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The Herald reports:

The parents of an innocent 21-year-old man who was murdered in South Auckland after being mistaken for a rival gang member are grieving after losing a son and their main source of income, the High Court in Auckland has heard.

Two Bloods gang members behind the 2019 fatal shooting of Samiuela Anania Tupou – known as Sam – in Ōtāhuhu were today sentenced to life imprisonment.

Tupou’s family attended today’s sentencing.

Tupou was shot and killed by Tapusoa early on Saturday, May 25 at Seaside Park, while he socialised with his cousin and friends. He was wearing a blue singlet, and blue is associated with the Crips gang, but Tupou was not part of any gang.

A member of rival gang Bloods, Tapusoa was on the hunt for Crips members – known as “searching for crabs”. Tinei was driving the car.

Tupou approached the car the two men were in. He was shot in the chest, top right thigh and back. The men fled in the car as Tupou fell to ground, where he died.

So they shot him because of the colour of his skin and the colour of his singlet. Cold blooded murder.

One of the killers has previous form for wounding and injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after attacking again random strangers.

He should not be eligible for parole.

Virginia Fallon writes:

The murder of British woman Sarah Everard has highlighted the dangers women face as we go about what should be the innocuous business of walking on our own at night.

Everard disappeared after leaving a friend’s South London house about 9.30pm to walk home, a trip that should have taken about 50 minutes. London police officer Wayne Couzens has been charged with the 33-year-old’s murder and kidnapping, and the crime has sparked an international outcry about the abuse and danger faced by women who dare to walk alone.

The murder was horrific, and it has been great to see so many speak up to demand change. It is sad and even disgusting that women in many areas have to fear being out at night by themselves.

UK Green Party member Jenny Jones even called for a 6pm curfew for men, which isn’t the worst idea

By saying it isn’t the worst idea, this is an implicit endorsement implying it has some merit.

The case is that as men are responsible for a disproportionate share of violent crimes against women, then the way you make it safer for women is to not allow men out at night.

Now if you are one of those who cheer that sentiment, how would you feel if it was changed from one demographic overly represented in violent crime stats to another?

If someone suggested a 6 pm curfew for Maori New Zealanders because they are responsible for a disproportionate share of violent crimes, it would rightfully be howled down and seen as repugnant.

So maybe the answer isn’t targeting people on a demographic they have no control over, but targeting the actual causes of such crimes.

Stats NZ reports:

Gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 1.0 percent in the December 2020 quarter, following a revised 13.9 percent increase in the September 2020 quarter, Stats NZ said today. …

GDP declined 2.9 percent over the year to December 2020, the largest annual fall ever in GDP for New Zealand. 

Could have been a lot worse but the largest ever drop means many businesses and families have had a big drop in income.

Stuff reports:

The Government is taking control of water fluoridation from councils and giving it to health director general Ashley Bloomfield.

Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall announced the policy on Wednesday, dusting off a long dormant bill from the National government that was to give fluoridation power to local district health boards (DHBs).

She will amend that bill so it will instead give the power to the director general of health, who is currently Bloomfield.

It is unthinkable that the DG of Health would not decide that water should be fluoridated, so this will mean all Council water supplies will be fluoridated. I’m fine with that. If people don’t want fluoride in their water, they can stick in a water tank and catch their own water.

TVNZ report:

Jerome Dean, 21, made a brief appearance in the High Court at Auckland via audio-visual link this morning.

Entering his plea, he said he was taking responsibility for his actions and he did not mean to kill his baby, Thalia Samson-Dean.

Thalia died in Middlemore Hospital on 13 April, 2020, during the first nationwide Covid-19 lockdown.

According to an agreed summary of facts released to RNZ, Dean was at home in Papatoetoe with the rest of his family on the night of Thalia’s death.

Dean was trying to settle Thalia and became angry that she would not stop crying.

“He wanted to be the type of father who could settle his baby and was frustrated that he could not, suspecting that this meant Ms Kumu [the baby’s mother] may have cheated on him and that Thalia was therefore not his child,” the court documents said.

Trust me, not being able to stop a baby crying has nothing to do with DNA. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been unable to settle either Ben or Sam when they were babies. Sometimes have even loaded them into the car at 2 am to try and get them to sleep. Not even that worked always.

Dean then assaulted his daughter.

“He struck her at least five to six times with a closed fist, striking Thalia with the base of his hand in a ‘thumping’ motion. He later told police that he had used seven to eight out of 10 force, similar to ‘jabbing’ an adult in a boxing match,” the court documents said.

My God, that is horrific.

Looks I can understand the frustration. At times I have shouted in rage. I’ve sometimes had to call my partner in while I go outside for five minutes. At my worst I punched a wall. A screaming baby is not easy. But the though of punching a baby, let alone at a force in a boxing match is horrific.

And this case sounds like he was punching her not so much out of frustration, but because he thought she wasn’t his.

An awful case.

A guest post by Owen Jennings:

The cow has become a much maligned beast of late.  She makes our rivers unswimmable, puts nitrogen in our drinking water, pugs the ground causing erosion and farts and belches poisonous Greenhouse Gases into the atmosphere.  No wonder people don’t want to eat her bountiful products anymore.

Of course, most of that, if not all, is blatantly untrue but it makes for selling copy, keeping well paid academics in their job and the green lobby groups’ coffers filled.

Take the bit about farting and belching.  The story goes that cows emit Methane as they chew their cud.  Methane is a potent Greenhouse Gas.  Greenhouse Gases trap heat in the atmosphere and warm our planet.  The story concludes it is going to get so hot we are all going to die.  Leaves Baldacci and Grisham in the dust.

Now for some balance.  Farms use huge amounts of CO2.  Dr Bradley Case at AUT found farms take in about 90% of the Greenhouse Gas they emit in the woody vegetation and trees alone on the farm. That’s not counting the grass which uses even more CO2 in photosynthesis.  Farms are a net sink.

NIWA tell us that farms use significant amounts of CO2 and of the amount used to grow grass, just 1% gets emitted by Dolly and Betsy as Methane.  Yes, 1%!!  Wow!  Not a lot of people know that.  Those of us who emit CO2 driving our SUV’s down the highway should be thanking the farmers for hogging so much of this dreadful gas.  We are not part of a natural cycle like a farm.  Dolly and Betsy deserve a medal not a meat axe.

In fact, we are paying people to plant trees to sequester CO2 so why are we not paying the farmers for their valuable work sucking up the same Greenhouse Gas?  We are even taking good, high quality land out of livestock production solely motivated by subsidies, planting trees when we have no idea whether they will be a viable proposition in 25 years time and when we could be churning out meat and milk producing export revenue and jobs right now.  That is crazy economics.

What about that 1% emitted Methane?  NIWA, MfE, the Climate Commission and a bunch of others rush to tell us that Methane is so much more potent than CO2 so Dolly and Betsy are a problem even at 1%.  However a closer look at this potency claim shows something rather disturbing.  The formula they all use backing this claim is simply inaccurate, unjust and outdated.  The formula is kept alive by the more extreme “warmists” who desperately need the “bad Betsy, bad Dolly” story to support their gloom and doom meme.

This formula called the GWP 100 was born in frustration and great hurry.  Back in 1990 the IPCC politicians badly wanted to be able to compare the various Greenhouse Gases in some simple way.  Their scientists fought against the notion saying comparing CO2 and Methane was a “apples and onions” comparison.  The politicians pushed on and a rough and ready deal was struck.  One of the scientists involved, Dr Keith Shine says it was an “accident of birth”.   Another scientist, Dr Myles Allen, probably the world’s leading authority on the formula now says it is “not fit for purpose”.  He and a group of Oxford University scientists have put together an alternative and it effectively reduces the potency factor by 400%.

So, amazingly Betsy’s bad breath is actually only a quarter as bad as claimed.  That is a massive difference.  It changes our whole climate change mitigation plans, dramatically.  In New Zealand’s situation it is crucial.  Using the old, discredited formula will mean our farmers have to meet tough mitigation costs.  Applying the better science means no mitigation is required because the currently falling Methane emissions – they have been falling for nearly a decade – will allow us to meet the Paris Accord goals.

The irony is that science is based on continuous improvement.  A theory is held on to only until a new, well researched and substantiated one emerges and is adopted. 

Scientists, including our own Dr Andy Reisinger, Dr Jock Allison, Dr Doug Edmeades and others are strongly in favour of the use of the updated formula but no one is listening.  There is none so deaf as those who don’t want to hear.

You might think that our Government and our leaders in Climate science would want the best outcome for New Zealand.  You would hope that they would be batting for our interests where at all possible.  It is what most countries do.  So why not lead the charge to have the latest science adopted by other Methane producing countries and then adopted by the IPCC.  We could even forgive Mr James Shaw if he flew around the world, emitting CO₂, signing up support for such a sensible and robust approach.

The even weirder thing is that Methane as a Greenhouse Gas is a minnow.  It is so trivial and insignificant it couldn’t do anything worth worrying about no matter how powerful one considers it to be.  Slip outside and take a big breath – 99.6% is NOT a Greenhouse Gas.  Just 0.00018% is Methane.  There is 8,000 times more moisture in that gulp of air than there is Methane.  Of that minute Methane trace, Dolly and Betsy – the world’s ruminants, including those in the wild – are responsible for about 14%.   Rice paddies and landfills produce more.   

What does 14% of 0.00018% look like?  It is about one tenth of teaspoon compared to an Olympic sized swimming pool of 2.5 million litres.  Would you seriously claim 10% of a teaspoonful of something, no matter how powerful, could do anything in a large swimming pool?

And we are getting ourselves in a lather over this 10% of a teaspoon by cutting it by 1.6% per year (the Climate Commission’s recommendation) as though that might be something meaningful and kind.  Really?? 

Meanwhile China commissioned its fourth new coal fired power station for this week alone.

Time for a rain check on our collective sanity, surely?

Spare Dolly.    

The Herald reports:

In a briefing to Police Minister Poto Williams, Assistant Commissioner Richard Chambers noted an increase in gang-related violence in the Counties Manukau police district, with violent clashes linked to tensions between members of the Tribesmen MC and Killer Beez gangs.

Worsening gun violence linked to gang turf wars, illicit drugs and the insidious cancer of organised crime has left more than 350 people with firearms injuries across Auckland in five years.

I’m staggered that there have been (at least) 350 shootings in Auckland.

Maybe the Government should so something like, well, take firearms off gangs.

A guest post by Robert MacCulloch:

A post on Kiwiblog recently took a swipe at one of my colleagues, Tim Hazledine, who wrote an opinion piece in the NZ Herald called “Why the transtasman income gap is larger than it appears”. Hazeldine’s says that “the Australia / NZ income gap is actually larger than it appears. It’s not just that we earn less, it’s also that when we spend what we earn, we get less value for our money. NZ is a pricey country.”

The blog said that Hazeldine’s article “shows how he thinks of fellow Kiwis … His vision & solution is simply to be resigned to this state of affairs because Kiwis are by and large a bit lazy and don’t care”. But that line is simply not true. Here’s the evidence. Hazedline’s article seeks to explain the transtasman income gap and asks “Could it be the workers’ fault? That is, are NZ’ers, on average, lazier and / or duller than Aussies? Well, we can kick that one into touch straight away. Transtasman migration is basically free trade in people. Anyone can do it and thousands of ordinary Kiwi workers do … all quickly find themselves earning a premium of about 20% over their income from the job they left behind”. That is, Hazeldine specifically rules out an explanation that Kiwis are lazy.

Instead he puts part of the explanation down to the “different tastes” of Kiwis compared to Aussies – that is, Kiwis put great emphasis on overall quality of life. In Hazeldine’s words “We pump out less material gross domestic product than Australia (or the US) because, as a nation, at a deep cultural level, we have somewhat different priorities about what is the Good Life and how to lead it”. The Kiwiblog post characterizes this view as “pessimism”. Since when is acknowledging that different people, cultures and nationalities may have different tastes and priorities, “pessimism”?

By the way, I concur with Tim Hazeldine’s view. There is serious evidence to back it up. Kiwis report one of the highest levels of subjective well-being in the world – higher than Aussies – even though our productivity in terms of how efficiently we “pump out” GDP is lower.

What’s more, the failure of the National Party to comprehend what are the true objectives of the majority of Kiwis is a big reason why the Nats got wiped out at the last election. Good luck to them making fun of the “well-being agenda” and making disparaging comments about what Kiwis truly and deeply care about. Keep doing so and the Nats will get wiped out at the next election again. Instead the Nats should acknowledge the objective of maximizing well-being as a good one, and then show how they can do it better than Labour.

For sources, see:

Tim Hazeldine’s opinion piece:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/why-the-transtasman-income-gap-is-larger-than-it-appears/BENTJLKAJYJ2QNEIQ6ARV6GV7E/#:~:text=The%20transtasman%20income%20gap%20is%20larger%20than%20it%20appears%20because,less%20value%20for%20our%20money.

as well as the article called “Pesseconomists”at:

Stuff reports:

The US will not grant China any improvement in relations until Beijing stops its economic coercion of Australia, a senior White House official said.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has told the Chinese government that “we are not going to leave Australia alone on the field”, according to the President’s Indo-Pacific Coordinator, Kurt Campbell.

“We have made clear that the US is not prepared to improve relations in a bilateral and separate context at the same time that a close and dear ally is being subjected to a form of economic coercion,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in the first interview a senior Biden official has given to any Australian media.

Good to see. Allies should stand by each other when it comes to these issues. Allies shouldn’t suggest that it is Australia’s fault for not respecting China enough.

Stuff reports:

• Wellington’s house prices have continued to skyrocket, with first-home buyers struggling more than ever to “crack a property”.
• New data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand shows the median house price in Wellington city is up 35 per cent for the year ended February 2021, reaching $1.1 million.
• Porirua saw an even bigger increase, with median prices rising by more more than a quarter of million dollars ($273,000) to $980,000 in just one month.

Porirua used to be the cheap city to live in. Now it almost has a median price of one million dollars.

So long as the Government refuses to make meaningful changes on the supply side, prices will just continue to get worse.

Vilami Latu is believed to have killed his estranged partner and himself last week. She should still be alive.

The timeline of events shows it was preventable.

• Partner often seen by neighbours with black eyes
• Latu often seen wondering streets with a machete
• Police and other agencies notified by April 2020
• Nov 2020 – shoved a young child from a moving car. Assaulted neighbour who called the Police. Given bail to brother’s place in Pukekohe.
• Jan/Feb 2021 – breached bail conditions by travelling to partner’s house. Despite that bail not rescinded
• Mar 2021 – killed partner

He shouldn’t have been given bail in the first place and he shouldn’t have kept bail after he breached it. Someone who will throw a kid out of a moving car is an obvious danger.

The One News Colmar Brunton poll tonight has the parties at:

Labour Party: 49% (down 4%)
National Party: 27% (up 2%)
Green Party: 9% (up 1%)
ACT: 8% (nc)

In terms of seats it is little change from the election. Labour would have 62 MPs (down 3), National 34 (up 1), Greens 11 (up 1) and ACT 11 (up 1)

The Preferred PM:

Jacinda Ardern: 43% (down 15% since December 2020 poll)
Judith Collins: 8% (down 4%)
David Seymour: 4%
Christopher Luxon: 2%
Simon Bridges: 1%

Image from One News. Enter captions in the comments – funny, not nasty.

My initial degree was Economics and although I would never call myself an “Economist” I think I can a least understand enough to critique nonsense from those in that discipline. In New Zealand we have a lot of that but the worst trait is the pessimism. If some of these people have their ideas taken seriously – or have much influence – that pessimism risks being self-fulfilling prophecy. Our young people, especially, deserve better.

A baseline for optimism about the world to which our country belongs is the 2018 book Factfullness (Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world and why things are better than you think) by the late Hans Rosling. Connected to that is the brilliant website www.gapminder.org Both detail the incredible improvements in the human condition over time … and how that is accelerating.

There is abundant information that, despite glitches, this is the best time ever to be growing up and there is every reason to envision and plan for a future we can only be optimist about. Improving productivity, opening up land for housing in NZ, using new technologies to solve old and/or persistent problems. Instead of whining or being satisfied with status quo these qualified people should be creating a 25 year vision to see our nation and the broad demographics within it … leading the world.

Here is one example. Shamubeel Eaqub in an article titled Do young people have it tougher than their parents did? he acknowledges that many things are cheaper, but housing is tough. Then, instead of creative economic solutions, he simply fuels the interage-rage.

“Realistically, for the average young person today, no amount of regular and disciplined saving will give them the same access to homeownership and housing costs. For that, young people need to get politically active. The political narrative is still focussed on and for baby boomers. Until the younger generation’s issues become the dominant political issues, nothing will change.”

So – don’t seek the highest paid, highest skilled jobs. Don’t be an entrepreneur and/or innovate around things NZ and the world needs. Don’t go overseas for a while (or for life) to a higher paid economy. And, especially, according to Eaqub, don’t save – it is a forlorn method – wait until you can simply control the vote and smash the oldies.

Another is University of Auckland economist Tim Hazledine who shows how he thinks of fellow kiwis in an article titled: Why the transtasman income gap is larger than it appears. He acknowledges that at present New Zealanders earn significantly less than people in comparable countries but pay a lot more for most things.

“The Australia/New Zealand income gap is actually larger than it appears. It’s not just that we earn less, it’s also that when we spend what we earn, we get less value for our money. New Zealand is a pricey country.”

His vision and solution is simply to be resigned to this state of affairs because Kiwis are by and large a bit lazy and don’t care. According to Hazeldine we “want” to earn less and pay more. I’m not kidding.

“You can probably see by now where this is going. If we all pay too much for just about everything, then it must be because that’s what we all want to do: an inevitable complement to the easy-going life on the production front.”

They are both wrong in their outlook and neither get you charged up to make a difference from such pessimism. One education example shows how a different approach can work. My first teaching job was from 1991-96 at Tauranga Boys College under the superb leadership of Graeme Young. During the last ten years it has been led by another fabulous Principal in Robert Mangan. Both men led/lead with optimism and vision. I have watched the school with massive respect over the years since I left.

In an article on possible solutions to improve Maths teaching in New Zealand I read this:

“Maths was very much alive at Warner Cowin’s house when he was growing up.

In fact Cowin, who is of Ngāti Porou and Pākehā descent, had the perfect maths situation – his mother is a secondary school maths teacher, his father a plumber who used maths in practical applicaton in his job as a plumber.

The Māori entrepreneur went to a school, Tauranga Boys College, that expected academic, sporting and personal achievement from its students. Because his reading wasn’t great, he gravitated towards science and mathematics.”

Three other recent graduates from that school? Kane Williamson, Sam Cane and Peter Burling.

Cr Fleur Fitzsimons in her recent guest post said that there is no bloc or coven against Mayor Foster lamenting the demise of Justin Lester, and that different Crs often vote different ways.

I thought it would be interesting to look at some data on this, so I went through the votes at their recent long-term plan meeting. There were 41 non-unanimous votes. I’ve compiled two tables. The first is how often a Cr was in the majority, and the second is how often each Cr voted with each other Cr.

Here is how often each Cr was on the “winning” side:

• Cr Laurie Foon 95%
• Deputy Mayor Sarah Free 85%
• Cr Jenny Condie 80%
• Mayor Andy Foster 76%
• Cr Rebecca Matthews 76%
• Cr Jill Day 73%
• Cr Fleur Fitzsimons 73%
• Cr Teri O’Neill 73%
• Cr Tamatha Paul 71%
• Cr Iona Pannett 68%
• Cr Malcolm Sparrow 61%
• Cr Sean Rush 56%
• Cr Diane Calvert 46%
• Cr Simon Woolf 44%
• Cr Nicola Young 43%

So Cr Foon is most likely to be in the majority followed by DM Free. Mayor Foster is in the majority 75% of the time. Cr Calvert, Woolf and Young most likely to be in the minority.

This shows how often each Cr voted with other Crs at that meeting. Taking them in turn we have:

• Mayor Foster most often votes with Cr Condie at 85% and DM Free at 80%. Least often votes with Cr Pannett and Cr Paul.
• Cr Calvert votes with Cr Woolf 93% of the time and Cr Young 84%. Least often with Cr Pannett at 15% and Crs Day, Fitzsimons and O’Neill
• Cr Condie most often votes with Mayor Foster at 85% and DM Free at 80%. Least often with Cr Pannett at 49% and Cr Paul at 51%
• Cr Fitzsimons votes 100% with Crs Day and O’Neill and 98% Crs Paul and Matthews and 95% Cr Pannett. Votes least at 14% with Cr Young and 17% Cr Woolf.
• Cr Foon votes most at 80% with DM Free and Cr Matthews and least with Cr Young at 38%
• DM Free votes most with Mayor Foster, Cr Condie and Cr Foon at 80%. Least with Cr Pannett at 54% (interesting as both are Greens)
• Cr Matthews votes 98% with Crs Day, Fotzsimons and O’Neill and 95% Cr Paul and 93% Cr Pannett. Votes least at 16% with Cr Young and 20% Cr Woolf.
• Cr O’Neill votes 100% with Crs Day and Fitzsimons and 98% Crs Paul and Matthews and 95% Cr Pannett. Votes least at 14% with Cr Young and 17% Cr Woolf.
• Cr Pannett votes 98% with Cr Paul, 95% with Crs O’Neill, Day and Fitzsimons and 93% Cr Matthews. She votes 8% with Cr Young
• Cr Paul votes 98% with Crs Pannett, Fitzsimons, Day and O’Neill and 95% Cr Matthews.
• Cr Rush votes 71% with Mayor Foster and 70% Cr Young. Least is Crs Day, Fitzsimons, O’Neill and Pannett at 29%
• Cr Sparrow votes 76% with the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Cr Condie. Least is 34% with Cr Pannett
• Cr Woolf votes most with Cr Calvert at 93% and Cr Young 89%. Least with Cr Pannett at 12%
• Cr Young votes most with Cr Woolf at 89% and Cr Calvert at 84%. Least with Cr Pannett at 8% and Cr Paul at 11%

There are five Councillors who did vote together between 95% and 100% of the time on the long-term plan votes. It may be different for other votes.

Stuff reports:

Justice Minister Kris Faafoi says the Government has no intention of pushing forward with cannabis decriminalisation – but his party would allow their MPs to vote freely on the matter if it came up as a members’ bill.

This opens up a narrow path for some form of decriminalisation of cannabis, despite the narrow loss for legalisation at last year’s referendum.

Faafoi made his comments after a new poll showed some form of decriminalisation had strong majority support – with 49 per cent backing full legalisation and 20 per cent backing just decriminalisation.

Which reinforces the tactical error by the Greens in demanding the referendum be on legalisation, not decriminalisation. You achieve sustainable change by smaller moves.

We saw this with same sex marriage. Doing civil unions first, paved the way for same sex marriage.

It is unlikely that a Labour member would put up a members’ bill on the issue given the party’s position on “respecting the referendum” – but any other MP could also put a bill forward, in a hope to win over 61 MPs in the 120-seat Parliament and change the law.

Indeed, under new rules for this Parliament such a bill could skip the “balloting” for members’ bills if an MP could gather the support of 61 MPs who aren’t ministers or parliamentary under-secretaries.

This is pretty hard to achieve. The distribution of non-exec MPs is:

• Labour 39
• National 33
• ACT 10
• Greens 8
• Maori 2

Even if every Labour, Greens and Maori non-exec MP was in favour that only gets you 49 MPs. You need another 12 from National and ACT. And I doubt you’d get every Labour MP.