A guest post by a reader who wants to balance the reporting on the Operation Burnham inquiry:

On 03 August, 2010, Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell was killed by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), at the age of 27. The IED detonated under his Humvee vehicle as part of a complex ambush, with Taleban forces utilising Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) and other small arms weapons.  This was the first serious attack on NZ forces in Bamyan province.

From local and coalition intelligence, it quickly became apparent that the enemy forces who attacked the NZ patrol were located in the village of Tirgiran, which was in the Area of Operations (AO) allocated to a Hungarian Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). This AO was the neighbouring AO to the one allocated to NZ forces, and the NZ PRT was therefore unable to conduct any operations in this village. The Hungarians had previously been ineffective in denying Taleban control of this village. The result of this was that these Taleban forces had grown more confident and capable of targeting both NZ and Hungarian forces.

On 21-22 August 2010, the NZ SAS forces who were then stationed in Kabul launched an operation alongside US and Afghan forces, called Operation Burnham. Burnham is the name of the camp south of Christchurch where Tim was posted to. The purpose of Operation Burnham was to kill or capture the Taleban forces who were posing a serious threat to both NZ and Hungarian PRTs. It has been labelled as a revenge operation by some in the media – not only are revenge raids against NZ Rules of Engagement (ROE), but they are also a particularly poor method of conducting counter-insurgency warfare. The correct way to describe this raid is that it was a perfectly legal and reasonable response to kill or capture enemy forces who were intent on targeting NZ forces, and re-imposing Taleban rule on Afghanistan.

The operation inserted NZ, Afghan and US forces via helicopter. The ground forces, supported by snipers and Apache helicopters, conducted a search of the village, uncovering a large number of weapons and ammunition. NZ SAS snipers fired two shots, killing an insurgent who was attempting to kill the ground forces. NZ SAS forces left the village on the morning of 22 August. Coalition forces then returned to the village again on the night of 2-3 Oct, after further intelligence uncovered more insurgent activity in the area. On this second visit, no shots were fired, and no more weapons or ammunition were uncovered.

In March 2017, using questionable sources, and not going to the village themselves (which by their own admission was still controlled by the Taleban), Jon Stephenson and Nicky Hagar released a book called ‘Hit and Run’, which made a number of extremely serious allegations against NZDF in Afghanistan. These allegations amount to serious war crimes.

Both Nicky Hagar and Jon Stephenson have extensive histories of publishing material extremely critical of the NZDF.

The book has been roundly condemned by the NZDF, particularly (now retired) Lt Gen Tim Keating, the Chief of Defence Force when the book was released.  Only the NZDF has access to all of the classified intelligence and information – a key source of which is footage filmed by the US Army helicopter. It must be noted that NZDF does not have the ability to publically release this footage as it is classified by the US military. The NZDF has conducted an in-depth analysis of the book, and has found an astounding 105 errors of fact. Here is a brief summary of some of the major discrepancies:

• The book alleges that the US Apache helicopters conducted strafing runs of the village. In fact, the footage shows that the engagements by the helicopters were very limited and precisely targeted, further evidenced by the limited amounts of ammunition expended.
• The book attributes quotes to an alleged NZ SAS soldier that the Apache fire was ‘really heavy’ and ‘very close’. Footage shows that at no point in time was ‘danger close’ fire utilised. Apaches deliberately held fire even when insurgents were 20m away.
• The book alleges that the buildings were deliberately set alight. In fact, no buildings were on fire by the time all ground forces left. What was burning was the Taleban’s ammunition cache, this caused the fire after ground forces left.
• The book alleges that NZ SAS deliberately fired into cotton mattresses, setting them alight. This is physically impossible (tracer rounds do not ignite until beyond the range of what the mattresses would be), and it is a matter of record that the only shots fired by the NZ SAS were the two sniper rounds killing one insurgent.
• The book alleges that NZ SAS blew up the building were the ammunition was discovered. In fact, NZ Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) soldiers took and detonated the captured ammunition in a controlled explosion outside all buildings – this is confirmed by the video footage.
• The book’s narrative about the raid is flawed and incorrect. The book says that all the buildings were for civilian purposes only, neglecting to mention the ammunition cache found and destroyed.
• The photo contains many mislabelled and incorrectly located photos and features. The NZDF states “the photos, the satellite map, and the book’s narrative are continually inconsistent and cannot be reconciled”.

There are many more inconsistencies which the NZDF has identified, and brought to the attention of the Minister of Defence and the Attorney General.

Nonetheless, a multi-million dollar inquiry is being held, asking the question if our special forces, and their leaders, are war criminals.

Left wingers such as Nicky Hagar, clearly have an agenda against western armed forces. Believing that all war is immoral, no matter what, they must therefore believe that members of our armed forces are by their nature criminals and immoral. They do not believe in a ‘just war’, therefore will fit any facts about the conduct of our soldiers into their preconceived narratives. This enables MPs like Golriz Gharaman to attend violent protests in Palmerston North calling all involved in the Defence Industry conference “merchants of death”, and they cannot see that sometimes good people need to use violent methods to achieve good and just outcomes.

If there can never be justification for war, how else could slavery have been ended in North America? Or how else should we have defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? Should we allow the Taleban unfettered governance of Afghanistan once again? Should we let ISIS control huge swathes of the Middle East?

The previous Labour Government issued a long-overdue apology to the veterans of Vietnam. At this rate, the current Labour / NZ First / Greens government will owe another apology to our veterans of Afghanistan.

The inquiry is set to cost over $2 Million dollars. That is millions of dollars that the NZDF cannot spend on other things, like infrastructure for our crumbling camps and bases. The inquiry has 12 months to conduct its investigation and compile its findings – 12 months that those involved are in limbo, being accused of being war criminals. The NZDF now has to provide in depth support to these individuals and their families, who at the end of the day have risked their lives for this country.

There is significant animus amongst NZ’s left wing against our Defence Force and all those associated with it. Erroneous ‘journalism’ from Nicky Hagar and Jon Stephenson lends legitimacy to those who hate our defence force based on ill-conceived notions that they can never be or do good. It allows creatures like John Minto to turn up to Burnham Camp, on ANZAC Day, call us baby-killers and criminals, and demand action from the government. I guarantee that if this inquiry establishes no wrong-doing, this will not be enough, and our Afghanistan veterans will continue to face hostility and slander.

The information used in this post comes largely from here.

Trump’s statement on the torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi can’t pass without comment as it represents a abandonment on any moral high ground the US once had on human rights. Here’s my translation:

The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone.

Does not condone is about as weak as you can get. Could you imagine someone saying we don’t condone a serial killer.

Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body.

The 17 henchmen who were following orders. And they are probably all going to be given fake executions and issued new identities so the sanctions are meaningless.

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that – this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. 

He repeats a libel against Khashoggi. Incidentally he wrote quite a good column on the Muslim Brotherhood in August.

He was only an enemy of the state because he wrote newspaper columns critical of the Royal Family.

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!

Translation: I have been told the Crown Prince authorised the execution but am going to pretend it is possible he didn’t.

That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. 

We don’t need to know all the facts. What we know is more than enough to know the Saudi Government tortured and brutally killed Khashoggi.

In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!

Being an ally shouldn’t be a get out of jail card for whatever evil you do.

I don’t expect Trump to break all relations with Saudia Arabia. But for such a brutal and sadistic murder I expect there to be at least some consequences – otherwise you give the green light for more operations like this.

The Herald reports:

Before the election, Labour promised to deliver 100,000 KiwiBuild homes over 10 years – 10,000 a year.

This would be funded by a $2 billion capital injection, which would be recycled as the houses were sold, then returned to the Crown at the end of the KiwiBuild programme.

Midway through this year, the Government amended those figures to 1000 homes being built in the 2019 financial year, 5000 in 2020 and 10,000 in 2021.

So instead of 30,000 by the election, only 6,000.

But the MBIE business case study said $2 billion was simply not enough money to provide 10,000 houses a year.

“$2 billion is insufficient working capital to meet the target of 10,000 homes per annum (on an optimistic average three-year recycling of the capital, only 1000 homes could be built per year)” the document said.

It was pointed out before the election that their assumptions were heroic or unrealistic.

The promised funding, according to MBIE, would mean a 9000 home shortfall and the estimates to reach 10,000 homes a year were $18 billion off, Bridges claimed.

Because of this, he said the Government shifted its focus from building KiwiBuild homes to underwriting private developers to build them.

“Labour had nine years in Opposition to come up with policies. It’s unbelievable that one of its flagship policies that it campaigned on in the election was miscalculated by such a huge amount.”

He said rather than increasing the budget tenfold, Labour shifted the policy from “KiwiBuild to KiwiBuy.”

And there’s a huge difference. With Kiwibuy, there is no increase in housing stock. Kiwibuy is just a middle class subsidy where people win lotto and get a subsidised house. Totally different to what Labour promised which is 100,000 additional houses.

Twyford revealed 800 – or 80 per cent – of the KiwiBuild homes in the 2019 Financial Year would be bought off the plans. That number jumps to 2500 in 2020 and 4000 in 2021.

So rather than 10,000 new homes in the first year, you actually get just 200 or 2% of what was promised.

The Guardian reports:

The UN’s environment chief, Erik Solheim, has resigned following severe criticism of his global travels and internal rule-breaking which led some nations to withhold their funding.

The Guardian understands Solheim was asked to resign by the UN secretary general, António Guterres. Sources at the UN Environment Programme (Unep) said that countries unhappy with Solheim’s conduct were holding back tens of millions of dollars, threatening a financial crisis at the body.

A draft internal UN audit leaked to the Guardian in September found Solheim had spent almost $500,000 (£390,000) on air travel and hotels in just 22 months, and was away 80% of the time. The audit said this was a “reputation risk” for an organisation dedicated to fighting climate change.

A UN staff union leader called some of the revelations “mind-blowing” and a prominent climate scientist accused Solheim of “obscene CO2 hypocrisy”.

It takes a lot of flights to chalk up half a million dollars of travel expenses. Surely he could have done more to save the planet by taking the train, instead of flying.

One News reports:

A spokesperson for Jacinda Ardern said Mr Jaspers has chosen to take a break and pursue new opportunities in the New Year. 

Mike Jaspers, who’s a former TVNZ journalist, was Ms Ardern’s chief press secretary and moved into the strategic advisory role this year.

He was replaced by Andrew Campbell, formerly the Greens chief strategist and communications director.

Stuff reports:

The leading candidate to become the next president of Interpol is Alexander Prokopchuk, a police general in the Russian Interior Ministry who has for the past seven years headed Interpol’s Russian bureau. Prokopchuk’s candidacy was kept under wraps until the last moment – and, presumably, until the Kremlin was confident of securing enough votes.

The British government has determined that Prokopchuk’s victory is assured to the extent that “there is no point in trying to stop him”.

This would be a very bad thing.

A British human rights group, Fair Trials, wrote to the Interpol secretariat strongly protesting the nomination and noting that “it would not be appropriate for a country with a record of violations of Interpol’s rules (for example by frequently seeking to use its systems to disseminate politically motivated alerts) to be given a leadership role in a key oversight institution.”

“Politically motivated alerts” have been a favourite Kremlin tactic, used to legitimise its prosecution of political opponents and make their lives more difficult by limiting their movements.

Despite the explicit ban in Interpol’s constitution on “any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character,” the organisation happily accepted Moscow’s requests to issue “red notices” – in effect, international arrest warrants – against prominent Kremlin opponents.

I recommend people read the book Red Notice by Bill Browder. Russia has tried to get him arrested on multiple occasions through the Interpol system.

Fortunately the powers that be at Interpol do currently follow the rules and cancel the red notices when they determine they have been issued improperly. But if the President of Interpol is a Putin lackey, that may no longer be the case.

But the misuse of the “red notice” system would be the least of the problems should Prokopchuk accede to Interpol’s presidency. The main purpose of the organisation is information-sharing and mutual assistance among national police forces.

One can imagine what the Kremlin could do with access to sensitive databases around the world. For one thing, there could be many more inconspicuous Russian tourists visiting foreign countries on brand-new passports to admire ancient gothic cathedrals.

The problem we have is that the majority of countries in the world are not democracies.

Maybe what we need is to set up new international bodies, with memberships restricted to democratic nations that follow the rule of law. Basically the OECD countries as a starting point.

UPDATE: They did the right thing and rejected the Russian. The BBC reports:

Interpol has elected South Korean Kim Jong-yang as its president, rejecting the Russian frontrunner who had been accused of abusing the international police body’s arrest warrant system.

Mr Kim was chosen by Interpol’s 194 member states at a meeting of its annual congress in Dubai.

He beat Russia’s Alexander Prokopchuk, who had been widely tipped to win.

But there was growing concern that Mr Prokopchuk would use the role to target critics of Russia’s President Putin.

This is really good news. Interpol does important work and would have suffered if Putin got to control it.

The Herald reports:

The Government has spent about $236 million putting more than 41,700 students into fees-free tertiary education, but total student numbers have fallen slightly compared to a year ago.

Yep a drop in numbers, despite fees being free. Labour’s policy will cost $1.2 billion a year and it is not leading to any increase in tertiary study. It is just a massive wealth transfer to the future wealthy.

Think how much good you could do with $1.2 billion a year in areas of need – the drugs Pharmac could buy with it, the extra operations you could fund.

The number of equivalent fulltime university and polytechnic students was flat compared to August 2017, while actual numbers decreased by 0.4 per cent, or 1174 fewer students – mostly from wanānga.

Industry Training Organisation enrolments increased by 0.5 per cent in Standard Training Measures, but actual numbers fell 1.2 per cent, or 1228 fewer learners.

This was mainly due to a 7 per cent decline in industry training enrolments compared to a year ago, offset by a 10 per cent increase in apprenticeships.

But the Government thinks this is a huge success:

The Government praised the numbers as showing the policy was tracking well, but National has called the policy untargeted, middle-class welfare.

“There are 2400 fewer students in tertiary education and training than a year ago,” National’s tertiary education spokesperson Paula Bennett said.

The level of waste in this Government is unbelievable.

Stuff reports:

Economic Development Minister David Parker is developing plans which could see the $40 billion New Zealand Super Fund pushed into venture capital.

Sources say Parker has requested officials draw up a Cabinet paper on whether a portion of the Government’s future contributions to the fund – believed to be more than $200 million – should be allocated into a fund for early stage companies.

Often referred to as angel investment or venture capital, the New Zealand Government is already active in what is a generally high-risk investment area, through the Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF), which co-invests alongside private investors.

Should the idea be progressed, the move would see the Super Fund having a specific investment mandate imposed on it for the first time. The fund is said to be pushing back against the idea.

This is a terrible idea.

The idea of the NZ Super Fund is to provide for the future costs of NZ Superannuation. It is meant to have an independent board who focus on getting the highest return on capital to boost the fund.

Parker wants to direct them into highly risky investments. The Government already had an awful track record of picking winners here, and Parker wants to gamble the NZ Super Fund on more of them.

Stuff reports:

A physical scuffle broke out at a meeting of the Auckland rainbow community to discuss the ban on uniformed police marching in the city’s 2019 Pride Parade.

Before the start of the meeting, an independent facilitator on behalf of the Pride board, also asked media if they had taken any notes and told them to leave the meeting at Grey Lynn Community Centre on Sunday night, which was attended by about 250 people.

So their first step is to ban the media.

A number of attendees walked out when the scuffle broke out between an older man and a founder People Against Prisons Aotearoa. Its “No Pride In Prisons” group has been advocating for police to be excluded from the parade.

So basically this fringe group has taken over the Pride Festival to impose its extreme views on everyone. This group wants all prisons abolished as they are a barrier to social justice!

Another attendee, who requested not to be named in fear of the repercussions, told Stuff the meeting was a farce from start to finish. 

“I couldn’t see any good coming out of it,” he said. “They obviously wildly underestimated the number of people who were going to attend and the facilitator was wildly unprepared for dealing with a group that size.”

“At one point somebody said, is there any chance the board will change their minds about the decision because of this meeting? And the chair said ‘no we won’t’, roughly 15 people walked out.”

So the Chair said the meeting was window dressing as their minds were made up.

Last week, the board said that the decision to refuse uniformed police officers from participating in the parade was made for the safety of members of the LGBTQI+ community.

Safety has become an Orwellian term. People use it as a weapon against people, institutions or speech they don’t like. It is meant to be a trump card, because how can you argue against safety.

But often it is a nonsense.

Having Police in uniform in the Pride Parade doesn’t actually make anyone feel unsafe. Some people don’t like the Police and don’t like having them included, but that is different to unsafe.

Feeling unsafe is what you feel when home alone and you hear someone breaking into your house. Unsafe is what you feel if walking home alone and there is someone following you. Unsafe is what you feel when some guy high on P is threatening to kill you.

In a Facebook post made while the meeting was still underway, Rainbow Tick chief executive  Michael Stevens said organisers had underestimated the number of people wanting to attend, and the meeting had been “a shambles”.

Stevens said the Pride Board had “totally underestimated the depth of division they’d created with their decision. If that’s how they’re running the Pride Parade then God help them”.

Sadly for those who enjoy the Pride Parade, it is probably going to die off, just like Hero did before it. Rather than a march to celebrate inclusion, the board have turned it into a march to enforce exclusion.

Stuff reports:

Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta has been recognised in the BCC 100 Women 2018 list of inspiring and influential women around the world.

Mahuta was the only Kiwi to make the cut. 

“Nanaia has served in the New Zealand parliament for 22 years and was the first female parliamentarian to wear a Māori face tattoo,” the BBCsaid. 

Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard was also recognised on the list, but New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and former prime minister Helen Clark were not.

So she made the list for having been an MP for 22 years and having a tattoo!! Jesus Christ, the BBC has some slack standards.

Stuff reports:

A recidivist drink-driver who has killed four people in the past has been caught again.

Gavin Hawthorn, 56, who has killed four people on the country’s roads, appeared in Porirua District Court on Tuesday on one charge of excess breath alcohol – third or subsequent offence.

He has already killed four people on the roads, in two separate fatal accidents where he was to blame. He’s still driving drunk, so surely he got a massively long prison sentence to protect the innocent from joining the four already dead?

He was sentenced to six months’ home detention, 180 hours’ community work, and disqualified from holding or obtaining a licence for two years.

That must be a sick joke. He might be out driving while pissed again within days.

Among Hawthorn’s many convictions are 12 for drink-driving, 10 for driving while disqualified, three for dangerous driving, and one for careless driving, as well as others for burglary, theft, drugs and violence.

It must be blindingly obvious he is not going to stop. Maybe we need a three strikes type law for drink driving, something along the lines of a minimum of:

• 1st offence – fine
• 2nd offence – community service
• 3rd offence – home detention
• 4th offence – prison 3 months
• 5th offence – prison 6 months
• 6th offence – prison 1 year
• 7th offence – prison 2 years
• 8th offence – prison 4 years

Most people who drink drive learn from the experience of getting caught and change their behaviour. But those who do not pose a literal threat to innocent life.

The Herald reports:

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says he remains committed to being the first person to re-enter Pike River Mine.

“I said I’d be happy to join the first team going back in, and I still am, were I to be asked,” he told the Herald in a statement.

But this is very unlikely to eventuate after Pike River Re-entry Minister Andrew Little said the first person into the mine would be “an experienced, trained professional”.

I say Little should let Winston be the first to enter. Pay for him to get the training of necessary. What’s a few hundred more dollars on top of the $35 million.

A good analysis of Trump by a responder on Quora. The question was where did Trump’s rage against Obama come from, and the answer is there is no rage – it has all been tactics.

His analysis is as follows:

• Trump floats running for President in 1988 on Oprah Winfrey show
• He was then a New York liberal – secular, pro-choice and wants to renegotiate all trade deals
• In 1999 set up an exploratory committee for the Reform Party nomination. Ran as a centre-left populist who wanted to renegotiate all trade deals and set up universal health care. Suggested Oprah as his running mate.
• Trump in early 2000s was critical of George W Bush
• He never attacked or criticised Obama until late 2011
• Was at this stage a close mate of Bill Clinton – they attended the weddings of each other’s daughter
• Worked out in 2011 that Obama was likely to win re-election in 2012 and Clinton would be presumptive nominee for Democrats in 2016. Hence if he wants to become President, he needed to become a Republican
• To stand out from other Republicans he needed to become an Obama hating Republican and become a hero of the populist right
• In 2013 he cited his attack on Obama’s birth certificate as making him very popular
• Didn’t actually care about the birth certificate – was all a ploy to build up a support base
• Would have stood for the Democrats if there had been a path for victory through them, but there wasn’t as Clinton had it locked up.
• Filed a trademark on “Make American Great Again” the week after Obama was re-elected
• His tactics paid off – he has got to be President so he can achieved the one thing he has consistently advocated – renegotiating all US trade deals. Everything else he says and does is posturing to appeal to the base he has built up.

I thought it was quite a good analysis.

The Herald reports:

Fiji has re-elected Frank Bainimarama as Prime Minister for four more years following an election interrupted by foul weather and facing Opposition claims of a lack of transparency.

According to the Fijian Electoral Commission, Bainimarama’s FijiFirst party won 50.2 percent of the vote to claim 27 of the 51 seats in Fijian Parliament.

The Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa), led by rival coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka, won 39.9 per cent of the vote, enough for 21 seats.

Somewhat amused that the choice for Prime Minister was between the 1987 coup leader and the 2006 coup leader!

Still I’d say the right coup leader won.

Stuff reports:

A Hutt City councillor whose wife was fined $150 for not wearing a seatbelt in a carpark is questioning the use of police time that could have been “better spent” catching burglars.

Chris Milne is angry his wife was ticketed after being spotted driving in a council carpark not buckled in. …

The incident happened after Milne’s wife got into her vehicle in the Riverbank Carpark and drove a short distance before putting on her belt.

She observed a parked police car, as she exited the carpark.

When she drove on to Daly St  she was pulled over by another policeman, who issued the ticket despite her pointing out she was by then wearing her belt.

Looks like revenue gathering to me.

Road policing manager Inspector Derek Orchard said ticketing people not wearing seatbelts was part of the overall approach to reduce fatalities.

A report commissioned by the AA Foundation in 2017 found overwhelming evidence that seatbelts save lives.

“By wearing a seatbelt during a crash, an occupant’s chances of survivability are increased by 60 per cent in the front seats, and 44 per cent in the rear seats.”

And if the crash occurs at 15 km/hr in a car park, how many fatalities then?

Common sense seems to have gone out the window.

The AFR reports:

New Zealanders will soon be getting internet speeds 20 times faster than those enjoyed by most Australians for just a few dollars more a month, further widening an already-huge gap between the two countries’ broadband networks.

Chorus, the ASX-listed company that operates New Zealand’s broadband network, revealed on Wednesday it would slash the wholesale price of its ultra-fast one-gigabit plan.

From the middle of next year, the price of the plan will go from $NZ65 ($61) to $NZ60 ($56.30) a month. Chorus will further reduce it to $NZ56 the following year.

Internet speeds of one gigabit per second (Gbps) are 20 times faster than the most popular speed available on Australia’s national broadband network of 50 megabits per second (Mbps), the plan almost half of NBN users are on. 

That’s because National insisted on fibre to the home, rather than what Australia has which is fibre to a cabinet and then copper to the home.

NBN Co sells its 50 Mbps plan to retailers for $45 a month, only $7.50 less than Chorus will charge for its 1 Gbps plan by 2020.

$7.50 a month more for 20 times the speed. I’ll take that.

Of the half a million connections to Chorus’ high-speed network, about 70 per cent are on 100 Mbps plans. No connections are less than 50 Mbps, and 36,000 connections are 1 Gbps.

By contrast, of the 4.5 million connections to Australia’s NBN, 40 per cent are on speeds of 50 Mbps, and 30 per cent on speeds of just 12 Mbps. Less than 10 per cent are on speeds of 100 Mbps, while fewer than 600 individual connections are on speeds higher than 100 Mbps.

12 Mbps today is like what dial up used to be!

Claire Trevett writes:

Jones had also made much of the benefits of the tree planting programme in terms of jobs.

He had his “ne’er do well nephews” lazing about on the sofa in Northland who would be put to work.

He wanted to go so far as something akin to a planting for the dole programme – something Labour baulked at.

Yet it seems those nephews were in short supply when Ngati Hine came knocking.

The officials’ paper observed there would not have been the labour required for planting the trees even had the land been cleared.

So Jones had to admit they would have looked at bringing in overseas labour – likely under the Pacific Island seasonal labour scheme to plant the trees rather than Jones’ much talked about layabout nephews.

So the net impact of the tree planting scheme will be to import workers from overseas and increase immigration to NZ. I look forward to people reminding Winston of this on the campaign trail.

Stuff reports:

It was staff at Bunnings who alerted police after a young man made an unusual purchase in December 2016.

He bought 700 nail gun cartridges packed with gunpowder, that were kept behind a locked counter, and left the hardware superstore without buying anything else.

Staff were so suspicious that one of them trailed the man out into the Broadmeadows store carpark on Pearcedale Parade to take down the registration details of his sedan and raise the alarm.

It turned out federal police were already watching his every move as they began unravelling what could have been one of the most deadly homegrown terror attacks on Australian shores.

The buyer was Ahmed Mohamed. Then aged in his early 20s, he had grown up in Melbourne’s outer suburbs and was living a normal suburban life in Hallam with his wife and a baby boy on the way.

But underneath that veneer of normality, Mohamed and three of his friends were living a secret double life.

On November 2, a Supreme Court jury found Mohamed, 26, Abdullah Chaarani, 28, and Chaarani’s cousin, 23-year-old Hamza Abbas, guilty of planning to carry out a mass bombing attack which was also to have featured knives and guns on or around Christmas Day 2016 in Melbourne’s CBD.

Scores may have died. Tragedy averted thanks to Bunnings, the security services and the Police.

Ibrahim Abbas told the court he was motivated to become a martyr as it offered him a fast-track ticket to “paradise” – a perceived Islamic heaven he said other Muslims only reached when the world ended.

Mohamed and Ibrahim Abbas were also prepared to use their own family members as unwitting weapons and were secretly recorded by police discussing strapping their siblings and wives into suicide vests as they fine-tuned plans for their Islamic State-inspired attack.

Charming.

At the corner of Dandenong and Springvale roads on December 22, 2016, guns were drawn as Victoria Police’s Special Operations Group demanded Mohamed and Chaarani crawl on hands and knees from a red sedan.

Their reign of imminent terror had finally ceased.

“Go ahead martyr me. I welcome death,” Chaarani chanted.

“You [police] will have your day soon. Praise Allah, you can’t stop us all.”

Mohamed, Chaarani and Hamza Abbas are due to be sentenced in coming weeks.

Hopefully a very long sentence.

Mike Lee writes:

Transport Minister Phil Twyford’s defence of his unpopular light rail to the airport plan in the Herald recently was heavy on references to “experts”. He will need to do better than this to convince Aucklanders he is right to exclude the electric train option.

In a Herald online poll of 13,300 readers, 82 per cent indicated they would prefer to take a train to the airport, 9 per cent preferred to drive and park while only 6 per cent opted for “light rail” (trams). This should be giving the Government pause.

Not a scientific poll but still somewhat revealing.

Despite the minister’s airy references to “experts” it is the worrying lack of expert contestable advice that is his scheme’s greatest weakness.

Time was, transport projects of this cost and scale were the subject of widespread public debate and public input. But in recent years the statutory Regional Land Transport Plan and the Regional Public Transport Management Plan with its public input processes, have been marginalised by the top-down and informal ATAP (Auckland Transport Alignment Process).

ATAP has become the means by which the government-of-the-day imposes on Auckland what it wants. Twyford’s tramline to Mangere is the outcome of a “refreshed” ATAP replacing the previous Government’s 2016 ATAP.

But he needs to be reminded we live in a democracy. Unless he stops acting as some sort of transport tzar, trying to impose his will on an increasingly sceptical public, the 94 per cent of Aucklanders opposed to his light rail scheme, are likely to stay opposed.

As with the backlash against the regional fuel tax, now halted nationwide by a “captain’s call” from the Prime Minister, Twyford’s $3.7b light rail scheme is likely to carry political consequences.

At least it isn’t as nuts as the light rail madness in Wellington where the left demand light rail despite A BCR of 0.05.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand has one of the most unequal education systems in the world, according to Unicef, and OECD research indicates students from low-decile communities perform better than their higher-decile peers if they attend advantaged schools.

To counteract such biases, some Western education systems have turned to value-added (VA) models of assessment that measure students’ improvement throughout a year, rather than simply recording an end grade, like NCEA.

Yep the VA model is the most useful – how much gain has there been.

While VA models established in New South Wales and Tennessee provide a blueprint for efforts here, critics say they promote a one-size-fits-all approach that could narrow the curriculum and institute performance-based pay for teachers.

What’s more, without complex data on students’ backgrounds, they may not highlight the effect social advantage has.

Joel Hernandez thinks he can fix that.

The researcher at the New Zealand Institute, a public policy think tank, is about half way through a year-long project to build New Zealand’s first “contextualised” VA model.

Using integrated data from the ministries of education and social development, corrections and immigration, and weighted NCEA results from the country’s 500 secondary schools, the model aims to adjust for socio-economic factors and determine what effect individual schools have on students’ achievement – if any at all.

The unreleased preliminary results, Hernandez says, are significant.

By Christmas, the model should be able to profile students’ likelihood of success based on older students with similar backgrounds; how well they do in NCEA, whether they’re likely to take on tertiary study, “whether they end up in a Corrections facility, [or] their potential to go on a benefit”.

That looks like fantastic research. Can’t wait for the results.

The data available here is more sophisticated than that on which other jurisdictions base their VA models.

 Statistics New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure includes household income, internet access, parents’ education, and children’s health when they start school.

“Other countries are just using things like a free lunch as a proxy for lower socio-economic [status]”, Hernandez says.

Yeah the IDI rocks.

However, privacy laws limit what the New Zealand Initiative can do with that information. In accessing the data, it has agreed not to identify which schools are the most and least effective.

“At the moment, we’re arguing it’s impossible to identify a single school from a single dot [on a graph],” Hernandez says.

Crampton will instead offer the results to the Ministry of Education in the hope it will relay them to schools – especially if it turns out the variability between and within schools is higher than expected. 

Hopefully the Government will use this info.