I thought it would be interesting to look at the 36 OECD members and see how many have centre-right and centre-left governments. The split as far as I can tell is:

Centre-Right (23)

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Chile
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• France
• Germany
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Israel
• Italy*
• Japan
• Latvia
• Lithuania*
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Switzerland
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• United States

Centre-Left (13)

• Canada
• Estonia
• Finland
• Greece
• Iceland
• South Korea
• Mexico
• New Zealand
• Portugal
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden

So around two thirds of OECD members currently have centre-right Governments.

Even more interesting when you adjust for population. Around 300 million live in a country with a CL Government and almost one billion in countries with a CR Government.

The One News Colmar Brunton poll asked if people would consider voting for a party with Christian or conservative values at the 2020 General Election.

33% said yes and 58% no.

That’s not a bad pool to be fishing in. Of course they would never get even half of those but if they can get 5% that is enough.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand troops will soon be coming home from Iraq in the next year, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.

This seems a good timeframe. NZ troops have played a small but valuable role in training up the Iraqi Armed Forces. And it worked. They turned the tide on Islamic State and have now reclaimed all their lost territory.

Of course all three parties in Government opposed this role. Shamefully the current Defence Minister said the Iraqi military were cowards and we should not help them.

So it was the right decision to be there and help the people of Iraq reclaim their country from ISIL. But now that has happened, it is a good time to return home.

The Herald reports:

The latest poll shows that most voters do not want recreational cannabis to be legalised.
The result, from the 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton Poll, showed that 52 per cent opposed legalisation, while 39 per cent favoured legalisation; 8 per cent did not know and 1 per cent said they would not vote.
It contrasts to other recent polls that showed majority support for legalisation, including last month when 52 per cent of those surveyed said in a Horizon poll that they would vote to legalise, while 37 per cent said they would vote ‘no’.
Officials are currently putting together a draft bill that will outline a proposed regulatory regime for legal cannabis, which will then be put to the public in a vote at the 2020 election.
According to the 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll, younger voters who supported the Green Party were more likely to favour legalisation.
Older National Party supporters were more likely to vote for the status quo.

The Newshub poll has 42% for legalisation and 48% against so broadly in agreement.

It looks like it could be a very tight vote. I think the status quo is not working and want change.

Vaccinations rid the world of Smallpox. Smallpox had a 30% fatality rate and killed 500 million people over 100 years.

Next time someone says they don’t support vaccinating, show them this photo.

The Herald reports:

School principals are livid over delays in delivering Board of Trustees ballot papers with one saying she was prepared to the break the law to give parents time to vote.
Voting in the triennial elections for most school boards closed at noon on Friday, June 7.
But Ponsonby Primary School principal Dr Anne Malcolm said most of her parents did not receive their voting papers until about 2pm on Thursday, giving them less than 24 hours to read the candidates’ statements and get their votes in.
She put the blame squarely on “NZ Post inefficiency”.

“They sent the voting papers out on Monday May 27,” she said.
“It took 11 days for NZ Post to get mail into our letterboxes in the centre of Auckland, from Wellington, which is absolutely abhorrent.”

This is why local body elections should not continue with postal voting being the main mechanism to vote. You should be able to scan in your ballot paper and e-mail it or upload it to the Returning Officer.

Stuff reports:

Just minutes after getting 27 sleepy children out of a smoky marae, the adults who saved their lives looked back to see the place engulfed in flames.
Those five adults’ actions, in the dead of night at Island Bay’s Tapu Te Ranga Marae, “undoubtedly” saved the lives of the 27 Scout cubs, New Zealand chief executive Joshua Tabor said.
Ngaio Scouts group leader Hadyn Nicholls said the adults supervising the one-night marae stay on Saturday night smelled smoke and quickly woke up the sleeping children then got them rapidly out of the marae and up the driveway.

Thankfully they all got out. The motto of “Be Prepared” is a good one!

But very sad for the marae. I grew up in Island Bay and the marae was an iconic building and a big part of the community.

Both TV networks released a poll tonight and the results are dramatically different. They are so far apart, that statistically it can’t be margin of error.

Let’s look at the four main parties:

• Labour 42% in ONCB and 50.8%% in NRR
• National 44% in ONCB and 37.4% in NRR
• Greens 6% in ONCB and 6.2% in NRR
• NZ First 5% in ONCB and 2.8% in NRR

You basically can’t reconcile these polls. One (or both) of them seem to be outside the 95% confidence interval, ie is the 1 in 20 “rogue” result.

The only other plausible explanation is that as the ONCB poll started a few days after NRR, Labour had a massive drop in support after those first few days. But the difference in dates is unlikely to explain the massive gap.

The polls ever show the direction of change differently. One has Labour down 6% and the other up 3.3%. National is up 4% in one and down 4% in another.

The NZ First result is also outside the margin of error. A 5% and a 2.8% result is outside the 95% confidence interval.

Bottom line is that at least one of those polls is wrong. They can’t both be right.

Stacey Kirk writes:

Housing Minister Phil Twyford brings a different set of headaches to the Cabinet table. Kiwibuild is failing on every measure, and it’s extremely problematic for the Government.
While there’s an argument no-one else could make gold out of that dog of a policy, there is also the counter that a new face in that portfolio would be far less tainted to have a mandate to simply wipe the slate clean. 

If Twyford does lose it, pity the bugger who picks it up.

On the up, Kris Faafoi is a shoo-in to be brought inside Cabinet and be given the meatier portfolio he’s earned through diligent work, careful comment and proving himself to be a safe pair of hands.
It may end up being too much of a leap up the ladder in a single bound, but it’s not unreasonable to think he’s competent enough to hold the spy portfolios. Michael Wood, a parliamentary under-secretary, is widely tipped to take one step forward as minister outside Cabinet.

Faafoi and Wood are the obvious promotions.

And through the reshuffle, Ardern has to try to acknowledge a gender imbalance in her ministerial lineup as best she can. With the loss of Clare Curran and Meka Whaitiri, due to blunders and alleged bullying respectively, it’s a heavily male affair. 
Whaitiri has the backing of Labour’s Māori caucus for a return. But it’s understood she can mount a media campaign complaining of unfair treatment all she wants – there’s no place in Ardern’s “kinder” Government, for a minister who, as an inquiry suggested was likely, laid hands on her staff. 

Returning Whaitiri to the Ministry would be a very bad look.

Louisa Wall is no option, although Poto Williams could be. 
Kieran McAnulty, Kiri Allan, Ginny Andersen and Priyanca​ Radhakrishnan are the freshman young guns who will all likely be destined for higher office at some point, if they keep their powder dry.

I’m surprised Deborah Russell isn’t mentioned. She is clearly capable of being a Minister.

Forest & Bird points out:

The Government’s announcement this morning they’re paying for cameras on 28 fishing boats is yet another major back down to the fishing industry, says Forest & Bird.  
 
“Putting cameras on boats in an area that already has near total observer coverage is a joke. Meanwhile, most commercial fishing boats in New Zealand will continue to operate without human or camera observers,” says Forest & Bird Chief Executive Kevin Hague.
 
“There are only 63 Māui dolphins in the world. If we want to save them, counting bodies on boats is too late. We need to stop dangerous set netting and trawling in their habitat, not put cameras on boats that mostly already have MPI staff on them.”
 
“There are over 1000 commercial fishing boats in our waters, the vast majority of which do not have any observer coverage at all.

So National was introducing cameras in basically all 1,000 fishing boats. This Government which claims to be focused on the environment and conservation is introducing them on just 3% of fishing boats, and ones that have observers on them already so they’ll actually achieve nothing.

Tracy Watkins writes:

The butt-covering hit a new low last week with the revelation that GCSB bosses phoned their minister, Andrew Little, in a panic when they realised Makhlouf was blaming the Treasury budget breach on hackers.
It seems the phone call came too late to stop Makhlouf and Robertson’s office issuing press releases about the “hack” that wasn’t.
But there can only have been one purpose in leaking details of that phone call – to hang Makhlouf out to dry.
The higher the stakes, the dirtier and more desperate the tactics look.
It didn’t need to be like this. If there had been an admission from day one that the Treasury budget breach was a colossal stuff-up, it would have been a one day wonder.
There was no hack. Treasury’s secret budget documents were able to be accessed by the National Party with a simple search.
But we’ve ended up with an inquiry that seems designed to shut down questions, and a Government that looks embroiled in its own dirty politics scandal.
Labour’s danger is it starts to wash up against “brand Jacinda’, which is supposed to be above all this.
Why do politicians never seem to learn that the cover up is almost always worse than the crime?

The moment the GCSB contacted Ministers to tell them that Treasury was not hacked, Ministers should have insisted on correcting the public record.

• Affordable homes promised by 30 June: 1,000
• Affordable homes built to date: 119
• Shortfall: 881
• Days to go: 22
• Homes/day needed: 40
• To make target a new home must be built every 36 minutes
• To make target a new home must be built every 2,200 seconds
• To make target a new home must be built every 513 seconds of a 40 hour week

Stuff reports:

Wellington’s Golden Mile could be car free by 2021, and speed limits on surrounding streets dropped to 30kmh.

A rare sensible initiative.

Bob Jones suggested some years ago the Golden Mile should be car free. In fact he also said bus free. Turn it into an open mall with outdoor cafes and the like.

The 30 km/hr speed limit on non arterial routes is fine also for the CBD. Too many pedestrians about to go faster than that.

First Retail Group managing director Chris Wilkinson said the changes would be good for the city.
“The reality is we need to create stronger priorities for public transport, and very few consumers actually drive through the Golden Mile. 
“People don’t drive down the Golden Mile, stop, and buy something. That happened 10 or 15 years ago, but over a long period of time parking has been declining in the city centre, which aligns with the [city] council’s District Plan.”

I agree. Make it happen.

Stuff reports:

Immigration New Zealand has approved more than 20 partnership visas for child brides and grooms married or engaged to people living in or migrating to New Zealand during the past decade.
All of the brides and grooms were 16- or 17-years-old and most were from countries in the Middle East and Asia, according to information obtained by Stuff under the Official Information Act.
Last year, a 17-year-old Egyptian girl had her application approved so she could be with her 28-year-old Kiwi husband. In 2013, a 17-year-old bride-to-be from Pakistan was granted a partnership visa to live in New Zealand with her 28-year-old fiance, also from Pakistan.

That’s ridiculous. We should not be giving visas to teenagers to come to New Zealand as brides. At a minimum they can wait until they are 18 and legally an adult.

INZ said in each case, the teenager’s parent(s) or guardian(s) supported the application.

Oh great, the ones who may be selling them off into marriage.

Paula Bennett released:

Finance Minister Grant Robertson and GCSB Minister Andrew Little need to tell the truth about what information they received from the GCSB and Treasury about how sensitive Budget information had been accessed, National’s Deputy Leader Paula Bennett says.
“Reports this morning that there was a desperate 11th hour phone call to Andrew Little from the head of the GCSB to say Treasury’s website had not been hacked shows that senior Government Ministers knew they were releasing false information to the public.
“It is inconceivable that the GCSB Minister didn’t immediately phone Finance Minister Grant Robertson and the Prime Minister to give them that information.

The report states that the phone call to Little occurred before Treasury and Robertson made their public statements claiming a criminal hack of Treasury, and a Police referral.

It is clear that Ardern and Robertson must have known that the hacking claim was false, either before Robertson did his press release or within minutes of it going out. Yet they said nothing for two days, despite having been told by the CGSB there was no hack.

Even worse the Treasury statement implied GCSB were the ones that had determined this was a criminal hack and should be notified to the Police. The reality is GCSB was telling their Minister it wasn’t.

Again there must be an independent inquiry into how this deliberate lie was allowed to be promulgated. The SSC inquiry can’t look at actions of Ministers or their staff.

Have a look at this video where Jacinda Ardern clearly states they got rid of both national standards and charter schools because the unions were against them.

A fascinating UK cable on what happened at Tiananmen Square. Some extracts:

THE ARMY THAT HAS COMMITTED THE ATROCITIES IN BEIJING IS 27 ARMY WHO ARE TROOPS FROM SHANXI PROVINCE (?), ARE 60 PERCENT ILLITERATE AND ARE CALLED PRIMITIVES. THE COMMANDER OF 27 ARMY WAS YANG ZHENHUA, SON OF YANG BAIDING BROTHER OF YANG SHANGKUN. THEY WERE KEPT WITHOUT NEWS FOR TEN DAYS AND TOLD THEY WERE TO TAKE PART IN AN EXERCISE. A TV FILM WOULD BE MADE OF THE EXERCISE WHICH PLEASED THEM. THEY WERE INFORMED OF MARTIAL LAW ON MAY 20. FOR THE FIRST 4 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL THEY WERE DRIVEN AROUND BEIJING CITY TO FAMILIARISE THEM WITH THE AREA. 27 ARMY ARE AT FULL STRENGTH WITH THEIR OWN TANKS AND APCS AND A FULL OUTFIT OF AMMUNITION, TEAR GAS AND FLAMETHROWERS. OTHER ARMIES ARE ONLY AT 1 DIVISION STRENGTH. THE LEADERSHIP KEEPS 27 ARMY ON THE MOVE SO THAT IT CAN ATTACK FROM A DIFFERENT DIRECTION EACH TIME.
3. FACT. ON THE NIGHT OF 3/4 JUNE 27 ARMY WAS TO ATTACK FROM THE WEST WITH OTHER UNITS FROM SHENYANG MR. THE PLAN WAS THAT THE FIRST WAVE (SMR) WOULD ATTACK WITH NO WEAPONS. THE SECOND WAVE (SMR) WOULD ATTACK WITH WEAPONS BUT NO AMMUNITION. THE THIRD WAVE (SMR) WOULD ATTACK AS FOR SECOND WAVE BUT OFFICERS WOULD HAVE LOADED SIDE ARMS TO FRIGHTEN THE CROWD. THE FOURTH WAVE WOULD BE 27 ARMY WITH FULL EQUIPMENT AND AMMUNITION. THE FIRST ATTACKS OCCURRED AT MUCIDI AND SHILIPU. THE FIRST THREE WAVES WERE HELD BY THE DEMONSTRATORS AND SMR TROOPS TRIED TO PUSH BACK THE CROWDS TO LET 27 ARMY THROUGH. THEY FAILED AND 27 ARMY APCS OPENED FIRE ON THE CROWD (BOTH CIVILIANS AND SOLDIERS) BEFORE RUNNING OVER THEM IN THEIR APCS.
4. FACT. THE ENRAGED MASSES FOLLOWED IGNORING M/G FIRE TO NEXT BATTLE AT LIUBUKOU. APCS RAN OVER TROOPS AND CIVILIANS AT 65KPH IN SAME MANNER. ONE APC CRASHED AND DRIVER (A CAPTAIN) GOT OUT AND WAS TAKEN BY CROWD TO HOSPITAL. HE IS NOT DERANGED AND DEMANDS DEATH FOR HIS ATROCITIES.
5. FACT. ON ARRIVAL AT TIANANMEN TROOPS FROM SMR HAD SEPARATED STUDENTS AND RESIDENTS. STUDENTS UNDERSTOOD THEY WERE GIVEN ONE HOUR TO LEAVE SQUARE BUT AFTER FIVE MINUTES APCS ATTACKED. STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS.

Such barbarity.

Newshub reports:

The family of a woman killed by her partner and left in a Waikato lake for almost a year have spoken out about what they describe as New Zealand’s broken justice system.
Now they are fighting for law reform to restrict the rights of murderers and to prevent them from placing a financial burden on the families of their victims.

In July 2016, 42-year-old Kim Richmond disappeared. It took 11 months for her body to be found submerged in a ute at Lake Arapuni.
“I never get to see my sister again, the children never get to see their mum,” her sister Tracey says.
And with that came another shock – the man accused of killing her was her partner of 26 years and the father of her children, Cory Jefferies.
After Jefferies was arrested, Kim’s parents took temporary custody of their grandchildren – two boys and a girl now aged 11, 14 and 16.
A year later, as soon as the verdict came in, they applied to be the children’s legal guardians. The family thought it was the end of the nightmare.
But from behind bars Kim’s killer has repeatedly delayed the custody process trying to stop their application. …

Tracey desperately wants for some good to come from Kim’s death and she’s calling for urgent law reform to limit the rights of a prisoner in a custody battle like this one and for the financial burden to always be put on the killer.

That seems like a very reasonable law change. If you kill the other parent, you lose any rights of custody.

Glenn McConnell writes:

You can’t get on board the Northern Explorer or TranzAlpine for under $99. Tickets generally cost between $119 and $219. You can’t even get on the Coastal Pacific, between Picton and Christchurch, which is booked out almost every day.
KiwiRail’s pricing is obscene.
It’s a great journey, yes, but why does it cost so much? Most days you can fly Wellington to Auckland for $49 on Air New Zealand.

McConnell seems to not understand costs or revenue.

First on the costs side, a one hour plane trip has different costs to a 12 hour train trip. Costs determine what you need to charge to at least break even. Air NZ makes money on their trips. I suspect Kiwirail loses money on their trips.

On the revenue side, only some tickets are available for $49. Many tickets between Auckland and Wellington cost $300. As the marginal cost of an extra passenger is below $49, Air NZ lets some tickets go for $49. But they would lose money if all tickets were $49.

Trains can take an almost endless number of people. Add on another carriage, hire a few more train guards and go.

McConnell seems to think carriages are free In fact they are around $3 million. So to justify a new carriage you would need to be generating around $250,000 a year of revenue from that carriage. Oh plus extra operating costs.

The only forseeable reason KiwiRail has decided to set its price so high is to remain exclusive. It’s expensive for the sake of it. The people at the state-run rail company have made a decision to price New Zealanders off our trains.

It despairs me that a journalist is so limited in thinking that they say there is only one possible reason for a pricing decision, and worse of all it is an illogical decision “for the sake of it”. Not that the price is set to cover costs.