NewstalkZB reports:

New Zealand’s border personnel will be vaccinated against Covid-19 within three weeks of the first immunisation shipment reaching our shores, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

But the country’s borders are likely to remain closed to most of the world for the rest of the year, as reopening them poses “too great a risk to our health and economy”.

Remember how they were talking travel bubbles with the Pacific and Australia in the first quarter of this year!

Spiked reports:

‘Freeze peach!’ That has long been the mocking, infantile cry of the middle-class left whenever anyone complains about clampdowns on freedom of speech. There is no ‘free-speech crisis’, radicals insist. No Platforming right-wingers on university campuses is not censorship – it’s just students freely choosing not to associate with people who have horrible views. And alt-right types being turfed off Twitter and Facebook is not censorship, either – that’s just private companies enforcing their terms and conditions. (Who knew lefties were so supportive of private property rights?)

Will these censorship deniers change their tune now that the left itself is coming under censorious attack? Amazingly, probably not. But perhaps there will be a smidgen of self-reflection. Some of the left-wing architects and cheerleaders of contemporary censorship, including Britain’s Socialist Workers Party, which has backed the No Platform policy for decades, are now being No Platformed themselves. ‘This is a disgrace!’, they cry, which would be funny if censorship were not so serious. These people helped to build the infrastructure of modern censorship, with its determination to crush ‘hate speech’ and ‘offensive’ views, and now they’re shocked to find themselves falling victim to it? Have they not read any history books at all?

On Friday, the SWP, one of the largest left-wing organisations in the UK, was taken off Facebook. The party’s own page was removed and so were the pages of dozens of SWP activists. The SWP described FB’s actions as a ‘silencing of political activists’. They’re right. This was a unilateral act of ideological censorship carried out by the capitalist elites of Silicon Valley against a perfectly legal party based in the UK. It demonstrated the terrifying power of the Big Tech oligarchy, which clearly has no respect whatsoever for borders, territory or democratically made national laws and feels that it can reach into any nation state it chooses and switch off the oxygen of publicity to any party, group or individual it disapproves of. The attack on the SWP was indeed a disgrace, and it’s good that the SWP’s FB pages have now been restored.

But there is something spectacularly hollow about the SWP’s complaints. The SWP has played a key role in promoting No Platform policies on campus, which essentially blacklist certain groups and individuals from speaking to students …

Can only agree with Spiked that the decision by Facebook was wrong, but that there is an irony in promoters of cancel culture ended up canceled.

Tom Pullar-Strecker writes:

We would be in a better position fending off Covid-19 if the Cabinet had made a different decision when it met on August 3.

About now – nearly six months later – we could all be getting Kiwi-designed CovidCards through the post, which people would wear to help contact tracers track down close contacts in the event of an outbreak.

The Government would then be facing another tough choice; should it require everyone wear the cards immediately, or only at times and in places where there had been community transmission of the virus?

Or should wearing the cards be purely voluntary, as is the case with the tools provided by the existing Covid Tracer app?

As it stands though, none of those options are available to it.

Instead, we are crossing our fingers that the virus doesn’t breach MIQ, with many of us fretting about the low take-up of the Covid Tracer app and ruing human nature.

A card which automatically use bluetooth to register which other cards are nearby would have been a far superior option. Very few people are still regularly scanning in to places they visit.

The CovidCard had the advantage that everyone could use them, and they didn’t need to connect to internet or mobile networks, he noted.

But they would probably take six months to roll-out, would need to be replaced every 12 months when their batteries died, and would probably cost at least $163 million over two years, he said.

$163 million is a lot less than the cost of locking Auckland down again.

Stuff reports:

The chairman of the Rātana Church executive has called for the return of its own political party, rather than continuing to align with Labour.

If the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the electoral system had been followed (which was scrap Maori seats but have a lower threshold for Maori parties) then this would be a viable idea. A Ratana party that got 1.2% if the vote would get two MPs.

He said it was time for Rātana to reinstate its political independence again.

“We have lost our grip and our way and our own political legacy, that being the Rātana Independent Party, [and] the time should come again that the Rātana Independent Party be reinstated so it is no longer suffocated under the history of Labour and the tendency to silence the Māori voice for the sake of the mainstream.”

But hey Labour make Kelvin Deputy Leader even though they don’t trust him to be Deputy PM.

Stuff reports:

A housing affordability report released by the OECD organisation of developed nations has ranked New Zealand top for unaffordable housing for its poorest families.

The OECD’s Building for a Better Tomorrow report said more than half​ of people in the lowest-earning fifth​ of the workforce paid more than 40​ per cent of their disposable income on housing costs in 2019​.

And in a few weeks law changes are coming into effect that will increase rental costs further for tenants.

The OECD report said both building more state houses, and tackling overly restrictive land regulations and planning processes, were things countries could do to tackle housing affordability.

Building more state houses helps a few thousand families. Tacking land regulations and planning processes will help hundreds of thousands of families.

RNZ reports:

The National Party says the Australian government’s push to make Google share royalties with news publishers is too heavy-handed.

Australia is introducing a landmark law to make Google, Facebook and potentially other tech companies pay media outlets for their news content.

But Google has hit back saying it could withdraw the search engine from Australia.

The Australian proposed law is basically legalised extortion where successful Internet companies will be forced to prop up failing media companies.

National’s spokesperson for digital economy and communications Melissa Lee said the Australian model is far too heavy-handed and has chilling connotations as to how other future technological innovations could be affected for the market here.

Good to see National rule this out here. But will Labour?

Here’s what percentage of the population has been vaccinated against Covid-19 in various countries:

1. Israel 39.8%
2. UK 9.3%
3. US 6.2%
4. Denmark 3.4%
5. Slovenia 2.6%
6. Spain 2.5%
7. Ireland 2.5%
8. Sebria 2.4%
9. Portugal 2.3%
10. Italy 2.2%
11. Romania 2.2%
12. Canada 2.1%
13. Cyprus 2.0%
14. Germany 2.0%
15. Estonia 1.9%
16. Poland 1.8%
17. France 1.6%
18. Greece 1.5%
19. China 1.0%
20. Costa Rica 0.6%
21. Bulgaria 0.4%
22. New Zealand 0.0%

Stuff reports:

A man who allegedly fired shots at police needed surgery for severe injuries caused by a flashbang distraction device thrown into the car he was in.

The 30-year-old man, who has name suppression, was still in hospital as of Tuesday recovering from the surgery he had after he was detained on January 3.

He was arrested after a series of incidents in Horowhenua and Manawatū, which started after police were called to stop a man driving erratically in Foxton at 5.30pm.

Police said the driver fired a shot at an officer, which missed, before hijacking a car from Foxton Beach.

The man then drove to Feilding, where he again fired at police, before crashing into a patrol car on Kimbolton Rd​, police said.

So he twice tried to murder a police officer.

Multiple sources have since told Stuff police used a flashbang device, something acting Central district commander Inspector Nigel Allan​ confirmed on Thursday.

He described it as a “distraction device” used by the armed offenders squad.

While not confirming it was the device which caused the man’s injuries – sources told Stuff it was – Allan said it was very rare for the device to cause harm.

There are overseas reports of people being seriously hurt by flashbangs.

An investigation by ProPublica in 2015 found at least 50 people in the United States were seriously injured, maimed or killed by flashbangs since 2000.

People harmed included police officers whose hands were amputated after devices prematurely detonated, a protestor who suffered permanent hearing loss, a teen who had a flashbang thrown into a rubbish container they were hiding inside, and a 12-year-old who got first and second-degree burns when one was thrown into their room.

Allan said the device was used against the man because police had been fired at twice and believed there was further risk.

“Distraction devices are a less lethal tactical option than a firearm.”

Frankly the offender is lucky to be alive. Once you start shooting at police officers, your life expectancy will often be in the minutes.

The Police did him a favour by only using a flashbang.

The Israel Institute of New Zealand has done us a service by going into the sewers of the Internet and pulling out anti-Semitic comments from three groups. They are:

• Kia Ora Gaza
• Action Zealandia
• Aotearoa Standing With Palestine

They point out:

To show how similar the anti-Israel and White Supremacist antisemitism is, we have put together a little quiz. See if you can correctly identify where each statement came from.

Go do the quiz and see how many you get right. I only got 11/23. Post your scores back here.

Some of the comments are:

• They’re all Jews running the USA into the swamp for the greater plan.
• Zionist Jews are really bastards, they are worse than animals.
• We can’t expect anything else from a shitrace of murdering thieves.

A guest post by Owen Jennings:

Over the month of January I have had occasion to travel the length of New Zealand from the Bay of Islands in the north to Invercargill in the south.  In between lots of criss-crossing and visiting places large and small.  We did narrow gravel roads and main highways.  As a retired farmer I looked with interest to see what is happening in the light of claims of environmental disaster, imminent catastrophe and chaos.

Several issues became apparent.

The obvious is that New Zealand is a beautiful country, diverse, interesting and a great place to live.  It has never been truer.

Rural New Zealand looks amazing.  For the middle of summer there is not a whiff of drought.  It is green and lush from north to south.  NIWA’s promised droughts have dried up and gone.  Hay balers are working over time storing surplus feed.  Cows look in good condition, contented and producing well. Crop yields are normal or better.  The extra CO2 in the atmosphere is being put to good use down on the farm. 

Few things are more satisfying to a dairy farmer than seeing the satiated herd lying down chewing their cud.  The certain knowledge that it took as much greenhouse gas absorbed by the growing grass as the cud chewing cows are blowing back into the atmosphere is icing on this green cake.

The climate change predicted drought areas are doing just fine and the predicted wet areas are normal.  After 50 years of so-called climate change and the warmists doing their very best to claim calamity, crippling drought, species loss and desert conditions, the countryside is a luxuriant, deep green with an abundance of food production.

Despite Green zealots and MSM fantasies our rivers are in great shape.  On numerous times we stopped over crystal-clear water, observed the stones on the bottom even where it was deep.  We watched countless families in countless spots, swimming, even in Canterbury where farmers have supposedly “wrecked” the environment.  No illnesses from swimming.  ‘Dirty rivers’ was a disgusting ploy, a political construct aimed at softening up agriculture ready to be taxed.

It snowed as we emerged from the Homer tunnel on the Milford Sound road and temperatures sat at 5 degrees overnight in Te Anau in late January.   We had several days when the temperature stayed in the low teens all day.  Other days – just normal January temperatures.  Global warming?  Give me a break. Hottest month on record??  Phooey!

Trees.  We saw thousands.  Whole areas planted in natives.  Streams bordered with manuka, flax, totara, tussocks, kowhai, toe toe and more.  Odd corners, once left in scrub now planted and adding diversity, bee havens, shelter, CO2 sequestering.  There is an abundance of aesthetic plantings – plane trees, maples, acers, liquid ambers, copper beech and golden elms adding vibrancy and colour. We also observed radiata plantings sadly in the wrong place, miles from a mill or a port but the result of misguided subsidies. 

There are untouched areas, swamps, wet areas, pakihis, Q. E. National Trust covenanted areas, generously set aside, DOC preserved remnants, kahikatea stands in the Waikato, beech forests in Canterbury, rimu in the King Country and more.  My Dad, like thousands of farmers of his time, was an unashamed developer and cleared areas of bush to create a farm but left some original cover and now the balance between production and conservation is just fine.

I called on an old Federated Farmers mate down south. We shared a few “war stories”.  He is over 80 years old but sharp as a tack.  “Predictions”, he laughed, “if I had a dollar for all the predictions about farming I have heard in 80 years I could build a bank. All of them bullshit. I have heard of dairying’s demise, meat disappearing, wool being given away, soil blown out to sea, water too polluted to use, sprays killing us, trees dying, rivers drying up and much more.  The more brains those predicting have the less sense they have.  The greener they are the more crap they talk. My grandsons have a better future than I had, doing a better job, making more money and looking after their assets – land, stock – better than I did”.   You get that sort of wisdom down south!

Climate change catastrophe, tipping points, diversity loss, spoiled environments, end of the world scenarios?  What sheer, unadulterated, perverted nonsense.  Get out from behind your plush desk in your ivory tower, elitist; visit rural New Zealand, MSM editor; get out of your classroom, teacher; start telling the truth, greenie – New Zealand is in great shape.

The Global Times reports:

China has planned to expand its network of free trade and is willing to sign more free trade agreements (FTAs) with its trade partners to jointly promote free and convenient trade and investment, Gao Feng, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce said at a regular press briefing on Thursday.

The country will boost China-Japan-South Korea FTA talks and free trade talks with Gulf Cooperation Council, Israel and Norway, while actively considering joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Gao said.

This is a promising sign. I’d like both the US and China to join TPP. Reducing tariffs benefits both exporters and consumers.

Stuff reports:

An Auckland man has been jailed for five years after he tried to buy a girl under the age of 7 for sexual exploitation.

Aaron Joseph Hutton hid behind the profile name ‘kiwipedo’ on the secretive Dark Web, where he dealt in child sexual abuse images and tried to buy a young girl.

He thought he was chatting to fellow paedophiles but unbeknownst to him, he was actually talking to agents for the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).

On Friday at the Auckland District Court, Judge Allan Roberts sentenced Hutton to five years imprisonment on a charge of attempting to deal in someone under the age of 18 for sexual exploitation and possessing 417 pieces of objectionable material.

He tried to buy a human being, a young toddler or girl so he could rape her time and time again.

I’m against the death penalty, but tempted go make an exception for him.

He described the notorious Austrian sex offender Josef Fritzl as his “hero”. Fritzl kept his own daughter as a sex slave for 24 years in a cellar in their garden and fathered seven children with her.

Sounds like he just needs some understanding and a cuddle.

Five years seems totally inadequate.

On Twitter there is an active campaign against New Zealander Chris Liddell, due to his job working for Donald Trump as Deputy Chief of Staff.

It seems to be guilt by association. He worked for (they call it enabled) a bad person so he must be a bad person.

I previously pointed out that on that basis you’d decry Jacinda Ardern as she worked for Tony Blair, whom many on the left regard as a war criminal. Trump is more of a constitutional criminal than a war criminal.

I don’t think you should get a total pass on reputational damage based on who you choose to work for, but neither should it define you. So I think it is worth looking at Liddell in more than a binary context.

First of all Lidell is not a Trumpist like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. His background is as an orthodox Republican, whose mentor was actually Mitt Romney – definitely one of the good guys.

Liddell’s main background is business, not politics. He was arguably New Zealand’s most successful corporate businessman having been a CFO at three of the largest companies in the world – International Paper, Microsoft and General Motors.

His start in US politics seems to have been in 2011 when he joined Romney’s campaign and was in charge of transition planning should Romney win. He seemed to be a standard fiscal conservative – said he wanted less regulation, less tax, less government. He wrote a book about the transition planning, which has been described as a “bible” for future transitions.

Then in 2016 he took on a similar role with the next Republican candidate, Trump. He was in charge of operations for the transition and then Trump offered him a very senior role – Assistant to the President for Strategic Initiatives. He took a salary of just $30,000 (less than the executive assistants got) and headed up the Strategic Development Group and Office of American Innovation.

Now how fair is it to criticise him for taking the job in 2017? Certainly many thought Trump would be a terrible President (like me, and I was right) but the fact of the matter is he had won the election, and he was going to be President and it is a unique opportunity to serve in the White House. The argument then was better to have competent people in the White House.

Now here is the interesting thing about his tenure in Trump’s White House, which I find fascinating. Generally it seems the White House was a terrible place to work. Every day the media had stories leaked by some staff against other staff. Trump was mercurial and people fell in and out of his favour, and this became known. There were literally thousands of stories about senior staff and controversies around them, and speculation on when they would be gone.

To the best of my knowledge, there were no stories about Liddell. Despite such terrible chaos and infighting, he somehow managed to piss no one off, and just got on with the job. He got promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff in 2018. I think it takes a rare set of abilities to navigate such a toxic environment and not get caught up with any of the factions or personalities.

After the insurrection of 6 January, it was reported that Liddell considering resigning but decided to stay on for the last 14 days as he was in charge of the transition for the outgoing administration and I think it was a fair call that his early departure would hurt the Biden Administration more than the Trump administration.

So does this mean I give Liddell a total pass for working for Trump? Not quite.

I do think it was reasonable in 2017 to give Trump a go. Many conservatives in the US supported Trump’s economic and business policies. But the big question mark was always over Trump himself and whether he was a fit person to be President.

I do think that Liddell should have exited the White House as it became clearer Trump did not have the psychology or judgment to be a fit President. The obvious time would have been once the Ukraine affair was exposed. Someone who tries to blackmail a foreign country with legally appropriated aid money, in return for manufacturing dirt on his political opponents, is not someone who should be President.

If Liddell had exited back then, I think he would be in a much better position, than he is in today. By choosing to stay for so long, he does carry some stigma from the worst things Trump did.

That is not to say that should define him. I though Helen Clark did constitutionally outrageous stuff with the Electoral Finance Act, the pledge card scandal and legislating under urgency to stop a by-election. But that doesn’t mean I view her career and achievements only by the worst things she did. I supported her in the campaign for UNDP Administrator, as I don’t believe in judging people as a binary bad/good.

So yes I think Liddell should have exited the Trump White House before he did, and there will be some justifiable stigma by not doing so. But I don’t think that should stand in the way of him making a contribution back in New Zealand. He is obviously a global talent.

There are 261 state secondary schools in New Zealand. This includes 11 designated character schools but excludes integrated and private schools that have compulsory fees.

212 are co-educational. 24 are boys only and 25 are girls only. That is 81%, 9% and 10%.

176,479 students are at co-educational schools, 27,803 at boys only schools and 25,469 at girls only schools. The average roll is 832 for a co-ed school, 1,158 for boys only and 1,019 for girls only.

Both boys and girls at single sex schools get significantly better academic results than those in co-ed schools. The data for 2019 state schools in terms of percentage of school leavers getting UE is:

• Girls single sex 55%
• Girls 43%
• Boys single sex 43%
• All 36%
• Girls co-ed 39%
• Boys 29%
• Boys co-ed 25%

There is a huge educational inequality that boys are doing massively worse at schools than girls. For every three girls that get UE only two boys will do so.

But this huge gap closes depending on type of school attended.

Boys at a single sex school are 68% more likely to get UE than those at a co-ed school while girls are 40% more likely.

Another way of looking at this is that in co-ed schools girls are 55% more likely to get UE than boys but in single sex schools only 40% more likely.

Now some of this may be decile related as single sex schools may tend to be in higher decile areas. So let’s adjust for that.

For schools in the top quintile (deciles 9 and 10) the male UE rate is 43% for co-ed and 69% for single sex. For those in the bottom quintile the male UE rate is 9% for co-ed and 37% for single sex. So almost as many boys get UE in bottom quintile single sex schools as in top quintile co-ed schools.

The difference also applies to Maori students. Maori boys in top quintile state schools get 26% UE in co-ed schools and 44% in single sex schools.

Now the purpose of this data is not to dump on co-ed schools. There are many excellent co-ed schools and I’m a big fan of parents being able to choose the school they think will be best for their kids.

But the issue is this. Many parents no longer have a choice as they do not live near a single sex school.

We have a huge educational inequality with boys falling behind girls at every level of the education system from NCEA Level 1 through to attending and passing university. This is a national disgrace and if it was the other way around, there would be weekly media stories demanding the Government do more to close the gap.

And it is clear that one thing that does close the gap is allowing boys to attend a single sex school. Boys at a single sex school achieve UE at the same rate as girls achieve overall.

But here is the problem. There has been no new state single sex boys schools since at least 2004 (as far back as recent records). The Ministry of Education only will allow new co-ed schools.

I assume this is because it is cheaper to construct one new large co-ed school than two medium sized single sex schools. But this penny pinching is coming a terrible cost to a generation of boys.

Again I am a fan of parental choice. Many co-ed schools are great and parents should be able to have a local co-ed school to attend. Co-ed schools have non-academic benefits also such as socialisation.

But more parents should also have the choice of a single sex school.

Unless we are content to widen the educational inequality gap between boys and girls, we should demand the Government allow parents a choice by reversing the ban on future single sex schools.

Maybe even have a policy that (for example) 80% of parents should live within 10 kms of both a single sex and co-ed school.

The status quo is failing. We need a brave Government that will champion giving parents choice.

Stuff reports:

The waitlist for public housing has continued its steady march upwards, with 22,409 eligible households waiting for a state or social home at the end of November.

That is a jump of about 1000 since the end of September and is a record high.

It comes as both rents and house prices are surging in a red-hot property market.

The waitlist has exploded in recent years, growing by about 8000 in the last year and more than quadrupling since the Labour-led Government was elected in 2017.

Here’s what the increase has been every year:

• 2016: +1,295
• 2017: +1,411
• 2018: +4,530
• 2019: +4,157
• 2020 (11 months) +7,540

I expect it to get even worse in 2021 as the Government continues to increase costs on landlords which sends rental prices higher.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has just become the 46th President of the United States.

It will be very interesting to see how he goes as President. Of course he won’t be a tantrum throwing toddler, so that will be a nice change. But he needs to do more than merely not being Trump.

The things I’ll be looking for how he handles things are:

1. Covid-19. Can he provide leadership that will help the US provide a better response to the lethal pandemic. I don’t expect to see much change in just a couple of months, but will there be progress by say April?
2. China. How will he manage this relationship. Now China looks to be firmly going down the path of greater authoritarianism, how will Biden respond?
3. The economy. What will be his balance of spending to help with recovering from Covid-19, but not growing debt as fast as his predecessor?
4. Bipartisanship. Can he do some deals with the GOP, and can he do it without inflaming the more progressive wing of the Democrats

The Herald reports:

An overstayer mother facing deportation is fighting to be made legal for a day so she can file an application to remain with her 5-year-old New Zealand citizen son.

Chinese national Fiona Xiao, 35, who has been here unlawfully since 2006, fears that deportation could mean a permanent separation from her child who can’t enter China under its Covid-19 border rules.

This is basically bullshit.

Xiao has had previous applications and appeals declined multiple times, but says her situation has changed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ivan is a New Zealand citizen and will not be able to go with her if she is deported because current Chinese border restriction rules bar entry to foreign nationals.

Ivan is a NZ citizen but also qualifies for Chinese citizenship as his mother is Chinese and she has not gained residency or citizenship.

Also China does not have a total ban on foreign nationals.

The bottom line is the mother is trying to use Covid-19 as a distraction.

Xiao first arrived in NZ with her father in December 2005 on a Limited Purpose Permit after having been declined visitor visas.

An INZ spokesman said LPPs were granted to allow holders to enter NZ “for an expressed purpose only” and in Xiao’s case was to visit her father’s sister.

“The LPP was granted due to concerns about the potential of overstaying,” the spokesman said.

So she has been an overstayer for 15 years and abused the LPP.

If getting pregnant means illegal overstayers can gain residency, then we’d be swamped with tens of thousands more illegal overstayers.