Whoopi Goldberg sparked a deserved backlash when she said the Holocaust was not about race or racism, but was just about white guys vs white guys.

The video below is a great explanation of why anti-semitism is about race, not religion. Some key points:

• Nazis didn’t care at all about if Jews were observant, it was purely about bloodline. Atheist Jews were killed as much as devout Jews.
• The Nuremberg laws were racial purity laws
• Jews are seen as “white” or “non-white” depending on the politics of the observer
• For centuries, far right and others have not seen Jews as part of the white races
• More recently the far left sees Jews as “super white” because many Jews are successful
• The Holocaust was not about two white groups fighting. It was about one race being marked out for destruction using a military industrial regime.

Hamish Rutherford reports:

Customers who need emergency loans, say for car repairs or medical bills, are discovering the process is so lengthy and uncertain, one banking figure said, that they are better off going to high-interest payday lenders.

If that seems ironic, it might be topped. One banking figure said he had heard examples of a customer wanting to consolidate their borrowing with loan sharks into a personal loan with a bank, but being told the bank could not approve the loan because of the CCCFA.

So the Government says the CCCFA was designed to protect people from loan sharks, but because they didn’t listen to the multiple warnings it was too wide, it now may end up driving people from banks to loans sharks!

These extracts from John Campbell interviewing Poto WIlliams are priceless.

Stuff reports:

More than 3450 submissions were received by the council, of which 77 per cent supported the council’s position that any new entity should be kept accountable to the public through elected council representatives.

More than 2000 people were also independently polled, with 67 per cent of respondents also supporting the council’s position.

So two thirds of Aucklanders oppose the Government’s plans to remove water assets from the control of Councils and place them with regional entities that will be almost immune to public accountability.

Stuff reports:

Nothing is off the table, including rent controls, as Government officials search for ways to help people struggling with the cost of accommodation, Associate Housing Minister Poto Williams says.

“I’ve charged our officials at HUD (Ministry of Housing and Urban Development) to go away and look at what are the options we can put in, in the short term, to support our renters,” she told Breakfast on Thursday.

“We’ve asked the officials to come back with a list next week of things that we can look at. There is nothing off the table,” Williams said.

“There are a whole lot of proposals that are being floated at the moment, including things like rent control and indexation. There are other things that I’ve asked our officials to look at.”

They’re looking at daft stuff which would reduce the supply of rental housing. They’re not looking at their own role in driving rental prices up by imposing massive extra costs and compliance on landlords.

Newshub reports:

Mounting political pressure is not the reason pregnant journalist Charlotte Bellis was offered an emergency MIQ spot, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson says.

That whopper would make Pinocchio’s nose reach the moon.

Yes it had nothing to do with the fact the story dominated NZ news media for several days, was reported in scores of countries around the world, and the outrage from fellow Kiwis that a New Zealander was being forced to give birth in Afghanistan instead of New Zealand.

Instead Grant would have us believe, they merely rechecked the paperwork and found she qualified after all.

The Government has finally accepted the inevitable, and announced dates for reopening the border. But they have done this twice before, and then reneged, so these should be treated more as aspirational targets than certainties. But for what they are worth, the details are:

1. 28 February – NZ citizens in Australia can return without MIQ
2. 13 March – NZ citizens anywhere can return without MIQ
3. April – Visa holders such as international students and skilled migrants can enter without MIQ
4. July – citizens from visa-waiver countries such as Australia, US, UK can enter without MIQ
5. October – anyone eligible to enter New Zealand and enter without MIQ

Those entering NZ will still need to self-isolate for seven days, and take a RAT on day 1 and on day 6.

Newshub reports:

The Government’s proposed income insurance scheme would see workers made redundant, laid off or who have to stop working because of a health condition or disability, receive 80 percent of their usual salary for up to seven months.

It would include a four-week notice period and four-week payment, paid at 80 percent of salary, from employers. The worker would then get a further six months of financial support from the scheme, including support for training, also at 80 percent of salary.

However, the maximum payment would be capped at 80 percent of $130,911, in line with the maximum leviable income that ACC has in place.

To pay for it, the Government is proposing an ACC-style fund that both workers and employers would contribute to, paying about 1.39 percent each into the scheme. It would be administered by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). 

This is a terrible policy.

Every working New Zealander will have their take home pay drop (at a time when inflation is rocketing) to fund this scheme which could see someone who loses their job paid $60,000 to stay home and do nothing for half a year.

People will get paid up to $400 a day to not look for a job.

Georgina Campbell reports:

Wellington City Council is looking at a 9.1 per cent rates increase this year.

It comes on the back of interest rate hikes, inflation hitting a 30-year high, and a 13.5 per cent rates increase last year. The latest rates hike was revealed at an Annual Plan workshop yesterday.

While Mayor Andy Foster was sympathetic to the squeeze on budgets, he told the Herald that last year Wellingtonians were “absolutely emphatic” they wanted the council to invest in the city.

Sympathy doesn’t allow households to pay the bills.

WCC has made decisions to spend over $100 million of a second music venue and tens of millions on a convention centre that will be a massive loss maker. They are treating ratepayers as an unlimited source of funds.

The Campaigns Manager at the Taxpayers’ Union is heading overseas after many years of stunningly good work fighting for lower taxes, less waste and more transparency in Government.

If you are interested in replacing him, the job advert is here. The key skills are:

• Communication
• Media savvy
• Digital competency
• Organisational skills
• Management
• Networking
• Political Interest

The Taxpayers’ Union is based in Wellington, with a second office in Auckland. The team is small (7-8 staff) and skews young. We take pride in punching above our weight, and being hungry, nimble, and responsive to the 15,000 small dollar donors who make our work possible.

In an increasingly polarised political landscape you’ll need a thick skin to deal with the haters, but will be rewarded with a fun, fast-paced workplace that values creativity and humour and hones your effectiveness as a communicator and team leader.

Above all, you’ll be fighting for a cause of virtue: protecting hard-working taxpayers from the grasping hands of the state and championing the small-government values that have seen New Zealand ranked as one of the world’s most free economies.

Matt Burgess writes:

The Reserve Bank has no statutory mandate for climate change. Yet, since Orr’s arrival in 2018, the Reserve Bank has become virtually fixated on the issue. Its most recent annual report has three times more references to climate change than inflation.

And inflation is now at double the maximum level the Reserve Bank agreed to keep it to.

The Reserve Bank’s response to Covid has been nothing short of a catastrophe.

Once the scale of the threat from Covid became clear in March 2020, the Reserve Bank responded with “quantitative easing”. It printed money.

Between March 2020 and July 2021, the bank used its Large-Scale Asset Purchase programme to buy $54 billion of government bonds. It poured tens of billions of dollars into the economy.

The bank ran the programme for too long. When it finally switched off the printing presses, unemployment had been depressed to record lows, wages and consumer prices soared, and inflation expectations increased. Already-high property prices soared by more than 30 per cent in a single year.

The Reserve Bank overcooked the economy, and now inflation is nearly triple the target inflation rate of 2 per cent.

Do not believe those who say the high inflation is mainly due to international factors.

Today, the Official Cash Rate is 5 per cent below inflation, an unprecedented position since at least 1985 and probably in this country’s history.

The OCR and interest rates may have to raise to brutal levels.

High land and house prices will multiply the pain of rising interest rates. Average house prices across the country recently passed $1 million, an incredible figure. The average Auckland home now costs $1.7m. For anyone with a $1m mortgage, each 1 per cent rise in interest rates will cost $200 per week. Higher interest rates will send some households and businesses to the wall.

So if interest rates go up 3%, then they’ll be paying a massive $600 a week more.

Alexandra Birt writes:

There is no denying that MIQ was an integral part of keeping COVID-19 largely out of New Zealand, and that it has saved many lives. There is also no denying that MIQ was always going to require sacrifice, most notably from those separated from family.

In return for that sacrifice, though, Grounded Kiwis expected the system to be fair. They expected it to be proportionate. They expected that in an emergency, their government would have their back.

A fair system would prioritise pregnant women over British DJs. A fair system would prioritise people with dying relatives over sports teams.

Grounded Kiwis receives daily messages daily from individuals who have been declined, and are desperate for support. Not all of these stranded Kiwis are pregnant in Afghanistan, but plenty have funerals to attend, serious mental health impacts, children due to start school this week, ageing whānau to care for, mortgages they are struggling to pay, jobs they are waiting to start, partners they are separated from, or pensions they’re about to lose.

If someone had described this to Kiwis in 2019, we never would have believed that New Zealand, which prides itself on kindness and compassion, would implement such a brutal system. Yet it has, and many Kiwis have simply turned a blind eye because it doesn’t affect them, or worse, have decided the best response is to lash out on social media against their fellow Kiwis, even against the most vulnerable.

It is brutal, and it has exposed the nasty side of many New Zealanders.

Charlotte’s story has helped to bring New Zealand’s border policy to the attention of the world. The Guardian, ABC News, Washington Post, and BBC, among others, have picked up the story. We can only hope that this international pressure will hasten the re-opening of our border. Even if self-isolation on arrival is introduced, New Zealand will still have some of the most stringent border settings in the OECD.

It’s simple. If you are a New Zealand citizen and you have been fully vaccinated and test negative for Covid-19 just prior to departure, you should be able to come home and self-isolate. If it was good for James Shaw, it is good enough for all New Zealanders.

The December 2021 Roy Morgan is out.

Party Vote

• Labour 35.5% (-0.5% from November)
• National 31.5% (+5.0%)
• Greens 8.5% (-2.0%)
• ACT 18.5% (+1.0%)
• Maori 1.0% (-2.0%)
• NZ First 2.0% (-0.5%)

Seats

• Labour 45 (-20 from election)
• National 40 (+7)
• Greens 11 (+1)
• ACT 23 (+13)
• Maori 1 (-1)

Governments

• Labour/Green 56/120
• National/ACT 63/120

Direction

• Right 42.5% (-3.5%)
• Wrong 44.5% (nc)

This is the first poll since the 2020 election that shows National and ACT able to form a Government.

The net country direction has gone negative for the first time in 13 years or so. In the beginning of 2021 it was a massive +54% and ends the year on -2%.

The Herald reports:

Bellis said they had recently received an email from MIQ inviting them to apply under a different category.

“The category being that there’s a serious risk to our safety, as opposed to ‘we need medical treatment’,” she said.

“I don’t know why we’re debating clauses, when nothing has changed in our application.

“The fact of the matter is, I’m a citizen, I pay taxes, I pregnant and I’m in a dangerous situation. Why am I jumping through hoops, you’ve already got all the information.”

At least four people have offered to give up their spots in MIQ for Bellis, but the system does not allow for any swapping of allocations.

A second country has also reportedly offered Bellis refuge.

If a John Key Government had locked pregnant Kiwis out of New Zealand, forcing them to consider giving birth in places like Afghanistan, the entire left would be melting down in fury. The Human Rights Commission would be denouncing the Government in the loudest terms. Every union would be up in arms. There would be street marches led by Labour and Green MPs.

But when Labour does it, so many of them fall silent. Has anyone heard from the Human Rights Commission on this? Have the Greens peeped a word?

Stuff’s Keith Lynch has some really useful data showing hospitalisation rates for both Delta and Omicron Covid, and the impact of vaccination and also a booster. There’s data for different age groups.

Take me. I’m aged 54. If I got Delta and was unvaccinated there was a 1 in 12 chance it would be so serious I would need to go to hospital.

For Omicron, if unvaccinated the chance of needing hospitalisation is 1 in 36. That’s still pretty high.

I’m currently fully vaccinated. That has reduced my hospitalisation chance to 1 in 100. That’s a lot better.

Later today I get my booster. This reduces my chance of hospitalisation to 1 in 350.

If you’re over 75, the chances of hospitalisation is:

• Delta unvaccinated 1 in 2
• Omicron unvaccinated 1 in 5
• Omicron vaccinated 1 in 14
• Omicron booster 1 in 50

And for a 25 year old:

• Delta unvaccinated 1 in 80
• Omicron unvaccinated 1 in 240
• Omicron vaccinated 1 in 1,000
• Omicron booster 1 in 3,300

HDPA writes:

The story starts last year. Private businesses wanted to import RATs into New Zealand. Much of the rest of the world was already using them. In the UK, school children were testing themselves with RATs twice a week. They were being handed out in packs of seven for free.

But our Government refused to bring them in. Ashley Bloomfield slapped a ban on the importation of RATs to make sure it couldn’t happen.

First they banned them.

In late November, Omicron was in Australia. By December, private businesses here could see the disruption it was causing or going to cause over the Tasman. They could also see it wouldn’t be long before it arrived in New Zealand.

And so they started ordering RATs. They knew they needed RATs to screen their workers regularly to keep Omicron out of their worksites as much as possible. Too many sick workers would shut the shop. The RATs were clearly going to be critical to keeping business going.

They got themselves prepared.

So private businesses two months ago were ordering in RATs because they could see the future and plan ahead.

Then around two weeks ago the bad news started coming in. Orders were being cancelled. In some cases the orders had already been paid for. Businesses were told they wouldn’t be receiving the RATs. The Ministry of Health had overridden their orders and taken their stocks.

The reason the ministry did that was because they hadn’t placed their own orders in sufficient quantities.

Truly appalling behaviour.

Terrance Berryman is a Mongel Mob leader. His father had some sort of road rage incident with another motorist.

Berryman tracked down the other driver and turned up to his place with 17 other gang members.

In front of the man’s partner and three children they beat him so badly he had a traumatic brain injury, a fractured skull, a deep skull laceration and a burst eardrum.

For leading such a brutal attack, he got a paltry 23 months sentence.

TVNZ has published the approval ratings from their January poll. They are:

• Jacinda Ardern: 52% approve, 37% disapprove, +15% net approval
• Christopher Luxon, 42% approve, 20% disapprove, +22% net approval

Both are positive ratings, but rare for an Opposition Leader to score higher than an incumbent Prime Minister.

15 months ago Ardern was at +55%, so a large drop (from a high base) over the last year.