News.com.au reports:

One of the weirder quirks of Donald Trump’s personality is his habit of telling easily disprovable lies.
Most politicians twist the truth to some extent. Many of them tell outright lies. Usually, they only do so when they don’t think they will get caught.
Mr Trump is more brazen.
Speaking in Pennsylvania today, he repeated one of his favourite fibs — a seemingly innocuous boast about a policy designed to help America’s veterans.
“I got it approved. Veterans Choice,” the President said.
Veterans Choice is a healthcare program that allows American military veterans to see private sector doctors, outside the US Government’s Veterans Affairs system, if they would otherwise have to wait too long for an appointment.
Mr Trump has repeatedly taken credit for creating the program, often saying he accomplished something other politicians had been trying to do — without success — for decades.
For example, at a rally in May he said: “We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability to give our veterans the care that they deserve, and they have been trying to pass these things for 45 years.”
CNN reporter Daniel Dale has been keeping a running tally for months and says Mr Trump has now made the Veterans Choice boast more than 80 times.

So he has claimed this 80 times.

“I said, you know, ‘I have a great idea. I’ve been thinking about it a lot’. This was during the campaign,” Mr Trump said.
“And I came back to my people, I had experts, and I said, ‘I have a great idea. These lines for the veterans are too long. It takes them three, four weeks sometimes to see a doctor. I have a great idea — let’s let them go outside, go to a private doctor. We’ll pay the bill, they’ll be all fixed up all perfect, and they can do it immediately and we’ll pay the bill’.
“And I thought, I said, ‘Man am I smart. I am the smartest guy, to think of that’. So I went before this panel of experts that were with me working on things, and I said, ‘How do you like that idea?’ And they said, ‘Sir, we’ve known about it for about 40 years, but we’ve never been able’.
“But here’s the thing. We got it done. Nobody else could get it done. Nobody else.”

It was even his personal brainchild.

Just one problem:

Here’s the actual thing. Donald Trump did not pass Veterans Choice.
The legislation was actually passed under his predecessor Barack Obama in 2014 before Mr Trump was even running for president. He had absolutely nothing to do with it.

And to make things worse:

Compounding the lie, Mr Trump has used Veterans Choice to attack the late Republican senator John McCain, who died last year after battling a brain tumour.

“McCain didn’t get the job done for our great vets and the VA, and they knew it. That’s why when I had my dispute with him, I had such incredible support from the vets and from the military. The vets were on my side because I got the job done. I got Choice,” the President said in March.
“Choice. For years and years, decades, they wanted to get Choice.
“For many decades, they couldn’t get it done. It was never done. I got it, five months ago, I got it done. Choice.”
In fact, Mr McCain co-sponsored the bill that created Veterans Choice

Of his many bad habits, lying about and denigrating a dead war hero is one of his worse.

Stuff reports:

A judge has let Marcel Sydney Geros out on bail after hearing that he was in the process of handing back his Black Power gang patch when a car chase developed in Christchurch last week.

Believing this claim seems to set a new level of gullibility.

Newshub reports:

Belgian officials will “no longer tolerate” parents who force their kids to be vegan.
It follows a number of cases in the European country of children being hospitalised and suffering health complications, and even a death in 2017, linked to vegan diets.
Government children’s rights official Bernard Devos asked the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium to make a ruling on the controversial diet, whose adherents avoid eating meat and dairy, and avoid using products made from animal-derived sources.
The academy did so on Thursday, reports local paper Le Soir, saying it was “not ethical” to impose veganism on children.
“This restrictive regime requires ongoing monitoring of children to avoid deficiencies and often irreversible growth delays,” the academy’s report said.
“It is unsuitable for unborn children, children, teenagers and pregnant and lactating women… This concept of nutrition is similar to a form of treatment that it is not ethical to impose on children.”

Adults can and should choose for themselves what they want to eat. But forcing your beliefs on kids can harm them.

NewstalkZB reports:

A food activist has been convicted for illegally importing plants and seeds from overseas in what he says was an attempt to protect New Zealand’s food sources from the threat of genetic modification.
Kyle Arthur, 30, was caught by biosecurity officials sneaking consignments of “wild, heritage, and heirloom non-genetically engineered plants and seeds” without permission from the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI).
A raid on his Christchurch found he’d illegally imported papaya, mango, jackfruit, tamarind and banana between October 2017 and June last year.

So by his actions he was exposing NZ growers to potential diseases and parasites.

Arthur had earlier sought a discharge without conviction, telling a Christchurch District Court judge that a criminal blemish would stop him from travelling to various overseas countries and continuing his quest to legally source GM-free plants and seeds.

What bullshit. You don’t need to travel to legally source plants and seeds.

Judge Couch accepted that Arthur was motivated by genuine concerns that New Zealand’s plant diversity and purity is endangered by increasing genetic modification, and not by a wish to harm the ecosystem or personally profit.

Really? No profit?

Arthur then sold the unauthorised material, largely through Trade Me

Not giving it away?

The Press editorial:

Bungled, botched or butchered. Those are just three of the ways in which the notorious 2018 census has been described since a report into its shortcomings landed on Tuesday. All are accurate. 
The overarching narrative is that Statistics New Zealand’s controversial push into online data-collecting was supposed to increase the public response but had the opposite effect. Only 83.3 per cent of the national population responded. That was far short of the target of 94 per cent.

And another article gives us an idea of why:

Stats NZ had planned to use 3000 ground staff to knock on doors and gather responses; 40 per cent of the staff used in 2013. With an online census, less boots on the ground were required.
This reduction was “too aggressive”, the reviewers said. It was further reduced to 2300, a decision apparently made on the basis of a mathematical model without the risk being considered. 

Compounding this was a failure to hire staff. There were 1500 field workers needed for following up with people who hadn’t responded to the census, but only 900 were deployed.

So in 2013 there were 7,500 ground staff. In 2018 they reduced it to 2,300 and even worse only 900 over the entire country for followups. Most of the problems they had would have been avoided if they had hired more ground staff.

Greens co-leader James Shaw, who is only the latest of no fewer than six ministers of statistics to have been in charge during the period of the 2018 census, has seemed remarkably blase over the data collection failure, calling the census results “a mixed bag”.

And while the Minister is not responsible for operational details, you do expect them to be governing and seeking reassurances. Radio NZ report:

Mr Bridges told Morning Report Mr Shaw should have done more to ensure the census was on track and should have asked more questions of Stats NZ, instead of letting things spiral out of control.
“He was asleep at the wheel. He expressed blind confidence when concerns were raised. To give you the contrast, Maurice Williamson as statistics minister in 2013 for that census had 18 meetings on the census six months prior. Shaw didn’t have a single one. He had meetings on other things, measurements of our feelings, wellbeing and the like, but not the core business of the census.”

That is damning, if correct.

Mike Hosking writes:

Simon Bridges continues his slow but steady rehabilitation into what you might loosely call a pretty decent opposition leader.
The National Party conference might well turn out to be the turning point. A couple of weekends back his cancer announcement shamed the Government into a shambolic and patched together mini-announcement on getting some machinery to treat cancer into the regions.
The fact Bridges could make such a grandiose promise – when the Government having promised pretty much the same thing, but had done nothing two years into office – was a gift from the political heavens.
Then came a poll, with National at 45 per cent. The lead party and the chance to one, prove they’re still very viable, and two, shut the leadership critics down.
And now he’s on the front foot over Ihumātao.
And it comes as all the lefties, angsties, and virtue signallers have traipsed and trampled their way to South Auckland, as the media have fallen over themselves to give maximum coverage to a group of the rent-a-crowd, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has decided all building stops until she’s resolved it, and upon announcing that, she ran for Tokelau and left a couple of ministers to basically do nothing but more yak. Only to return to the country last week, see that nothing had happened and then announce it was the Government’s role to facilitate.
Facilitate what? More yak?
Meantime come on in Simon, who dare I suggest has articulated what most of us have been thinking. Tell them to go home, get the police involved, and as Prime Minister, not touch the thing with a barge pole.

Meanwhile we are still waiting for the Kiwibuild reset. They have to date built 239 houses of the 100,000 they promised.

The Guardian reports:

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau violated the country’s ethics laws when he urged his attorney general not to prosecute an engineering company in a conflict of interest case, a watchdog ruled on Wednesday.
According to a bombshell report by Canada’s ethics commissioner, Trudeau engaged in “flagrant attempts to influence” his attorney general and minister of justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould.
The ruling marks a major blow to Trudeau’s governing Liberal party less than 10 weeks before a general election.

So Canadians have a choice to vote for corruption or vote for change.

The Guardian reports:

Jacinda Ardern has declared that “Australia has to answer to the Pacific” on climate change, saying that New Zealand is doing what it can to limit global emissions to 1.5C and expects other nations to do the same.

Lecturing Australia on what they should do is becoming a hallmark.

It also backfires horribly.

Jacinda repeatedly lectured Australia on how they shouldn’t deport so many New Zealanders back to New Zealand. Australia’s response was to change the law so they could deport even more back.

Her comments here will probably lead to Australia opening a new coal mine, and naming it after her.

Newshub reports:

Corrections says a letter sent out of prison by the alleged Christchurch shooter should have been “withheld”.
On Tuesday a post appeared on /pol/, a 4chan thread infamous for graphic content and controversial comments, which read: “A couple of months ago I sent a letter to Brenton Tarrant and today I finally got a response.”
The user, who claims to live in Russia, posted a photo of an envelope with a stamp that says ‘Auckland Prison’. The name Brenton Tarrant is written above the return address, which is that of the Paremoremo prison.

This is what happens when the ideology is all about prisoner’s rights. Oh, no, we can’t stop the accused terrorist from writing to his fanboys.

In the letter he writes of his fandom for the fascist Sir Oswald Mosley and tells the person how to find out more about his views. Incredible that Corrections let this occur. He even speaks of how there will be great conflict and bloodshed in Europe and how he hopes “our people” can survive.

Finally he urges his fanboy to “not forget your duty to your people”. My God that is pretty close to direct incitement and again the Government allowed him to write and send this letter.

And not just once. They approved at least five letters to go out. How could Corrections be so incompetent that all mail to and from him wasn’t being scrutinised by a very senior manager?

Again this is what happens when rights of prisoners are put ahead of rights of others, such as the community to be safe from him trying to radicalise others. It must be painful for the families of the victims to find out that he is still spreading his hate from prison.

Also worth remembering that the Greens are campaigning for Tarrant to have the right to vote, even if convicted. Yep even killing 51 human beings isn’t enough for the Greens to say he shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

I think two things are needed:

1. Someone at Corrections to be held responsible for what happened. This has made negative headlines around the world. This letter wasn’t even a marginal call. Someone should be losing their job over this.
2. Change the law so that certain classes of prisoners don’t have automatic rights to receive and send mail. For them mail would be a privilege, not a right.

One News reports:

As New Zealand’s hunger for affordable housing pushes suburbs farther and farther from city centres, the Government announced today it has a plan to shield the nation’s most fertile land from development.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said the need to feed a growing population is “one of the greatest challenges facing the world right now”. 
“Continuing to grow food in the volumes and quality we have come to expect depends on the availability of land and the quality of the soil,” he added.

The biggest factor in house prices is availability of land, and here the Government is saying they want to remove land from the housing market.

As Eric Crampton noted it is easy to import potatoes from overseas, but it is impossible to commute to work from overseas.

Also only 3.1% of NZ’s land is urban. That is one of the lowest in the developed world. Here are some comparisons:

1. Australia 0.5%
2. Canada 1.4%
3. NZ 3.1%
4. Norway 5.6%
5. Estonia 6.2%
6. Finland 6.6%
7. Sweden 7.6%
8. Ireland 8.2%
9. US 8.8%
10. EU 12.9%
11. France 15.8%
12. Germany 17.9%
13. UK 24.3%
14. Netherlands 38.0%

So the only two developed countries with less urbanisation are Australia and Canada. And this is because they are both giant countries with huge areas of land that in not fit for habitation. Australia is 35% desert and Canada has massive ares of frozen wasteland.

So worrying about the 3.1% of NZ land being urban area growing slightly is ridiculous.

You know what is the bigger threat to productive NZ land? The Government’s subsidies for planting trees. This is incentivising land to move from productive land that employs people into being converted to forestry blocks in perpetuity.

Mia Sutherland at Stuff writes:

Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we’re inviting everyone to join us. That’s right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you’re all invited to put pressure on politicians worldwide to pass bills which will take action to reduce the impacts of climate change. …

We want our government and governments worldwide to do everything in their power to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by ending the use of fossil fuels and investing in a regenerative and renewable economy. Additionally, we are asking the government to acknowledge the severity of climate change and declare a climate emergency.

If the call is for governments to do everything in their power to limit global warming, that can only include promoting nuclear power and removing restrictions on genetic modification.

The median greenhouse gas impact (gCO2eq/kWh) of different electricity sources according to the IPCC is:

1. Coal 820
2. Gas 490
3. Biomass 230
4. Solar 48
5. Geothermal 38
6. Hydro 24
7. Wind 12
8. Nuclear 12

So nuclear power is an essential tool for what the students are demanding.

And genetic modification is estimated to increase crop yields by 70%, which means the impact per ton of crop is reduced by over a third.

So bravo to all the students marching to demand governments prioritise the environment over their ideological aversion to nuclear power and GM.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says there is nothing explosive in the secret letter from Julie Anne Genter expressing her views on a multi-billion-dollar transport package for Wellington.

Then why not release it?

I agree it won’t be explosive. It will no doubt say that Genter is against any tunnels and any roads and wants them deleted from the programme or made lowest priority. This will not be a surprise.

Genter has refused to release the letter to protect free and frank discussions between ministers, and Ardern backed this up, saying its release would set a dangerous precedent.
“We have to be able to, as ministers, have discussions and policy discussions amongst ourselves before decisions are made, and if all of that’s exposed all of the time, it makes it harder for us to do our jobs.”

There is no precedent for refusing to release a formal letter from an Associate Minister to a Minister.

The Stuff headline:

Major report into reducing alcohol harm ignored for almost a decade

The report was not ignored. It was considered, debated and voted on. The fact a majority of MPs disagreed with Sir Geoffrey Palmer doesn’t mean it was ignored.

For the former prime minister, four of the 2010 recommendations could still have a huge impact in reducing alcohol harm: raising the age of purchase to 20-years-old; regulating advertising and sponsorship; raising prices; and introducing an excise tax.

Parliament has voted three times now on the purchase age and after submissions, hearing and considering the facts, voted each time for 20.

The facts MPs considered were things such as youth drink driving rates have halved. The proportion of 15 to 17 year olds drinking has declined from 75% to 57%.The rate of hazardous drinking in 18 to 24 year olds has dropped from 45% to 38%.

Also the liters of alcohol available for consumption per capita has not increased since the 1989 liberalisation. Here’s annual totals:

• 1989 10.96
• 1995 9.85
• 2000 9.43
• 2010 10.16
• 2018 9.24

Stuff reports:

The caregiver said the teacher had a “real thing about food” and would frequently take “unhealthy” food, including biscuits, crackers and chips, out of children’s lunch boxes.
On one occasion, she said the teacher refused to heat up the rice a young boy had brought it in for lunch. She then took his biscuits off him, telling him “you can’t have this, it’s not good for your brain”. 

Wow a food n*** pretending to be a teacher. I hope she gets struck off.

The teacher said she removed children’s food because of research around childhood obesity rates. She said it had always been part of her career in childhood to help children make healthy choices. 

Stealing their food off them is not helping them make healthy choices.

The tribunal also heard evidence that the teacher denied children afternoon tea because they had not eaten their lunch. 
Denying afternoon tea to children who had not eaten lunch would mean they did not eat between 10am and 5pm, Rebecca Scott, a lawyer for the tribunal’s complaints assessment committee said. 

That’s criminal. Pre-schoolers are very active and need energy. They would be in total meltdown by 5 pm if they haven’t eaten for seven hours.

Newshub reports:

National MP Paula Bennett says she will not be seeking re-election as MP for Upper Harbour in next year’s election.  
Bennett has been appointed as National’s campaign chair for the 2020 election and said being the party’s campaign chair will be a “massive commitment” and one that she wants to give “100 percent” of herself to. 
“As such I won’t be seeking re-election as the MP for Upper Harbour but will be on the National Party’s List,” Bennett said in a statement Wednesday. 

That’s a smart decision. You can’t really be an effective campaign chair and also running an electorate campaign.

Upper Harbour is a very safe seat – a 9,556 majority. Paula won 56% of the electorate vote and National 54% of the party vote.

There should be considerable interest in such a blue seat.

The Herald reports:

A bid to rename the Basin Reserve has fallen at the first hurdle but Olympic female athletes aren’t giving up.
Last month they launched a campaign to call the iconic cricket ground the Support Women’s Sport Basin Reserve.
They needed a minimum of $50,000 to get naming rights for one year.
But only $10,874 dollars were pledged when the PledgeMe page closed last night.

So they got an average of 2 cents per person in Wellington Region. I’m amazed it was even that much.

The Basin Reserve Trust has struggled to find a naming sponsor for some time.
When the rename campaign was launched mayor Justin Lester said it was brilliant and something everyone should support.

It was pathetic and inane and would have made the Basin a laughing stock.

If you want to promote women’s sports, then name it after a famous female cricket player. Call it the Amelia Kerr Basin Reserve or the Debbie Hockley Basin Reserve.

Barry Soper writes:

First of all the Labour Party dodged answering questions about allegations of sexual assault and rape by one of its workers because “the process” involved in the investigation exonerating him was under way.
Now that they’ve set up an appeal process for the complainants they’re not commenting because that process is underway. It’s a convenient shield for the party to hide behind.
And all of this from a party leading a Government that Jacinda Ardern promised would be the most transparent in our history.

And this is not a one off. This is the second time they have done this when it comes to victims of sexual assault or harassment.

The latest scandal is more serious, with allegations ranging from sexual assault through to rape.
If a rape did occur, why didn’t the complainant go to the police? That’s the most frequently asked question. A complainant told me her friend was admitted to hospital with mental health issues after being traumatised by what happened to her.

Also why was this dealt with as a Labour Party internal matter, rather than a workplace issue? Why did Labour not notify The Parliamentary Service?

The so called employment strategy announced by the Government seems to have won an internal competition for the most meaningless buzzwords you can use in one statement. Let’s list a few of them:

• achieve their potential
• fulfilling careers
• sense of purpose
• feeling of community and belonging
• wellbeing of all New Zealanders
•  joined-up approach
•  long-term challenges
• significant investment
• meaningful work
• more inclusive employment outcomes
• unlock people’s potential 
• resilient and adaptable
• a stronger pathway
• kick-start their career prospects 
• contributes to their identity

I really don’t know how the press secretary who wrote this managed to do so without vomiting a little in their mouth.

Footage from Sydney appears to show a man on a stabbing rampage was stopped by members of the public using chairs and even a milk crate to pin him down. Great brave Aussies to take on a guy with a blade with a milk crate and a chair!

Meanwhile you have to sigh at the Police being unwilling to state the obvious.

News.com.au reported:

Police said the man attempted to stab “multiple people”, but they did not yet know the offender’s motivations.
“We don’t know the causation or the rationale for his actions today,” he said.

Really?

Video obtained by 7 News shows the man yelling “Allahu Akbar!” as he jumps on the hood and roof of a Mercedes, before he is confronted by a man with a chair.

I could take a wild guess at the motivation!