Here’s who won the debate according to various journalists and pundits:
Spot the odd one out!
Use this thread for comments on who you think is winning the debate, and comments after the debate on how it went.
The One News Colmar Brunton poll is:
Obviously still a great result for Labour, despite dropping 5%. But if they drop another 5% then it gets interesting.
It looks like NZ First are out of it. The Greens are far from safe also. Last election ONCB had the Greens poll 8.0% and they got 6.3% – a 1.7% difference. If that occured again they’d get 4.3%. Not guaranteed you get the same error but over all eight MMP elections the Greens on average do 1.1% worse than the polls. So very tight for them.
If no Greens then it is Labour 48% and National/ACT on 38%. Still a large 10% margin but one that is closeable.
Again this is a good poll for Labour and the left – no doubt. But if the Greens under-perform as usual, then Labour needs to stay in the high 40s to be safe.
The Taxpayers’ Union has released a list of questions that should be asked at tonight’s TVNZ leaders’ debate – and at tonight’s separate finance debate in Queenstown.
What would you ask if you were moderating the debates?
Questions for Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins:
Is tax theft – or love?
Would you rule out a return to level 4 lockdown under any circumstances? Is elimination still your COVID-19 strategy?
When will taxpayers find out what’s happening with Ihumātao? How much of our money will you fork out for the land?
What actions should central government take when local councils become dysfunctional? Will you support recall election proposals supported by Local Government NZ and the Taxpayers’ Union?
Is this the most open and transparent Government ever? How would you increase transparency?
Will you rule out a wealth tax under your leadership, regardless of your coalition partners? What about a death tax? Or new sin taxes, like on sugar?
Will you continue policies that give handouts for individual businesses, or will you pursue broad economic relief?
Will you rule out a bailout for Tiwai Point?
Are New Zealanders overtaxed, or undertaxed?
The median house price is $675,000 – and almost a million in Auckland. Would you work to change this? How?
Questions for the finance debate:
How much should the government spend as a proportion of GDP?
Are you comfortable with the projected $149,600 in per-household government debt for 2033/34? How will you pay it back?
Will your Government freeze – or roll back – fuel taxes?
Spot test: name five spending items that your government would abolish.
What will you do with the remaining $14 billion in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund?
Will you adjust income tax brackets for inflation? If not, why not?
Will you increase New Zealanders’ access to their own money held in KiwiSaver?
Spot test: name three regulatory taxes you would roll back or abolish.
Would your party support a temporary cut to GST like the United Kingdom did for VAT after the Global Financial Crisis?
Who should make individual funding decisions – politicians or officials?
How will your Government make superannuation more affordable for taxpayers? Will you lift the age, means test, or something else?
Would your Government make corporates owned by religious organisations pay tax?
Do you accept that company tax in New Zealand is too high?
Dileepa Fonseka writes at Newsroom:
Now the Labour-led government is pushing ahead with a plan to charge families like hers 25 percent of their income for staying in these emergency motels.
The change was announced in February, set to come into place in March, but was delayed due to Covid-19.
Now it will come into effect on October 19 – two days after the election.
The Government argues it is a question of fairness along with a much-needed incentive to get people out of emergency housing and into private, transitional or social housing.
If a state house costs you 25% of your income (which is also hugely subsidised) and emergency housing costs you nothing, then you’re not going to be in a hurry to move out.
In fact it creates really perverse incentives. If you damage your state house and get evicted, then you get to stay for free in a motel.
So on this issue, Labour is doing the right thing.
News.com.au reports:
Scott Morrison has all but confirmed income tax cuts will be brought forward in the budget after slamming a new advertising campaign arguing against the move as “taking money out of people’s pockets”.
The Prime Minister’s blunt response was triggered by a new national campaign to be launched by the left-wing think tank the Australia Institute today urging the Morrison Government not to fast-track income tax cuts in the October 6 budget.
The campaign, which will be rolled out on television screens from tonight, is arguing against the early introduction of legislated tax cuts worth up to $2565-a-year.
The tax cuts, worth $20 billion, were scheduled to come into force in 2022.
Australia moving fast in the direction of allowing workers to keep more of what they earn.
A guest post by Simon Lusk:
Alliance Group’s failure to completely repay the wage subsidy is disgraceful. They have reinforced their disgrace by repaying half of the wage subsidy.
The wage subsidy was for companies that had an actual or projected fall in revenue of more than 30%. This was necessary to support those businesses that were forced to shut down or alter their business practices substantially during the Covid lockdown in the autumn.
Alliance Group appears not to fit this criteria. They were an essential service that continued to operate during the lockdown. They were outliers in an industry that did not take the wage subsidy. Others in the industry did not claim the wage subsidy because they were able to continue operating in a market where demand & prices did not drop by more than 30%.
Alliance paying back some of their subsidy is incomprehensible. They either have a fall in revenue of more than 30% in which case they are entitled to keep the entire amount, or they have not had a fall in revenue of more than 30% and they should pay back the entire amount.
Alliance is a strong, profitable company that should be doing its part in helping rebuild the economy. The retained wage subsidy is less than the profits they made last year. Instead they chose to take corporate welfare. They may be able to justify doing so, but they may not,and and it is important that an impartial referee adjudicates.
That is why I have sought leave of the court to bring a private prosecution against the Non Executive Directors of Alliance Group. I want an impartial adjudication of Alliances actions, on the public record and for all to see. Non Executive Directors are well remunerated for their governance role, but this role comes with consequences. This case aims to make the consequences personal, not something the directors can avoid by hiding behind the corporate structure.
Alliance’s financial results will be made public in November if they following their normal practice. Then it will be absolutely clear whether they have had a 30% fall in revenue due to Covid, or if they have claimed a subsidy they do not deserve.
Even without the financial results, Alliance’s actions, market dynamics & their competitors not taking the wage subsidy provide plenty of evidence that they should have paid back the entire wage subsidy. While this is my opinion, there is an impartial process to prove whether my opinion is right, or Alliance is right. Let the courts adjudicate, and let the Non Executive Directors of Alliance front up in court and put on the public record their justification for retaining any part of the wage subsidy.
Newshub reports:
A document obtained by Newshub under the Official Information Act shows the school had a crack at getting far less funding last year but failed.
It wanted just under $1m – that was declined. But when it applied for 12 times that – the funding was approved.
“James got his nose out of joint and fought for it to be restored through the shovel-ready money,” Jones says.
The application was refused partly because it wouldn’t create sustainable new jobs. The school’s now promising to create 200 jobs.
In the 2019 application – for a fraction of the funding – the school was promising in excess of 100 new jobs.
Documents say: “the applicant estimates that the project will bring in around [redacted] in economic benefit on annual basis and will create at least 100 jobs linked to the project.”
It was an attempt by the school to market it as a tourism attraction like its counterpart in Bali. The documents outline the school’s proposal “to support the building of tourist amenity infrastructure (visitor centre and café)”.
But officials in the Provincial Development Unit which determines PGF funding were sceptical.
“The success of the Bali operation may not be an appropriate indication of the likelihood of success for a venture based in Taranaki. There is insufficient market research to justify that it will be successful.”
The claims are so nonsensical that it was of course right for PGF officials to turn down the funding. The notion that tourists will flock from all over the world to visit Taranaki because of the Green School is farcical.
But alas for the taxpayers James Shaw gave them 12 times as much.
| The promise | The delivery |
| Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 years | 548 built (0.5%) |
| Fund the planting of one billion trees over 10 years | 36.8 million trees funded (3.7%) |
| Govt vehicles emission free by 2026 | 108 (0.6%) of 15,473 government vehicles are electric |
| End homelessness | Priority A housing waiting list has increased 331% from4,054 to 17,493 |
| Net zero emissions by 2050 | Net emissions in 2017 were 56.9kT. Projected 2020 emissions are 66.6 kT – a projected increase of 17% |
| Reduce net migration by 20,000 to 30,000 | Net migration gone from 54,150 in Oct 2017 to 81,240 in Feb 20 (pre Covid) so increased 27,000 |
| Reduce child poverty | The proportion of children in material hardship increased from 12.7% in 2017 to 13.4% in 2019 |
| Start construction of Dunedin Hospital in 1st term | 0 bricks laid |
| Complete light rail from Auckland CBD to Mt Roskill by 2021 | 0 metres done of 13,000 metres |
| Relocate Government functions to the Regions | In 2017 41.9% of public sector in Wellington, in 2019 43.8% so fewer staff in regions |
| 100% renewable electricity by 2035 | Share declined 1.2% from 83.4% in Sep 2017 to 82.2% in Jun 2020 |
| Free tertiary fees to lead to 15% enrolment boost | 1st year enrolments dropped 3.2% from 63,890 to 61,790 from 2017 to 2019 |
Isn’t this telling in terms of the Government’s incompetence. We are not talking about narrowly missing a few targets. On almost every major area they have either missed it by a mile, or actually gone backwards.
This is a graphical version suitable for sharing.
And for data nerds, the references:
References
This story by the ABC former bureau chief in China is a compelling read.
Because he reported the truth, the Government threatened not just him, but his 14 year old daughter.
It’s just another sign that China has decided to head down the more repressive path after a decade or more of becoming less repressive. Very sad.
A nice tribute from the Federalist Society:
Justice Ginsburg will be best remembered as a legal pioneer and advocate for women’s rights. But she should also be remembered as a lawyer’s lawyer. Her success as an advocate took root in large measure in her discipline in selecting cases and in carefully reading precedent—both for what it included and what it omitted.
It’s been said that what was at the root of the famous Ginsburg/Scalia friendship was their shared extra-curricular tastes, most notably opera. That’s true, but it’s only part of the story. Their shared respect for good legal craftsmanship was also a central, if largely overlooked, foundation for their friendship. Both cared a lot about the force of reason in their opinions.
Each firmly believed that mature people could in good faith take different views on even the most important legal questions without being histrionic or posing a threat to their adversary’s feelings. Instead, they saw their differences as providing each other with an opportunity to sharpen their own thinking. Justice Ginsburg put it best: “When we disagreed,” she said, “my final opinion was always clearer and more convincing than my initial circulation. Justice Scalia honed in on all the soft spots, energizing me to strengthen my presentation.” Of Justice Scalia’s dissent from her majority opinion in the VMI case, which Scalia made a point of sharing with her as soon as possible, she said, “He absolutely ruined my weekend, but my opinion is ever so much better because of his stinging dissent.”
Although no-nonsense and somewhat intimidating at oral argument, off the bench Justice Ginsburg brimmed with graciousness, class, and strength. Despite being an important person and even a “rock star”—or as much of a rock star as a Supreme Court Justice gets to be—she did not act the part. When she came to her friend Judge Robert Bork’s funeral, she walked in with no entourage or fanfare, sat in a back pew, listened to the service, and quietly left.
Not many people could one-up Antonin Scalia, but Justice Ginsburg did on at least one occasion. The two had been on a trip to India, where they rode together on an elephant. At a joint appearance following the trip, Justice Scalia asked her if her feminist friends were disturbed that he was sitting in front. Not at all, she replied. She had explained to them that the elephant driver had said their placement was “a matter of distribution of weight.” The audience roared, as did Justice Scalia.
About two years ago, Justice Ginsburg wrote the foreword to Scalia Speaks, an edited collection of Scalia’s speeches. She concluded the foreword: “If our friendship encourages others to appreciate that some very good people have ideas with which we disagree, and that, despite differences, people of goodwill can pull together for the well-being of the institutions we serve and our country, I will be overjoyed, as I am confident Justice Scalia would be.”
Now, even as we mourn Justice Ginsburg’s passing, we can be grateful for the legacy of robust argument and warm good faith she leaves us.
The Ginsburg-Scalia friendship was an awesome example of how people can disagree strongly but treat each other as good patriotic people.
Newsweek reports:
A new TikTok trend has emerged this week as former “Harry Potter” fans protest author J.K. Rowling’s widely criticized views on trans people by burning copies of her books.
One video, posted by TikTok user @elmcdo shows a number of “Harry Potter” books being placed on a burning pyre.
The bookburners are living up to their historical legacy.
The voice-over continues: “The positive impact that J.K. Rowling’s work had on millions of readers does not negate how her hateful lobbying has affected the trans community.
“This doesn’t even touch on the harmful fatphobia, racism and valorization of supramacists and child abusers in her most famous work.
OMG, Harry Potter has fatphobia!
Stuff reports:
The man behind a court challenge to Otago University’s medical school admissions scheme is getting support from other parents whose children missed out.
University leaders say they will “strenuously oppose” the legal challenge and limiting special category entrants would “slow the rate at which a representative health workforce could be achieved”.
If your only criteria is acheiving a representative health workforce, then why not reserve 100% of places for the next decade until you acheive that?
Otago University’s pro-vice-chancellor of Health Sciences, Professor Paul Brunton earlier said the university had an obligation to train health professionals equipped to meet the needs of New Zealand’s diverse communities.
“Māori comprise only 3.4 per cent and Pacific people 1.8 per cent of the medical workforce, whereas the proportion of the total population who identify as Māori and Pacific is, respectively, approximately 15 per cent and 8 per cent,” he said.
And I would have no problem with a quota to ensure 23% of medical students are Maori or Pasifika, which over time would ensure a representative workforce. But what Otago has goes well beyond that:
For the 2020 intake, 120 of the 202 places available to first year Health Sciences students went to those entering under special categories. Of those, 79 (39 per cent) were Māori and Pasifika. There is currently no limit to the proportion of the places available for special category students.
So 60% of places are reserved for those who meet a quota category, and 40% went to Maori and Pasifika – almost twice their proportion of the population.
The man, who asked not to be named, said his child completed the health sciences course at Otago University last year straight from high school. The student achieved A+ grades for the requisite papers and a UCAT (an intelligence/suitability test) result above the 90th percentile. His child was denied entry.
Māori and Pasifika applicants were accepted for 2020 with B- averages and no consideration of UCAT scores.
So the student who missed out got straight A+ and was deemed in the top 10% in terms of suitability.
Stuff reports:
Auckland Harbour Bridge lane closures following a truck crash have prompted renewed calls for an additional crossing as traffic in the city ground to a halt for a second day.
Travel mayhem on Friday came after two trucks were caught up in a 127 kilometre per hour wind gust and one crashed, causing damage to the bridge, shutting the centre four lanes.
NTZA said the lanes could be closed for weeks, and traffic woes continued on Saturday.
With 200,000 cars a day, having four lanes closed is chaos.
National has pledged to start work on a second harbour crossing in 2028, and included funding for it in its $31 billion infrastructure package.
Labour has said it would look at a second harbour crossing between 2030 and 2040, but critically it has said it might be for rail only, and not allow cars.
Five Thirty Eight has released its Senate forecast. At this stage they forecast a 50:50 tie so the Vice-President would determine the balance of power in the Senate. Taking into account the presidential forecast that gives the Democrats a 58% chance of controlling the Senate.
Many seats are close. Their current forecast is:
So Democrats win 4 and lose 1 to give them 50 seats. But you could well get a net gain of just one for the Democrats and you also could get a net gain of five, so result could be 52:58 in either direction.
The Senate election will be very consequential. The House is not competitive this time, so the likely four options after the election are:
My posts this week on Patreon are:
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died, aged 87.
While her judicial philosophy was not one I shared, she was a titan of the legal world. Some of her achievements:
Obviously much focus will now be on her replacement. We will see every Senator argue the opposite of 2016. All Republican Senators will claim a replacement should be confirmed even though it is an election year and all Democratic Senators will claim there should be no replacement as it is an election year. I will be pleasantly surprised if even a single Senator argues the same way in 2020 as they did in 2016.
The most likely replacement it seems is Judge Amy Comey Barrett who is on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh District. She is only 48 years old and if appointed would probably mean a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for the next 15 years or longer.
Stuff reports:
The Green Party and The Opportunities Party have announced they will both support the introduction of rent caps which would limit the amount a landlord could increase rent.
Of their many awful ideas, this is one of the worst.
Megan McArdle in the Washington Post writes:
There aren’t that many things you can get economists to agree on. Fiscal stimulus, minimum wages, monetary policy, health care, bank regulation — on almost all the major issues of the day, you can find a respected economist to argue for either side.
But there are a few questions where there’s near unanimity, and rent control is one of them. Pretty much every economist agrees that rent controls are bad.
Rent control is just a form of price control, and they have failed in almost every country that has tried them.
Declining housing stock is just one of the many potential costs of rent controls; others include a deteriorating housing stock as landlords stop investing in their properties, and higher rents. Yes, higher, because rent control creates a two-tier housing market. There are cheap, price-stabilized apartments that rarely turn over, because why would you give up such a great deal? Then there are the uncontrolled apartments, which everyone else in the city has to fight over, bidding up the price.
Just another reason not to vote Greens.
A guest post by KrazyKiwi:
This chart uses publicly available Covid-19 statistics and published research on case reporting to show how few Covid-19 infections result in death. The chart has <i> four</i> data series plotted. Yes, four. More on this shortly.
At the beginning of the pandemic our consciousness was flooded with images of death. Bodies being removed from hospitals, funerals, scary charts, and a narrative that implied that every one of us could be next. The messaging made it clear that experts would guide us to safety, and compliance with their instructions was essential for ones’ survival.
Fast forward to today, and what should be clear to anyone with more than passing scrutiny of the official narrative is that deaths no longer cut it in terms of perpetuating the fear narrative, one that has been so successful in having populations relinquish many of their civil liberties with little protest. To keep the pandemic going, governments together with their obliging media partners have switched the focus to ‘cases’. Suspected, probably and confirmed ‘Cases’ have been supplanted as a cognitive proxy for deaths, and once again populations seem to have taken the bait, with a ‘case’ being feared to the extent that continued compliance with restraints on our life and liberty are broadly supported.
The problem with this strategy are the data. Covid-19 is similar to 100s of other infections in that the vast majority are inconsequential to the extent that the sufferer does not seek medical attention, and their immune system deals with the infection promptly. Unlike deaths which are rigorously cataloged, infections do not become ‘cases’ because they are not reported and subsequently managed by a health authority.
So how many Covid-19 infections become ‘cases’, and how many remain unrecorded, resulting in natural recoveries? There have been a number of published studies on this topic, with one of the most frequently cited being Chow, Chang et al. (2020). Global prediction of unreported SARS-CoV2 infection from observed COVID-19 cases. Their study suggests that there are nine unreported infections for every one ‘case’.
Back to that chart. It has four data series. The solid green series shows infections that have recovered, the <i>dotted</i> yellow series shows total infections, the pink series shows officially reported cases, and the red series shows deaths.
The Chow, Chang et al analysis makes it possible to chart infections vs deaths over time and, importantly, to calculate an population-wide Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of 0.28%. In other words 99.72% of those infected with
Covid-19 recover, and this why the green infection and yellow dotted recovery series are visually indistinguishable. Of course, the 0.28% fatality rate is skewed towards the elderly and those suffering a number of non-trivial comorbidities, so for children and healthy adults the real risk of dying as a result of a Covid-19 infection is smaller still. In truth that risk is vanishingly small.
Here is the official Government advice on what we should do at Level 2:
But hey what’s more important – a group selfie, or promoting Covid-19 safety.
National has announced that it will cut income tax for 16 months from December 2020 to March 2022 to help families during the economic crisis caused by Covid-19. This will also help businesses as boosting after tax incomes boost spending.
I’ve done a quick calculation of what this means for people at different incomes.
The biggest percentage reduction in tax is for those $20,000 and those earning $60,000 and $70,000. After $70,000 the more you earn the less your tax cut percentage is.
In absolute terms anyone who earns $90,000 or more will pay $4,000 less tax during the 16 months which makes a big difference to disposal income. Anyone earning over $60,000 will pay at least $2,500 less tax.
This provides New Zealanders with a real choice – a Government that will help people through the tough times by temporarily reducing taxes, or a Government that will increase taxes.