 year olds – 0.0051% unvaccinated and 0.00031% vaccinated
• 50 – 54 year olds – 0.29% unvaccinated and 0.0174% vaccinated
• 85+ – 23.2% unvaccinated and 1.392% vaccinated

Minimum wage changes kick in on 1 April. The Government seems unconcerned for businesses that we are heading toward mid February and no employer knows what the minimum wage will be in seven weeks.

Any affected business that needs to provide quotes for jobs from April onwards is unable to do so, as they don’t know what their staff costs will be.

Normally the new rates are announced in December, giving a decent period of three to four months to prepare. Why has it been left so long? Can’t they agree?

The January 2022 Roy Morgan is out.

Party Vote

• Labour 33.0% (-2.5% from December)
• National 35.0% (+3.5%)
• Greens 10.5% (+2.0%)
• ACT 13.5% (-5.0%)
• Maori 2.5% (+1.5%)
• NZ First 2.5% (+0.5%)

Seats

• Labour 42 (-23 from election)
• National 45 (+12)
• Greens 13 (+3)
• ACT 17 (+7)
• Maori 3 (+1)

Governments

• Labour/Green 55/120
• National/ACT 62/120

Direction

• Right 48.5% (+6.0%)
• Wrong 42.0% (-2,5%)

This is the first poll since the 2020 election that shows National ahead of Labour.

Newshub reports:

Labour has poured cold water on the Greens’ idea of returning private land to iwi, with the Minister for Māori-Crown Relations saying it’s “time to move on”.  …

Neither is Māori-Crown Relations Minister Kelvin Davis. 

“The impression I got from the whole of the Greens’ policy is it’s a bit like painting the Harbour Bridge: after a generation, we’re almost at the end of the settlements, and now they want to start them all over again, like painting the Harbour Bridge – you finish and then you start again,” he told reporters. 

“I think it’s time for us to move on as a people. That’s my initial reaction to what the Greens are saying.”

Davis pushed back on the idea of revisiting settlements. 

“They settled, you know? These are complex negotiations over a number of years and ultimately the Crown and the tribes came to some agreement, and what has been proposed now is that we undo all those agreements and start again. 

“I think there comes a point where we just have to move on and get on with things.”

Pleased to see Labour reject the crazy policy from the Greens that we renege on every full and final settlement of the last 25 years and ratchet then up.

From an interview with AAP by Chris Luxon:

And most curious of all, he writes all of his emails, and has done for years, in a bright blue comic sans font, belying the seriousness of his jobs.

“I’ve just always done it in that font,” he laughs.

“The other day I turned on my computer and it had been changed to Calibri and I thought, ‘Have this been changed because (a staff member) didn’t think I should be writing in comic sans?’

“I have a digital notebook. Everything’s organised in it and yes, I can’t explain it, but I’ve been (using comic sans) since probably 2000. Probably before that! Since when I first got hooked up with email.

“To me, it’s what I use. I apologise for that if it offends you deeply.”

I’m lost for words!