Stuff reports:

t’s a serene, sunny Sunday summer’s morning in the suburbs. Only birdsong and the odd lawnmower punctuate the serenity. Then a flame-red truck rolls around the corner and disgorges a uniformed squad of union activists, who leaflet-drop your neighbours, chant, sing, and organise a picket line at your front fence.

This, says, Matt McCarten, is utu. After three years of “plotting in the dark” since his exit from the Labour Party’s high command, this is his solution for worker exploitation.

The targets for his Sunday “church for sinners” will be the recalcitrant employers whom he cannot get to the negotiating table to hear complaints against them of bullying, sexual harassment and migrant exploitation.

If an employer has bullied or harassed or exploited them complaints should be laid with the ERA or MBIE who can prosecute.

But instead McCarten is demanding they must deal with him rather than the legal authorities, and if not he’ll harass them at home.

He’ll publish stories on Martyn Bradbury’s Daily Blog, use a social media team to disseminate it further, publish their names, photographs, home address and phone numbers. “I am going to be quite hardline on this,” he says, “and I know there will be some pushback.”

This is doxxing. When Cactus Kate joked about doing it to someone, the left and media went on about it as if it was the crime of the century. You now have two left activists declaring in a newspaper they are going to dox people, and not a peep.

That leaves most reliant on advocates such as McCarten, many of whom work on a percentage of the settlement. McCarten says One Union will take a case through to mediation for $500, payment deferred if the client can’t afford it, and ask for a voluntary donation of 10% of any settlement towards the union fighting fund – and he’ll cover his own wage through demanding his costs from the employer.

So this is in fact a money making venture. Agree to negotiate with us, rather than use the legal process, or we will dox you and harrass you at home – and we get 10% of the cut.

The Thomson report on Invercargill City Council is here. It deals with Sir Tim’s difficulties more bluntly than I expected:

This void is seen by participants as most clearly manifesting itself in the Mayor’s reported increasing inability to carry out many aspects of his role.

The reported deterioration was stated by many as being evident in the previous triennium but as getting progressively worse. The Mayor appears, according to most of those interviewed, to be struggling to follow Council agendas and papers without assistance, although a couple of participants see that as a situational issue rather than cognitive difficulties (“he works off paper whereas the rest of us work off computer and the pages don’t always line up”, although I am advised by management that this has not been the case since early in the adoption of digital board papers). Many interviewees reported a range of obvious concerns including short term memory deficits, confusion, and the need to be closely managed by both Council staff and senior Councillors in order to chair a Council meeting. They report increasing incidents of embarrassment during meetings
which a, generally, compassionate Council has done their best to hide from the general public. This approach is now failing (as is evident from the increasing media statements regarding aspects of his performance) and many Councillors report a general community concern about “what is happening to Sir Tim”.

I’m all for compassion but not at the expense of common sense. If a Mayor is unable (as opposed to unwilling) to perform his role, then he must resign of the Minister must step in.

This meant that the Mayor would essentially be chairing a full Council whose agenda was primarily only the approval of minutes, thus ensuring that the Mayor was chairing difficult or complex meeting agendas less
frequently. The Mayor saw this as a deliberate diminution of his power, which it accurately was, but, in my opinion, that was a side outcome of the change rather than the primary motivation for the change. Many of those I spoke with saw it as a compassionate way to protect his reputation and mana by reducing the opportunity for his difficulties to be apparent to the public.

Basically what the Council has done is delegate everything except approval of minutes to committees of Council, as the Mayor can’t chair a meeting which has to decide on a difficult issue. Chairing of the Council is a bare minimum part of the job for a Mayor, and if he can’t do that, then I’m sorry but time to retire.

Worth reading the entire report to see how bad it is.

Worksafe has a downloadable database of all workplace deaths since 2011. There have been 771, which is of course far too high. Going through the database I was interested in the classifications as some workplace deaths are clearly avoidable (falls) while others much harder to minimise (assaults causing death).

Here’s the number of workplace deaths by type:

• Trucks/Utes 126
• Christchurch Earthquake 63
• Quad Bikes 56
• Hit by falling objects 53
• Falls 50
• Trapped between moving and stationery object 41
• Tractors 37
• Slips, trips, tumbles 30
• Drowning 29
• Hit my moving object 27
• Aviation Transport 26
• Cars 22
• Mobile plant rollover 22
• White Island explosion 21
• Machinery 17
• Electric Shocks 13
• Assaults 11
• Motorbikes 10
• Hit or bitten by animals 9

If you exclude White Island and the Christchurch quake, the numbers by year are:

• 2011: 73
• 2012: 69
• 2013: 72
• 2014: 65
• 2015: 59
• 2016: 73
• 2017: 79
• 2018: 63
• 2019: 87

Far too many for a country our size.

One News reports:

Kelvin Davis says when schools accept low achievement rates from its Māori students, without aspiring to better them, it shows there is “systemic racism” in the education system.

The Associate Education Minister (Māori Education), speaking today about anti-racism school programme Te Hurihanganui, said “Māori deserve nothing worse” than achieving “at the highest levels in the world whatever they do”. 

But, Davis said among some teachers, there was an “acceptance” low Māori achievement was simply the way things were. 

Davis said accepting the status quo wasn’t good enough. 

I agree the status quo isn’t good enough. So let’s look at how Labour has done in improving Maori achievement rates in their fight against systemic racism.

So under the racist National Government the percentage of Maori leaving school with no qualifications dropped from 37% to 18%. The kind caring Labour Government saw it increase to 22%.

And how have the rates changed for NCEA Level 2, generally regarded as the minimum someone should leave with?

Again under the racist National Government the percentage of Maori leaving school with NCEA Level 2 increased from 46% to 69%. The kind caring Labour Government saw it drop back to 65%.

So Kelvin Davis is right in saying he rejects the status quo. Labour has actually worsened the status quo for Maori school leavers!

Danyl Mclauchlan writes:

Jacinda Ardern has responded to a surge in house prices, concerns about carbon emissions and calls for action on child poverty by pledging to care more about these issues. The pledge comes after a week of harsh criticism and opposition attacks, and in response to them Ardern has promised to drastically raise the already high levels at which she cares.

The move has delighted her supporters and international admirers, with US vice-president-elect Kamala Harris liking Ardern’s announcement on Instagram, while calls for the prime minister to receive a Nobel Peace Prize have intensified. But critics and commentators have raised doubts about the new caring, wondering whether the promised new levels of care are credible, and even questioning whether the government should solve problems in addition to caring about them.

This is so funny as it is so close to reality.

Details about the increased caring are yet to be revealed but experts predict it will be in line with the prime minister’s previous track record of looking thoughtful and sad whenever questioned about an issue in front of media, and will consist of furrowed brows, worried frowns, and empathic nodding. The furrowing, frowning and nodding, which Treasury refers to as F2N, will increase by one percentage point a year, aggregating each year to an astonishing 9% increase in Net Prime Ministerial Caring, or NPMC, by the end of the decade.

It might be part of their living standards framework!

Further details about the caring will be determined by a task force, and the State Services Commission has formed a working group to determine the terms of enquiry for the interdepartmental agency that will establish the task force.

Ardern would not be drawn on whether climate, housing and child poverty were challenges, crises or disasters, and in response to questions about their priorities she explained that each of them was her highest priority. “Let me be clear. Child poverty is the reason I became a politician. And climate is the greatest problem facing the world, while housing touches every whānau. So in answer to the question of which I care about more, my answer is: be kind to one other.”

Some people on Twitter thought that last paragraph was an actual quote from Ardern. To be fair, it almost could be!

Donald Trump’s attempted coup against American democracy has failed. I call it a clownish coup not because what they tried to do isn’t deadly serious, but because the people involved were so incompetent or mad or both that they became ridiculous.

And that’s now just my view, but the view of Trump confidant Chris Christie:

In an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” Christie said the president should give up his legal strategy. “Elections have consequences, and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn’t happen,” he said.

“The conduct of the president’s legal team has been a national embarrassment,” Christie added, noting that Trump’s lawyers have made a flurry of fraud allegations but have offered no evidence to back them up in court.

Christie criticized Trump’s lawyers for proffering false conspiracy theories at news conferences and other media appearances.

One lawyer was so crazy, she was even too crazy for Trump. That was Sidney Powell who claimed the Republican Governor of Georgia was in a conspiracy with the dead Hugo Chavez and the CIA to steal the election from Trump.

Trump’s problems hasn’t just been the morons posing as lawyers, but Trump himself. He told so many people about his plans to steal the election before election day, that every media outlet in the country knew about them and knew he was going to claim victory on the night. If you are going to try and steal an election, you’re best not to tell everyone about it in advance.

There have been a number of different aspects to Trump’s attempt to steal the election. They are:

1. General undermining of faith in democratic elections. Trump has raised baseless fraud allegations not just in 2020, but also in 2012, 2016 and 2018 elections. He has spent a decade telling people US elections are rigged. What sort of President campaigns against his own democratic institutions?
2. Claiming victory on election night in states where the vote count wasn’t anywhere near complete. He had signalled he would do this for weeks ahead of time, but it doesn’t make it less shocking. He tweeted and raged that he had won various states, when there were millions of ballots not counted, that had been cast before the election.
3. When he realises that merely claiming on Twitter he had won didn’t work, he spread numerous conspiracy theories about fraud. But not only has he been unable to find proof of widespread fraud, he hasn’t found proof of even minimal fraud. It’s sort of amazing that they have around 1,000 lawyers looking for fraud and there were 160 million votes cast and they haven’t been able to locate any fraudulent votes. Either those fraudsters are super smart or maybe his own Department of Homeland Security was right when they called them the most secure in history.
4. Then you had the lawsuits. Now absolutely in an extremely close race it is quite proper to seek a judicial ruling on the election rules. But Trump has filed 36 lawsuits, of which he has lost 34 and had two minor wins which are of basically no consequence. The lawsuits are so incompetent and in such bad faith, that they are basically just a delaying tactic. It is possible Trump actually think if he can get one to the Supreme Court that the Justices there will rule for him simply because he appointed a third of them. He doesn’t really understand the concept of an independent judiciary or justice department.
5. Then there was the pressure on Republicans not to certify election results. Sadly the US doesn’t have an electoral administration system totally removed from politicians like in NZ. In NZ we don’t have the Minister of Justice sign off on the election results. But in the US there is a bureaucratic procedural step where a board or state official must certify the results. Trump has pressured Republican officials to refuse to certify the results, which would effectively disenfranchise entire counties or states.
6. Finally he has been trying to delay certification so that in the absence of a certified result he can then have a state legislature declare Trump the winner regardless of the popular vote in the state. This is the most brazen part of his attempted coup. Now the constitution does of course give state legislatures the right to select electors but for the last 175 years every state has a law saying the electors are assigned to who wins the popular vote in that state (or district). Now if politicians want to stand for office to the state legislature on a platform of taking the presidential decision away from voters and giving it to the state legislature they’re welcome to do so (and will no doubt get 1% of the vote). But to try and convince state legislators to ignore the results of an election, is authoritarian or worse.

So Trump’s coup has failed. He will go down in history as the worst President in the history of the United States, and also the biggest sulkiest loser. But his tactics have done massive damage. He has set the stage for someone smarter and more competent to try and do the same in future.

All because he can’t accept the fact he lost.

A guest post by Alwyn Poole:

New Zealand is a small and distant nation by world measures. We also rate very poorly in education given of diminutive size and high relative wealth. While we were once regarded as “world-leading” the most recent measures (PISA 2019) have us 7^th for Science, 8^th for Reading and an abysmal 22^nd for Maths. Other concerns were:

“an alarming rise in bullying, gaps between high and low achievers, drastically deteriorating attitudes toward reading, a rise in truancy, poor learning environments and a negative attitude toward school.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/117890945/new-zealand-topend-in-oecds-latest-pisa-report-but-drop-in-achievements-worrying

New Zealand leads the world in the wrong way with some of the highest gaps between have and have-nots and between ethnicities. There is a 45% gap for school leavers between young people from Asian families achieving UE as compared to those from Maori and Pasifika families. New Zealand also performs poorly in terms of children with diverse learning needs such as those with dyslexia, autism or ADHD.

The good news is that the Labour government and Education Minister Chris Hipkins will no longer be able to bring out the “nine years of neglect” ploy – or blame other governing parties. They did very little in their first three years expect have a couple of working groups that we highly contradictory of each other and had very little implemented. They promised Designated Character Schools to crack open the one size fits all model but did not deliver. They threw millions of dollars in laptops, modems and hard-packs – even though largely unsolicited – during lock-downs. They now need to look at the day-today where NZ students have reported:

New Zealand had one of the worst scores for classroom behaviour of any OECD nation with more students reporting noise and disorder in their classroom (41 percent) and more saying students did not listen to their teachers (35 percent). 

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/404762/nz-teenagers-hit-new-lows-in-reading-maths-and-science-tests

We have a system that – through a bi-lateral monopoly on the demand and supply of teachers (unions vs the Ministry of Education) means that we have a collective contract that prevents any incentives for teaching in schools where the students have highest needs. The government is looking to do away with the decile system and, what they consider, is that labels that go with it. It will take the students and families between 6 and 8 days to decode the new system and realise that, to paraphrase The Who; “the new boss is the same as the old boss.” It is well past time to look for mavericks people and maverick models. It is time to break down the “one-size-fits-all” as it fails many and reinforces societies disparities.

Minister Hipkins, his associate (Jan Tinetti) and the Labour Maori caucus have no ongoing excuse. No party has been handed a change mandate on a plate like this is recent history. Will they bring genuine change or defer to the unions and simply aim to preserve power through being moderate, mediocre and middle-of-the road? The 2019 school leavers results have just been released. Asian 63.8 of leavers have UE, 43.8% of Europeans, 22.8 for Pasifika and 18.6 for Maori. Overall girls 45.9%, boys 32.9%.

Our children deserve the best and state-of-the-art learning theory clearly shows what is required to bring about high levels of aspiration and fulfillment. If Labour make significant moves in the right direction I will be the first to support them – but there is no indication from them of anything but Sergeant Schultz on Education and Dug the Dog from Up being trained to be distracted by HOUSE PRICES …

ACT are proposing that select committee membership should change from being proportional to the total number of MPs in Parliament to being proportional to the number of MPs not in the Executive.

I hope this proposal is given serious consideration as it would be a change that would enhance Parliament massively. They explain:

Select committees are a rubber stamp because the Government has a majority on most of them. Instead, their membership should be made proportional to non-executive MPs (i.e. those MPs who aren’t Ministers) so the Opposition has a majority on most committees. Select committees would then be worth submitting to because they could actually change legislation. The Government could still change it back in the main Parliament where it would still have a majority. But the possibility of real change would make select committees a place of real policy debate. The Government has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use its large majority to make this change at little cost to itself.

Select Committees would become a forum where the Government can be scrutinised far more strongly – as we saw with the Epidemic Response Committee.

There would be political incentives for opposition parties to not use select committees just to vote down government bills. An opposition that was purely obstructionist would suffer a backlash.

An associated change that I would make is to mandate that if a select committee is not unanimous it can produce two reports – a majority and minority report – each with their own marked up amended bill.

And then at 2nd reading the House can vote not just on whether to proceed with the bill, but whether to accept the majority or minority version of the bill. This would allow the Government to still gets it way (as it should if it has the numbers in the House), but means the House explicitly votes on the two reports.

So this standing order change would not be about stopping the Government from being able to legislate. It would be about empowering select committees to be more independent. Without near automatic government majorities, they will be more likely to pursue inquiries, call in expert witnesses etc.

This would not be a minor change. This change would make a huge difference to the role of select committees and Parliament. I hope it is considered.

Stuff reports:

The National Party looks set to run candidates in the Māori electorates in the 2023 election.

Leader Judith Collins confirmed the party’s board is keen on the idea, although a formal decision has yet to be made.

The last election National ran candidates in the seats was 2002. It didn’t run candidates in 2005 and has continued to stay away from the Māori seats since then.

Collins told Stuff that there had been ongoing discussions with the National Party board about running in the seats, and the board was broadly supportive. If the board gives the go-ahead, the party could start looking for candidates who would run in the seats in 2023.

The strongest argument for standing in the Maori seats is that it may boost the party vote for National in those seats.

You can have a principled view that you think the electoral system would be better without the Maori seats, but also recognise that while they exist National should compete in them.

I think the age of NZ Super should be lifted from 65 to 67. But that doesn’t mean I’ll refuse to apply for Super when I’m 65.

There were three pre-election public polls, from One News Colmar Brunton, Newshub Reid Research and Roy Morgan. With final results, we can now compare how they did.

The table above shows the results, the poll, and the difference. The MOE column indicates whether the difference is within the 95% margin of error.

ONCB and NRR had Labour lower than the actual result and outside the margin of error.

All three polls had National higher than the actual result and outside the margin of error.

This is a fairly significant “miss”, but I think it is understandable. Polls can be self-fulfilling prophecies and I think a fair number of National voters simply didn’t vote or voted tactically. A poll is a snapshot at a point in time.

ONCP was spot on with the Greens, NRR was too low (outside MOE) and RM too high (but just inside MOE).

All the polls got ACT broadly correct.

All three pollsters had the Maori Party too low and outside the MOE.

ONCB and RM were spot on with NZ First. NRR were too high but just within the MOE.

All three polls had TOP correct.

The TV polls had New Conservatives correct.

ONCB had Advance correct but NRR had thenm too low.

So which poll was most accurate?

If you take total difference, then this time Roy Morgan did best with 8.4% vs 11% for ONCB and 14.1% for NRR. If you average that per result then RM and ONCB had an average 1.2% error and NRR 1.6%.

Another way of looking at it is how many of the results were within the margin of error. They are:

• ONCB 6/9
• NRR 4/9
• RM 5/7

Now let’s look at the referendum polling

Note the results exclude informal ballots and the polls exclude undecideds so it compares like and like.

The only poll that was within the margin of error was in fact the internal polling released by the Greens. They were only 2.6% out from the actual result.

The two TV polls were the only ones that got the overall result of a loss correct, while the other four incorrectly forecast a win.

However in terms of the actual gap between the poll and the result the closest were the Greens and UMR and the furthest away was NRR.

For the euthanasia poll, the only poll within the MOE was ONCB. They had the yes result just 1.4% below the actual result. NRR was 3.2% below and Research NZ was 6.2% too high,. Note the Research NZ poll was in August though.

They all were right in clearly predicting a comfortable victory for yes, but ONCB got closest to the actual result.

This is the second post in my series analysing the election results. Patreon doesn’t have good formatting tools for tables so I’m trying to post this on my blog using the Patreon plugin, to see if this works.

The above figures are on the boundaries of the five National Party Regions.  The seven Maori seats are treated as a de facto sixth Region to allow a cleaner comparison from Region to Region.

National did best in CNI at 31% and worst in LNI at 23%

Labour got over 50% in LNI and CW and lowest in CNI at 45%

Greens were best at 11% in LNI and lowest in CNI at 5%

ACT were best in Southern at 9% and lowest in LNI at 7%

TOP did best in the LNI Region at 1.9%.

Advance NZ got 2.5% in the Maori seats.

The gap between the CR and CL for each Region was:

• Northern -19%
• CNI -8%
• LNI -31%
• C/W -23%
• Southern -20%

• Auckland is defined as the 22 seats in greater Auckland.
• Wellington is the six seats south of and including Mana and Rimutaka.
• Christchurch is the six seats wholly or mainly in Christchurch including Waimakariri and Banks Peninsula.
• Provincial are those 17 seats which have more than 50% of their population in minor cities such as Nelson, New Plymouth, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier etc.
• Rural are the 14 seats where less than 50% of the population live in a city.

Labour is strongest in Wellington at 53% and weakest in rural NZ at 43%

National is lowest in Wellington at 18% and highest in rural NZ at 32%. 

Greens are high in Wellington at 16% (just behind National) and also Christchurch at 10%. They even exceeded 5% in rural NZ.

ACT did best in rural NZ with 11% and lowest in Wellington at 5%.

TOP got 2.6% in Wellington and below 2% elsewhere.

The gap between CR and CL for each area was:

• Auckland -21%
• Wellington -45%
• Christchurch -30%
• Provincial -21%
• Rural -3%

So even in rural NZ, the centre-left got slightly more votes than the centre-right. This is of course very rare, and shows how seismic the shift was this election.

And in Wellington, the gap between the two is huge. There are almost 3 CL voters for every one CR voter in Wellington.

The next post will look at the change between 2017 and 2020 for each region and area.

Stuff reports:

An independent review of the Invercargill City Council says Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt is struggling to fulfill significant aspects of his job and as a result there is a leadership void at the council.

The council released the findings from an independent review into the council which was prompted by the Department of Internal Affairs which raised concerns about the council’s performance.

The review put together by two independent consultants after gathering feedback from elected members and senior staff.

The report says there is a clear consensus that Shadbolt is struggling in the role.

It has been apparent for some time Sir Tim has been struggling.

I am fond of Sir Tim, who is a genuine character. In the mid 90s I had to meet him around the Scout Jamboree at Te Anau, to discuss opportunities for Invercargill from it. He turned up half an hour late to his own Council luncheon for us, and brought a bag of McDonalds which he offered around. It was, we were told, typical Tim.

He has been a great Ambassador and proponent for Invercargill. He has never been one of those Mayors who was over the fine details of every issue, but he certainly was able to provide leadership and direction.

It seems clear he is no longer able to do that. He is now aged 73 and while some people at that age remain sharp as a tack, I think it is clear Sir Tim is feeling the burden of age.

Sir Tim is struggling with the job, and I don’t think it is a struggle that can be overcome.

The report also says ‘three southern mayors’ contacted report authors Bruce Robertson and Richard Thomson raising concerns about Shadbolt.

The report says Shadbolt’s difficulties are becoming increasingly apparent.

Shadbolt, deputy mayor Nobby Clark, and chief executive fronted the media on Monday soon after media were provided a copy of the review.

Councillors also attended.

To the shock of everyone in attendance, Shadbolt went about reading a lengthy statement where he rubbished much of the report findings saying he felt he had been unfairly singled out as part of the review.

That is despite Shadbolt, in a public excluded meeting on November 12, voting in favour of accepting the report.

“The actual content of the report I’m not willing to wear. The report will have you believe that the dysfunction of this current council rests squarely on myself and my new deputy Nobby Clark.

I don’t think anyone is saying there are not other issues around the Council, but that doesn’t mean that it is viable for Sir Tim to continue as Mayor.

The humane thing to do would be to find a more appropriate role for him that can utilise his great passion for Invercargill. Make him the Southern Ambassador to NZ, or make him the City Father or Patron. The Romans called it Pater Patriae.

But I don’t think the status quo is sustainable and it would be a real shame if his career had to end with the Government having to take over the Council.

Stuff reports:

Wellington City Council has no plans to evict and may provide toilets to protesters, some who are using a tent erected by Mayor Andy Foster on council land.

A one-man sentry at Shelly Bay became the starting point of an occupation on Sunday afternoon as four others joined Anaru Mepham, of the group Mau Whenua, at the Miramar peninsula site, where a $500 million development is planned.

Foster, Wellington’s Mayor, was on Sunday photographed braving a staunch wind as he helped erect a tent for protesters, who say they are ready to stay till March.

The land they chose to occupy was the same land that Wellington City Council earlier this month voted to sell and lease to developer Ian Cassels. The land deal is expected to be completed in the New Year, meaning Cassels could well take possession of occupied land.

This is appalling judgment by Foster. He put his best case to his colleagues and lost. They voted to continue to sell the land. To then go out and help setup an illegal occupation of the land is incompatible with being Mayor.

How can he expect his colleagues to have confidence with him, if he acts like this against a democratic decision of the Council?

The UN Watch NGO put out a statement a couple of weeks ago that said:

As 194 countries gather online for the World Health Organization’s annual assembly, which is slated this afternoon to hear the first progress report from its international inquiry into the origins and global response to the coronavirus pandemic, an independent human rights watchdog is calling on the panel’s co-chair, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, to recuse herself from the position on account of her numerous prior statements praising the WHO’s response, and due to her close ties with the Chinese government.

Clark was appointed by the world’s top health agency to co-chair the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, an impartial inquiry that will probe the WHO’s handling of the coronavirus and the response of governments around the world. The panel is scheduled to present its progress report today, and the final report in May 2021.

However, according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based NGO UN Watch, “Clark’s numerous statements this year praising the WHO for the very actions she is meant to investigate, as well as her history of close ties with Beijing—which backed her recent bid to become UN chief—give rise to the appearance of bias, and could seriously undermine the credibility of the panel’s findings.”

This call for Clark to resign was newsworthy. In fact both the NZ Herald and Newshub wrote stories about it, but then deleted the stories without trace.

Now Clark obviously disagrees with UN Watch that she is compromised, and has complained to the media outlets that ran a story.

But surely the media should add in comments from her refuting the claims, rather than just deleting the story?

I’m not critical of Clark for complaining to the media, but I am critical of the media for deleting a story that deemed newsworthy merely because a politician or public figure complains about it.

Clark is a public figure and comments about her are clearly covered by qualified privilege. And this is not a minor story, but about the leadership of a global inquiry into the WHO response to the worst public health crisis of 100 years.

This doesn’t mean I agree with UN Watch that Clark is compromised or should resign. The fact that China backed her for UN Secretary-General doesn’t mean there is a quid-pro-quo. Anyone who has been active on the global stage will have relationships with various countries.

The issue is that the media decided this story was newsworthy and presumably in the face of legal threats just deleted them, rather than amended them.

UPDATE: The Herald has now republished the story it deleted, with the addition of comments by Clark. This is what they should have done in the first place.

The FEE report:

“In 2016, real median household income was $62,898, just $257 above its level in 1999,” writes Smith. “Over the next three years it grew almost $6,000, to $68,703.”

Indeed, median household incomes increased from $64,300 to $68,700 in 2018 alone—an increase of $4,400. To put it another way, US incomes increased more in 2018 than the previous 20 years combined. (Household incomes were $61,100 in 1998 and $64,300 at the end of 2017.)

This is why Trump almost won. For the first time in 20 years, the average household was better off.

The year 2017 saw massive deregulation and passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Estimates placed the deregulation savings at $2 trillion. But what was likely even a bigger factor was the cut businesses saw in corporate taxes.

Prior to 2017, the US had the highest corporate tax in the developed world (if not the whole world). With a top bracket of 35 percent, its corporate tax rate was higher than Communist China and socialist Venezuela.

This was a terrible policy on a number of levels. For starters, the revenue-maximizing rate of a corporate tax is 15-25 percent, which means anything above that isn’t even generating more revenue, it’s simply punitive and economically harmful. (Evidence bears this out. The United Kingdom, for example, reduced its corporate tax rate and saw revenues grow.)

Our corporate tax rate is 28%.

I don’t think I can recall a legal opinion which has so brutally eviscerated the arguments put together by a plaintiff as this ruling by Judge Brann. You would normally expect this sort of dismissal in a case put forward by a lay plaintiff, not by lawyers representing the President of the United States.

Courts reporter Brad Heath has a series of tweets with the highlights or lowlights from the ruling. Here’s the first couple of paras:

In this action, the Trump Campaign and the Individual Plaintiffs
(collectively, the “Plaintiffs”) seek to discard millions of votes legally cast by Pennsylvanians from all corners – from Greene County to Pike County, and everywhere in between. In other words, Plaintiffs ask this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this
Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens.
That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state.

And on the substance:

Plaintiffs’ only remaining claim alleges a violation of equal protection. This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.

I was going to say this is a polite way of saying the arguments were nonsense but actually not that polite.

Crucially, Plaintiffs fail to understand the relationship between right and remedy. Though every injury must have its proper redress, a court may not prescribe a remedy unhinged from the underlying right being asserted. By seeking injunctive relief preventing certification of the
Pennsylvania election results, Plaintiffs ask this Court to do exactly that. Even assuming that they can establish that their right to vote has been denied, which they cannot, Plaintiffs seek to remedy the denial of their votes by invalidating the votes of millions of others. Rather than requesting that their votes be counted, they seek to discredit scores of other votes, but only for one race. This is simply not how the Constitution works.

Common sense really, plus the law.

Here, leveling up to address the alleged cancellation of Plaintiffs’ votes
would be easy; the simple answer is that their votes would be counted. But Plaintiffs do not ask to level up. Rather, they seek to level down, and in doing so, they ask the Court to violate the rights of over 6.8 million Americans. It is not in the power of this Court to violate the Constitution.

Yes the Trump campaign unconstitutionally tried to remove legally cast votes from 6.8 million Americans.

Granting Plaintiffs’ requested relief would necessarily require invalidating the ballots of every person who voted in Pennsylvania. Because this Court has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens, it cannot grant Plaintiffs’ requested relief.

No court will find so. The Supreme Court would be at risk of dying from laughter if this case somehow ended up before them.

Defendants’ motions to dismiss the First Amended Complaint are granted
with prejudice.

Now lawyers might not know what this means. To quote Wikipedia:

A civil matter which is “dismissed with prejudice” is over forever. This is a final judgement, not subject to further action, which bars the plaintiff from bringing any other lawsuit based on the claim.

If it is an involuntary dismissal, the judge has determined that the plaintiff has brought the case in bad faith, has failed to bring the case in a reasonable time, has failed to comply with court procedures, or on the merits after hearing the arguments in court.

I recommend you read the full ruling if you have time.

Also not that it should matter but Judge Brann is a member of the Federalist Society, was a member of his local Republican committee for 18 years and was or is a member of the National Rifle Association.

In its bid for power during the 2017 campaign, Labour vowed to solve what Jacinda Ardern is now calling the housing “problem”.  

For much of its nine years in government, National was an ostrich with its head in the sand on the issue, pretending that the country wasn’t in the midst of an escalating crisis. 

For Labour, this failure was central to its 2017 election critique. During its first term, it promised, it would flood the market with thousands of affordable homes, increase state stock and eliminate homelessness. So important it was to Labour that, when Jacinda Ardern outlined her priorities for the first 100 days of the Labour-NZ First coalition, housing was at the top of her list. 

Ardern had assured the country that, under Labour, they could “make home ownership possible again” – that things could and would be better. 

Promises of big and bold transformation were made, with the construction of 100,000 KiwiBuild homes in 10 years being the most obvious example. 

So, three years on, how much progress has been made?  

Well, we all know the disaster that is KiwiBuild. By September 2019, only 258 homes had been built at which point the policy was reset and the targets were dropped. A year on and less than 600 have been completed. The programme was a complete and utter flop – and has continued to be so even after Phil Twyford lost his ministerial responsibility for it.  

The Government has been more successful when it comes to boosting public housing (though demand exceeds supply significantly). It has built around 3,500 state houses in its first term and put an end to National’s state housing sell-off policy. The blemish here was the Government being caught out having quietly sold at least 146 state homes worth more than $30 million since 2017. 

Overall, however, its record on homelessness and social housing is no better than that of KiwiBuild. The wait list has tripled to more than 20,000 households since 2017. 

And all the while, house prices have continued to rise and rise without let up or remorse. 

For all the inspirational rhetoric and promises that were made in 2017 and the months following, Labour has figured out that tackling the housing crisis is not as easy as it looked. Back when the coalition government was first formed, it claimed we had a housing shortfall of 71,000. Today, the Government doesn’t even bother giving a number. 

The newly elected Labour-only Government can’t blame anyone else for what happens this term. There is no other party or individual there to throw a spanner in the works. The buck stops with Labour.  

Those who think a capital gains tax or wealth tax would help the situation will continue to be disappointed. Jacinda Ardern has repeatedly ruled out both for as long as she is Prime Minister. There is no chance she would risk her popularity by going back on her word and introducing either – especially without anybody else to whom she can attribute blame.  

There is agreement from all sides that the Resource Management Act needs an overhaul with Labour going so far as promising to replace the RMA during the 2020 campaign. But the legislative process is expected to take considerable time to see through. Even then, it will be a while before we see an impact on house prices. 

There has been some suggestion that the Government could loosen the income caps on the First Home Grant scheme. However, while this will help first home buyers earning over $85,000 (or $130,000 jointly), the effect of injecting more state money into the sector will likely lift house prices even further. It is the kind of measure National was rightly criticised for by Labour when in opposition. 

As for Kiwibuild, the prospect of it having a major impact on supply is bleak. Almost non-existent. 

It’s clear that finding a solution is not easy. But when a political party comes to power largely on the back of a promise to tackle something like the housing crisis, conditions should at least become better, not worse. People are right to expect some improvement and equally right to feel disappointed when it does not happen. 

If Ardern wants to keep her grips on power and live up to her repeated claims of leading a transformational government, she needs to come up with a plan. Fast. 

Monique Poirier has a Masters degree in Political Studies, and is a small business owner and former Parliamentary staffer. She is the Campaigns Manager for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance.

Radio NZ reports:

Managed isolation planning is under fire after figures show there are still more than 1000 empty places – while returning New Zealanders and separated families say they are being told there is no room at the inn. …

The chair of thinktank the New Zealand Initiative, Roger Partridge, said the vacancies were shameful when so many people are crying out for places, including New Zealanders returning for a family Christmas.

“My impression is that officials are more interested in being ‘in control’ than meeting the needs of New Zealand families, firms and workers. This will have long term adverse effects on jobs and wellbeing,” Partridge said.

“Quite apart from the human tragedy behind the empty beds, feedback from the business community is of projects stalling, critical roles being left unfilled, and business activity suffering as a result.”

He asked whether officials were being held accountable for the unused capacity.

Our MIQ systems seems designed to meet the needs of the bureaucracy, rather than the needs of New Zealanders.

The Herald reports:

Former Prime Minister John Key had a staunch message to any National MPs who continue to leak against the party: “If you can’t quit leaking, quit the party”.

Thank you for stating the obvious.

It would be hard to overemphasise how much damage to National’s brand is done by stories about leaks. They don’t just do damage in the week they’re reported, but they do long-term damage.

A \friend once said forensic analysis of statistical records can unearth various anomalies that become the pointers to provable fraud. I am going to focus exclusively on statistical anomalies in the New Zealand election that at the very least raise questions and likely point to targeted election fraud.

1 – MMP anomaly. MMP is designed to stop any party getting a majority. But Labour won 65 seats out of 120.

2 – Party vote anomaly. Our election history shows that parties never get 50% of the vote. No party has got over 50% since 1951. Yet Labour got 50% in 2020.

3 – Suspiciously round percentages. Labour got almost exactly 50% of the vote, which is very suspicious. Not 49%. Not 51%, but 50%. And even at one decimal place 50.0%. What are the chances of that happening randomly?

4 – Advance vote differences. In 2017 parties got almost the same share of the vote in advance votes and election day votes. In 2020 parties of the left did 9% better with advance votes. This has never occurred before. Can we rule out that advance votes which were stored out of sight for up to two weeks were interfered with?

5 – Special votes. Where did all these special votes comes from? They weren’t included in election night totals. There were no progressive updates on them, such as we had on election night. Suddenly two weeks later the Electoral Commission just announces new results and Labour suddenly wins three more electorates – and two of them were seats they had never won before

6 – Electorate anomalies. In 2002 National got even fewer party votes than in 2020, yet it still won Northland, Whangarei, Ilam and Nelson. How does it make sense that you lose these four seats in 2020 when you got more party votes?

CONCLUSION. These various statistical patterns raise some serious concerns. The current election results sees a seemingly defeated National Party defy a number of statistical conventions going back many decades over dozens of elections. The various anomalies unearthed by various people point to irregularities in the vote that should be investigated and litigated to the highest level possible to ensure widespread integrity in the voting system.