Election periods are always busy times for me, but this election has been by far the most crazy I can recall. In the last two months I have (in order of importance):

• Been a parent to a 10 month old and three year old
• Analysed and written up 124 polling reports for 22 different clients. Note not all of these are election or political polling.
• Posted around 250 articles to Kiwiblog
• Done around 80 posts on Patreon
• As a Director of NZTU, helped with guidance on their three campaigns on debt, tax relief and anti-wealth tax
• Done our own crowdfunded campaign over Labour’s total lack of delivery on key promises
• Done around a dozen presentations to business or sector groups on the election and potential outcomes
• Had an emergency appendectomy

Due to all this both my physical and mental health is, not surprisingly, at a low ebb. I’m beyond exhausted.

So next week after the election, I’m heading somewhere secluded for a couple of days to recharge. No laptop. No visitors. Just me and some books, so I can relax and sleep. So please don’t contact me next week, unless urgent.

At least election campaigns are only once every three years!

The Australian’s Foreign Editor, Greg Sheridan writes:

No international halo is so shabby, or so fraudulent, as that worn by New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Politically she resembles Dan Andrews. They excel in woke gesture and progressive symbolism. Their achieve­ments in real policy terms are thin or negative.

This is a judgment against the dominant narrative concerning Ardern, so let’s first acknowledge her strengths. Our Kiwi cousins go to the polls on Saturday and Ardern will likely win a second term, perhaps in coalition with the Green Party. The chief restraint of her first term, the mercurial Winston Peters’s New Zealand First Party, probably won’t make it back to parliament. Ardern has done three positive things. She has just about eradicated COVID-19. She has navigated the politics of the virus so well she stands on the brink of electoral triumph. And she responded with moral clarity and decency to the Christchurch massacre. However, she has still been a poor Prime Minister, elected almost by accident under the Byzantine protocols of her country’s eccentric electoral system, though she won far fewer votes than the National government she replaced.

This is the point I have been promoting. On almost every major issue they campaign on, they have acheieved nothing or worse.

The more total your shutdown, the more you can eradicate COVID-19. It’s then a matter of keeping your borders shut. This, incidentally, is medieval plague policy — keep everyone out and keep everyone isolated until the plague runs its course.

New Zealanders embraced this policy for the sake of getting rid of the virus. But this is not remotely comparable to the achievements of nations such as Taiwan, South Korea and to some extent Singapore, which have kept the virus under control or out altogether while also keeping their society and economy going.

A lockdown and shutdown will eliminate the virus, but also a lot of jobs. Taiwan has shown how to do it without a shutdown.

Before COVID-19, Ardern was trailing in the polls. Her list of undelivered election promises is staggering: 100,000 affordable homes promised, 600 built; homelessness to be eradicated, it increased; zero carbon emissions by 2050, emissions went up; reduce child poverty, it went up; regional public service emphasis, more public servants based in Wellington than before; light rail from Auckland airport to CBD, abandoned.

I wonder if he’s been reading Kiwiblog!

Validated by a swooning international media, unchallenged by a tepid and under-resourced local media, she has sold the narrative that her government has saved NZ. With Peters gone, and the Greens more influential, she will move left in her second term, presaging a lost decade for our beloved cousins across the ditch. One consolation: the best of them will come here.

You’re never left wondering what an Australian journalist really thinks.

The final One News Colmar Brunton poll is:

• Labour 46% (-1%)
• National 31% (-1%)
• Greens 8% (+2%)
• ACT 8% (nc)
• NZ First 3% (+1%)

I do wish they would give us a more precise number for NZ First. This could be anywhere from 2.5% to 3.4%.

The possibilities are:

• 2.5% has 1.0% MOE so support from 1.5% to 3.5%
• 3.4% has 1.1% MOE so support from 2.3% to 4.5%

Also NZ First normally do 0.8% better than the ONCB poll so there is a small but not impossible chance NZ First could make 5% if ONCB has its normal error with NZ First. Will be one to watch on election night.

The MOE on 8% is 1.7% so both Greens and ACT looks good on that poll. But again ONCB tends to have Greens 0.8% higher than they actually get and ACT 0.4% lower so ACT may end up with slightly more MPs.

Matt Shand at Stuff reports:

NZ First leader Winston Peters and high-ranking MPs were briefed about the NZ First Foundation’s expenses and activities one year before it first made headlines, Stuff can reveal, contradicting Peters’ consistent claims the foundation had nothing to do with his political party.

Stuff has seen an internal party report that, according to a source familiar with the matter, was presented to Peters in November 2018.

The report, dated 21 November 23, 2018 [sic], was written by former party president Lester Gray. It is understood that it was hand-delivered to Peters’ home mailbox in Auckland on Sunday, November 25, ahead of a meeting about the matter.

The report referenced money in NZ First Party’s Kiwibank account as well as money in the Foundation’s ASB bank account. It totalled expenses incurred by the ASB account and classed them as party costs.

This is no surprise, to put it mildly.

Invoices addressed to Winston Peters or his office were paid by the NZ First Foundation. Now this doesn’t happy by magic.

Someone in Winston’s office has to give the invoice to the Foundation and ask them to pay the bill. And it is hard to imagine that Winston’s staff were doing this behind his back!

Stuff has also seen a separate memo written by the party’s then acting treasurer, John Thorn, to the “board of directors”, dated May 5, 2017. It reveals that the foundation was originally proposed to be a “capital-protected fund”, meaning contributions would never be spent, only profits from the fund’s investments. It was originally meant to be operated “at arm’s length” from the board.

The memo states the foundation would be modelled on the National Party’s National Foundation, which is a capital-protected fund. It states: “there can be little doubt that the model is legally sound and is operated in a manner that meets all legal and ethical obligations”.

However, previous Stuff stories have revealed the New Zealand First Foundation actually operated as a party slush fund. The capital was spent on all manner of party expenses, including campaign headquarters, office furniture, wages and other campaign costs. Some donors who thought they were donating to the party were actually donating to the foundation.

My theory is that this was a con job on the board.

The board were sold the Foundation as a capital fund, like National’s. That is why they agreed to it. But then once established it turned into a slush fund receiving money and paying bills on behalf of the party, but hidden from the party’s board.

And recall the former President and Treasurer resigned over this issue – they they weren’t being given the financial information they wanted.

A guest post by Owen Jennings:

I am had it with the promises.  Parties of all persuasions trying to outbid each other with my money.  Bah humbug.

The country’s economy is in a mess.  It was in a mess before Covid.  All that Covid has done is hasten the day of reckoning and helped highlight the burgeoning debt.  But the rot was in long before that.  Bill English made a half hearted attempt to pull things together after the growing shambles left by Clark and Cullen.  But there was shambles even before Labour.

We are trying to live a five star lifestyle on a two star income.   We spend like a fat cat and earn like an alley cat.  We want the cake with all the trimmings but we can barely afford the flour and sugar.

How about hearing some honesty and realism from a politician on the hustings.  How about a pretender who stands up and admits to the real problems and offers the country a gutsy, sensible solution?  No more bribes.  No more handouts.  How about the truth?  How about a reform package that deals to the enormous problems that we keep kicking down the road?  Probity before power.  Courage and conviction before comfort and cloying.

Any takers?  No?  ACT maybe?  Or have they resorted to populist vote buying too?

Thereby lies part of the problem.  Any party or politician who promised reform of the magnitude and type required would “be gone by lunchtime”.  The MSM would crucify and then ignore.  We are so conditioned to being promised the moon we think we own it.  There is almost zero understanding of the perilous position we are in.  When you are sucking the tit you don’t want to hear the udder is dry.

What would a party with balls offer?

They would face the debt mountain and the agony that health care and superannuation are rapidly becoming unaffordable.  The change in demographics – short hand for we are getting too many oldies and not enough wealth generators – coupled with demands for more and more fancy healthcare options, has the country heading for a precipice. 

And, no, growth in GDP won’t fix it.  Our real GDP/capita is stuffed.  We don’t know how to work smart, how to achieve higher productivity, how to attract high performers as immigrants, how to figure out shifting investment from low return housing to high tech, how to create an attractive new business investment climate, how to improve the quality of our exports rather than the quantity.

How many politicians are focusing on any of the above?  Instead they are clambering over one another to build a bikeway over a vulnerable harbour bridge.  We want to give ourselves more holidays, more sick days, more guaranteed paypackets – all “nice to have” items but they are an unaffordable distraction.

We are fighting over how to get more low skilled workers into the country when we need high skilled people with capital to invest.

Poverty, homelessness, truancy, crime, drug taking and most of our social ills are dealt to by throwing a seemingly endless amount of money at them. Haven’t we learnt yet?  More money gets you more of what you already have, not less. Good physicians treat causes, not symptoms.

We are becoming a nation of low performing advisors.  Politicians from central Government to community boards cannot make decisions any more.  They don’t have the gumption or the training and they don’t have the guts to deliver. They hide behind faceless consultants and toothless committees.  Costs go up and productivity goes down.

Our once envied and proud Public Service is a shadow of what it once was.  We have gone for quantity not quality.  Can a population of 5 million people (a medium sized city in many places) really justify 150 departments, 26 Cabinet Ministers and Under Secretaries, 80 local authorities, endless numbers of states agencies, 8 universities, all expensive fiefdoms with grossly overpaid staff.  There are populations of 5 million with one governing authority, one hospital, one bureaucracy.

With all of that low productivity army we cannot fix a housing problem, we are lost in a jungle of low quality, inadequate roading, uneconomic rail, battles over ports, broken sewerage and water infrastructure.   Our kids are leaving school poorly educated, often unable to read or write and feeling the world owes them everything.  Our health system is managed by waiting lists and trying to supply ambulances at the bottom of the cliff.  Welfare is about entitlement not need.

Problems are not fixed till they are recognised and fully understood.  Once the focus is clear then its large reform steps, clear explanations, emergency powers and a well constructed plan.  Make labour productivity, less regulation, an investment attractive climate, smaller government, improved incentives and living within our means the cornerstones.

The longer we leave the day of reckoning the harder it will be.  I fear for my grandchildren having to live through the reforms because it won’t be pretty.  It will be as tumultuous as it will be inevitable.

Mention gutsy reformers like Douglas and Richardson and hear the howls of outrage.  The fiddlers fiddle and Rome burns.  Is there a politician who cares?  Do any understand?  Is there a steely spine among them?  I doubt it.  But happen, it will.  Call it necessity.

Stuff reports a Q+A with Jacinda Ardern:

What’s next on poverty?

On the raw numbers we started from a situation where things were getting worse, but we have flipped those indicators and they’re heading in the right direction. 

This is wrong, and she should know it is wrong.

Here are the latest official stats. Let’s look at all nine measures of child poverty, in raw numbers.

• Under 50% median income before housing costs. Dropped from 177,200 in 2015 to 156,300 in 2017. Now at 168,500
• Under 50% median income after housing costs. Dropped from 295,600 in 2015 to 247,500 in 2017. Now at 235,400
• In material hardship. Dropped from 190,400 in 2015 to 139,600 in 2017. Now at 151,700
• Under 60% median income before housing costs. Dropped from 267,900 in 2015 to 243,300 in 2017. Now at 263,400
• Under 60% median income after housing costs. Dropped from 331,200 in 2015 to 313,600 in 2017. Now at 328,200
• Under 50% median income after housing costs. Dropped from 258,500 in 2015 to 235,500 in 2017. Now at 241,600
• Under 40% median income after housing costs. Increased from 168,200 in 2015 to 178,000 in 2017. Now at 167,600
• Severe material hardship. Dropped from 93,000 in 2015 to 73,600 in 2017. Now at 66,100
• Under 60% median income after housing costs and material hardship. Dropped from 110,900 in 2015 to 86,200 in 2017. Now at 92,300

Now the years do not correlate exactly with Governments as they ask people about the previous year, and get surveyed over 12 months. But it is very clear that the trend up until 2017 was declining child poverty, not increasing. And many of the indicators today are worse off than in 2017.

Here’s the summary of the percentage changes from June 2015 to June 2017 and June 2017 to June 2019.

The only correct part of the PM’s statement is they flipped the indicators – but not in the direction she claims!

A new website at 2020nz.co.nz allows you to look at what the NZ electoral map looks like under different scenarios.

The Guardian reports:

China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are expected to be elected to the board of the UN human rights council on Tuesday, leaving human rights campaigners in the countries aghast and pleading with EU states to commit to withholding their support.

The Geneva-based monitoring NGO UN Watch described the situation as the equivalent of allowing five convicted arsonists to join the fire brigade.

This is why we should withdraw from funding the UN Human Rights Council. It has become a sick joke, beyond redemption.

UPDATE: Saudi Arabia didn’t get elected. Just leaves China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Bolivia, Libya, Venezuela, Eritrea, Philippines there upholding the highest standards of human rights!

As we know in 2016 the national polls in the US were only around 2% out, but some of the state polls had greater errors.

I thought it would be useful to look at the five states Trump is trailing in and see if the gap is within the margin of error. One can calculate the probability that one candidate is actually ahead of the other candidate and if it is under 95% then it is within a normal margin of error.

Ohio – Biden 49.6%, Trump 49.4%

A 53% chance Biden is ahead so not statistically significant.

North Carolina – Biden 50.8%, Trump 48.4%

A 78% chance Biden is ahead so not statistically significant.

Arizona – Biden 50.8%, Trump 47.9%

An 82% chance Biden is ahead so not statistically significant.

Florida – Biden 51.6%, Trump 47.7%

A 89% chance Biden is ahead so not statistically significant.

Pennsylvania – Biden 52.9%, Trump 46.4%

A 98% chance Biden is ahead so statistically significant.

So in four of the five stats Trump needs, his gap in the polls is within the normal margin of error for 1,000 person poll.

The challenge for Trump is Pennsylvania. The 6.5% lead there is beyond a normal polling error. It is also the tipping point state, so that will be the one to watch out for on US election night.

Despite my best efforts we’ve only spent online a fraction of the over $25,000 donated by 300 to 400 readers on the Promise Tracker ads. It has been extremely frustrating.

The first complication was my emergency appendectomy the Monday before last, just as I was hoping to start the campaign. Also this week I had a brief post-op infection.

But the bigger issue is Facebook makes it very hard to advertise! Certainly for a new customer. As it is a political ad, you need your identity verified by passport which took two attempts and 48 hours. Then you need to set up a special account registered just in NZ. Again took time. ThAnyway eventually got through all the bureaucracy and programmed in $15,000 of advertising. Except my credit card company declined the transaction as suspicious (I had transferred funds to cover it) so had to wait and redo the authorisation.

Anyway finally all go, but Facebook is barely spending $100 a day. It seems when you are a new customer, they won’t let you spend much. I guess they’re worried I’m a Russian bot or something.

As it became obvious Facebook wouldn’t spend the money in time, I set up an ad on Google to advertise to NZers. Again took quite some time to get approved as you need specific size ads, and again a credit card that gets approved.

But finally got Google Ads going and authorised to spend $8,000 a day. But so far it has spent zero. Don’t know why, and I haven’t got time or expertise to work it out in time. In hindsight, if I’d had the idea earlier, I would have hired a marketing company to do this.

Anyway where we are at is most of the $25,000 is unspent. We have two main options ahead.

Print advertising

For around $14,000 + GST I can run the Promise Tracker ad as a full page advertisement in the NZ Herald, Waikato Times, The Press and Dominion Post on Friday. Four full pages for $14,000 is pretty decent and a full page ad will grab’s people attention and hopefully have them look at some of the details.

Of course it is the day before the election, and over half of people have already voted. But personally I’m not too obsessed by that. To me this has always been more about making more people aware of how bad Labour’s failures has been, than thinking this will have a huge impact on the election. Also those who have already voted tend to be the committed voters. Undecided voters tend to wait until election day.

Print ads will probably also trigger some rage from those on the left. It is one thing to have your failures highlighted in small ads online. It is another thing to have them in your face as you read the morning newspaper.

Refund and/or War Chest

The other option is not to run the print advertising. If this is the case them after the election I’ll offer those who have donated two choices:

1 A full refund
2 Use the money donated for future ads

These will not be mutually exclusive. If we don’t do print ads, then someone people could opt for refunds and some for using the money in future.

The one thing that will not happen, is I keep the money and don’t spend it. This is not a money making exercise for me. To the contrary I have spent a score or so hours unpaid on trying to make these happen.

The idea for future ads is that if Labour is re-elected we update the advertisement every six or 12 months and run it as a regular feature. Basically to keep up the pressure on them and remind people (unless they improve) that they are basically incompetent at delivery.

Anyway I need to decide before 5 pm today about whether or not to do the print ads. If you donated money, feel free to comment below about what your preference is in terms of going ahead with the print ads or not.

UPDATE: Thanks for feedback. Clear overall support for doing the print adverts so have booked space in Herald, Waikato Times and The Press.

There will be a surplus, so after the election can decide what to do with that.

A guest post by Alwyn Poole:

Under Minister of Education Hipkins – the Ministry of Education’s mission statement – on all of their official correspondence states:

“We shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes.”

Even though they never ask the sector to review their work we can judge them by that statement. The evidence below makes a nonsense of it – the absolute opposite is the case – and this bureaucracy, that costs the taxpayer $3 billion per annum, with 3,000 employees, and a CEO on $528,000 is New Zealand’s biggest swamp and should be massively defunded. They are not effective or accountable and the annual and funds should be redistributed to where they would actually be of use. The first three years of Hipkins in this role (along with his three other major portfolios/roles) is a disaster – especially for Labour’s long-term core constituents – the poor, Maori, Pasifika.

Statistics and information – on equitable and excellent.

In 2017 the Level 1 NCEA pass rate was 75%. In 2019 it was 70.6% and Radio NZ is already stating that reported NCEA credits are 20% down on the same stage last year.

Ethnicity

University Entrance, our highest and key school qualification has 2019 Year 13 pass rates of 59.3% for Asians, 55.1% for Europeans, 29.9% for Maori and 30.3% for Pasifika. Although this is incredibly poor it is also a misleading statistic in that it only includes those that have survived to Year 13 and a higher proportion of Maori and Pasifika leave earlier.

So – the school leaver 2019 statistic for UE are Asian 63.8%, European 43.8%, Pasifika 22.8%, Maori 18.6%.

Even looking at a qualitative measure such as the percentage of Level 1 Excellence endorsements; 32% of Asian students earn them, 21.3% of European students, 9.6% of Maori and 6.7% of Pasifika.

Socio-Economics

For University Entrance; students in Decile 8 – 10 schools – 65.4%, students in Decile 4 – 7 schools 46.6%, students in Decile 1 – 3 schools 29.8%.

For L1 Excellence endorsements by Decile band. Deciles 8 – 10 – 28.3%, Decile 4 – 7 – 16.4%, Decile 1 – 3 – 8.9%.

From 2017 to 2018 L2 NCEA results declined for every decile band but the Decile 1 – 3 families were rewarded for their Labour loyalty by the biggest decline.

Gender

In 2019 L1 NCEA results girls were ahead of boys by 8.4%. In L1 Excellence endorsements. 25.6% of girls earned these but only 13.7% of boys.

In 2019 girls outscored boys in UE attainment by 13.6%.

Learning Needs

It is estimated that 30 – 50% of NZ students at the tail end of poor literacy and numeracy are dyslexic. Very little has changed for them. Hipkins and Ardern promised Designated Character Schools to help and have failed to deliver. This government has spent $12 million on the Green School, $10 million on a re-build for a school with four students, $50 million to de-carbon heating systems, at least $50 million randomly thrown at laptops and modems in lockdowns, watched a $3 million gym in perfect condition in Christchurch be vandalized into oblivion. Each is a metonym for their complete pet project mentality while high needs students are ignored.

These are massive failures that should have Hipkins, and people like the Labour Maori candidate campaign manager Willie Jackson, simply hanging their heads.

Not only do the Ministry not preside over an “equitable and excellent system”. They feather their own pockets and have contractual clauses completely denied to schools – especially lower deciles ones.

– the Ministry is allowed to pay its bureaucrats 10% above scale for either attraction or retention.

– for officials “on call” they receive $360 per week extra.

– if officials are “called out” (and the task is often done from home) they are paid a minimum of 3 hours at 1.5 times their normal rate – even if the task takes 5 minutes.

– they define their work-day as 8am to 5pm. Any work beyond this is paid overtime.

Their agreement does say: “employees are rewarded fairly for their contribution towards the Ministry’s objectives”. Judging by the above statistics and information on the NZ system there are a lot of salary cuts coming.

If Labour are returned Hipkins should by no means have Education.

Defund the Ministry of Education – for the good of NZ’s children.

Damien Grant writes:

The deputy prime minister’s career is ending but it isn’t a failure. He hasn’t achieved anything but there isn’t any evidence that he wanted to achieve anything. His career has been about attention, adulation and, when required, elections.

Winston has issues he campaigns on, but never does anything about them when he gets into Government.

Yet after four decades, what legacy is he leaving behind?

The tragedy of Peters’ career is that it has been politics for politics’ sake. He retains some Muldoonist instincts but instincts are all it seems to be.

Peters can credibly claim to be indifferent between supporting the starkly different political agendas of Bill English and Jacinda Ardern or between Jim Bolger and Helen Clark because the NZ First leader has no driving political agenda of his own.

It is fitting then to reflect on Peters’ maiden speech. At the end he embarks on a curious attack on an unidentified class of critic: “…the critic I am talking about does not see the improvement of society or of the individual as the objective beyond the admonition; rather his criticism is a goal in itself… The critic I am speaking about has no such goals. He sets out to exploit every tremor and spasm in our society, the economy, or race relations, seeking to use every such event as a vehicle to project his own public personally.”

Winston Peters has become that critic. He has lingered so long on our national stage that he has become the very villain that he warned us about four long decades past.

It is time for the nation to enjoy his retirement.

There will be no legacy. At best a minor footnote in the history books.

Stuff reports:

For the next hour, in a video seen by more than 5000, the leader of the New Zealand Public Party spins a story about the Jewish nation. Using historical half-truths and debunked documents he enlightens his audience about its connection to a Satanic conspiracy, and a global plan to engineer a third world war.

He’s at pains to coat the language, expressing love for his “Israeli whānau”, and asserting that although the Jews killed Jesus, it’s only the Zionists, those Jews behind the nation of Israel, that are the real threat.

“It’s a Satanic deception.”

The voice of New Zealand Jewish Council spokesperson Juliet Moses brims with cool outrage when she explains that the Jewish people have heard this message before.

“Anti-Semitism is at its heart a conspiracy theory,” she says.

“It sees Jews as a shadowy nefarious cabal controlling world events and people in accordance with their evil agenda.”

“It’s insidious poison… I felt like I needed a shower after watching the video,” she says.

It is perhaps no surprise that someone obsessed with conspiracy theories also promotes anti-semitic ones.

The conversation started civilly enough, but soon became heated after the two disagreed about the history of the Jewish nation.

“The next thing he said was ‘we all know whose money controls the world’, so he inferred that we Jews control the world banking system.”

“That’s the line that Adolf Hitler used.”

“Billy went on to say the Rothschilds were Satanists and that Israel is a part of the bigger picture… he was essentially saying Jews control the world. All the same anti-Semitic crap I’ve heard since I was a boy.”

If we do control the world, we’re doing a bad job of it.

A few years back the two bumped into each other and sat down for a cup of coffee.

“He told me the Jews are responsible for all the world’s troubles… he genuinely thinks that. The Zionists control the banks. He was firmly of the belief that they’ve got a lot to say in New Zealand.”

Te Pou says he was dismissive at the time. But watching the crowd at one of Te Kahika’s recent rallies, he felt the need to speak out.

That last quote is from Shane Te Pou. So we have multiple witnesses to what Billy TK says and believes.

It’s a pity we don’t have ranked voting in NZ, so I could rank Advance NZ bottom.

The NZ Medical Association President, Kate Baddock, said that NZMA opposed legalisation of cannabis and urged a no vote at the referendum.

This prompted a backlash from several doctors, who said their views were not canvassed.

Dr Baddock responded:

She said the NZMA position is clear.

“Our position on cannabis has been around the harms of cannabis,” Dr Baddock said.

“It’s been there since 2012. It’s been reiterated a few times over that time, and this is a board and organisational position – it’s got nothing to do with me personally.”

A doctor has suggested to me I should look at what the 2012 policy actually says. Extracts are:

The NZMA believes that cannabis use, as with all licit and illicit drug use, needs to be viewed in terms of social determinants and the social gradient, whereby people living further down the gradient are at greater risk of drug harms.

The NZMA supports a harm reduction approach to cannabis use.

The NZMA believes the response to cannabis use should be one whereby cannabis users are diverted into education or treatment programmes. Law enforcement should target the suppliers of cannabis.

So the 2012 policy endorses a harm reduction approach, not a criminal approach. And specifically says users should be given education and treatment, not prosecuted.

So the 2012 policy strongly supported a change from the status quo. Now it was advocating decriminalisation rather than legalisation, but in terms of a binary choice between legalisation and the status quo, the 2012 policy is much closer to legalisation than the status quo.

So the decision by Dr Baddock to claim the NZMA is against legalisation, on the basis of the 2012 policy, is very dubious.

The real issue is why NZMA did not consult members and form a position on the referendum? The referendum has been known about for three years. As the 2012 policy only advocated decriminalisation, why didn’t the NZMA Board start a process to ascertain whether the majority of doctors supported the status quo, or legalisation?

Was it because they didn’t want to know the answer?

Excellent analysis from Eric Crampton. Basically the level of assets you hold is age dependent. Almost no one under 40 will have over one million of assets, but a large proportion of those aged over 60 will.

So the Greens’ policy will hit those who has retired and have little or no income, and drive down their savings every year they stay alive.

News.com.au reports:

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has declared: “I won’t resign” over bombshell revelations that she conducted a clandestine relationship with former MP Daryl Maguire who is now the subject of a corruption probe.

After confessing for the first time that she was in a “close, personal relationship” with the father of two, Ms Berejiklian has declared she has no intention of standing down as premier because she “hadn’t done anything wrong”.

“If I had done something wrong, I would be the first one to consider my position. But I haven’t,” Ms Berejiklian said in a press conference on Monday.

“I’m an intensely private person and without question, I stuffed up in my personal life.

It wasn’t even an affair as she is single and Maguire was seperated.

But for the Premier to have a five year relationship with an MP who had to resign over corrupt activities is a huge error of judgment. I suspect it will be curtains for her.

As usual, this shows the 538 probability of Trump winning in 2016 and 2020. Three key points I’d make:

• Trump is at much the same probability three weeks out in 2020 as he was in 2016, which is good for Trump as he won in 2016.
• However in 2016 his odds doubled from 13% to 29% after the Comey letter. Will there be an event as helpful to him this time? Seems unlikely.
• He has been on a decline since August, going from 31% to 14%

Also Harry Enten makes the case that Biden is the most well positioned challenger since 1936:

Former Vice President Joe Biden is dominating President Donald Trump in the latest polls. No, the election is not over yet, and Trump still has a non-negligible chance of winning.But a look through history reveals that Biden is in a better position at this point than any challenger since 1936, when the first scientific polls were taken in a presidential race.

In the 21 previous presidential elections since 1936, there have only been five challengers who led at this time. Of those five, only one (Bill Clinton in 1992) was ahead by more than 5 points. None of those five were earning more than 48% of the vote in the polls.

In other words, Biden is the first challenger to be above 50% at this late juncture in the campaign.This also continues to mark a massive difference with the 2016 campaign. While Hillary Clinton was ahead of Trump by as high as 7 points in October 2016, she never came anywhere close to approaching 50% of the vote. Trump merely had to win the lionshare of the undecided or third party voters (who would bolt their candidate) to earn a victory in 2016.

This is a key point. If both candidates are under 50%, then you can win by grabbing the undecideds. But if one candidate is polling over 50%, you have a much harder case.

Even if every undecided or current third party voter went to Trump now, he’d still be down about 5 to 6 points nationally. That’s never been the case with an incumbent since 1936 at this point.Of course, it’s the Electoral College that matters. There are very few universes in which Trump could win the Electoral College, if he were to lose nationally by 5 to 6 points.

If the gap is 4% Trump has a non-trivial chance of winning. The current gap is 10.5%.

The three challengers in the polling era (Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992) who defeated incumbents have all been trusted more than the incumbent to deal with what Americans thought was the nation’s most important problem. None, however, were trusted by more than 50% of the voters.Today, Biden has a huge advantage over Trump when it comes to the pandemic. The clear majority (59%) of likely voters in the last CNN poll said Biden would better be able to handle the outbreak. Just 38% said Trump would do a better job than Biden.As I noted in July, the only issue that really matters is Trump’s handling of the coronavirus. He’s failing in the minds of voters right now.

Trump needs to pivot away from Covid-19, but that is difficult to do when you have many of your senior officials have been infected with it, and 220,000 Americans have died from it.

A guest post by Camryn Brown:

Under Jacinda Ardern, Labour is fundamentally a do-nothing government. Both its success and its failures are directly attributable to its ability to get nothing done. While it’s reasonable to be grateful for the health impacts of Covid-19 being so close to nothing, voters should only give Labour another three years if they want to stagnate.

By the end of 2019, voters were sick of Labour’s failure to achieve. National’s surpluses were gone and yet poverty had increased, house prices were increasing faster than ever, surgeries were down, and health waiting lists were up. Labour’s promises to invest in Kiwibuild, light rail, tree planting, health, and education were either failures or, at best, merely tokenistic window dressing. National was consistently ahead in the polls by over 5% on the back of Labour’s thorough failure to deliver. Voters saw that Labour was a promise-everything, do-nothing government… and didn’t like what they saw.

Then came Covid-19. While 25 deaths are hugely tragic, New Zealand overall has been relatively unscathed by this deadly virus. The protection of Kiwis has been the Labour government’s great success. And how did they do it? By making sure nothing happened! Lockdowns stop the virus from spreading in the community by stopping the community. Suddenly, under Covid-19, the key to success was for Labour to do what they were best at — making nothing happen.

Now, none of this is to say that Labour’s do-nothing culture wasn’t a danger to our Covid success. It worked for implementing lockdowns, but Labour had to be talked into locking down in the first place. Voices outside of government also had to talk or shame Labour into adding border restrictions, providing enough PPE and flu vaccinations, setting and following MIQ rules, making MIQ sufficiently secure, properly testing in MIQ, properly testing MIQ and border workers, and properly testing in the community. Labour can take credit for doing these things before disasters occurred, but credit is also due to those who prodded them out of inaction. And also to luck.

But, the main thing has been that Kiwis have been safe. The public have been happy with that and have rewarded Labour in the polls. That gratitude now looks like it might deliver another three years of Labour government.

Is that what Kiwis really want? I have to believe it’s not. Kiwis definitely want safety, but safety isn’t in play in this election. The Covid response template is set and a government of any stripe can and will follow it. The choice in this election is between letting Labour’s do-nothing stagnation waste three precious years while building a mountain of debt for the next generation or National delivering three years of progress towards a better New Zealand.

Voters now know what Labour means. They say “let’s keep moving” but we haven’t been moving forward and they don’t know how to. They can imagine and sell a vision but have no idea how to get there or how to avoid obstacles and pitfalls on the way. They have plenty of hope for the future but no hope of delivering anything necessary to achieve it. They are capable of following advice given in the form of instructions but are not capable of independently making decisions or combining advice from various sources to form their own opinion. When Phil Twyford and David Clark are their stars, they have no stars. They are a government that asks working groups to think of what to do and the public service to figure out how to do it and provides nothing but an expensive layer of public relations and credit-taking. They are always reactive, never proactive.

So, Labour is desperate to make this election about anything other than delivery. They attack National as mean when National is honest about the need for tough choices and the need to make sacrifices to benefit the next generation. They attack National as desperate for power when National is desperate for New Zealand to do better. They attack National as unsafe when National has consistently driven for a stronger and more coordinated Covid response. They attack National as focused on the economy over people when National recognises the economy as critical for wellbeing. They attack National for not aiming for the sky on poverty and the environment when National aims for achievable progress and delivers it. Labour does all these things because they know they’re do-nothing. Their only hope is to scare Kiwis into thinking National is a fire so we stay in their frying pan.

So, thank Jacinda and her team for New Zealand’s awesome health outcome. Be grateful to them for it. Love them for it. But, don’t hand them the keys to the country. They don’t know what to do with them.

Audrey Young writes:

If Jacinda Ardern leads Labour to a second term in Government, the question of who should be Deputy Prime Minister is problematic.

Part of the problem goes back to how she became leader. It is a uniquely Labour problem involving Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis and the man many people assume is the deputy leader, Finance Minister Grant Robertson.

Deputy Prime Minister is not just a titular role.

When Ardern took time off to have a baby in 2018, or had long trips overseas, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters was required to take charge of the Government, run Cabinet, be prepared to answer any questions in Parliament and at press conferences on any Government matter.

Even without long trips overseas, the Deputy PM usually fills in for the PM on Thursday in the House.

The one advantage for Labour in having a Green or New Zealand First deputy would be it would avoid the conundrum over Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis.

The reality is Labour has a depuity leader who is not up to being Deputy Prime Minister. Robertson or Hipkins or Parker would be, but Davis is not.

It is usually arranged for Davis to be out of the House on a Thursday when Ardern is also not there, leaving it to Robertson, No 3 in Labour and No 4 in Government, to run the show.

Yep they actually have to hide him.

At https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/has_labour_delivered you can see the home page for the advertisement.

There is an initial $15,000 ad buy underway which Facebook says should get it seen by 175,000 to 500,000 people. We’ve raised more than that but I can only book at one stage the maximum limit on my credit card. Will calculate how much more we have and do a boost tomorrow with the rest.

We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people donate. Again great community support for this crowd funded ad.