Newshub reports:

Newshub can reveal Shane Jones signed off on millions of dollars of funding – despite his officials explicitly warning him not to support the projects.
Treasury was even concerned one of the projects may have been overfunded by more than a million dollars. …

It told the Government not to give $5.5 million for the Gisborne Airport revamp, as well as another $6 million for a tourism project at Mt Titirangi.
“I think it’s fair to say that Treasury are paid to be doubting Thomases,” Mr Jones told Newshub. 
At the time he bragged about how many jobs would be created

“Scores and scores of people are gonna be required.”

But Treasury said the Mt Titirangi initiative was unlikely to boost employment.

Not only that – Treasury couldn’t figure out why it needed $6 million.

Emails between Treasury officials raise concerns of “double or even triple dipping going on”.

The emailed response: “They only need $4.75 [million] based on my back of the envelope, not six [million]”.

So Treasury said the project was double and triple dipping, and didn’t even need the six million requested.

Yet they got it anyway.

Karl du Fresne writes at Stuff:

Whenever I read something about Donald Trump, my eyes go straight to the credit line at the bottom of the story to see where it came from.
If it’s sourced from the Washington Post or the New York Times, I read it with a degree of scepticism. These once-great newspapers have dangerously compromised their credibility by allowing their almost obsessive dislike of the American president to contaminate their reportage.
This is made worse by their tendency to allow fact and opinion to become so entangled that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other starts. It’s open season on Trump, and many American journalists make it clear that they despise him. 
And actually, I understand why they feel that way. I despise Trump too, and worry about the damage his presidency might do to America and to the world. He’s a man who appears to have no moral compass and no respect for the truth.

I don’t  think it is the damage he might do, but has done.

Trump plays this political card more blatantly and unscrupulously than even Muldoon did, repeatedly branding the American media as the enemy of the people. 
Sadly, by buying into the adversarial relationship and adopting an openly hostile stance toward the White House, the media have perversely enhanced Trump’s political capital. 

He can point to their antagonistic coverage as proof that the liberal media can’t be trusted to report things fairly and accurately. This played well to his supporters on the campaign trail in 2016 and it continues to play well for Trump now, because there will always be an element of the public that is prepared to believe the worst of supposedly elitist, out-of-touch reporters.
And it has to be said that many journalists are elitist and out-of-touch – especially in the United States, where the big media organisations are headquartered far from the neglected heartland where Trump’s support base is located. That helps explain why the media so dismally failed to foresee Trump’s victory in the presidential election. 
The best counter to Trump’s game, surely, is to do what reputable newspapers used to do as a matter of course: play it straight.
News columns are not the place for editorial opinion. They should be concerned only with detached, factual accounts of what Trump has said or done. 

That would be nice.

All of this leads me, in a roundabout way, to last month’s Stuff editorial from editor in chief Patrick Crewdson that his organisation will no longer give space to the views of people classified as climate change sceptics and “denialists”.

OK, the parallel with Trump isn’t obvious, but Stuff’s stance does raise a serious question relating to trust in the media. 

When a news organisation decides to shut down comment on an issue as important as climate change on the basis that the debate is “settled”, it assumes a position of omniscience that will rankle with many readers. But far more importantly, it raises doubts in readers’ minds about its commitment to free and open debate. 

I thought this new editorial policy from Stuff was quite dangerous. First note their clarification:

Editor’s note: Stuff has not shut down discussion on climate change, but we will not provide a forum for its factual existence to be countered with fictions and call it “balance”.

I wonder how much further Stuff will take this policy of now allowing “fictions” in the name of balance.

Genetic modification has been proven to be safe for three decades now. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. Will Stuff ban people who claim GE is unsafe?

Will Stuff ban people who claim fluoride at the levels in NZ water supplies is unsafe? 

Will Stuff ban people who claim that (for example) tripling the minimum wage won’t effect employment levels, as the scientific evidence is overwhelming it will?

It is a slippery slope Stuff has embarked on.

Also how will they distinguish between legitimate uncertainty and outright denial?

I would agree that there are two facts which are scientifically proven.

1. The global average temperature is much hotter than 50 years ago, and rising
2. Greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are a major factor in the increase

But there is very strong and legitimate debate on the following:

• What the future temperature increases will be
• What the associated sea level increase will be
• Whether reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the best response
• Whether methane should be included due to its short duration in the atmosphere
• Whether the international agreements will make any significant difference
• Whether NZ policy on this is sensible and appropriate

So the danger is that Stuff will end up banning views where there is legitimate disagreement, not just views which seek to deny a simple fact such as global temperatures has been rising.

Also what will Stuff do should circumstances change? If say the years 2019 to 2022 all saw global average temperatures drop to well below 2018, will it be forbidden to point this out?

The Herald reports:

Ministers have been ordered to review their portfolios in preparation for the next Budget and identify at least 1 per cent of expenditure which is not in line with the Government’s objectives, a leaked document reveals.

The document, leaked to the National Party, also shows what the priority areas for next year’s budget will be.

These include supporting mental wellbeing for all New Zealanders, with a special focus on under 24s, and lifting Maori and Pacific incomes, skills and opportunities.

The instructions to ministers said: “Each portfolio minister will be required to undertake a review within their portfolio(s) to identify at least one per cent of expenditure within each portfolio’s baseline that is not in line with the Government’s objectives, or is of the lowest priority.”

Although it’s not unusual for spending to be reprioritised – $1.4 billion was reprioritised over five years in this year’s Budget – National Finance Spokeswoman Amy Adams said the instructions read as if ministers were being asked to cut spending in their portfolios.

They are being asked to find spending cuts, and that is an excellent thing, if the cuts go from areas where the benefits are small if any.

National was very good at cutting spending in some areas, so they could spend more in higher priority areas. Good to see Labour trying to do the same.

But what you want to avoid is taking money from a high worth area. For example Labour took money from Pharmac’s budget to pay for pay rises for nurses. Those who rely on subsidised drugs probably didn’t appreciate that.

Of course the best areas you could cut spending from is free tertiary fees. They will be spending $1.2 billion a year and to date it has seen tertiary numbers decline!

Thomas Sowell writes:

A Success Academy charter elementary school in Harlem had a higher proportion of the children in one of its classes pass the statewide math exam than in any other class at the same grade level, anywhere in the state of New York.

Think about that. The best achieving school in the state of New York was in Harlem.

As a result of the charter schools’ educational achievements, it is not uncommon for thousands of children to be on waiting lists to get into such schools — in New York City, tens of thousands.

This represents a huge opportunity for many low-income, minority youngsters who have very few other opportunities for a better life. But, to politicians dependent on teachers’ unions for money and votes, charter schools are expendable.

In various communities around the country, charter schools are already being prevented from moving into empty school buildings, which would allow them to admit more children from waiting lists.

Denying these children what can be their one chance in life is a new low, even for politicians.

Sadly it is exactly what the Government in New Zealand is also doing.

Peter Dunne writes:

Parliamentary Questions, carefully crafted and camouflaged to disguise their true intent, coupled with a judicious use of the Official Information Act, are the primary weapons of an Opposition to get the answers it needs to do its day to day job of holding the Government to account, as well as the information it needs in the development of its next election policy.

Yes, the process is time consuming for the public servants who have to prepare the answers for Ministers’ consideration, and it is tedious for Ministers to have to spend several hours each week poring over the replies before approving them and signing them off. But, by definition, it is not the Opposition’s job to be helpful to the Government.
Besides, every now and then Parliamentary Questions strike gold.
This year, it was the Questions process that brought Clare Curran’s Ministerial career to a close. Discrepancies in Written Questions replies caught out Shane Jones and his failure to disclose 61 meetings, and the ongoing skewering of Iain Lees- Galloway is largely because of the inadequacy of his answers to Parliamentary Questions.

Dunne is spot on that if you use PQs well, they are an invaluable tool for transparency.

So when petrol prices are around $2.50 a litre, how much money does the Government get from you to fill up a 50 litre car?

• National Land Transport Fund $31.51
• GST $16.31 (on a $2.50 retail price)
• Regional Fuel Tax (in Auckland) $5.00
• ACC Levy $3.00
• Local Authorities Fuel Tax $0.33
• Engine Fuel Monitoring Levy $0.15

But that isn’t all. To pay for the $125 petrol bill, you need to (if top tax rate) earn $186.57 which means there was also income tax of $61.57.

So every-time you spend $125 filling up the car with petrol, the Government will have got $117.86 as you will have had to have earned almost $190 to pay for it!

The Herald reports:

Foreign language learning in primary schools looks likely to become commonplace for Kiwi kids with widespread political support for a private member’s bill promoting second-language teaching from a young age.
Former education minister Nikki Kaye has won the support of current Education Minister Chris Hipkins and the Labour caucus, plus the Greens and Act, to progress her bill to select committee.
The bill is also likely to extend the provision of Māori language teaching in schools as well as foreign languages.
The bill requires the Government to set 10 priority languages – likely to include Mandarin, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Pacific languages and possibly Hindi as well as official languages Te Reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language.

It also requires the Government to resource the provision of those languages in primary and intermediate schools.
Schools would then consult their communities to decide which of the priority languages will be taught for Year 1 to 8. It could be more than one.
“Speaking more than one language has enormous cognitive, cultural, social and economic benefits so this bill is a big opportunity for our country,” said Kaye.

There is a lot of evidence that learning a second language early on is beneficial to kids, including it improves their ability with their primary language.

I like the aspect that each school decides for itself which languages to teach, rather than the Government dictate one language for everyone.

Good to see Labour and Greens backing the bill, even though it is from an opposition MP. And also a good reminder that being in Opposition isn’t just about opposing – but also advancing your own good policy ideas.

Todd McClay writes at The Spinoff:

As a matter of principle, National does not believe that migration policy should be governed through a United Nations framework. Migration is solely a matter for sovereign states. Each country must respond dynamically to the circumstances it finds itself in. The highly circumstantial nature of migration makes it a difficult policy area to apply a global framework to, outside of the basic tenants of human rights. For that reason alone we felt justified in our position to oppose this agreement, though as I will outline here, we have more specific concerns with this agreement as well.

This is a good point.  Some things such as the law of the sea need to be governed through a UN framework. Migration policy does not.

Kiwis have a good basis to consider ourselves good global citizens, as Bookman himself states. That is especially true when it comes to immigration. New Zealand has an excellent immigration system, we encourage talent to move to our country and welcome people who choose to come here to call our country home. National remains committed to that principle.
National is not, and will not be, the party that goes to an election calling for dramatic reductions of migrants or calling for discriminatory policies of banning people from housing markets based on the sound of their name.

We all know which party he is referring to there!

For example, objective 17 of the compact calls for a commitment to eliminate discrimination towards migrants. Wonderful, what could be wrong with this? The document then explains types of policies that could be used to do this including “sensitising and educating media professionals on migration-related issues and terminology” and “stopping allocation of public funding or material support to media outlets that systematically promote intolerance”, at the same time the document says that we must respect the freedom of the media.
But restricting speech because we don’t like it and refusing support for media based on what they say is a dangerous experiment in the limitations of basic rights. As a member of the National Party, I will regularly read or watch media that I don’t like, disagree with or feel is intolerant towards me and my party’s views and beliefs. My response is to write a column to the Spinoff, not call for the defunding or re-education of media. This is part of the problem, the commitments the document calls for do not match the specific policy settings and values of individual countries.

It is objective 17 which is the most problematic.

Cato has released the 2018 Freedom Index. The top 10 are:

1. New Zealand 8.89
2. Switzerland 8.79
3. Hong Kong 8.78
4. Australia 8.58
5. Canada 8.57
6. Netherlands 8.55
7. Denmark 8.55
8. Ireland 8.50
9. UK 8.50
10. Finland, Norway, Taiwan 8.47

The bottom three are Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. 

The detailed profile for NZ is:

• Movement 10.0
• Association 10.0
• Security & Safety 9.9
• Religious Freedom 9.7
• Expression 9.5
• Identity 9.3
• Rule of Law 7.9

Note that the data is for the 2016 year so it won’t reflect any changes in the last two years.

The election results for TOP leader are here.

Geoff Simmons won easily with 66% of the vote, three times the 20% Amy Stevens got.

Gareth Morgan was very vocal about why he thought Simmons was the wrong choice. He thought Stevens could appeal to votes on both the right and left of politics, while Simmons only has appeal on the left.

Morgan said he will donate far less (if anything) if Simmons wins, so it will be interesting to see if TOP can attract any financial support from elsewhere.

There’s an article on Stuff where I’m quoted about some polling data made public by UMR, Labour’s pollsters:

A document drawn up by Labour’s polling company delivers a brutal assessment of the public’s impression of National leader Simon Bridges

Stuff has obtained a slide presentation which UMR, which has long been used by Labour for its private internal polling, sent to “ten or so” subscribers. …

David Farrar, the principal at Curia Research, National’s polling company, said sending the material to corporate clients made it likely it would quickly become public.

“They wanted this to get out there, but they didn’t want Labour to release it,” Farrar, who also runs Kiwiblog, a website which is largely sympathetic to the National Party.

Labour has distanced itself from the document and refused to say whether it approved or influenced what UMR released.

I don’t think anyone should doubt Labour explicitly approved the release of this data. The fact they refuse to deny it speaks volumes.

The reality is that research data doesn’t belong to the polling company. It belongs to the client. The client is the only entity that can approve something being released. Only if the polling company is its own’s client, do they get to decide.

So what we have is that in the middle of the allegations from Jamie-Lee, they polled people on what they thought of the National Party Leader, and then released the data as a way to damage him.

This is not something we have seen before.

It is not a long way removed from a political party releasing an advertisement that said something like “We asked 1,000 people what they thought of xxxxx and 72% said they think he is a liar”. That sort of ad is seen as the most negative type of advertising you can do. Labour have basically done this, by way of releasing their polling data knowing it would get to the media.

Now contrast that with the Labour Party Leader who maintains she believes in gentler, kinder politics. Well her party just launched a classic dirty politics strike against her main opponent. So that should tell you something about how genuine her stance is.

Stuff reports:

From January, all Government ministers will have to release details of their internal and external meetings.

Minister for State Services (Open Government) Chris Hipkins said Cabinet had agreed to the release of summary information from their ministerial diaries from January 2019 onwards, with the first publication in February 2019.

The aim was to help build trust and confidence in government and show its commitment to improving transparency, he said.

The new policy will apply to the information recorded in the diary of each minister and parliamentary under-secretary that related to ministerial business, including meetings held outside New Zealand.

This is a good move.

The information tended to come out anyway through the OIA, but having proactive monthly release is a good thing.

For each meeting in scope, the summary would list: date, time (start and finish), brief description, location, who the meeting was with, and the portfolio.

The monthly summary will be published on the Beehive website within 15 business days following the end of each month.

Look forward to seeing them.

Bloomberg reports:

US President Donald Trump is losing his war on the US trade deficit and the evidence is growing that his own tariffs are at least part of the reason why.

The US’s monthly deficit in goods and services with the world reached its highest level in a decade in October while the deficit with China hit a record, according to data on Thursday.

The new report showed the deficit grew more than 11 per cent through October from the year before and thus pointed to an awkward emerging reality for Trump: If the pattern holds, by the end of this year the US trade deficit will have reached $600 billion for the first time. It also will have grown by more than $100 billion, or a fifth, from when Trump took office in January 2017.

Economists tend to express bemusement at Trump’s obsession with trade deficits and particularly bilateral ones. In simple terms, buying more stuff from a neighbour than they buy from you can just mean you end up with more stuff, and have more cash to buy it with. It doesn’t always mean you are worse off economically.

Yep a trade deficit isn’t that important. The fiscal deficit is far more important. But Trump is obsessed with the trade deficit, and it has grown 20% since he became President.

Through October, US exports to China were worth $102.5 billion and down almost $1 billion from the same period last year, according to US Commerce Department figures. The value of imports from China, meanwhile, was up by almost $35 billion to $447 billion.

So China is importing less from the US while the US is importing more.

The Dom Post reports:

A pro-car political party has formed to contest the next Wellington City Council elections and cyclists are first in the firing line.

Wellington First has been formed by former councillor Bryan Weyburne and businessman Digby Paape who were inspired by promoter Phil Sprey, who recently said he would donate $10,000 for any viable candidate to topple incumbent Justin Lester.

I’m pro-car, pro-cycleways and pro-public transport.

Done well, it shouldn’t be an either or.

We need cycleways, but not ones that destroy hundreds of car parks and kill off local businesses.

Wellington has (or had until the new hubs) a pretty damn good public transport system. Sensible investments in stuff such as bus rapid transport helps motorists. Wasting $100 million a a light rail project with a BCR of 0.05 helps no-one.

While neither  were anti-cycling as such they were against Wellington’s investment and focus on getting people on pushbikes.

“We are supposed to believe that the city needs to switch over to bicycles, a  150-year-old technology that cars have virtually eliminated,” the group’s first statement says.

Again it is not either or. Cycling is great for recreation and can be a great way to commute to work if you have no kids. If you have kids cars are a near essential.

“On a sunny, calm day on flat land a bike can be a very enjoyable pastime, but on a cold, wet, blustery day on the Wellington hills, taking the children to kindy, school, as well as dropping off the partner before work is a job for cars. Everyone has one, for that reason.”

Yep.

They believed the council was putting cycles ahead of cars, including a proposal to eliminate 600 car parks in a move  to get the already-controversial Island Bay cycleway into the city.

Destroying 600 car parks for a cycleway is pretty insane.

Air NZ announced:

The Aviation and Marine Engineers Association (AMEA) and E tū, notified the airline yesterday evening of a total strike by almost a thousand unionised employees on Friday 21 December. The unions have also advised to expect further industrial action.

Close to 42,000 customers booked to travel domestically and internationally on 21 December alone now face potential flight cancellations.

The average income of the maintenance engineers, logistics and other staff to strike is $115,000 – more than double the average wage in New Zealand – and around 170 of them earn more than $150,000. Work undertaken by this employee group includes carrying out scheduled aircraft maintenance, unscheduled repair work and signing off aircraft prior to departure, as well as managing the availability of aircraft parts and related activities.

While the group has received pay increases annually for the past 12 years, it has so far rejected recent proposals by the airline including an immediate two percent pay increase followed by a further three percent increase after 12 months, with a further pay review in mid-2021.

So they’re going to destroy Xmas for tens of thousands of families by striking because a 5% pay rise is not enough.

Along with pay, claims on the aircraft maintenance engineers’ side have included an extra week of annual leave for employees with five years’ service (taking shift workers to six weeks a year), free reserved car parking spaces within 500 metres of their workplace, and the right to renegotiate terms just prior to the busy Christmas season again next year.

Six weeks annual leave plus a free car park. With six weeks annual leave plus stat holidays that means you are working only 10 out of 12 months. Or to put it another way, you are almost getting paid 5 days for working four.

Stuff reports:

The optics of the Air New Zealand strike could hardly be worse, for anyone involved.

For Jacinda Ardern’s Government, this strike has considerable political risk. Her opponents warned that a Labour-led Government would lead to more strikes.

During 2018, we have already seen bureaucrats marching in Wellington, as well as nationwide action by nurses and teachers, the latter expected to take action again in 2019.

But as disruptive as the strikes by the teachers were, if the airline engineers really do go on strike, the public’s patience will be severely tested.

Travelling at Christmas is painful enough already. It is busy, expensive and the holiday is stressful for many.

The prospect of spending holidays stuck at the airport threatens to turn into actual anger.

The unions must take this seriously. It appears that there is currently a degree of public sympathy for workers wanting to use whatever power they have to win better conditions after years of low wage gains.

But that sympathy could quickly be exhausted by strikes which look to be so deliberately designed to cause distress for families who are using up precious holiday time.

Who will blink first?

Stuff reports:

KiwiBuild chief executive Stephen Barclay has quit the Government’s flagship organisation after just five months in the role. 

Barclay started the job in May, but The Weekend Herald has reported Barclay left at the start of November.  …

Twyford’s office said on Saturday he would not comment on Barclay’s resignation and directed all questions to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s press secretary said it was an operational issue and she also would not be responding to questions. 

Meanwhile, a Ministry of Housing and Urban Development spokesperson told Stuff “Barclay is currently away from the office”.

If he quit a month ago, he is not just currently away from the office.

The big question is why did he quit after just five months?

The Herald reports:

The chairman of the National Māori Authority has called for the Auditor-General to look into how Māori services agency Whānau Ora allowed a $600,000 surplus to be paid to a private shareholder.

The revelation, which emerged at a parliamentary committee this week, has led to sniping between Whānau Ora Minister Peeni Henare and his colleague Associate Māori Affairs Minister Willie Jackson. …

Henare, who is meeting Te Pou Matakana today, told One News yesterday he would prefer to see the money reinvested.

“We’re talking about public money here. There is a demand in the public that there is accountability and transparency so it’s only fair that I ask those questions.”

Jackson told One News Henare had not been given all the information and that he should be seeking more from Hippolite.

“He needs to start asking some questions of his CEO and the information she’s been giving him,” he said.

Henare responded: “That’s why I’m the Minister of Whānau Ora, and he isn’t.”

That’s an astonishing exchange.

Again it shows that this is not a disciplined united Government. You have Ministers slagging each other off, and the PM finding out about major policy changes by watching TV.

Barry Soper writes:

New Zealand’s running the risk of becoming a politically correct society of sycophants. …

In recent weeks we’ve had the Gay Pride parade’s ban on cops wearing uniforms which seemed to contradict their enthusiasm to embrace all comers, then we had the ridiculous spectacle of Santa Claus being banned as Father Christmas because he said it was a job for blokes which would seem to be bleedingly obvious. The ban was lifted at the last minutebecause of the outcry.

Nelson then added insult to the injury of enthusiastic local kids by having “Santa” perched on his coach at the tail end of the parade, only he was a Maori bloke in a Hawaiian shirt draped in a red cloak with the idea of bi-culturalism leading multi-culturalism. Fair suck of the sav!

We shouldn’t overlook one of Wellington’s poshest girls’ schools Queen Margaret’s College changing its dress code, allowing for shorts and trousers after its rainbow students argued gender dysphoria (whereby you feel opposite to your birth gender). Uniform change had been argued for, but rejected, in the past by females who’d felt comfortable with themselves.

But now our attention’s becoming focused on bullying and harassment in the workplace, thanks to Parliament’s Speaker Trevor Mallard who would have known it’d reflect worse on National than Labour, given the former was in power for nine years employing many more people.

Maggie Barry was outed by anonymous former staffers for what seemed pretty trifling transgressions, like taking the proverbial out of a staff member who’d grown a moustache and calling staff the hired help.

Can only agree with Barry on this one.

The Herald reports:

The extra Government funding brings the total amount of Crown spending on the event to $136.5 million, with a further $98.5 million coming from Auckland ratepayers.

So $235 million from taxpayers and ratepayers.

But the economic benefit of holding the race in Auckland, which the Government estimates being between $500 million and $1 billion, outweighs the costs, Parker said.

“[The cost/benefit ratio] has been watered down – but we still think that overall it’s worthwhile.”

Economic benefits are almost always over-estimated. And those benefits do not necessarily go to those who pay the taxes and rates.

The NZTU released:

A passenger service between Auckland and Hamilton requiring a reported $57.7 million in ratepayer and taxpayer subsidies works out as at least $185 per passenger per trip, calculates the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

The Union’s Executive Director Jordan Williams says, “Even if you assume that every carriage is completely full, twice a day, for three years, the three-year $57.7 million subsidy is still an insane $185 per person per trip.”

“If you need to pay people nearly $200 each to make a train-trip between Hamilton and Auckland economic then the line is not good value for money. The proposed line doesn’t even run to Auckland City – it stops at Papakura. Getting into the CBD would take another hour again.”

So the $185 per passenger per trip is the best case scenario of full carriages. In reality will probably be far more than that.

So if someone does commute to Auckland every day on this proposed line, they will receive an effective $90,000 subsidy from taxpayers for it!