Stuff reported yesterday:

Firefighters will remain overnight at the scene of a massive blaze at a South Taranaki meatworks.

The fire, at Taranaki By-Products Ltd, in Kohiti Road, Ōkaiawa, broke out about 11am on Boxing Day.

A week earlier:

Firefighters from around the Waikato are tackling are large blaze at a large commercial building near Morrinsville this morning.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand was called to the fire understood to be at Wallace Proteins Rendering Plant on Wood Rd in Tatuanui just after 3am.

In March this year:

A “massive” blaze at a meat byproducts processing plant near the Auckland-Waikato boundary overnight could be seen from kilometres away.

Emergency services received several calls about the fire in Lapwood Rd at Tūākau, about 8.20pm on Tuesday, a Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) spokesperson said. …

Tūākau Proteins is well known in the local area and has a strained relationship with some residents, due to the odours emitted by the plant.

As the headline says, terrible bad luck for the poor owners.

The BBC reports:

People catching Omicron are 50% to 70% less likely to need hospital care compared with previous variants, a major analysis says.

The UK Health Security Agency says its early findings are “encouraging” but the variant could still lead to large numbers of people in hospital.

The health secretary said it was “too early” to determine “next steps”.

It’s still a bit early to judge, but a number of countries are reporting that the hospitalisation (and death) rates from the Omicron variant are between 20% and 80% less than the Delta variant.

If it is established that the difference is at the higher end (70% to 80% less severe), then is there a case for letting Omicron into New Zealand? Wouldn’t it be better to have people exposed to a variant 70% less likely to kill or hospitalise you than the Delta variant?

A guest post by Clive Bibby:

Someone has to say it! 

Anyone who has lived and worked with while benefitting from the company of the Maori people, as l have done for over 40 years, should be well qualified to offer a considered opinion regarding the factors limiting Maoridom’s progress towards greater self determination – assuming of course that this path is the one most suited to the tangata whenua who are currently claiming extraordinary rights to citizenship in this country. 

In my humble opinion, the two most obvious “sea anchors” that are limiting progress are “leadership” and the influence of “tribalism” on the ability to work together in a common cause. 

Before my many critics jump on my neck in an attempt to silence my contribution to this universal race based debate, l would add that my comments are merely observations developed while working at the coalface. They should not be taken as a deliberate act aimed at inflaming this already controversial area of conversation. Nor should it be assumed that l have some ulterior motive designed to hamstring the movement of Maori towards assuming their rightful place in New Zealand society. 

I don’t have words that adequately describe my respect for the people who have granted me kaumatua status in my local community. 

That is an honour you have to earn. 

I simply want to offer constructive criticism of a society that has the ability to do things so much better without any help from anybody else. 

They are like most of the rest of us – “their own worst enemy.” 

Firstly leadership. 

In general (there are obvious exceptions), current Maori political leadership are misrepresenting the true nature of their people’s aspirational goals and as such, are doing the Maori race a huge disservice. 

Most of those occupying positions of authority across virtually all sectors of society ( particularly academia and in social and health services) are characterised by a revisionist view of our combined heritage and an ideological persuasion that promotes a status of racially determined victimhood as a result of deliberate under-resourcing. 

Of course that view is not supported by the facts. 

If it were true, in my area on the East Coast, where you would expect to see large groups of impoverished families struggling to make ends meet, you would not encounter scenes suggesting a different reality.

In fact, the children enjoy the same, if not better access to health providers of all kinds, free school lunches plus educational facilities that rival the majority in the larger metropolitan areas. 

Add to that, the local council’s determination to ensure local infrastructure is well  maintained all add up to a position of relative strength for those living in this otherwise beautiful section of paradise. 

To infer that Maoridom in general suffers in comparison to its Pakeha cousins in these vital areas is a lie. 

The opportunities available to Maori in this country are the same as those offered and accessible to all kiwis, no matter what their racial status, religious or sexual preference or position on the social ladder. 

You only need to talk to or read about those who have taken advantage of those rights of citizenship in this country to know that the populace is being fed a load of bollocks. 

Actually, for those who doubt my version of the truth, just come and visit our community which l suggest is a microcosm of provincial New Zealand. You will be amazed at how different reality is to the version being promoted by those who have usurped the positions of leadership that used to be dominated by Kaumatua and Kuia who truly understood that real leadership was a vocational act of self sacrifice and service that becomes ineffective once tainted by self preservation.

 Sad to say, the modern leaders are different.

They are (in the main) self serving. It is a tragedy. 

The second limiting factor to continued Maori ascendancy is the institutional version of the first. It manifests itself in the structural restrictions associated with tribalism. 

If l could name one item that time and again limits progress across all parts of Maori society, it would be the distrust of or inability to work with other tribes. 

I have seen this problem influencing decisions involving hapu, iwi and more importantly between runanga. It appears to be a carry over from the pre treaty days when “might was right” and all that mattered.

One might have expected that an intelligent race with so many excellent credentials would have seen this for themselves and made moves to stamp out this antiquated view of a progressive community within a sustainable society.

 It won’t work. 

Yet it persists and the only people who suffer are those who the modern system is designed to help.

It makes no sense. 

A guest post by a reader:

I write this to share with  KiwiBlog readers the insights and conclusions I have reached in looking at the legal issues surrounding the proposed checkpoints in Northland over the holiday period.

Firstly, the disclaimer is that this is not legal advice, and I am not a lawyer. But the perspective comes from discussions with an ex Crown lawyer who is now a QC, the founder of a specialist public law practice and the Privacy Commission. The insights are:-

 a. into the role of ‘iwi representatives’ at checkpoints, and

b. the legality of checkpoints that are not at the border.

Iwi representatives

Iwi representatives are ‘enforcement officers’ under the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act, but their powers are not the same as other enforcement officers under the Act (eg Customs Officers). Their powers are laid out in Section 22, and state :-

(3A) For the purpose of enforcing or monitoring compliance with a COVID-19 order that restricts movement by persons with or without vehicles, a constable may stop persons and vehicles at any road block or checkpoint established for that purpose.

(4) Sections 128 and 129 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 (duty to remain stopped and to provide information), with any necessary modifications, apply to the powers conferred by subsection (3) and apply in addition to the requirement to provide evidence of identity in section 19.

(5) An enforcement officer may also stop persons and vehicles for the purpose stated in subsection (3A) if acting under the supervision of a constable.

(6) For the purpose of subsection (5) only, enforcement officer means a person authorised in accordance with section 18 who is—

(a) a member of the Armed Forces (as defined in section 2(1) of the Defence Act 1990):

(b) any person whom the Commissioner recognises as being—

(i) a Māori warden; or

(ii) a nominated representative of an iwi organisation; or

(iii) a Pasifika warden; or

(iv) a community patroller.

The perspective I have is that iwi representatives

1. Must be authorised in accordance with Section 18, which includes an assessment and training criteria
2. Can only stop vehicles for the purpose of (3A)
3. Have no powers to require a person to provide any information (this power resides with Police and other classes of enforcement officer appointed outside Section 22(6))
4. Have no powers to direct a person to not pass through a checkpoint – this is a decision that could only be made by a supervising constable at a checkpoint.

So if asked by an iwi representative to show a vaccine certificate, one would be entirely within one’s right to refuse. This may result in you being directed to a queue to be checked by the poor plod on duty, but there is no legal power that iwi representatives have to compel you to provide any information at all – including your name, address, etc – these are powers reserved for the Police or a class of enforcement officer authorised by the DG of Health.

Checkpoints outside the Auckland / Northland border

Checkpoints are authorised through a combination of the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act, and an order made under the powers of this Act, the  COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Order 2021.

The order is clear through its various schedules, etc that checkpoints are legal if used to check the vaccination status of travellers between one region and another. But it is far from certain that checkpoints within Northland to prevent travel into remote areas (such as the Far North or Karikari peninsula) fall within the scope of the order.

The Police could argue that such checkpoints could be used to monitor compliance with the order restricting travel between Auckland and Northland to vaccinated / tested individuals but there are several problems with this.

Firstly, the order applies to travel across boundaries between areas, where such travel is only permitted for CVC complaint individuals, or those with a test within 72 hours. The boundaries are currently defined as the Auckland region and the Northland region. But once inside a region, it does not appear that you are required to show your vaccination status. It is not a legal requirement for one to carry a vaccination passport or evidence of testing UNLESS one is passing through a border.

So unless the Far North is declared an ‘area’ under a further Covid-19 order, my take is that if stopped, you are required as is always the case to provide a Policeman with your name, address, licence, etc. But they have no power to demand to see a vaccination certificate or passport OTHER than when you are crossing a border established by a Covid order.

So when I am travelling in Northland post Xmas (having crossed the border), I will be refusing to show anyone (Police or iwi representative) my vax passport – they have no power to require you to do so.

Hoping everyone has a peaceful and relaxing day with the friends and family.

The Herald reports:

A worsening turf war between rival gangs and the criminal trade of illicit drugs has seen hundreds of shooting victims hospitalised across Auckland as the number of firearms in circulation grows.

The city’s mayor says the rising tally of gun violence victims is a serious concern, with the bloodshed causing significant anxiety and undermining people’s right to feel safe.

Figures released exclusively to the Herald by Auckland’s three district health boards show the city’s hospitals have treated nearly 350 patients for firearms injuries since January 2016.

A shooting used to be a major event, which would dominate the news for days. In the last few years they have become so common, that they hardly register beyond the initial story. Auckland alone is having three shootings a fortnight on average.

This needs to change.

Vice reports:

A group of unvaccinated people who attended a huge conspiracy conference in Dallas earlier this month all became sick in the days after the event with symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath, and fever. Instead of blaming the global COVID pandemic, however, the conspiracy theorists think they were attacked with anthrax.

They’re wrong, of course.

It was Polonium.

Elon Musk did what may be his longest interview ever, and it wasn’t with Time Magazine or The Financial Times, but the Babylon Bee – a centre-right satire site.

It seems Musk is a fan of the site and this led to him doing a 100 minute interview with three of their staff. He says how he used to love The Onion and Saturday Night Live, but they have both become too leftish and woke and are not as funny as they used to be.

He talks about tax and many other issues. I found it an interesting interview, so am sharing it here.

MSN reports:

President Vladimir Putin threatened a military response to counter NATO expansion toward Russia’s borders, but said he hoped for a diplomatic solution to rising tensions as the U.S. said it was ready to discuss his security demands.

This is all a pretext for Putin to invade even more of Ukraine, as he has worked out the US and Europe will not do anything to stop him.

Sadly I expect he will move within a couple of months.

The U.S. and Europe accuse Russia of a massive build-up of troops near Ukraine in preparation for a possible invasion as early as next month, something Russia denies. The U.S. and its allies are working on plans to impose painful new sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine. 

Sanctions will not stop Putin.

The Economist writes:

However, the new policies are misguided. Start with cutting the amount of nicotine in cigarettes: the idea is that it will wean smokers off the most addictive substance in the cancer sticks.

Yet as any smoker -or European vape user who has sampled the satisfyingly high-nicotine liquids available outside the EU – can attest, lower nicotine levels only make them want to puff more. Nicotine may be the most addictive bit of a smoke, but it is not the most harmful. The main causes of disease are the tar, the toxic chemicals and the inhalation of smoke from a fire two inches away from your nose.

More unwise still is the plan to enforce prohibition for the next generation of potential smokers. Banning popular substances has unintended consequences, as alcohol prohibition once showed in America, and the war on drugs shows nearly everywhere today. The market moves underground. Criminals take over.

Supplies are no longer regulated, so quality suffers: all manner of harmful extras may be added. Worse, criminal gangs make so much money from prohibition that they corrupt governments and fight bloody battles with each other over turf.

The proposed ban will be a bonanza for gangs, who will make huge profits from the black market.

The Herald reports:

A 10-year, $6.7m Rotorua council investment into a sewage sludge technology that provided no return reinforces councils should not try to act as businesses, a local government expert says.

A ratepayer representative says, in her opinion, the venture was “hugely ill-advised” and raises questions about how the project continued so long, cost so much and had “no benefit at all”.

However, others say councillors were doing their best by ratepayers with the information they had at the time, and they can’t be judged in hindsight.

Of course they can and should be judged. They cost Rotorua ratepayers almost $7 million.

On top of the council’s $6.7m, the previous National government contributed about $3m and Crown Research Institute Scion contributed about $1.85m.

What do they all have in common? None of them were spending their own money. Not a single investor had skin in the game. Its easy to be convinced that something should be invested in, when there is no consequence to you for getting it wrong.

The Herald reports:

An alleged “white supremacist” living in a state house is accused of terrorising his Christchurch neighbours who say they are living in fear for the safety of their children and grandchildren.

The former skinhead and his associates are accused of a prolonged campaign of intimidation and abuse, which has allegedly seen armed police deployed to the street, a kids’ pool shot out with slug gun pellets and threats made on the life of a 4-year-old girl.

He lives in a Woolston Kāinga Ora property with his parents. Neighbours have described a litany of incidents dating back almost a decade resulting in multiple police callouts, countless complaints to Kāinga Ora and various criminal charges and court proceedings.

They say the man is a white power sympathiser and the tenants pose a risk to the community. Neighbours are questioning why the family is allowed to remain in the taxpayer-funded home.

Labour’s policy of never evicting tenants, no matter what they do, must end. The policy has turned Kainga Ora into the worst landlord in New Zealand. It’s bad enough that taxpayers are subsidising his rent, but what is worse is the terror the neighbours endure.

Terrible behaviour should haver consequences. One of those consequences should be you lose you nice cheap taxpayer subsidised state house if you’re an anti-social arsehole that terrorises the neighbours.

Jerry Coyne writes:

Here’s another kerfuffle that two academics from New Zealand called to my attention. I am letting one of them comment on a recent exchange about a paper involving Maori burning of land, which apparently produced carbon deposits in Antarctica.

The paper below was published in Nature last month, and suggests an explanation for high rates of carbon deposition found in Antarctic ice cores starting about 700 years ago: levels three times higher than in previous centuries.  As the abstract below shows, the most likely explanation was soot being blown towards Antarctica from either Tasmania, New Zealand, or Patagonia.  But the record of fire use (“paleofire” studies), the directionality of carbon distribution, plus the timing (Maori settled New Zealand around 1300), suggests suggests that New Zealand was the source, probably from Maori burning of forests or fields that caused ancillary wildfires. 

So these scientists were trying to work out why there was a high level of carbon in Antarctic ice cores from 700 years ago. And they conclude the most likely explanation was burning of forests in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

This research then got noticed in NZ, and the usual suspects huffed and puffed and here is what a Waikato University Dean said:

“The association of Māori with fire is longstanding. Mahuika goddess of fire gifted her fingernails of flames to enable us to have fire for warmth; fire for sustenance; fire to provide nutrients for the earth. We attribute and honour Mahuika. She is part of our whakapapa. Her mokopuna Māui attempted to reduce her power by tricking her into giving up all of her fingernails but she was able to outwit him, planting her flame into the trees so that fire would be freely available. Fire also defined our boundaries of authority as expressed in this whakataukī ‘ka wera hoki i te ahi, e mana ana anō’ meaning ‘while the fire burns, the mana is effective.’ We claimed occupation of our territories by the principle of ahi kaa, that is, we kept our home fires burning.

“Through our Ātua, gods and goddesses, we developed deeply embedded practises and rituals and our relationship with fire was interdependent, reciprocal, beneficial and also very practical. Upon arrival to these lands, we relied on the aruhe or fernroot as part of our staple diet. We relied on the moa and other birdlife for food. Burning became part of our practises; regular burning allowed plants to regenerate and some of the minerals in the ash provided rich nutrients for the land. Regular burning facilitated hunting and access to hunting grounds. Such practises would be typical for any newcomers creating homes on unfamiliar lands to allow time to become acquainted with seasonal cycles, climatic conditions, finding the best places to lay out their plantations and hence their new settlements or kainga. No doubt some burning would not have been controlled as well as they may have planned, but this can be understood. It is not unlike any other peoples adjusting to new lands and new conditions.

“The internationally authored paper by scientists who examined Antarctic ice core records to find that carbon emissions increased significantly from wildfires after Māori first arrived in Aotearoa is devoid of context, devoid of cultural understandings and is yet another example of what we have grown to expect from western science. It relies on measurements, modelling and silo thinking and the paper whether intentional or not, posits Māori as the ‘naughty’ offenders. Moreover, it reeks of scientific arrogance with its implicit assumption that somehow Māori have a lot to account for in terms of contributing to carbon emissions and destroying the pristine environment of the Southern Oceans and Antarctica. Goodness knows why Māori are primarily emphasised, and for what purpose this article was written. Obviously these authors have not caught up with the positive changes in research and science in this country where Mātauranga Māori within the MBIE Vision Mātauranga policy demands Māori involvement, Māori participation and Māori leadership. This involvement starts from the basic premise that we as Māori will tell our own stories and control our own knowledge. Mātauranga Māori is a living knowledge system rooted in our environmental encounters which was outward looking and relationship based. We are connected in kinship even to fire through Mahuika as the spiritual goddess of fire. Similarly we have relationships with the Southern Oceans and the Antarctica through our stories of voyaging and navigation and food gathering. Our relationships with marine life, bird life and the oceans are well recorded through our intergenerational continuum and held in our tribal lore. These are places to which we also have longstanding relationships where we will not intentionally embark on destructive practises. The principle of kaitikaitanga or guardianship is a mantel of responsibility for us and one we willingly share to improve the wellbeing of our oceans and planet. Please do not distort your scientific evidence nor hide behind the intricacies of scientific modelling to position Māori as the problem. I am sure that you can do better than that.”

Need more be said.

In many countries you can just buy an RAT at the supermarket or pharmacy. In NZ the Government will not allow you to buy your own test and for some stupid reason has decided only unvaccinated people about to travel can get one. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

It is interesting to do a cost comparison of what the Government has delivered against what it promised.

The latest estimate for light rail is it will cost $608,000 per metre of light rail. That is $6,080 per cm.

Instead they have delivered 710 cm of press releases at a cost of $50 million so that is a cost of $70,422 per cm of press release.

So the press releases are costing more than ten times per cm as the light rail will!

Neale is right on this. Both the banner and the noose imagery is disgusting. We should have zero tolerance for this. Anyone who thinks like this is a danger to society.

Over 2,000 people have voted in the 2021 Kiwiblog Awards. The winners are:

• National MP of the year – Christopher Luxon narrowly wins with 26% followed by Chris Bishop on 25%, Shane Reti 24%, Nicola Willis 13% and Simon Bridges 12%. The top three were all within a few score votes of each other.
• Labour MP of the Year – Louisa Wall wins this year on 43% followed by Chris Hipkins on 38%, Jacinda Ardern on 11% and Nanaia Mahuta on 8%
• Minor Party MP of the Year – A battle between the ACT Leader and Deputy and David Seymour gets 83% and Brooke van Velden 17%
• MP of the Year is also a big win for favourite David Seymour on 62%, with Christopher Luxon on 19%, Nicola WIllis 10% and Simon Bridges 8%.

Congratulations to the winners, and the runners up.

The PSC has released annual workforce data. Some key extracts:

• Average salary up from $75,400 in 2017 to $87,600 – a 16.2% increase
• Median salary up from $64,300 to $76,600 – a 19.1% increase
• The number of staff earning over $100,000 gone from 15,055 in 2020 to 18,301 in 2021
• Public service FTEs up from 47,252 to 61,097 – a 29.3% increase
• Public service staff up from 48,871 to 62,853 – a 28.6% increase
• Core crown personnel costs gone from $6.9 billion in 2017 to $9.4 billion in 2020, a 36% increase
• Public sector salary costs gone from $3.6 billion in 2017 to $5.3 billion in 2020, a 50% increase