Tim Hazeldine writes:

We need a big boost, fast. So, the Government has invited local authorities to prepare plans for “shovel-ready” projects – and, boy, have they responded, with long wish-lists requiring billions of dollars in subsidies.

I think this is quite the wrong thing to do. I have three concerns. First, a lot of these projects are dodgy from a cost-benefit perspective, and some may be particularly inappropriate to our new post-pandemic economy. Top of Wellington’s list is an international convention centre – does the business plan for this still stack up, if indeed it ever did? Auckland has prioritised the ruinously expensive underground railway, premised on the assumption of continued mass commuting to the CBD.

Can only agree. We certainly do need to do some infrastructure spending to soften the recession but they must be projects that produce benefits that exceed their costs.

And thirdly, because of problem two, it turns out that most of these schemes couldn’t actually be cranked up before six months from now, at the earliest. But we need a programme that will give relief to households and revenue to small and not-so-small businesses right across the country, and right away, the moment we get to lockdown level 2.

There is only one way to do this fairly and efficiently, and it is a very good way. On the day that the Prime Minister announces the move to level 2, the Minister of Finance should startle the country by proclaiming a GST holiday: zero GST from tomorrow until…well, he probably shouldn’t say when. Just get out there and enjoy it while you can, with 15 per cent more spending power in your pockets.

A great idea. It is an effective 13% boost the household budgets and will encourage spending, boosting the economy and jobs.

Instead of adding to the deficit by throwing expensive shovels at projects, and thereby taking the public sector’s share of total spending up even further than its current, very high, level of 40 per cent of GDP, let’s hold the line on spending and cut tax revenues for a while, and let the households and the business sector sort out the shovelling for themselves.

I 100% agree. What I find remarkable is that Hazeldine is generally regarded as one of the most prominent left leaning economists. When he is saying that what we need is to keep spending below 40% of GDP and instead cut taxes, well hopefully some of his former students will listen.

Stuff reports:

Waikato Mongrel mob members have been delivering food during lockdown but police have said their boss isn’t an essential worker.

The exact status of the gang remains unclear, with its media liaison Louise Hutchinson saying they had become essential workers prior to the lockdown to be able to support their people. 

So we have the Mongrel Mob themselves saying they have been granted essential worker status.

Leader Sonny Fatupaito was having weekly calls with police deputy commissioner Wally Haumaha and other gangs around the country to work together, she said. 

Weekly calls with the Deputy Commissioner!!

“Wally Haumaha put together a group of key leaders and we have been having telephone calls through the lockdown to make sure our people can access services.” 

Very important that the gangs are looked after with such personal top level service.

How many rotary clubs have managed the same?

It has become routine for various media outlets around the world to highlight the high number of COVID-19 deaths in the USA. Given the very low rate of deaths in New Zealand (and Australia which is even slightly lower than NZ), it has become common place for NZ media (and many New Zealanders on social media) to also comment on the high number of US deaths and to link to foreign media making this point.

Almost all such articles and posts focus on the raw numbers coming out of the US with rare attempts at balancing these statistics by rendering deaths as a percentage of population. With a pall of suspicion over the official figures coming out of China and Russia and with Indian in a stringent lockdown, the US’s large population of over 330 million always meant the numbers of raw cases and deaths in the US would be high.

However, a different picture emerges when you look at deaths per million population with a number of countries in Western Europe showing considerably higher virus death rates when the figures are rendered per million. Media that report on such high US figures also often fail to put the US figures into any proper regional context. The tables below attempt to do this.

Anyone studying the spread of the virus in the US will acknowledge that New York is a major global hotspot. The concentration of cases and deaths in a handful of states is quite dramatic as the tables show. If you take the greater New York metropolitan area, when you incorporate the adjacent urban areas of New Jersey and Connecticut, shows that a huge number of US cases are found in that one urban conurbation of about 20 million. Add in the next 4 states with major outbreaks (Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania), these 7 states comprise a whopping 72% of all US deaths which means the remaining [EDIT: 43] US states share the remaining 28% of deaths!

The first table calculates the death rate per million for those 43 states and shows that the average of these less hit states is near the bottom of the 1st world rankings. The second table also demonstrates what an incredible hotspot New York is. The whole of the US sits somewhat in the middle of the 1st world pack and the 43 states are lower than Germany (considered somewhat of the European gold standard of results). Finally, as a comparison I have included Hawaii which has the lowest death rate of all 50 states explained by much the same reason why Australia and NZ have such low rates; it is an isolated island state where almost all incoming possibly infected people come by plane into a few airports where passengers could be more easily checked.

[EDIT] Japan’s figures in the table are their total cases per 1 M, the Japanese deaths per 1 M population is only 3.

Hopefully these tables give some clearer and more factual context to the actual virus death figures. I will do other posts in due course covering the US response to the coronavirus, China’s handling of it and finally some external views on New Zealand’s attempt at elimination and the financial impact of differing degrees of lockdown adopted by different jurisdictions.

The Herald reports:

Police are investigating a major break-in at a South Auckland car rental yard where almost 100 vehicles were stolen on Friday night.

Inspector Matt Srhoj, Counties Manukau West Area Commander, told the Herald it is believed around 100 vehicles, registered to Jucy Rentals, were stolen from the company’s Mangere yard.

How the hell do you steal 100 cars without anyone noticing?

Do you have 100 people as part of the theft, all driving one each?

Do you have 20 car movers that take six each?

Where do you store them all?

Also how did they get keys to them all? Surely the keys are kept in a locked safe or something?

We’re giving taxpayers the opportunity to get to know their MPs beyond photo-ops and party-line speeches. In this premiere double episode, Islay Aitchison interviews Chris Bishop MP and Ginny Anderson MP.

You can subscribe to Taxpayer Talk via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio and all good podcast apps.

When Level 4 was extended by five days Employment Minister Willie Jackson said that another week at Level 4 won’t “hurt or destroy anyone” which showed his out of touch some Ministers were or are.

One of my readers suggested to me that I develop a Covid Cost Counter to show people in real time what the cost to the economy is of being in Level 4 or Level 3, to complement my current counters showing the number of Kiwibuild houses and trees the Government should have built or planted by now.

I consulted half a dozen economists on the best way to calculate this, and not surprisingly got a wide range of opinions. A key point they stressed is that the cost to the economy in Level 4 or 3 is not just because of the decision to be in that level, There will be some cost regardless of government decisions as people change their behaviour regardless.

So the counter shouldn’t be seen as measuring the cost of the decision by the Government. But what is can be seen as is the cost to the economy is huge and growing every day we continue, and that there is a very real trade off.

So what is the cost of Level 4 and Level 3? Treasury said Level 4 sees a 40% reduction in GDP or output and Level 3 a 25% reduction/

So an simple calculation is

• Annual GDP $320 billion
• 40% is $128 billion
• That is $350 million per day
• That is $14.6 million per hour
• That is $243,000 per minute
• That is $4,058 per second

For Level 3 it is $2,536 per second.

So on the right hand side you can now see a Covid cost counter. It shows the costs in thousands of dollars as it can’t move fast enough to show $2,536 clicks every second.

So far our economy has lost an estimated $11.8 billion and that is increasing by $219 million a day. Per household that is $6,700 per household and increasing at $125 a day.

Again this is now just because of the Level 4 and 3 restrictions. Some of this was inevitable the moment we started social distancing. But it is a constant reminder of the huge cost households and businesses will incur the longer we continue with the restrictions.

On the assumption that surely David Clark is goneburger, this raises the issue of who will be the new Minister of Health. Not a lot of options. Let’s look at the Cabinet in order, assuming it must be a Labour Minister:

• Ardern herself. Could be justified until the election on the basis the portfolio is so critical. And she clearly is the de facto Minister already with Clark locked out of Wellington. But it is a portfolio that takes a lot of time, so not ideal for a PM
• Kelvin Davis – LOL LOL LOL
• Robertson can’t do a major spending portfolio with Finance
• Twyford – double LOL LOL LOL
• Megan Woods – a definite possibility. Quietly competent so far.
• Hipkins – won’t want to leave Education
• Little – would have to give up Justice which he loves
• Sepuloni – doubtful she is seen as having the political skills
• Parker – a possibility. Others could do his current roles.
• Mahuta – again political skills unlikely to be judged highly enough
• Nash – not trusted enough by Robertson
• Lees-Galloway – not after giving a drug dealer residency
• Salesa – a possibility as an Associate, but unlikely
• O’Connor – needed in Agriculture
• Faafoi – too new into Cabinet

So my overall pick would be Woods most likely with 2nd most likely is Ardern takes it herself.

The Herald reports:

Health Minister David Clark reportedly moved house while the rest of the country was on lockdown.

Clark was spotted repeatedly between two Dunedin properties during the month-long lockdown period.

He and his family are believed to have recently moved into a new home before the country went into level 4, with the minister seen moving large furniture and appliances as the country went into the mandatory nationwide restrictions, 1 NEWS reported.

Clark’s office confirmed he was working at times during lockdown from his old house, which he still owns and said it provided a quieter work environment.

What did Level 4 rules say? The house you are in the night Level 4 started you must stay in for the duration.

This really is a new low for political stupidity. Not even Ardern’s reluctance to sack Ministers for anything short of assaulting their staff can save him. Surely he is gone.

What is even more astonishing is that we are in the middle of a 1 in 100 year global pandemic and the Minister of Health has so little to do, that he has time to move house an be carrying furniture and appliances between the two houses.

The Times reports:

Labour officials ran a secret operation to deceive Jeremy Corbyn at last year’s general election, micro-targeting Facebook adverts at the leader and his closest aides to convince them the party was running the campaign they demanded.

Campaign chiefs at Labour HQ hoodwinked their own leader because they disapproved of some of Corbyn’s left-wing messages.

They convinced him they were following his campaign plans by spending just £5,000 on adverts solely designed to be seen by Corbyn, his aides and their favourite journalists, while pouring far more money into adverts with a different message for ordinary voters.

That’s really cunning. Spend $5,000 making them appear to the leader’s office and associates and they’ll be appearing so often they’ll think its saturation advertising to the public.

That’s one strike that everyone should get behind.

Charging students fees for rooms they are unable to access is just wrong.

Also it appears Vic Uni is double charging the same room. They’re charging those in emergency accom at Weir House $300 a week and also charging the original inhabitants $150 a week as a holding fee. Just nuts.

If student associations want to prove their value, they should be preparing a lawsuit on behalf of affected students.

Also have to laugh at this response:

The Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington says students’ education will suffer if they don’t pay a $150 weekly ‘holding fee’ for student accommodation they can’t access. …

In an email to students yesterday, Victoria University vice-chancellor Professor Grant Guildford said the halls operate as a “cost-recovery ancillary operation”.

“Without the hall fees being paid we are having to cross-subsidise the halls from the tuition revenue – disadvantaging the quality of the education of all students.”

He said the other option was to fire staff.

“Or we cut the costs of the halls which would means a lot of staff (including RA’s) losing their jobs which is the last thing we want to see happen,” he wrote.

What nonsense. The other option is just to wear the loss against your balance sheet as a one off loss, as many other organisations have had to do.

VUW has $150 million of current assets including $80 million cash reserves. Overall net assets are $800 million.

So claiming that it is sack staff or charge students for rooms they are unable to access is a PR claim, but not a binary issue.

The issue is one of common sense. You don’t charge people for a service they can’t access.

Paul Goldsmith writes:

Third, in the longer term, how best do we position New Zealand to succeed in the post-Covid world.

On this, there will be a political divide. The instinct of the Labour/ New Zealand First government will be to assume that a committee of Wellington politicians and officials, with a couple of business folk, a union rep and two iwi leaders should steer our path into the new economy. The likes of Shane Jones and Phil Twyford will implement it.

We are sceptical of that approach.

Sceptical? It’s like a horror show. They could compete on who can spend the most money and achieve almost nothing for it

Absolutely, there is a critical role for government, with its capacity to fund good quality transport and water infrastructure. We’ve seen shortcomings in the health system’s digital infrastructure during this crisis; we should substantially upgrade this. Government has a critical role in ensuring the education sector delivers the skills we need to work productively.

A good example of government’s contribution is the previous National administration’s massive investment in Ultra-Fast-Broadband, which has made the past few weeks much more bearable and productive.

Thank goodness National made this a priority in 2008.

But the core engine of growth will always be private sector investment – men, women and their businesses taking on new ventures, rebuilding their businesses, expanding, hiring people – taking mad risks. No committee would have thought Kiwis should get into rockets, or into online accounting systems.

The recipe hasn’t changed. Successful economies make it easy for the investment to flow to more productive activities – they welcome investment, they don’t over regulate or over tax, they provide clear and consistent rules, properly enforced, and don’t go changing them all the time.

This is what Labour I think can’t do as it goes against their DNA. How do we impose less cost and regulation on businesses.

The headline at Stuff:

Sir John Key buys waterfront Sydney pad and lists it next day

99.9% of people reading that headline would conclude that John Key is a property speculator. That he purchased a property cheap off someone, and the very next day is trying to sell it at a huge profit.

The actual story is mundane:

New Zealand’s former prime minister Sir John Key and his wife Lady Bronagh​ became Sydney’s newest high-end home owners this past week when they took possession of an A$5.7 million (NZ$6.05 million) harbourside apartment in McMahons Point.

But the Auckland-based couple are not expected to take up residence in the 129-square-metre pad despite having already waited three years for it to be complete since buying it off the plan. …

Agent Tim Abbott said that at the time the couple bought the apartment Sir John had business interests in Australia, but in the years since the building has taken shape, those interests have moved to the United States, leaving their newly completed apartment redundant.

So in fact they brought it three years ago. And now there is no need to have a residence in Australia so they have sold it. And of course you can only sell something once you have settled the purchase, so in fact the story is much ado about nothing.

The vast majority of us during Level 4 were locked down as non-essential workers.

You probably assumed like me that essential workers were doctors, nurses, supermarket workers etc.

But incomprehensibly it seems essential worker status was given by Police National HQ to the Waikato Mongrel Mob gang leader, Sonny Fatu, according to my source.

Fatu is a convicted killer who helped torture and kill a man.

So how did he get given essential worker status by the Police?

It seems it was granted by Police Deputy Commissioner Wally Haumaha after a hui with gang leaders.

But it doesn’t end there. During Level 4 Police got called by neigbours of a gang hq as there were a couple of dozen people there, obviously breaching the lockdown notice. But when Police turned up the gang told them that the work they were doing was signed off by Police National HQ, so of course they were left to it.

So nice of Police HQ to make it easy for gangs to continue their essential work during Level 4.

UPDATE: Police HQ have informed me that they regard my story as wrong as the Police did not grant Sonny Fatu essential worker status.

However they do not deny that he has been granted essential worker status. The question is whether the Police Deputy Commissioner was involved in arranging or facilitating it via another organisation such as an Iwi health agency.

I will include the formal response from Police HQ when I receive it.

So the situation as it stands is that it appears uncontested Sonny Fatu was granted essential worker status. He was not granted it by the Police. We do not know which agency granted it, and we do not know what consultation or facilitation occurred with the Deputy Commissioner with the agency that granted it (if any). OIA responses are being sought.

UPDATE2: The official Police statement is:

Sonny Fatu was not granted Essential Worker status by Police.

Police have no responsibility for granting essential work status to individuals working for any other essential services.

Police is one of a number of government agencies working with Iwi-based providers to ensure vulnerable communities and families could be supported though the Alert Level 4 lockdown, with access to food, health and social services.

In my views gangs create vulnerable communities, rather than assist them.

What we are seeing is a deliberate strategy by some gangs to look legit by infiltrating health and welfare groups. If you spend 5% of your income from drug dealing on social services, then you gain legitimacy. And they hope people ignore the misery caused by them in the first place.

Phil Twyford has basically told local Councils he wants them to proceed with huge rates increases and if they don’t, then he’ll cut Government funding to them!

Stuff reports:

Councils are being warned not to slash rates in response to the coronavirus crisis, with a Cabinet minister saying it could cost them government funding. …

“If you deliberately cut your revenue by scaling back rates increases, or going for zero rates, or cutting rates, how can I stand up with my colleagues and make the case that we should be investing alongside you. I can’t do that.”

So let’s be very clear. He is not just warning Councils against cutting rates, but he is warning them to not even “scale back rates increases”

So at a time when business and household incomes are plummeting, Phil Twyford is telling local Councils they must not scale back rates increases, and if they do, he’ll make sure they miss out on government funding.

Waikato Regional Council chair Russ Rimmington didn’t participate in the meeting of Future Proof partners at which Twyford spoke but had the minister’s comments relayed to him.

Rimmington is focused on delivering a zero per cent rate increase for the next financial year and told Stuff he was “absolutely appalled” by Twyford’s remarks.

As we all should be.

“Here we are trying to be responsible, going through our expenditure line by line to try and be more efficient, and at the same time not introduce a slash and burn to our projects or services,” Rimmington said.

“His [Twyford’s] comments were a little bit threatening because we’ve obviously just spent weeks on these shovel ready project proposals and we don’t want to see those jeopardised.”

Can you believe it. A Minister not just advocating that Councils don’t scale back rates increases, but saying they may lose government funding if they do.

So when your local Council sticks up your rates, you now know who to blame – Phil Twyford.

The Guardian reports:

On 1 April, the prime minister of Sint Maarten addressed her nation’s 41,500 people. Coronavirus cases were rising, and Silveria Jacobs knew the small island country, which welcomes 500,000 tourists a year, was at great risk: it had two ICU beds.

Jacobs did not want to impose a strict lockdown, but she did want physical distancing observed. So she spelled it out: “Simply. Stop. Moving,” she said. “If you don’t have the bread you like in your house, eat crackers. Eat cereal. Eat oats. Eat … sardines.”

The 51-year-old Caribbean premier may not have the global profile of Angela Merkel or Jacinda Ardern, but her blunt message exemplified firm action, effective communication – and showed another female leader getting the job done.

From Germany to New Zealand and Denmark to Taiwan, women have managed the coronavirus crisis with aplomb. Plenty of countries with male leaders – Vietnam, the Czech Republic, Greece, Australia – have also done well. But few with female leaders have done badly.

The following countries have female leaders. This is their death rate per million population.

• Belgium 576
• Sint Maarten 280
• Denmark 70,
• Germany 69
• Norway 37
• Finland 32
• Iceland 29
• Barbados 21
• Serbia 16
• Bolivia 4
• New Zealand 4
• Taiwan 0.3
• Bangladesh 0.8
• Myanmar 0.09

Belgium has the 2nd highest death rate in the world. I’d say that is doing badly. The global average death rate is 25 so seven countries with female leaders are above that and seven below that.

If Kim Jong-un is dead, she is the likely next ruler of North Korea. She is only 31 years old but her brother took over when he was 27 or 28.

Like her brother she studied in Switzerland. It was hoped for him that this would make him less hostile to the West, but if anything he was worse than his father and grandfather.

She studied computer science at university. In 2018 she attended the Winter Olympics in South Korea – the first ever visit by a member of the Kim dynasty.

She had a child in 2015.

If she does become supreme leader it might be as regent for one of the children of Kim Jong-un.

Of course he may not be dead but if he doesn’t appear for the 1 May military parade that would suggest he is.

If she takes over she could well for 40 years or more. She appears to be in much better health than her male relatives.

Steve Elers writes:

At the same briefing, the prime minister said: “Our testing has scaled up and we have now tested over 85,000 New Zealanders, one of the highest testing rates per capita in the world.” Wrong. At that time we were 31st in the world for testing rates per capita. I don’t think 31st can be considered “one of the highest” in the world, unless, of course, we have turned into a society where we believe everyone is a winner.

And did any journalists at the briefing query the prime minister about her claim? Not one. They just took what she said and regurgitated it to the masses – to us. Whatever happened to fact checking?

The following should have been asked at the time or at least put in writing to the prime minister’s press secretary: “Can you provide us with the source that says New Zealand has one of the highest testing rates per capita in the world?”

Yep rather than repeat the claims, media should ask for proof of them.

When the prime minister announces New Zealand has “one of the highest testing rates per capita in the world” and it goes through the media unchallenged, we’re inclined to believe it.

The same goes with the initial claims we were going hard and going fast when at the time it was in fact going slushy and slow.

For the health and wellbeing of my TV, I hope the news media will start holding power to account. If journalists can’t find the motivation within themselves to ask critical questions of the prime minister, perhaps they should imagine she is Simon Bridges.

I’m sure that would do the trick!

Salient reports:

Students at Victoria University of Wellington have been told that fees will be charged for Halls of Residence from 29 April for most Halls, despite many students being unable to return. 

In an email sent to hall residents, besides those in Te Puni Village and Vic House, the University told students they will need to wait until the country enters Alert Level 2 before being able to return, as national travel restrictions remain in place.

This is outraegous.

Surely some friendly law firm can do a pro bono law suit against the university.

“I feel like I’m being strong armed out of money.” commented one Weir resident. “I have now been forced to choose between paying hundreds of dollars rent for a room I’m not legally allowed to enter, or drop out of university.”

For once this is a time for collective action. If every student refuses to pay, the university can’t do anything.

This is the data as of 25 April 2020.

In terms of the number of cases NZ ranks 3rd out of 10 (two countries, six states and two territories). The only two areas with more cases per capita is NSW and Tasmania.

NSW of course had 2,700 passengers from the Ruby Princess disembark there and so far that has led to 500 of their cases. Also Tasmania has had over half its cases due to one outbreak in the NW.

NZ is 4th highest in terms of deaths. Tasmania, ACT and NSW all higher. Australia overall and five other areas all lower.

In terms of testing NZ is 3rd highest (which is good) The only two higher are South Australia and NSW.

Mediaite reports:

President Donald Trump offered up bizarre and possibly dangerous suggestions about medical research on the coronavirus at his daily White House briefing, suggesting that blasting patients with “tremendous” amounts of UV light, even “inside of the body” as well as injecting them with the same disinfectants that are used to kill the viruses on surfaces might be effective treatments for Covid-19. …

“So, supposing we hit the body with tremendous, I don’t know if it’s ultraviolet or very powerful light, and I think you said that has been checked but your’e going to test it,” Trump said, turning to Bryan in a sidebar moment at the end for confirmation. “Then I said what it if you brought the light inside of the body which you could do either through the skin or some other way and I think you said you were going to test that, too, sounds interesting,” he added next, again turning to Bryan for validation.

But then Trump even went further, connecting the household bleaching agents in most surface disinfectants to a possible internal treatment for humans, which would be toxic and possibly fatal. “Then I see the disinfectant, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that so that you’ll have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, where it goes in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”

Here’s a challenge for all those TDSers (Trump Defenders). Go get some disinfectant and inject yourselves with it, and let us know the outcome.

I love this response.