From hero to zero

I used to be a huge Rudy Giuliani fan. It is with a degree of sorrow I observe how he has gone from one of the most respected guys in America to basically a clown.

His appearance in court was almost painful. He didn’t even understand basic legal concepts a first year law student would be expected to know. And then his ranting press conference where his (presumably) hair dye melted down his face made him look like a clown.

He once was in fact a great lawyer. As the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York he successfully prosecuted mafia bosses. His eight years as Mayor of New York saw crime fall massively – well beyond the national average.

His response to 9/11 was a shining example of hands on leadership – he went to the front line and co-ordinated the many city departments involved in the response as well as state and federal authorities. His approval rating hit 79%. He was Time’s Person of the Year.

He was a serious candidate for the Republican nomination in 2008, and he was one of three I thought would be good. He was the front runner in polls for most of 2007. He was one of my political heroes.

But now he has become a clown. Well worse than a clown. Rarely has someone fallen so far. To go from being one of the best District Attorneys in America to someone who couldn’t even mount a coherent legal argument in court.

Statistical anomalies in the 2020 Presidential Election

A good friend is a forensic investigative accountant after serving for a time on the NZ Police Fraud Squad. She specialises in detecting corporate fraud for a variety of private sector companies (often insurance companies) in various countries. She once said the beauty about her profession is that the data cannot lie, and that forensic analysis of statistical records can unearth various anomalies that become the pointers to provable fraud. As the Trump campaign seeks to overturn results in key states alleging various types of electoral fraud as covered in my last post, today I will focus exclusively on statistical anomalies in the 2020 Presidential race that at the very least raise questions and likely point to targeted election fraud.

1 – Incumbent loss anomaly. Donald Trump is the first incumbent President in 132 years since Grover Cleveland’s failed bid for re-election in 1888 to have increased his vote from his initial election and seemingly to still not win re-election. Whilst the Nixon and Reagan re-election landslides of 1972 and 1984 dwarf Trump’s 10 million increase in the popular vote since 2016, nonetheless an increase of a similar size was enough for George Bush to be reasonably comfortably re-elected in 2004.

2 – House of Representative results anomaly. The party whose candidate wins a Presidential election normally increases its representation in the House of Representatives thanks to the campaign momentum of the winning candidate at the top of the ticket. I’ve analysed the net House seat gains in each Presidential election since 1964 and the party winning the Presidency gains on average of net 16 House seats. Biden appears at this stage to be the 2020 winner however the Democrats are on track to lose a net of 12 House seats. This is a swing of -28 seats from the norm which is a huge statistical anomaly because normally a winning Presidential candidate has down ballot coattails that benefit House candidates for their party. This did not happen for Biden in 2020.

3 – Senate results anomaly. Anomalies even extend to the Senate where voting swings are less pronounced than the House due to the 6 year term and only 33% of Senate seats being up for re-election in a given Presidential election. Because so many Senate races involve incumbents who fundraise and campaign aggressively in addition to their party’s candidate at the top of the ticket, on average the number of votes cast for a Senate candidate of a party is more than the votes cast for the winning Presidential candidate of the same party. I have analysed the Senate voting patterns for 17 swing states since 1964 concentrating on the Senate races in states where the candidate for Senate is in the same party as the WINNING candidate for President. The numbers of races caught in this analysis ranges between 6 and 9 races per each Presidential election. The average vote differential between the Senate candidate and the winning Presidential candidate of the same party is 4.4% more votes for the Senate candidate over the Presidential candidate. The 2020 election bucks this trend with votes for Biden in the swing states exceeding his own party’s senate candidates votes by on average 2.5% (provisional results only of course). This is a statistically significant 7% swing which may not sound much but given Biden holds leads of 1% or less in four states (AZ, GA, WI, and PA), this differential is consequential. In Georgia, Biden polled 99,000 more votes than the Democrat Senate candidate in the normal two candidate Senate race in GA (a second Special Senate election was held for the other GA senate seat but it was a three way race). Sidney Powell (a Trump lawyer) estimates that, of those 99,000 excess Biden votes in GA, there were 65,000 votes solely for Biden and no other votes for any other candidate anywhere on the ballot. Biden’s current lead in GA is only 12,000.

SOURCE: All the election results were taken from Wikipedia which, for this subject matter, is very reliable. The spreadsheet I have made is too big and complex to post but is available upon request – indicate in the comments and I will find a way via David to get it to any interested party.

4 – Swing state anomalies versus Obama’s very strong 2008 performance. Biden’s leads in swing states are uneven and the difference seems to be who is in control of the voting procedures at the state level. Trump won comfortably in Florida, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina and Iowa and his leads in those states were barely dented overnight by the significant vote shifts in favour of Biden that occurred in the 11 other swing states Biden appears to have won.  Trump had sizable leads overturned in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona and then, in states like Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, and New Hampshire where he was surprisingly close on election night, only to see it dramatically slip far away. Only in North Carolina did Trump cling on to a lead and go on to win despite the added Biden votes. I compared the Biden vote in all these swing states with the 2008 vote for Obama. The Obama 2008 vote has been adjusted for population to make for a more apples v apples comparison to reflect the 8.7% increase in the US total population since 2008. In the 11 swing states that saw late surges in Biden votes, Biden increased his vote over Obama’s adjusted 2008 vote by 2.6 million or 13% whereas in the other 5 states, Biden’s vote compared to Obama’s 2008 adjusted vote was down 667,000 or -5%. This is an almost 20% variance between battleground states, a result all the more remarkable given Obama clearly ran a powerful populist campaign barnstorming the country in 2008 with huge attendance at massive rallies with a palpable enthusiasm to elect a young charismatic first black President whereas Biden is a geriatric quintessential Washington insider with obvious cognitive impairment who ran a lackluster campaign with few appearances that were poorly attended. Trump’s campaign was the one with all the energy and enthusiasm that more closely matched Obama’s winning 2008 campaign and yet Biden managed to juice Obama’s big 2008 vote by 15% …. but only in just the right states! It defies belief. And why do you think that his vote versus Obama was down in the other 5 swing states (in almost all cases he was even down on Clinton’s vote)? Voter integrity laws and procedures in these Republican run states are more robust thus forcing even Democrat run counties to follow stricter balloting procedures. But you say what about Georgia with a GOP Governor and Secretary of State. Well, the Republican Governor Brian Kemp beat Stacy Abrahams by 50,000 votes in 2018 and she alleged voter suppression and never conceded and in order to appease her, Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger entered into a procedural Consent Decree that relaxed the Georgia absentee ballot rules for 2020 and made the auditing process in a recount so complex as to render an audit to be little more than a standard recount which is why the Georgia recount is now the subject of various lawsuits as it is not a full audit because it has no signature reconciliation component as Kemp and Raffensperger negotiated that away.

5 – Bellwether county anomaly. All western first world democratic countries have bellwether districts that election prognosticators look to during result counting as they have gone with the winning party in many elections. In the First Past the Post days in NZ it was the electorate of Eden in Auckland, in Australia it is still the electorate of Eden-Monaro in NSW south of Sydney. The UK has the bellwether constituency of Dartford in Kent and in Canada, the riding of Cambridge, Ontario is one of their bellwethers. In the US, because votes are almost always administered and counted at the county level, two counties have emerged as reliable harbingers of the winner Presidential candidate. They are Vigo County in Indiana encompassing the town of Terra Haute and Valencia County in New Mexico just south of Albuquerque. Vigo County has picked the winning President in every election since 1956 AND has only missed twice since 1896!  Valencia County’s winning streak extends to Eisenhower’s first victory in 1952. And yet strangely Trump won Vigo County in 2020 by a comfortable 56/41 margin or 15 points and he won Valencia County a slightly smaller 10 point margin 54/44!

6 – Thousands of precincts all reporting significant over vote in Michigan. Russell Ramsland of Allied Security Group, LLC of Dallas, TX swore an affidavit concerning a detailed audit his company did on voting machines in Texas in 2018. He wrote in detail of the many serious security inadequacies of the software and then examined the 2020 Presidential vote count in a number of counties in Michigan. He reported that over 3,000 precincts in the state of Michigan reported a vote count between 80 and 350% of registered voters. He lists a number of precincts in his report and in some cases a massive over vote. The vast majority of the precincts on the list were on or about 100%. The whole affidavit makes for interesting reading.

7 = Biden underperforms Obama in 80% of Wisconsin counties but hugely overperforms in just 5 counties. This anomaly was actually covered in my post last week but this time I have put what happened to the Biden vote in table form:

The 5 counties with the disproportionate vote for Biden encompass in order, north west of Milwaukee, outskirts of Minneapolis MN, Madison (a liberal college town and the state capital), eastern suburbs of Milwaukee and northern suburbs of Milwaukee. Obama’s and Clinton’s votes are distributed along historical Democrat strength patterns as was Trump’s vote for Republican areas in 2016 and 2020. Biden’s vote is well down across almost all the state and massively even unnaturally up in a few key urban strongholds.

8 = Wayne County, Michigan anomaly. On Tuesday attempts were made to certify the vote in Democrat heavy Wayne County in which Detroit Michigan sits. Initially the decision was deadlocked 2 -2 but after various online attacks, doxxing and threats on a Zoom call the two Republicans on the County Elections Board caved and certified. They have since reversed their decision and filed affidavits alleged intimidation and bullying tactics. One of the Democrats on the Board in his rant on Twitter to heavy his colleagues, uttered some inadvertent but important truths that shed light on yet another anomaly, that of the fact that in fully 71% of precincts in the county, the tally of absentee ballot of those who requested ballots and those who cast ballots was unable to be reconciled because the number of actual absentee ballots counted exceeded the number legally requested. Furthermore, 28% of ballots could not be verified because they have either been lost or destroyed! There is no doubt that Biden would carry a county like this but for the sake of voter integrity, election officials ought not certify until all ballots can be properly reconciled.

9 = Anomaly of hugely lopsided Biden votes added in minutes in the dead of night. This statistical anomaly was picked up in real time by an analyst awake in Switzerland at around 3am Central Standard Time (CST) of the morning of November 4th watching the results coming in for Wisconsin. He noticed Fox News’ election map of Wisconsin went from light red for Trump with a 77% likelihood for Trump to light blue for Biden with an 80% for Biden IN THE SPACE OF MERE MINUTES. He got suspicious of such a massive switch in such a short period of time and so he went to the New York Times minute by minute electronic update from the raw data feed supplied by Edmonds Polling of reported election results and observed this:

“For non-programmers, here is the translation:

At 3:37 AM CST, total votes were 3,018,212; Trump had 1,536,270 votes (50.9%); Biden 1,427,614 votes (47.3%); other candidates 54,328 votes (1.8%).

At 3:42 AM CST, total votes were 3,186,598; Trump had 1,561,433 votes (49.0%); Biden 1,570,993 votes (49.3%); other candidates 54,172 votes (1.7%).

Total increase in Trump votes in 5 minutes: 25,163 (1.64%).

Total increase in Biden votes in 5 minutes: 143,379 (10.04%).

Before the Biden vote dump, both candidates’ votes were increasing at about the same rate, 1.64% per 5 minutes. So, the “legitimate” Biden vote increase is likely around 23,400 votes. The remaining 119,979 votes are fake.

Here is his analysis of the same trend in Michigan

“At 5:32 AM CST on November 4, total votes were 4,574,555; Trump had 2,346,747 votes (51.3%); Biden 2,150,041 votes (47.0%); other candidates 77,767 votes (1.7%).

Then, still at 5:32 AM CST, only five seconds later than the prior reading, total votes were 4,724,327; Trump had 2,352,715 votes (49.8%); Biden 2,291,299 votes (48.5%); other candidates 80,313 votes (1.7%). In that brief five-second period, Trump’s vote total increased by 5,968 (0.25%) while Biden’s vote total increased by 141,258 (6.57%)! Folks, that is a clear, fraudulent electronic “ballot dump” for Biden. I calculate that this fraud created about 135,883 fake votes for Basement Joe.

The count kept uneventfully grinding on to 6 AM CST, where at 6:03 AM total votes were 4,752,966, Trump votes were 2,366,977 (49.8%), Biden votes were 2,309,941 (48.6%). Ballots (presumably real paper ballots) had been counted at the rate of about 1,000 ballots per minute for the preceding half-hour, with Trump votes having a slight edge over Biden votes during the counting.

Then between 6:03 and 6:14 AM CST, more than 113,000 “votes” were counted, at an average rate of 9,800 ballots per minute. Total votes increased sharply to 4,866,279. Trump votes were 2,403,942 (49.6%), an increase of 36,965 votes (8.16% increase). Biden votes were 2,379,610 (48.9%), an increase of 69,699 votes (30.17% increase). Unlike the previous half-hour of counting, this deluge produced almost two Biden votes for every Trump vote counted.

Of those 113K total votes, 40K showed up in the last two minutes – between 6:12 and 6:14 AM. In two minutes, Trump gained 5,665 votes; Biden gained 29,588 votes. That’s about 5.2 Biden votes for every Trump vote. Because paper ballots simply cannot be fed into the ballot boxes that quickly, I consider this interval to also be electronic vote fraud, adding about 24,037 fake votes to Biden.

Then the ballot-counting quieted down and returned to “normal,” with votes for Trump and Biden about equal, until just before 8 AM, when another sudden burst of 107,700 heavily-Biden votes – 41,914 for Trump, 65,786 for Biden – erased Trump’s lead and tied the candidates at 49.2% each of the total votes. My total count for electronic fraudulent Biden ballots from this 2-hour, 30-minute period is 159,920”

10 – Anomalous turnouts in Wisconsin and Minnesota

Minnesota’s turnout average for the last 3 elections was 76% and in 2020 it was a full 13% higher. In Wisconsin, the average was 71% last 3 elections, so the 2020 increase was a whopping 18%. The 2020 turnout percentages in WI and MN are fully 9% higher than NZ’s highest turnout election in the last 5 (2017) and is only 3% lower than the average 92% rate in Australia that has compulsory voting! But perhaps the most telling comparison is with the GOP controlled battleground states that went for Trump and where no anomalies have arisen. Florida averaged 74% last 3 elections and at 75% in 2020 was only 1% higher. Ohio averaged 65% and in 2020 was 67% so only 2% higher. The average increase in turnout across PA, WI and MN was 14% and the average for FL and OH was 1.5% or a 9 times higher turnout average. Are there any statisticians out there that can calculate the odds of this huge voter turnout in these key swing states being a natural and normal trend?

Data for Florida is from here, 2020 turnout here, historical turnouts here and Pennsylvania here:

11 – Pennsylvania’s mail in ballot anomaly. Democrats will say that Trump lost Pennsylvania because the mail in ballots went so heavily to Biden. Trump won in-person voting in PA 70/30 and had a 900,000 vote lead on election night but as the night wore on and mail in ballots were counted, his lead was whittled away and over the next week, he ended up being 40,000 votes behind. The trouble is that when you look at the margin that Biden beat Trump in the mail in ballots broken down by each county, the margin at which Biden won was at or around 40% in each county. That defies logic in that Biden would be expected to lead Trump strongly in the Democrat stronghold counties and lead less strongly or trail Trump in the Republican stronghold counties, much as was the pattern with the in-person voting on election day. This result is statistically impossible and has never been replicated anywhere. As an examination of another state’s mail in ballot ratio, the authors took Arkansas as a state that is not a battleground state. In that state, you see fluctuations of the Trump-Biden mail in ballot count from a 2% Biden lead to a 40% Biden lead depending on the demographics of the county and the overall average was a 25% lead. There is no denying Biden did stronger with those mailing in ballots but a 40% lead in rural Pennsylvania is unheard of as is the uniform identical lead across EVERY COUNTY!

12 – Michigan counties anomalies. MIT PhD engineer Dr. Shiva  Ayyaddurai, did an interesting analysis of the Biden Trump split in 3 Michigan counties. He plotted the margin of victory of Trump over Biden on the x axis across precincts on the Y axis with the precincts ranked from left to right by the strength of the historical generic Republican vote weakest to strongest. When he did the analysis in Macomb County Michigan he saw that in the strongest Democrat precincts, the pattern remains the same but as the precincts became stronger and stronger for Republicans, the vote margin between Trump and Biden INCREASES in a direct linear line and this curious statistical anomaly happened identically for the election day vote and the early vote – the trend line is illustrated by the orange lines. The exact same trend line was observed in Kent and Oakland Counties (only McComb is shown but the others are virtually identical), again identical for election day and early voting. No real vote turns out like this smooth and linear in its progression nor would you expect a margin of Biden over Trump to get bigger the more conservative the precinct and so he hypothesises that a vote switching algorithm is the only logical way to explain such a statistical anomaly.  

13 = Same anomaly occurs in Wisconsin. Using Dr Ayyaduria’s analytical technique, a Gateway Pundit data analyst compared Dane County results which have the same flat line and normal distribution

and yet 20 miles away in Milwaukee County, the same anomalous trend line found in some Michigan counties are found there.

14 – Virginia has similar ballot count anomalies. Virginia is another state that electronically posted ballot counts through the night of November 3rd which this analysis shows that batch after batch in a perfect 55/45 Biden/Trump split. No large series of separate mail in ballot batches would end up with identical partisan splits time and time again. The statistical likelihood is astronomical. One statistician said it was like Biden winning a coin toss 100 times in a row! Once again, the only logical conclusion is that the count must have been manipulated.

15 = Mail in ballot rejection rates in 2020 defy historical norms. Mail in ballots have been a feature of the US political landscape in various states for a number of election cycles. For obvious reasons they are subject to some rejection as voters fail to validate the ballot with a signature on the envelope or the signature submitted does not reflect the signature held on file at the time of registration. In 2016, mail in ballot rejection rates were around on average 1% and in some states as high as 6%. In Georgia they were over 6% in 2016 and yet an unbelievably small 0.2% in 2020. During the 2020 primary season, being the first voting to take place after some states switched to the mass mailing of ballots to ALL voters on the roll as opposed to posting only to voters who specifically requested a mail in ballot. In New York state during their primary in June this year, a whopping 20% of mail in ballots were rejected primarily because of the confusion and errors in sending ballots to not fully accurate voter rolls. Thus, it came as a big surprise to observers to see the rejection rate of mail in ballots in the swing states that Trump appears to have lost to have minute rejection rates of 0.3%. This flies in the face of the statistical experience of prior Presidential elections and the chaos seen only months ago with mass mail in ballots being sent during the spring/summer primary elections. A partial explanation is that the cure rate of flawed ballots is higher but that is because state and county courts have arbitrarily expanded the time allowed to cure defective mail in ballots from the usual statutory 3 days to as long as 8 additional days without any amendment of the relevant statutes by state legislatures who alone are tasked in the US Constitution with the job of setting election rules. This issue is the subject of some of the Trump campaign lawsuits.

CONCLUSION. These various statistical patterns raise some serious concerns. The current uncertified election results sees a seemingly defeated Donald Trump defy a number of statistical conventions going back many decades over dozens of Presidential 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. Many criticise the Trump team for their efforts and yet ask yourself this, were the roles reversed we all know the Democrats would litigate and demand full examination of any and all irregularities and I would support them in that quest, again so that people of all political persuasions can know that elections in the US are fair and accurate. If all these investigations and lawsuits unearth anomalies that are insufficient to reverse any of the leads Biden currently holds in key states, counter to the fevered speculations of some of the left, I believe Trump will concede and do so with grace. But if the allegations made (and there are very many I have not gone over in my two posts including those made at the explosive press conference yesterday) are true, then we have the most existential political crisis the US has faced probably since the Civil War and the possible remedies and outcomes thereafter do not bear thinking about.

General Debate 21 November 2020

Joyce says rein in Reserve Bank

Stuff reports:

Former finance minister Steven Joyce has thrown his weight behind calls for the Government to rein in the Reserve Bank.

Joyce pushed back against criticism from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that such interventions were economically reckless and said the Government had a right to let the Reserve Bank know when it was acting out of turn.

“It’s not true the Reserve Bank is the sole arbiter of economic policy in New Zealand,” Joyce said.

He said the Government should instead help the bank prop up economic growth by easing up on minimum wage increases and things like additional sick leave.

The independence of the Reserve Bank is mainly around the setting of interest rates, not around everything it does.

They promised construction, and after four years just a concept!

The ODT reports:

Newly released concept design images of the new Dunedin Hospital have given another glimpse of what the $1.4 billion project may finally look like.

Health Minister Andrew Little revealed the designs on Thursday and said the drawings were indicative only, with changes likely, especially to the facade.

“Concept design approval and the release of a tender for early contractor engagement are scheduled for next week,” he said.

Ardern’s promise in the 2017 campaign was for construction to have started by 2020. Instead they are not even past the concept stage! They won’t even be putting it out to tender until late 2021, so actual construction won’t start until 2022 or 2023.

Labour coup fails

Stuff reports:

Five Labour-aligned politicians have withdrawn plans to oust a community board chairwoman following a strong public backlash.

The actions of the five People’s Choice members of the Waikura/Linwood-Central-Heathcote board – city councillors Jake McLellan​ and Yani Johanson, Michelle Lomax, Sunita Gautam and Jackie Simons​ – to unseat Alexandra Davids have been widely criticised.

Community leaders accused them of playing “bad politics” and caring only about “power and control”. Their behaviour was described as “despicable” and on Wednesday they were warned of the consequences their actions would have at the next election.

It is good they have backed down, but the episode has exposed that what motivates them is not community service, but indeed power and control. There has been no question of the competence of Ms Davids. Her only crime was not to be a paid up member of the Labour Party. The moment they got a majority through a by-election, they moved to take control.

It is a good reminder of why local body politicians who pledge loyalty to party ahead of council should be avoided.

A conservative coup

The New Conservatives announced:

After a thorough and robust review of the party leadership by the New Conservative Board, we have come to the difficult decision to look for a fresh approach to the leadership of New Conservative and have relieved Leighton Baker of the leadership of the party at this time. 

Elliot Ikilei will step into the position of Leader and Victoria O’Brien into Deputy Leader effective immediately. We welcome them to their new roles and know that they both have strong support within the party and huge respect outside the party. They both have what it takes to lead us through the next phase of our journey.

I’m not surprised by this. In fact I’ve done a number of presentations in the last year on the prognosis for various political parties and have often said I thought the New Conservatives would do better with Elliot. Leighton Baker has been a very diligent servant of the party, but is not good at getting cut through. Ikilei does get cut through.

So it will be interesting to see how they do with new leadership. However their chances are still not great as lifting their vote to 5% would be a huge task.

Increase in Covid-19 deaths in last four months

The US has now had over 250,000 people die from Covid-19. I’ve just looked through the stats for the seven most affected OECD countries and it is interesting the difference in additional deaths in the last four months.

This is the increase in deaths from 17 July to 17 November for each country:

  1. US 83%
  2. France 53%
  3. Belgium 51%
  4. Spain 47%
  5. Italy 33%
  6. UK 17%
  7. Sweden 11%

The US continues to be the country that has experienced the largest increase in deaths per capita in the last four months. France and Belgium are pretty terrible also though.

General Debate 20 November 2020

Radio NZ wrong on sea level rise

Radio NZ reports:

Even the best-case scenarios suggest a minimum sea level rise of 50 centimetres by the end of the 21st century. It could be as much as three metres.

As always I turn to the IPCC as the consensus on the science. Not because it is necessarily right, but it is the most authoritative source. Their 2018 report on sea level rise (page 277) shows that the best case scenario for business as usual is 31 cms, and as low as 15 cms under different policy scenarios. It is simply wrong to say the best case scenario is 50 cms. It is between 15 and 31 cms.

The assertion it could be as much as three metres is also flawed. You can’t say it is wrong because I could assert that a large meteor could hit the planet in 2025 and it could happen.

But how does the three metres used by Radio NZ compared to the IPCC. What is their worst case scenario for business as usual? It is 110 cms, not 300 cms.

So Radio NZ should apologise for misrepresenting the scientific consensus.

A misleading headline

A lot of criticism of this Herald headline. Most readers would take that to mean Trump is or was planning to use nuclear weapons.

Instead it is a reference to a possible US attack using conventional weapons on an Iranian nuclear facility. Hugely different.

Auckland Council losses hit $2.7 billion

Matt Nippert reports:

Auckland Council interest rate hedging swaps have accumulated $2.74 billion in unrealised losses and fixed the cost of its $10b in borrowings at double current market rates, documents show.

Incredible, and still no one is willing to apologise or be held accountable.

“Auckland Council’s Treasury Management Steering Group includes a PWC partner and other private sector experts in debt management and investment policy. Its policy reflects that of other large council and corporate entities and is regarded as good practice,” the spokesperson said.

If losing $2.7 billion is regarded by the Council as good practice, I’d hate to see what they regard as poor practice

A sensible view on Pike

Newsroom reports:

Not every Pike family feels the same.

Marion Curtin has spoken out reluctantly and occasionally – mainly, she says, to correct the record. The Christchurch retiree, whose son Richard Holling died at Pike River, is appalled re-entry went ahead.

“To me it was politically motivated before the previous election,” she says. “I objected to my son’s death being used as a political ploy.”

She backs the National Government’s “insight and knowledge” about Pike River. Having endured the Canterbury earthquakes, she says the millions of dollars spent on re-entry could have had a better use.

“I have never been shown or told anything that justified re-entry.”

Curtin can’t wrap her head around the idea of justice for Pike River. “Justice for what? There was an explosion in a coal mine.” It was an accident, she says, and nobody knows for sure what happened. Everybody involved, even company management, has suffered, she says.

“If anyone can prove to me that somebody in that mine at the time lit a match or did something that was blatantly stupid that caused the explosion then I would feel that it was a deliberate act. But if it was, that person has already paid with their life so what else do you want?”

The notion that the reentry will lead to some evidence that would be significant has always been farcical. It is almost certain the $50 million spent will result in no bodies found and no useful evidence.

General Debate 19 November 2020

A reader on the cannabis referendum

A reader writes in:

The result at 50.7 per cent voting “no” and 48.4 per cent voting “yes” tells me the current law is not working.

It’s 50/50.

What would the result have looked like if it was ‘decriminalisation’ rather than full recreational legalisation. I think Labour and the Greens went too far.

No pot smoker I know (and I know a lot) wanted cafes – they just want to go about their lives without fear of being prosecuted.

This is an opportunity squandered.  Very  conservative US states have voted pro cannabis and  the tax revenue being generated appears substantial.

Very good points from the reader.

Disinformation in NZ

Norton released:

Nearly two thirds of Kiwi respondents (66 percent) believe they’ve encountered disinformation first-hand and 13 percent say they’ve shared information later shown to be incorrect or intentionally misleading according to new research released by NortonLifeLock (NASDAQ: NLOK), a global leader in consumer Cyber Safety.

According to the online survey of more than 1,000 New Zealanders, conducted by The Harris Poll, more than 8 in 10 Kiwi respondents (82 percent) are very concerned about the spread of disinformation but 55 percent feel powerless to stop it. And 56 percent of Kiwis surveyed often question whether information they see on social media is disinformation or fact. Disinformation is verifiably false or misleading information that is created and spread deliberately with the intention of deceiving, misleading and creating division.

Disinformation is information that isn’t just false, but that the creator knows is false. This is different to misinformation when people wrongly think something is correct.

Disinformation has taken a toll on relationships, with many Kiwis having argued with someone (37 percent), unfriended/unfollowed someone on social media (28 percent) or taken a break from social media altogether (21 percent) because of disinformation.

Taking a break from social media is often a good idea.

Guest Post: Hehir responds to Garrett

A guest post from Liam Hehir:

Former ACT MP David Garrett wrote a guest post at Kiwiblog entitled “Why I will never be an Aotearoan” setting out his resentment towards the trend of re-adopting Māori place names. I use the bolded word carefully because it is not my charactertisation. It is, in fact, how Garrett himself frames his emotions about the renaming of Mt Egmont to Mt Taranaki / Egmont in 1986 and the subsequent fall into disuse of the colonial name.

There is a lot to unpack in Garrett’s piece, including the idea that those of us of European descent should pay appropriate honour and respect to our own ancestors. I don’t quite share in his heroic view of the British Empire because that’s not how I prefer to view history. The fact is that, however, that the story of the English-speaking people is complex and the good and the bad of it all go into our identity and make us part of what we are.

The thing is I don’t think I’ve met many Māori who take issue with non-Māori cherishing their own customs and traditions. The reinvigoration of indigenous cultures poses no threat to those who feel safe and secure in their own identity. The only thing that is really being asked of us is courtesy and respect. My children are of Irish descent on my side and Scottish on their mothers. To the extent that we have an ongoing cultural identity, it is based around the ancient religion that our family clung to for the past 1,500 years or so. I have no intention of appropriating tikanga Māori and repurposing it in an inorganic way to make up for our own cultural deficit.

Nevertheless, my children will learn te reo. They will also be conversant with the protocols that they are likely to come across in the country I want them to love and feel patriotic about. For one thing, it will be hard for them to thrive without those skills. More importantly, however, this is part of what being a New Zealander means.

The Maori way of things, though badly damaged by the arrival of Europeans, was not driven into extinction. It survived, remains extant and is poised to thrive in the years to come. Those of us not capable of recognising this – even as internal outsiders to that culture – lack the tools to be fully prepared fully with our shared national life.

It is useful for me to think about our small family farm, which has been in our family for nearly one and a half centuries. That’s a long time by the standards of Irish in New Zealand and, though I will never be a farmer myself, I feel connected with the land broken in by my forebears. It is like a part of my soul is somehow infused into every paddock. If it were to ever pass into ownership outside of our family that would be a bitter disappointment to me.  And if I feel that way, think about how Māori dispossessed of their lands feel? They held them for much, much longer than we did, after all.

I will now address my question for David Garrett to him: You feel sidelined and resentful about the renaming of places in a way that attenuates your attachment to them. You do not feel you were consulted about this and that the decision consigns a part of who you are to the sidelines. Those are all very natural and human feelings because the names we give things are important and when they are taken away, it is disconcerting and alienating. So, Mr Garrett, with that in mind – how do you imagine Māori felt about those colonial names?

House prices up 20%

The Herald reports:

The Government is coming under pressure from all sides as housing prices continue to skyrocket. …

The median price for a house in Auckland has hit $1 million, and prices nationally have increased 19.8 per cent year-on-year, bringing the median to $725,000.

The Reserve Bank recently announced an untargeted lending scheme, which is expected to further inflame property prices.

Labour campaigned in 2017 on abolishing the urban rural boundary in Auckland, which massively artificially inflates land and hence house prices. This would have made a huge difference, if implemented.

Sadly they broke their promise and have quietly dropped this pledge. So it is no surprise that house prices continue to rise.

General Debate 18 November 2020

23% rates increase flagged for Wellington

The Herald reports:

Wellington City Council is putting together a budget of infrastructure with a rates increase forecast of 23 per cent next year.

The council is about halfway through its review of its Long Term Plan, which signals how it will divvy up its budget for the next 10 years.

Mayor Andy Foster says it’ll be one of the most challenging budgets ever considered by the city council.

They’re about to enter what’s commonly referred to as the “trade-offs” stage. This is when decisions are made around what’s prioritised to bring down projected rates increases.

It’s understood the starting point is an increase of 23 per cent for 2021/22.

That’s not a starting point. It;s a political suicide point.

It’s understood one example given at a workshop on the issue yesterday was the council selling the Convention Centre, which is still being built, and leasing it back.

Another option is not to do the convention centre at all. If there is an economic case for it, let a private oeprator build it.

Young said shorter opening hours at libraries could be considered as well as cutting back on consultation.

“At home if you have a big drop in income, you cut your costs.”

Exactly.

Battle for the money

Newsroom reports:

The marriage of convenience has turned into a nasty divorce. Billy Te Kahika’s NZPP and Jami-Lee Ross’ Advance NZ joined forces in July and campaigned under the Advance NZ banner. They received less than 1 per cent of the vote and on October 25, Ross announced that Te Kahika had quit as co-leader. …

“On November 6, Billy and NZPP received a letter from Jami-Lee stating that the policies that the parties co-wrote were in fact owned by, and the copyright of, Advance NZ and NZPP had no right to them whatsoever.”

Stace says many of the policies that are listed on the Advance NZ website were taken directly from the NZPP website’s “What we stand for section,” which had existed since June 2020.

Not sure you can own a policy!

Sure you can claim copyright over the exact text, but parties are allowed to have similiar policies.

In the same letter Ross warned Stace and Te Kahika not to use his colour scheme on their website, or social media pages.

“In particular I am referring to the use of the following which I’ll refer to as “the JLR branding”: the unique cobalt blue layered flag effect background with lightning bolt and the red and blue rectangular block name design with the Advance NZ star design.

“The JLR branding now forms part of the unique Advance NZ “get up”. It was commissioned by me in 2019 and enjoys protection under our copyright and fair trading legislation as well as protection against passing off at common law.” I authorised the use of the JLR branding by Advance NZ and it has become a valuable asset for our party in which we have built up considerable goodwill and reputation.”

Laughing out loud at the assertion that the JLR branding is a valuable asset.

Stace says he emailed Ross on November 13 asking for half the funds in the account to be transferred to NZPP’s own BNZ account.

When he didn’t hear back from Ross, Stace says he asked police to investigate because he believes under the memorandum of understanding, Advance NZ owes NZPP close to $30,000.

When Newsroom approached Ross for comment we were emailed a copy of a letter sent to Stace, later that day, from Advance NZ’s lawyer, Graeme Edgeler.

Edgeler dismissed the idea that NZPP is owed any money.

Looks like most of the money may end up being spent on legal fees 🙂

Stace said he started to notice a change in Ross when the result of the election became clear. Advance NZ got 0.9 per cent of the vote, well short of the 5 per cent needed to enter parliament. Ross had earlier chosen to withdraw from the contest for Botany, the electoral seat he held as a National MP, saying he wanted to concentrate on lifting Advance NZ’s party vote.

“As soon as the election ended Jami-Lee started growing a beard like Billy. He started using phrases like Billy uses. I’m a private investigator and I notice things.

LOL. Is he suggesting JLR is going to make Billy TK disappear and start impersonating him.

The supermarket study

Stuff reports:

Supermarkets will be subjected to a year-long “market study” by the Commerce Commission to see if they are offering consumers fair prices and their suppliers a fair deal.

Those two things are somewhat contradictory. The better the deal for suppliers, then the higher the prices are for consumers.

Groceries are one of our most regular expenses, so we want to make sure pricing is fair,” Clark said.

The average household spent about 17 per cent of its weekly expenses on food, and that had been increasing year on year, he said.

What is interesting is if we look at the increase in food prices over the last three Government terms, as measured by the Food Price Index.

  • Oct 11 to Oct 14: 2.2% increase
  • Oct 14 to Oct 17: 2.6% increase
  • Oct 17 to Oct 20: 5.8% increase

Maybe the problem isn’t the supermarkets, but Governments increasing costs on proeducers and employers?

Latest US results

From 538:

  • The manual recount in Georgia is two thirds complete and no significant errors have been found
  • Senate is confirmed at 50 GOP and 48 Dem so the two Georgia special elections will determine control
  • Of the 435 House seats, Dems have 219, GOP 205 and 11 undecided.
  • Of the undecideds GOP lead in six, Dems in three and two are within 0.1% but with GOP just ahead
  • So GOP could end up with 211 to 213 seats which would be a gain of 12 to 14

General Debate 17 November 2020

Cunliffe is right

The Herald reports:

“Absolutely incompetent and absolutely staggering loss,” Cunliffe wrote on social media.

He was responding to a Herald article about the council booking $1.4b in balance sheet losses on interest-rate derivatives in the past two years after its strategy of fixing interest cost long-term backfired when interest rates fell. …

Mayor Phil Goff, who declined repeated requests by the Herald last week to discuss or justify the hedging losses and whether ratepayers were locked into now over-priced loans, did not want to lock horns with his former Labour colleague today.

Instead he issued a statement through a mayoral spokesman, saying: “Any claim that there will be ‘real’ costs to the council is factually incorrect.

The Council is paying $1,4 billion more in interest than it would otherwise have to, if it hadn’t fixed at high interest rates. That is pretty real.

Cunliffe – who Goff appointed finance spokesman when he was Labour leader from 2008 to 2011 – said: “Could there be a clearer case of a sackable offence?

“Who is resigning over it? 1400 million reasons to hang their heads in shame.”

If this was a private company and someone made a decision that cost the company $1.4 billion, I’m pretty sure they would be long gone.