Matt Ridley blogs:

Global warming is real. It is also – so far – mostly beneficial. This startling fact is kept from the public by a determined effort on the part of alarmists and their media allies who are determined to use the language of crisis and emergency. …

The biggest benefit of emissions is global greening, the increase year after year of green vegetation on the land surface of the planet. Forests grow more thickly, grasslands more richly and scrub more rapidly. This has been measured using satellites and on-the-ground recording of plant-growth rates. It is happening in all habitats, from tundra to rainforest. In the four decades since 1982, as Bjorn Lomborg points out, NASA data show that global greening has added 618,000 square kilometres of extra green leaves each year, equivalent to three Great Britains. You read that right: every year there’s more greenery on the planet to the extent of three Britains. I bet Greta Thunberg did not tell you that.

The cause of this greening? Although tree planting, natural reforestation, slightly longer growing seasons and a bit more rain all contribute, the big cause is something else. All studies agree that by far the largest contributor to global greening – responsible for roughly half the effect – is the extra carbon dioxide in the air. In 40 years, the proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 has gone from 0.034 per cent to 0.041 per cent. That may seem a small change but, with more ‘food’ in the air, plants don’t need to lose as much water through their pores (‘stomata’) to acquire a given amount of carbon. So dry areas, like the Sahel region of Africa, are seeing some of the biggest improvements in greenery. Since this is one of the poorest places on the planet, it is good news that there is more food for people, goats and wildlife.

Fascinating. I did not know this. It shouldn’t be surprising, as changes in climate always have positive and negative aspects to it.

Another bit of good news is on deaths. We’re against them, right? A recent study shows that rising temperatures have resulted in half a million fewer deaths in Britain over the past two decades. That is because cold weather kills about ’20 times as many people as hot weather’, according to the study, which analyses ‘over 74million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries’. This is especially true in a temperate place like Britain, where summer days are rarely hot enough to kill. So global warming and the unrelated phenomenon of urban warming relative to rural areas, caused by the retention of heat by buildings plus energy use, are both preventing premature deaths on a huge scale.

Surely this will change in the future? Probably not. Britain would have to get much, much hotter for summer mortality to start exceeding winter deaths. Not even Greece manages that. And the statistics show that – as greenhouse-gas theory predicts – on the whole more warming is happening in cold places, in cold seasons and at cold times of day. So winter nighttime temperatures in the global north are rising much faster than summer daytime temperatures in the tropics.

This doesn’t mean a huge increase in temperatures will be beneficial. What the data shows is that the changes so far have resulted in fewer climate related deaths. There is of course a tipping point at which heat deaths would exceed cold deaths.

Of course, climate change does and will bring problems as well as benefits. Rapid sea-level rise could be catastrophic. But whereas the sea level shot up between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, rising by about 60 metres in two millennia, or roughly three metres per century, today the change is nine times slower: three millimetres a year, or a foot per century, and with not much sign of acceleration. 

All the forecasts are that the current rate of 3mm/year will increase but so far it hasn’t. Here’s the increase for each five year period:

• 1990 – 1995: 8 mm
• 1995 – 2000: 7 mm
• 2000 – 2005 : 11 mm
• 2005 – 2010: 21 mm
• 2010 – 2015: 18 mm
• 2015 – 2020: 7 mm

So since 2005 it has increased 46 mm in 15 years which is 3 mm a year.

News.com.au reported:

Bob Hawke was a sex addict who gave up the grog but not having extramarital sex with multiple lovers while Prime Minister, according to a bombshell biography that reveals his taxpayer-funded security team drove him to see women.

The former PM’s widow Blanche d’Alpuget has revealed he had at least four lovers during his time in the Lodge and that he used extramarital sex as a form of stress release while he remained married to his first wife, Hazel Hawke.

This isn’t the most surprising revelation, but to have it come via Hawke’s widow is surprising!

Bill Kelty, former ACTU secretary, said Mr Hawke often drank 20 beers during benders before giving up alcohol.

“Bob would drink, he would f**k somebody, and he would gamble until 2.30am or 3.30am in the morning – and then when the ACTU executive started at 9am in the morning, he was the second one there and he was fine,” he recalled.

Australia’s greatest Labor Prime Minister!

Hawke was in fact a very good reforming Prime Minister. He won four elections. No Labour PM since has won more than one.

Stuff reports:

Consumers’ confidence in the economic outlook has sunk to a lower level than when Covid first struck and the nadir it experienced during the Global Finance Crisis in 2008, according to an ANZ survey.

The bank said its consumer confidence index crashed 16 points in February to stand at 82 points, which was lowest the index has been since the bank began the surveys in 2004.

ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner said it was “remarkable” confidence was lower than when Covid first struck early in 2020, “when the uncertainty was so extreme”.

This suggests the record low isn’t so much about Covid-19 as about runaway inflation.

News.com.au reports:

Radio host Ben Fordham has claimed new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) regarding the nation’s Covid-19 deaths exposes “the overblown scare campaign we’ve witnessed”.

The statistics, released by the ABS on Tuesday, showed there were underlying health issues involved in 92 per cent of the 2639 deaths attributed to Covid-19 between March 2020 and January 31 this year. The underlying conditions ranged from pneumonia and kidney infection to chronic heart illnesses.

During the same period, 100,000 Australians died from cancer, 32,000 from heart disease, 30,000 from Alzheimers and dementia, and 10,000 from diabetes. The Covid-19 deaths, meanwhile, made up only one per cent of all fatalities nationwide.

We do not know in New Zealand how many of those who died from Covid-19 had co-morbidities. This is not to say we should not still take measures against Covid-19 as a life lost is a life lost. Losing your parent or sibling is a massive trauma to a family, regardless of if they had an underlying health condition. However in terms of assessing personal risk, it would be good to have data tools that took account of if an individual has an underlying health condition, so we understand our risk better.

This excellent Australian tool tells me that with very high transmission in the community, my risk profile for the next two months is:

• Getting Covid-19: 1 in 37
• Chance of dying if infected: 1 in 25,000

But that 1 in 25,000 will be very different depending on health conditions. It might be 1 in 200,000 if healthy and 1 in 10,000 of you have comorbidities. It would be really great to have clear data on this.

The Free Speech Union has alerted supporters:

Now Phil Goff and Auckland Council are having another go – with a sneaky challenge to try and control who we can and cannot hear from at Auckland’s publicly owned facilities.

Friend what the Council is now trying to do is introduce controlled use through the back door. On Monday, the Council’s “Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel” (which is chaired by Councillor Richard Hills) is set to debate a policy that would give “preferred users” and designated groups priority access to Council facilities.

That sounds innocent enough, but what it means is that groups such as the Council’s highly politicised “Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel” will have priority access and be able to prevent events from third party groups if they object, or wish to use the facility instead.

Remember, this was the same “Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel” that lead the charge against previous speakers, saying that there was “harm” and “health and safety dangers” if controversial speakers (including groups debating a then-proposed law before Parliament) were allowed to use Council halls.

In the presentation advising councillors on the issue, the official documents claim that there is tension in the fact that “the venue for hire service is for all Aucklanders, but controversial speakers and groups using venues cause harm to communities experiencing inequity and barriers to participation.”

Essentially, the proposed solution means when a controversial group books a Council venue, ‘preferred’ users can overrule the booking. It makes some groups more equal than others in the name of ‘kindness’. But in reality, this tension is what you get in a democratic society where we should expect countless views, including those we don’t agree with, to be expressed in public venues. 

We’ve made a tool for you to email Auckland Councillors telling them not to approve this policy. We have to tell Auckland Councillors that we can see what they are doing, and won’t let them get around the law that all Aucklanders – regardless of political views, or favoured status – should be free to use Council-owned event facilities.>> Email Auckland Councillors now <<

It is not the job of Auckland Council to decide which political or issue groups are allowed to book a venue, or not. But this is what they want to do, after losing at the Court of Appeal.

An OIA has revealed that the Government approved 74 DJs to enter NZ during lockdowns, as critical workers. 62 of them actually arrived.

Since June 2021, a total of 1,637 NZ citizens or residents applied for an emergency spot in MIQ and were declined. So NZ citizens who wanted to return home to see a dying relative were locked out, while foreign DJs were let in as critical workers!

The full results are here.

Party Vote

• National 39% (+7% from last poll)
• Labour 37% (-3%)
• ACT 8% (-3%)
• Greens 9% (nc)
• Maori Party 2.3% (+0.7%)
• NZ First 2.2% (+0.4%)
• TOP 1.3% (-0.3%)
• New Conservatives 0.9% (-0.1%)

Seats

• Labour 47 (-18 from election)
• National 49 (+16)
• ACT 10 (nc)
• Greens 11 (+1)
• Maori 3 (+1)

Government

• Labour/Green/Maori 61/120
• National/ACT/Maori 62/120

Preferred PM (unprompted)

• Jacinda Ardern 34% (-1%)
• Christopher Luxon 25% (+8%)
• David Seymour 5% (-1%)
• Winston Peters 2% (+1%)

Economic Outlook

• Better 22% (-7%)
• Worse 49% (+2%)
• Same 29% (+4%)

Preferred PM (prompted, binary choice)

• Jacinda Ardern 46%
• Christopher Luxon 45%

Parliament Protest

• Approve of Government handling of protest 46%
• Disapprove 43%

Vaccine Mandates

• Support 60% (-14%)
• Oppose 32% (+12%)

Economic Outlook

• Better 28% (+6%)
• Worse 53% (+4%)
• Same 19% (-10%)

This shows the average price per liter of petrol in various countries. It shows that we are paying much much more than others, because we tax petrol far far more.

In the US they are complaining over a petrol price that is 44% cheaper than in NZ. In Australia it is 37% cheaper.

NewstalkZB reports:

The Government has announced plans to have TVNZ and RNZ fully merged by the middle of next year. 

Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi confirmed today the Cabinet had accepted the Business Case Governance Group’s recommendations and agreed to set up the new structure. 

“The new public media entity will be built on the best of RNZ and TVNZ, which will initially become subsidiaries of the new organisation,” Faafoi said. 

This is appalling daftness.

Merging a public broadcaster and a commercial broadcaster will result in a hybrid which will be bad at both. We know this from experience. The last Labour Government tried to make parts of TVNZ non-commercial and it was a failure – according to the then CEO Ian Fraser who is a big fan of public broadcasters.

Its obligations would include having to provide public media content to all New Zealanders, including groups who are currently under-serviced or under-represented. 

This might sound good to some, but what it means is that the state owned broadcaster will have its content carried everywhere, which will mean less diversity of content.

Newshub reports:

Emails show Kāinga Ora is unapologetic about covering up the fact it was using a Labour candidate in taxpayer-funded advertising. 

But new emails have emerged showing Kāinga Ora officials unapologetic. 

“The judgement call you made was fine, I am happy to stand behind you on it,” McKenzie wrote in an email to the senior communications executive on November 11. 

“This little maelstrom will pass quickly, I just hope it doesn’t make you too risk-averse!”

So the CE praised the staffer who declared they would just pretend they didn’t know Arena Williams was standing for Labour, and explicitly said he backs her call and doesn’t want her to become risk-averse!!!

Prior to that, on November 10, a general manager wrote: “I don’t like the implication of apology from us when we did no wrong.”

I don’t know how the board can have confidence in the senior leadership, if that is what they think.

The so called independent working group on three waters (dominated by Labour Party Mayors) has managed the impossible, and actually proposed changes that will make the proposed three waters reforms even worse!

Here’s some of what they are proposing:

1. A further propaganda campaign funded by taxpayers to try and convince us that this is all a great idea
2. A Claytons proposal that territorial authorities “own” the water entities, but this is ownership in name only, not in substance. Councils will not be able to perform any of the functions of ownership like with any other asset. The shares would have no voting rights, no financial rights and no rights of appointment. They are trying to con the public into thinking that territorial authorities will still have ownership, when all they’ll have is a piece of paper with no rights of ownership.
3. The regional groups require a 75% majority to decide anything, so the councils with just 50% can never ever decide anything.
4. In the northern area, Auckland Council will have just 4 out of 14 votes on the regional grouping, despite contributing 92% of the assets.
5. An extra layer of bureaucracy with sub-regional groups within each region so the miniscule influence of ratepayers (who will have to pay the compulsory charges) will be ratepayers to councils to sub-regional groups to regional groups to appointment panel to the board of the water entity.
6. They have also recommended that not only do Iwi get given 50% control of all the three waters assets in New Zealand, but that taxpayers fund Iwi to allow them to fully participate.

The bottom line remains the same – these new water entities will be unaccountable to the people who have to pay their compulsory charges. They could triple or quadruple what you pay for water infrastructure, and you will have zero ability to vote anyone out to stop it (unlike central and local government where you can). Have no doubt, that water charges will massively increase when you have a model where those who pay the bills have no ability to push back against huge increases.

Stuff reports:

In domestic cricket, it’s 88 to 100 per cent for women playing in the T20 Super Smash competition, who play the same format, in the same conditions, on the same day as their male counterparts.

At international level, the White Ferns have a retainer of between $44,000 and $64,000. Black Caps retainers start at $100,000.

It’s simple. More people pay to see or view the Black Caps than the White Ferns. Same for the All Black as opposed to Black Ferns. This influences pay.

Sometimes it goes the other way. The Silver Ferns get paid a lot more money I bet you than members of the NZ Men’s Netball team (even though the NZ men’s team can beat the Silver Ferns). That is because more people want to see the Silver Ferns play, than the NZ men’s team.

George Monbiot writes:

Among the worst disseminators of Kremlin propaganda in the UK are people with whom I have, in the past, shared platforms and made alliances. The grim truth is that, for years, a segment of the “anti-imperialist” left has been recycling and amplifying Putin’s falsehoods. This segment is by no means representative: many other leftists have staunchly and consistently denounced Russian imperialism, just as they rightly denounce the imperialism of the US and UK. But it is, I think, an important one.

At the end of last year, the writer and film-maker John Pilger claimed “it was the US that overthrew the elected govt in Ukraine in 2014, allowing Nato to march right up to Russia’s western border”. This is a standard Kremlin talking point, dismissing the revolution as a US coup. Ukraine, of course, is not a Nato member.

So Pilger is effectively a Putin propogandist.

I see the Stop the War coalition’s letter of 18 February, signed by many fine and eminent people, as strangely unbalanced. It stated that it “opposes any war over Ukraine”, but said nothing about Russian aggression. It appeared to blame only Nato and the British government, and urged “the entire anti-war movement to unite on the basis of challenging the British government’s aggressive posturing and direct its campaigning to that end above all”.

The coalition has recently produced a map showing Crimea, following its illegal annexation, as part of Russia. Its deputy president, Andrew Murray, has claimed it’s a myth that Ukraine wants peace. He has also reproduced a classic Kremlin falsehood: that in Ukraine, “Russian has been banned from the public sphere”. Fiona Edwards, a member of the coalition’s steering committee, has insisted that “Nato is the aggressor, not Russia”.

Sadly many leftish peace groups (not all) are really just anti-western groups. They always take the side of the autocracies over the democracries.

There is a strong argument that Nato should have been disbanded at the end of the cold war. But while Putin’s sense of threat seems to have been heightened by Nato expansion and mission creep, Nato expansion has also been driven in part by Putin’s belligerence. Are we really to believe that Estonia and Latvia joined because they wanted to attack Russia? On the contrary, it’s because they fear attack. While Nato’s growth is likely to have contributed to the crisis, it’s ridiculous to suggest that Russia is not the aggressor.

Putin is the best recruiting tool NATO has.

The former Labour MP Chris Williamson goes even further. As Putin’s tanks rolled across the border last Thursday, he characterised the government of Ukraine as a “post-coup, neo-Nazi backed, corrupt regime”, a classic Kremlin smear. The Morning Star, to give one of many similar examples, falsely describes Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s administration as a “fascist government”.

Zelenskiy is Jewish, and had family members killed by the Nazis. His Prime Minister is an economist who is not affiliated to a political party. Most of his Cabinet are technocrats.

True anti-imperialism means opposing not only the west’s imperialism, essential as this is. It’s about opposing all imperialism, whether western, Russian, Chinese or other. It’s about opposing all aggressive wars, regardless of who wages them. It’s about resisting the temptation to believe that your enemy’s enemy must be your friend.

This got me interested. How many of the NZ Peace Movements have even put out a press release condemning Russia?

Peace Movement Aotearoa has said nothing at all on its website.

Peace Action Wellington has said nothing at all on its website.

Auckland Peace Action has said nothing at all on its website.

Doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know.

The Herald reports:

A terrified family is begging Kāinga Ora to relocate them to escape violence and intimidation from a Mongrel Mob member living in their street, saying they are “running out of hope and the will to live”.

The family moved into the Weir Lane, Silverdale, state housing development several years ago but say they now live in fear due to extreme antisocial behaviour and gang activity in their street.

The father, who was too fearful to be identified, said gang members from Black Power, Killer Beez and King Cobras frequented the housing development and the abusive Mongrel Mob neighbour had threatened to burn down people’s homes.

Here’s an even better solution. Rather than move out the good tenants, how about kicking out the Mongrel Mob member who is terrorising the other tenants? That is what any other landlord in NZ would do.

The man and his wife are both suffering from extreme depression and are on medication for anxiety. And despite fearing for their children’s safety following serious violence incidents in the street, they’d been told they were “not a priority” for a housing transfer, the father claims.

Of course not. The priority, set by Labour is to never evict, and just let the neighbours suffer.

A week later on February 12, another resident was set upon by about six men, thrown to the ground and kicked and beaten in the head.

He fled into his unit and the attack only stopped when he pulled a BB rifle on his assailants and fired several shots, dispersing the violent mob who ran away.

The father said armed police swarmed the street immediately after the attack and seized the firearm. They returned several times during the night due to disorder.

He believed the attackers were linked to the Mongrel Mob affiliate’s property. They spent the rest of the night chanting “sieg heil”, barking like dogs, fighting with each other and breaking into cars.

Residents found a butcher’s knife and a “shank” lying abandoned in the area the next morning, the father said.

Lovely stuff.

Police confirmed they received reports of a man being assaulted by a group, who then fired a BB rifle in the assailants’ direction before they ran away.

“The male had some visible injuries and was taken to hospital for treatment. He was subsequently issued with a formal written warning in relation to presenting a firearm.”

So the Police warned him for taking an action which may have saved his life.

Farah Hancock of Radio NZ did this graph showing the number of new cases per 100,000 by vaccination status.

This data appears to show that unvaccinated people are having far fewer cases than vaccinated. Now this is not an argument not to be vaccinated as vaccinations reduce the risk of hospitalisation and death massively.

But we do need to understand how vaccination affects whether or not you can get Covid-19 and/or infect others, as this is at the heart of the rationale for vaccine mandates.

The data might be affected by lower testing rates by those unvaccinated. However if you get seriously sick, you’ll have to get tested. So how much of a factor this is, I don’t know.

The Government itself should be publishing clear data on vaccination status and infections, for new cases on a per capita basis. The only way you can get this data is to take a snapshot of their website every day and calculate the changes. This is not transparency.

Radio NZ has done an update and the latest data for new cases per 100,000 population is:

1. Fully vaccinated 616/100,000
2. Partially vaccinated 469/100,000
3. Boosted 259/100,000
4. Unvaccinated 244/100,000

On this data, I don’t see how you can make a case for vaccine mandates continuing – especially as the mandate is merely for full (double) vaccination, not to be boosted.

Vaccination definitely reduces your individual chance of being hospitalised or dying. But the NZ data does not indicate that unvaccinated people are more likely to get Covid, than vaccinated people – which is the rationale for the vaccine pass system.

Mike Smith at The Standard writes:

One of Vladimir Putin’s objectives in the Russian incursion into Ukraine was to “denazify Ukraine.” With the breakdown in the agreement to allow a humanitarian corridor out of Mariupol, this task will be much harder and the terrorist toll much higher. Once Russia has succeeded however, the world will be a better place for it.

So you have a blogger at The Standard cheering on Putin, and pushing the Kremlin’s propaganda line that the invasion is to denazify Ukraine, as opposed to turn it into a puppet state.

But this isn’t any random blogger. Smith served for eight years as General Secretary of the NZ Labour Party – the organisational equivalent of chief executive.

Media spend thousands of column centimeters exposing what they label as the far right, Why do they never bother to highlight and expose the far left?

If a former ACT Party MP was cheering on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it would be a major story. But a former Labour Party General Secretary, and nothing.

The February 2022 Roy Morgan is out.

Party Vote

• Labour 32.0% (-1.0% from January)
• National 38.0% (+3.0%)
• Greens 11.0% (+0.5%)
• ACT 11.5% (-2.0%)
• Maori 2.0% (-0.5%)
• NZ First 2.0% (-0.5%)
• TOP 1.0% (-0.5%)
• New Conservatives 1.0% (nc)

Seats

• Labour 40 (-25 from election)
• National 48 (+15)
• Greens 14 (+4)
• ACT 15 (+5)
• Maori 3 (+1)

Governments

• Labour/Green 54/120
• National/ACT 63/120

Direction

• Right 42.5% (-6.0%)
• Wrong 47.5% (+5.5%)

This is the third Roy Morgan poll in a row to show a change of Government if there was an election.

The country direction is also significant at a net -5%. This has a gender gap with women being +8% and men being -19%.

Christopher Luxon has pledged to reverse the tax bracket creep of the last four years by moving each of the lower thresholds to what it would have been in adjusted for inflation. The 6% inflation we currently have is pushing more and more Kiwis into higher tax brackets.

I’ve done a table below showing how much less tax people would pay in absolute and relative terms at each income level.

The greatest percentage reduction in tax paid would be at $60,000 where inflation adjustment would see your tax bill drop 7.5%. Those on $50,000 (just above the fulltime minimum wage) would get a 4.5% reduction. Those on $150,000 get a 2.7% reduction.

The Media Council has unanimously found a column by Siouxsie Wiles in Stuff was a breach of two principles – accuracy and corrections.

She claimed that the seven signatories to the now infamous Listener letter has sent lawyers letters to junior colleagues, specifically:

 “The reason I got involved is because those professors and fellows have influence and power over people’s careers. Astonishingly, some are now intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters.”

The astonishing part is this is not true. The Council noted:

11. The complainants complained about the statement “Astonishingly, some are now intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters”. They see it as a “serious and completely inaccurate” allegation which has harmed university relationships and “seriously damaged our reputations”.  The Council agrees that the statement was inaccurate.  It appears plain that none of the named Professors were involved in intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters.

12. It is also of the view that this is a most serious allegation to make, striking at the heart of academic freedom by asserting that the Professors were trying to stifle opposing views using lawyers’ threats.  It required immediate public correction.

I hope Stuff will give this finding as much prominence as the original column. It has smeared and damaged the six surviving letter writers by portraying them as intolerant bullies, when in fact they are the ones who are the victims of intolerant bullies.