David Seymour released:

ACT Leader David Seymour is calling on the Prime Minister to release details of her ministers’ conflicts of interest.

“Jacinda Ardern has promised the most open and transparent government in New Zealand’s history.

“But more than 13 months into the Labour-NZ First administration we are none the wiser about whether its ministers are conflicted in relation to personal or pecuniary matters.

In 2012, the previous Government and the Chief Ombudsman agreed to an annual proactive release of information about the management of ministerial conflicts of interest in order to provide public assurance that they were being managed appropriately.

But despite ACT’s repeated requests for the information, the Government has refused to release it.

So the Key Government in 2012 agreed to proactively release ministerial conflicts, and the Ardern Government has refused to do so.

Again I remind people they promised to be the most open and transparent Government ever. Ha.

Stuff reports:

People visiting Middlemore Hospital’s emergency department faced close to a seven-hour wait on Monday. 

At midday, there was a 6 hour 43 minute wait to be seen, according to a display screen in the south Auckland hospital. …

The Ministry of Health sets a target for 95 per cent of patients to be admitted, discharged, or transferred from an ED within six hours. 

Figures from Counties Manukau Health’s Hospital Advisory Committee meetings show the DHB has been been struggling to meet this target. 

The most recent figures available, from August, show 84 per cent were seen within the time frame. In June, it was 89 per cent.

A year ago over 92% of ED patients at Middlemore were seen within six hours. A year later it is now 84%.

Possibly not by coincidence the new Government decided to stop publishing how DHBs are performing against the targets.

Radio NZ reports:

The government-appointed group has published its report, which calls for radical changes including the creation of a network of Crown agencies to oversee the work of groups of schools and take over many of the jobs that now fall to schools’ boards of trustees.

The report said the organisations would be called Education Hubs, would be run by a government-appointed director and would take over responsibility for schools’ property, funding and student achievement and hire schools’ principals in consultation with their boards.

The big reform of the 4th Labour Government was to remove schools from the direct control of the education bureaucracy and allow parents to govern the schools their children attend.

This Labour Government wants to reverse that it seems. The Minister will appoint directors who will govern hubs of schools and decide property, funding, achievement and hire of the principal.

So what will be left for parents to do?

Boards’ would be responsible for fund-raising

So is this Labour’s plan? Strip all control of schools from parents who can only be trusted to run school fairs and fundraisers. Have the Minister made direct appointments of directors who will control all schools in an area.

It said schools should get less funding for students who came from outside their enrolment zone, schools with large numbers of out-of-zone students should be required to decrease those enrolments over time, and the number of out-of-zone students would be capped at each school.

And this is basically to force kids to attend their local school no matter how shitty or crappy it is. No more choice. You will go to the school the Government tells you to attend and like it.

This will send house prices even higher in areas with desirable schools.

The teacher unions will love this report. They have always hated the reforms that gave parents more of say in the education system. This report says parents are only good to run cake stalls.

Spiked reports:

A new study claims that a health tax on red and processed meat could prevent more than 220,000 deaths and save over $40 billion in healthcare costs worldwide every year. These bold figures have unsurprisingly generated headlines, but the study is merely part of an ongoing processed panic about red meat.

The tax it brigade never stop. Tobacco, alcohol, sugar, soda drinks, and now meat.

The study proposes taxing countries in line with national income, how much meat they consume and how much they spend on healthcare. It recommends taxing sausages in Germany and bacon in the US at a rate that would increase prices by a whopping 160 per cent. 

I await this to be adopted as Green Party policy.

The latest from Venezuela:

• Inflation of 834,000 per cent
• Inflation projected by IMF to reach 10,000,000 percent in 2019
• Private business numbers gone from 650,000 to 140,000
• $150 billion of debt which is 163% of GDP
• Has just missed a debt interest payment
• Three million Venezuelans have fled to other countries
• Oil production down from 2.5 million barrels a day to below 1.0 million

That whole seize the means of production has worked well.

A reader writes in:

Greenpeace has always been against BIG whatever but recently it has started using very bitter and angry language.  

                The oil and gas industry is  “a death cult”

                “OMV makes profit from a business that’s systematically destroying our environment, killing and displacing millions of people. It’s knowingly causing climate change, which is morally corrupt. OMV must be stopped,” she says

                Amanda Larsson‏ @ecomanda Oct 17

More      

                To all the good, strong, wonderful people I met in Dunedin over the weekend, thank you. You give me hope that NZ will not stand by while oil companies like OMV wilfully wreck our chance at a future.

Russel Norman‏ @RusselNorman Oct 15

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Russel Norman Retweeted PM Breaking News

Hey @PEPANZ1 what were you saying about the cost of reducing our emissions from your industry? The cost of letting fossil fuel companies continue to profit from misery is this kind of thing:

There is an article by a political scientist about why climate change campaigners have changed tactics from a technocratic, fear of consequences campaign to a morality and hate based campaign.  it’s because it’s more successful in recruiting and motivating supporters. https://theconversation.com/keep-it-in-the-ground-what-we-can-learn-from-anti-fossil-fuel-campaigns-100005

“Third, targeting fossil fuels helps to personalize the causes of climate change. One of the reasons climate change is not psychologically salient to most people is that it is typically perceived to be an unintentional side-effect of the everyday actions of billions of people. This makes it hard for us to attribute blame.

But the fossil fuel industry is disproportionately responsible for our dependence on emissions-intensive energy. Targeting the industry helps to concentrate moral pressure on these more culpable agents and stokes the indignation that fuels climate activism.”  

I’d argue that creating the ‘Other’ as an evil and morally reprehensible group responsible for the wrongs of the world is a tactic used by extremist groups throughout history, from ISIS through to Russian anti-semites.   

A good point by the reader that Greenpeace’s language has become more extreme and vitriolic.

Amy Adams announced:

“Officials at a Stats NZ technical workshop today spent an hour having participants singing, hand-clapping and playing ‘Check Your Privilege bingo’.

“Yet at the same time New Zealand continues to wait for the 2018 Census results after a shambolic process that resulted in significant data gaps and we’re yet to see anything on the last two years of child poverty statistics.

“According to the Government agency’s bingo card, it seems if you are a ‘native English speaker, Cis, white, thin, have no speech impediment, heterosexual, able-bodied, standard accent, have no criminal record, human, tall, mentally healthy, support a mainstream political party, adult, born in your country of residence, wealthy, employed or just not a red-head’, then you are privileged.

My God, this is so PC.

On the plus side I can announce I am officially a multiple victim of privilege.

I’m not thin, I have a speech impediment, I have a hearing disability, I’m short and I’ve had mental health issues. So I’m a victim five-fold over.

So I’m coming for all you oppressors out there.

Feel free to count up your own score of oppression in the comments and see if we can work out who is the most oppressed.

Newshub reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will review the penalties applied to KiwiBuild buyers who sell their home within three years if there is any hint of abuse.

Housing Minister Phil Twyford backed down on KiwiBuild rule breakers, lessening the penalty they face for flipping homes.

It was a big call to secretly change the penalty for selling before living in the home for three years from giving up 100 percent of a house sale profit to just 30 percent.

Newshub can reveal he didn’t even run that past the Prime Minister, and understands she only found out about it while watching our TV story. 

This is a very telling admission.

The change from 100% penalty to just 30% was a major policy change and the Prime Minister found out about it while watching TV!

Could you imagine this happening when Helen Clark or John Key was Prime Minister?

A policy change like this would normally go to Cabinet or a Cabinet Committee. Even if there was delegated authority to Ministers, you would expect the Prime Minister to be in the loop on such a significant change.

Even worse not only wasn’t she consulted, she wasn’t even informed in advance. How dysfunctional most the offices be, for the PM to not even be give a heads up?

“Myself, Grant Robertson and Shane Jones,” was Mr Twyford’s response to who made the call.

Ms Ardern is unimpressed and ready to review it.

“If we find that there are cases where breaches are happening, then we will review whether or not that’s an appropriate penalty,” she told Newshub.

Mr Twyford backed his boss, saying: “If it was happening a lot, then we might re-look at it – and I think that’s a pretty reasonable approach.”

But it won’t need to happen “a lot” for Ms Ardern to take action.

“Even a small number we’d want to go and have a look,” she says.

So who is actually running the Government?

The Herald reports:

Keeping New Zealand Superannuation in its current form may mean more money is transferred from the working poor to the rich in the future, a researcher is warning.

Jenesa Jeram, a research fellow at think-tank the New Zealand Initiative, said the biggest surprise in undertaking research on New Zealand’s superannuation system was that it was affordable.

“The report has been a bit of a surprise. I went into it believing New Zealand Superannuation was not going to be affordable in the future.”

But she said just because New Zealand could afford it did not mean it was the best use of public money and warned that continuing to fund superannuation at the current rate may be at the expense of more needy groups.

“Our tax and welfare system is generally progressive: money is transferred from the rich to the poor.

“This could be reversed as the population ages and fewer people work, so that more money is transferred from the working poor to the relatively rich.”

And Labour refuses to raise the age of eligibility, which will mean more of a transfer from working poor to well off people.

Jeram said the age of eligibility should be linked to health expectancy – a measure for how long people live for without any major health complications.

She said health expectancy rather than life expectancy was a good measure to use because it indicated what age a person may be able to work until.

The health expectancy is currently 71.8 years for New Zealand women and just under 70 years for men.

Some have suggested having a different retirement age for men and women and for different ethnicities to match their health expectancy would make superannuation fairer.

But Jeram said it should be the same for everyone to fit with the universal system New Zealand has.

She said linking the pension to health expectancy would also give flexibility for future adjustments rather than a one off rise with a long lead in which was likely to be out of step with labour force trends by the time it comes into force.

Jeram said super should also be indexed to inflation growth rather than wages and inflation.

“Decoupling NZS from rises in wages is way of ensuring productivity gains reduce the costs of NZS.

“The real purchasing power of NZS should remain the same while the real purchasing power of wages would increase.”

I think they key change is linking NZS to inflation rather than wages. As the proportion of over 65s increases, it will become very expensive to have the status quo.

The Guardian reports:

A Dutch court has rejected the request of a self-styled “positivity guru” to shave 20 years off his age, in a case that drew worldwide attention.

Last month Emile Ratelband asked the court in Arnhem to formally change his date of birth to make him 49. He said his official age did not reflect his emotional state and it was causing him to struggle to find work and love.

He claimed he did not feel 69 and said his request was consistent with other forms of personal transformation gaining acceptance around the world, such as the right to change name or gender.

In a written ruling on Monday, the court said Dutch law assigned rights and obligations based on age “such as the right to vote and the duty to attend school. If Mr Ratelband’s request was allowed, those age requirements would become meaningless.”

That is an interesting rationale for turning him down.

Because you see we also have some laws which differentiate on gender. Common assault is a maximum one year sentence while a male assaulting a female is a maximum two year sentence. So does allowing people to change gender make these laws meaningless?

The Herald reports:

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says if petrol companies don’t start acting responsibly, the Government could pass a law preventing them from “ripping off New Zealanders”.

And he has taken aim at the banking sector, which the Government has told to get its act together, and even the menswear industry for fleecing consumers.

Winston has said stuff like this for 30 years. But note he never ever comes out with solutions to what he claims is a problem.

He’s teh effing Deputy Prime Minister. He is in Government. Time for him to stop crying wolf. If he thinks prices are too high for mens clothing what is he going to do about it?

Where is his legislative change that will being in more competition?

There is none of course. Peters is skilled at picking at scabs but incompetent or disinterested in anything resembling a solution. What legislative achievements has he ever had? The only law I can recall is the one to help him manage his caucus.

Reuters reports:

Workmen cleared away burned hulks of cars, scrubbed the defaced Arc de Triomphe monument and replaced the shattered windows of luxury boutiques in Paris on Sunday after the worst riots in the center of the capital in half a century.

So what has caused these?

Authorities were caught off-guard by the escalation in violence after two weeks of nationwide unrest against fuel taxes and high living costs, known as the “yellow vest” movement after the fluorescent jackets worn by the protesters.

The fuel tax is designed to push people away from motor cars, to lower greenhouse gas emissions. It seems to be rather unpopular.

This graph from Wikipedia shows how unpopular Macron has become. He started with a +20% net approval rating and he now is at -40%.

Audrey Young writes:

It wasn’t the fact that Jacinda Ardern did not seal a visit to China in her first year as Prime Minister that raises questions about the state of New Zealand’s relationship with the rising superpower.

It is the way she was treated by China, left dangling, not knowing through most of November whether or not the nod would come for an end-of-year visit.

A “no” would have sufficed, with a commitment to do it next year. A trip had been on the cards for October but she was understandably shuffled aside by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

That the New Zealand Prime Minister was left hanging for so long may well have been due to a misunderstanding.

But National leader Simon Bridges has seized on it as a snub and a sign of a deteriorating relationship.

And not without cause: almost everything China does is deliberate and that is the lens through which it sees others.

They left the PM hanging for months and months and then finally said no. Of course it was deliberate.

The new Government inherited a surprisingly good relationship with China, developed by National during complex times for both countries.

John Key managed to develop excellent personal relationships with both the US President and the Chinese President. And good relationships at the head of government level count for a lot.

HDPA also writes:

And, quite clearly, New Zealand is choosing the US over China. Don’t believe it? Look at what we’ve done in the last year — or even the last week.

So it looks like we’re taking instruction from the Trump White House. Nice. And it looks like we’re giving China the middle finger.

Quite unusual to have a Labour-led Government do this.

But, annoying China is a high-risk move. That country is our biggest trading partner. Two-way trade between the pair of us was worth $26 billion last year.

And we need them to like us. Our exporters especially need that. We’re trying to renegotiate a better FTA right now. How’s that going to work if we’re snubbing them?

Plus, is it worth it to cosy up to the US this much? That country is the worst fair-weather friend — it kicked us out of ANZUS, put us in the cold for decades and now won’t lift steel and aluminium tariffs even though it’s given Australia a break.

I think the issue is more complicated than just choosing sides.

For many years China was moving in the right direction – a more liberal economy and a more open society. They were still an authoritarian country but one heading in the right direction.

There seems to be growing evidence that this has halted and even reversed. The President now can serve for life, and they have become more repressive with internal dissent. So it is fair enough to have a more distant relationship with them until such time as they start heading in the right direction again.

One News reports:

Simon Bridges has backing from the public to remove MP Jami-Lee Ross from Parliament using the new waka jumping law, according to the latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll. 

Mr Ross was expelled from the National Party after going rogue, but will be back in Parliament next year as an independent MP for Botany. 

However, the new waka jumping law means Mr Ross could be forced out, sparking a by-election. Under the law, if a MP decided to leave their political party, or was forced out by the leader, they now also lose their seat. 

“National won’t use it while [Mr Ross] is unwell,” Mr Bridges said.

“Further than that we haven’t decided.”

In the latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton Poll, 44 per cent of those asked said Mr Bridges should remove Mr Ross from Parliament using the new law. 

The Herald reported:

The total cost of repairs and security upgrades to the Prime Minister’s official Wellington residence will reach almost $3 million over five years – triple the cost originally given by officials.

The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) had previously said an upgrade to Premier House would cost $1m – but documents obtained under the Official Information Act (OIA) show the full cost will be almost three times that, with much of the extra due to new security provisions.

I’ve got no problem with us spending money on upgrading Premier House. It is a histroic building that is both home to the Prime Minister but also used for many functions and official entertaining.

The current minister responsible for Ministerial Services, Chris Hipkins, approved the continuation of the upgrade programme on December 21 last year, the documents showed.

Which is the right decision. And note no Opposition MP has criticised this. But a much smaller renovation programme in the past was criticised by an Opposition MP – a Chris Hipkins.

Here’s what he said in 2011:

Prime Minister John Key has batted away criticism over a $275,000 makeover for his Wellington residence – the latest in a string of taxpayer-funded government activities being questioned. 

The renovations for Premier House included a $215,000 painting bill, $55,366 on re-carpeting and more than $3000 on new blinds. 

Labour MP Chris Hipkins said the Premier House makeover reeked of hypocrisy. 

“Every Kiwi family struggling to pay the bills knows that if you can’t afford to pay for dinner, new carpet and curtains for the lounge get pushed a long way down the list,” Mr Hipkins said. 

“Struggling Kiwis simply don’t live in John Key’s world where you can afford to be splashing out on heated seats in brand new BMWs and to jet around the world in military planes. 

It was a nasty little attack in 2011 trying to generate hatred for Key because he was wealthy. I’m glad National in opposition is demonstrating much higher standards than Labour didm when they were in opposition.

Stuff reports:

The estranged wife of drug smuggler Karel Sroubek feels vulnerable and afraid for her life, the House has been told.

National Party justice spokesman Mark Mitchell said she gave him a six-page letter that contained permission to speak on her behalf.  He said she had been threatened by gangs and was “genuinely scared”.

She was taking a massive risk speaking out and said she was forced to write the letter of support so her convicted smuggler husband did not get deported from New Zealand.

She is the real victim in this. She will be more fearful with the Deputy Prime Minister lashing out at her and calling her an informant as if she has done something wrong.

National leader Simon Bridges told the House the first person contacted by Sroubek’s wife was a former Labour Party Cabinet minister who suggested contacting the Opposition.

Her family also called the Government’s statements “beyond appalling”, saying they had caused immense stress and feelings of hopelessness, Bridges said.

All caused by the Government.

After Question Time, Mitchell said the prime minister needed to tell the public whether she backed Peters’ attempt to discredit the real concerns of the woman.

Peters was obsessed that she was a National Party informant, he said.

“Rather than front up to a bad decision to let a convicted criminal remain in New Zealand, Peters went on the attack …

“She’s not [an informant]. She is a victim who is the subject of a police safety plan. She was was directly affected by a bad decision, fears for her safety and has been repeatedly let down by the Government. But the deputy prime minister attacked her anyway.”

This is how this kind caring Government works. They attack you for being a victim who speaks out.

Stuff reports:

Sitting on the shore of a huge swimmable lake and surrounded by mountains which sustain a significant ski industry, the town of just under 9000 people – outside of the seasonal booms – has tripled in population over 20 years, and is likely to continue to grow for as long as planners allow it to. Locals think it is paradise.

So how could the Government’s move to help people shut out of the housing market struggle to find demand in a place where so many people obviously want to live?

Wanaka is beautiful. So a good question on how Kiwibuild flopped there.

In the end, three of the ten houses offered went unsold, a grim start for the Government’s plans to sell more than 200 KiwiBuild houses there in the coming years.

Northlake, the home of the new KiwiBuild houses, is on land which only a generation ago seemed to have no better use than rabbit hunting. It is one of several residential developments underway in Wanaka, with more lined up.

Hundreds of houses are being squeezed in and sold for more than $600,000 for a three bedroom home, largely indistinguishable from the KiwiBuild homes.

The problem facing KiwiBuild Wanaka is summed up by promotional material, which to certain eyes, looks like a cruel joke.

An artist’s impression of a two-bedroom, 70 square metre KiwiBuild duplex (a house joined to the one next door) home, costing $565,000, has a late-model SUV sitting in the driveway.

Who exactly does Housing Minister Phil Twyford think will buy these houses, that are somehow locked out? These houses look like they were designed for yuppies on ski holidays, not struggling families.

This may be deliberate. Kiwibuild does seemed to be aimed at yuppies, not struggling families.

But the issue in Wanaka is that apart from building, there is virtually no industry to speak of other than tourism, with its relatively modest salaries. What holds up the house prices is, in large part, retirement, not high paying jobs.

Salaries of $100,000 are few and far between for those who do not bring their jobs with them when they move there. 

“We don’t have jobs in IT here. There’s hardly any lawyers or accountants,” a local businessman said this week. “For someone working in tourism, $600,000 just is not affordable.” …

Rebranding a bunch of houses and selling them at a similar price to what is available anyway nearby will not fix the problem.

Kiwibuild has become Kiwibrand!

Simon Bridges announced:

National would pull New Zealand out of the UN’s Global Compact on Migration because of its potential to restrict New Zealand’s ability to set its own migration and foreign policy, National Leader Simon Bridges says.

“National is supportive of global action on major issues and of migration into New Zealand because it brings skills, capital and connections and makes New Zealand a better, more diverse place. And we support the ability for New Zealanders to travel and live and work overseas should they choose.

“But immigration policy is solely a matter for individual countries and must take account of their individual circumstances – and New Zealand’s policies are already held up as international best practice. There is no automatic right to migrate to another country without that country’s full agreement, a view which the United Nation’s Global Compact on Migration, set to be signed next week, seeks to counter.

I am very pro-immigration. Managed well, as NZ generally does, it benefits the country both economically and culturally. But it is vital that a country can determine its own immigration policy and have secure borders. A country has the right to determine who can join them.

The UN conference on adopting the compact starts on the 10th of December. It is not formally binding, but a government that signs up to it would be expected to abide by it.

Countries which have stated they will not sign include Austria, Australia, Italy, Israel, Switzerland and the US.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand’s carbon emissions totalled 0.17 per cent, but when grouped with other small nations with similar emissions the total rose to 30 per cent globally, larger than the three biggest – United States, China and India.  

On the assumption they mean greenhouse gas emissions (not just CO2) this is way off the mark.

NZ is 0.17% of total emissions. If you include all countries with emissions of 0.20% or less they total 7.5% of global emissions, not 30%.

Even if you go up to all countries with emissions of 0.50% (three times the NZ level) and less, they only comprise 13.5% of global emissions.

It is very misleading to suggest the minnows combined are the largest source of emissions. They are not even close.

Here’s the percentage of total emissions by the top few countries:

• Top 5: 54.9%
• Top 10: 62.4%
• Top 20: 74.8%
• Top 30: 82.0%

And for the bottom countries:

• Bottom 100: 2.9%
• Bottom 150: 12.5%

Stuff reports:

Roslyn Metcalfe keeps a constant tally of her diminishing life.

It hurts to spend more than a few seconds on her feet, so she manoeuvres on her knees. The purring kitchen fan sounds a piercing screech, so she wears earmuffs. Bright daylight sears the eyes, so dark sunglasses are needed.

Her precarious balancing act between an enjoyed life and degenerative pain is not the worst, however. What Metcalfe fears most is that she will continue to live longer than her tolerance for suffering permits. 

Why would we keep a law that requires her to suffer?

Diagnosed with a rare connective tissue disorder that has taken her voice, but promises to take much more, she has made a desperate plea to politicians: let me die. 

But will the End of Life Choice Bill, currently being considered by Parliament, pass into law and allow it? Or will she die as her sister did, at her own hands in an act of desperation?

For some poor people the choice is between suicide and assisted suicide.

Metcalfe has maybe a decade of decline ahead until she can’t see, hear, move, or eat without overwhelming pain.

And this won’t be something that palliative care can help with.

Metcalfe knows her future because she’s seen it in her sister, Gina, who was diagnosed in her 30s with the same rare, little-understood genetic condition.

“When Gina first showed symptoms, we had no idea what it was. Doctors said it was nothing to worry about. Then, treatment was to gently push through the pain and carry on. Which Gina did, but she deteriorated rapidly.

“Gina told me she won’t have a choice when she dies; pain will decide when she can’t bear another moment.”

For almost a decade, Gina was bedridden and wore an eye mask taped to her face to prevent the slightest light causing the sharpest pain. Tinnitus was a constant siren in her ears; she wore earplugs always to dampen all noise. She could swallow only thin liquids, and the pain of pressure caused by her protruding bones couldn’t be alleviated, even by morphine. 

Yet there was no end to dream of. Doctors couldn’t help, and palliative care offered Gina hand massages, which were enjoyable but did little to erase the pain. 

In a way, Gina has served as a scout for her sister, cutting a rough path through a wilderness of pain and deterioration that now helps preserve her from what Gina described as a “tortured existence”.

It’s the final part of her sister’s journey that Metcalfe so desperately doesn’t want to follow. Gina took her life earlier this year. No-one was told beforehand, for fear of implicating them in the death. 

You can only imagine how terrible her suffering was.

This is where the End of Life Choice Bill would allow Metcalfe, facing decades of torment, to seek death.

Of illnesses likely to meet the “grievous and irremediable medical condition” threshold – Huntington’s, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease – her condition is seen by some as a pure example of where that choice over death would be valuable.

“If the bill passes … I can live my life without the stress of planning my own demise.

“Without the option … my choice will be to either endure extreme suffering for many decades until old age, or to end my life alone and in secret.”

How can we deny her a better choice?