The Prime Minister on Mike Hosking’s show said:

“Again, well again I would speak to my… you know, to my own experience. Yes, I haven’t been an owner/operator I have um… I have run a small NGO, um… I have worked in small businesses and I have been a small business spokesperson, I even worked in a small business in the UK.”

One of my readers sent the following OIA to the PM’s Office:

1. What was the business you have claimed to run that was not an NGO?
2. What were the small businesses you worked in?
3. What was the business you were a spokesperson for?
4. What was the small business you worked in while in the UK?

The response has to be seen to be believed:

1. The Prime Minister was the President of international political youth organisation IUSY.

So yes the Prime Minister told Mike Hosking she understood small business due to her having been the president of the international union of socialist youth!!!

2. The small businesses the Prime Minister worked at were a fish and chip shop in Morrinsville and a gift shop. She has also worked at a supermarket.

Oh dear. The best job experience you can claim of small business, is your after school jobs from 20 years ago.

3. The Prime Minister was referring to the fact that in Opposition she was Labour’s spokesperson for Small Business from 2014-2017.

A spokesperson for small business who has never worked in one, apart from after school jobs.

4. In the UK the Prime Minister was an assistant director in the Department for Business and Enterprise which involved working with small businesses.

With respect working for our equivalent of MBIE is not the same as actual business experience.

Ardern is far from the only politician not to have had small business experience. But what is cringeworthy is how she tries and pretend she does by claiming her role as head of the global young socialists gave her experience of small businesses.

Justin Trudeau’s former Attorney-General has given devastating testimony that shows Trudeau and his officials repeatedly tried to get her to interfere with an independent prosecution, for political reasons.

The Globe and Mail reported:

Jody Wilson-Raybould says she faced “consistent and sustained” political pressure from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and top officials, including “veiled threats,” on the need to shelve the criminal prosecution of Montreal’s SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.
In dramatic televised testimony before the House of Commons justice committee spanning 3½ hours, the former justice minister and attorney-general outlined detailed conversations at the highest levels of the Trudeau government about helping the Quebec engineering and construction giant out of its legal difficulties.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould said the intense, behind-the-scenes campaign to press her to intervene in the justice system involved about 10 phone calls and 10 meetings that she characterized as inappropriate between September and December, 2018.
“I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the attorney-general of Canada in an inappropriate effort to secure a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin,” Ms. Wilson-Raybould told MPs.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer later called on Mr. Trudeau to resign, saying he has “lost the moral authority to govern,” and said the RCMP should investigate. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called for a public inquiry.

This is basically corruption. The Prime Minister, his officials, his Ministers all tried repeatedly to get the Attorney-General to interfere in a prosecution decision, because they were worried about the political impact of a successful prosecution in Quebec, Trudeau’s home state.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould said Mr. Trudeau and other senior officials pressed her to overrule the director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, Kathleen Roussel, and negotiate an out-of-court settlement with SNC-Lavalin – a move that they said would also help the Quebec Liberal Party in last fall’s provincial election.
“After I had made my decision as the attorney-general not to issue a directive, the successive and sustained comments around jobs became inappropriate because I had made my decision and everybody was fully aware that I had made my decision,” she said in response to questions from MPs. “The Quebec election, any partisan considerations before or after, are entirely inappropriate, not relevant to me at the time wearing my judicial hat as the attorney-general.”

This should be unthinkable behaviour. If in NZ a ministerial staffer had gone to Chris Finlayson and tried to bully him into interfering with a prosecution, there would be nothing but a few entrails left of his or her remains.

In a meeting on Sept. 17 last fall that included Ms. Wilson-Raybould and Mr. Wernick, the Prime Minister said he wanted a solution to SNC-Lavalin’s legal troubles, the former attorney-general said.
“The Prime Minister asked me to help out, to find a solution to SNC, citing that if there was no DPA, there would be many jobs lost and that SNC would move from Montreal,” she said. “In response, I explained to him the law … and I told him that I had done my due diligence and made up my mind on SNC and that I was not going to interfere with the decision of the DPP [director of public prosecutions].”
Ms. Wilson-Raybould said the Prime Minister once again cited the potential loss of jobs and then “to my surprise, the clerk started to make the case for the need to have a DPA” in which he noted SNC had a board meeting on Sept. 20 with stockholders and might move its headquarters from Montreal to Britain.

Mr. Trudeau even cited his own political base in Quebec.
“At that point the Prime Minister jumped in stressing that there is an election in Quebec and that ‘I am an MP in Quebec — the member for Papineau,’” she recalled.

If the Liberal Party of Canada had any integrity they’d roll Trudeau immediately.

There is an election later this year. Trudeau was highly likely to be re-elected but the latest poll has the Liberals 7% behind the Conservatives. And that was taken before this explosive hearing.

Trudeau now has a -20% net approval rating. Again that was before this hearing. The election is on the 21st of October, so will be an interesting seven months.

Stuff reports:

The man who killed teenager Eli Holtz​ after the youth shot at him with a water pistol in central Auckland has been jailed for seven years.
Myron Robert Alf Felise​, 30, pleaded guilty to one charge of manslaughter in November, a few days ahead of his trial. 
On Thursday, Felise, from Bulls but originally from Otara, was sentenced to seven years in jail by Justice Gerard van Bohemen in the Auckland High Court.

Felise will have to serve at least half his sentence in jail.  

So may be out in three and a half years.

Dickey stated Felise’s previous conviction for aggravated robbery and inability to manage alcohol and failure to address that in the past meant he remained a real risk to the public.

So not a one off.

The 31-year-old grew up in Otara and associated with the Bloods gangs from as young as 13.
“You have been involved in 40 incidents involving serious violence in a gang context. That is truly appalling,” the judge said. 

This is what is crazy. He’s got 40, yes 40, violent offences to his name. He finally kills someone, and he gets such a light sentence.

Felise was one of the men charged with the murder of Manurewa liquor store owner Navtej Singh in 2008.
Six south Auckland men, including Felise, were on trial for the murder and aggravated robbery of Navtej Singh, 30, who was shot on June 7, 2008 while working in his store, Riverton Liquor, in Auckland’s Manurewa East. He died the next day.
Felise was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter and was convicted of aggravated robbery. 

This happened before three strikes. If three strikes had already been in place he would not be eligible for parole.

Does anyone think he is going to come out and not commit more violent acts?

Mike Hosking writes:

The Capital Gains Tax train wreck is all the evidence you need this is a Government that didn’t have a plan.
Why are we here? Because they’d tried this before, got burned twice – and still didn’t learn the lesson.
Jacinda Ardern personally overrode her party and ran this policy last election to be enacted by now. But she got dragged kicking and screaming into a cupboard and was subdued to the point where she acquiesced, and promised nothing before 2020, then flick it off to a working group.

The working group was specifically tasked with finding a way to make a CGT work, they couldn’t. They told the Government they couldn’t, they were then told to go away and try harder. All the while the Government stalled, pretending they hadn’t made up their mind.
They’re still stalling, pretending they haven’t made up their mind and in that is the naivety, they’re taking their issue, and making a complete and utter hash of it. The Prime Minister, at her post-Cabinet press conference, lectured the media on how to cover this subject, and offered up an olive branch to small businesses and farmers that they’ll be at the top of her mind.

The PM claims she knows small business because she once ran a NGO, which is of course a non-profit organisation. Rather different. Also her CV doesn’t list any NGO she managed except of course when she was President of the International Union of Socialist Youth.

So her reassurance to business owners is she has them top of mind as she once ran the global socialist youth NGO. So reassuring.

If you’re taking farms and businesses out, you open the Pandora’s Box of the fast burgeoning industry that is tax avoidance. Not to mention the fact the more you exempt, the less you actually raise. And the less you raise, the more questions are asked about the cost of compliance and chasing the returns.

The compliance costs are huge. Experts in this area say it will definitely be in the billions of dollars. not just hundreds of millions.

Politico has a copy of the prepared statement of Trump’s former lawyer and fixer to Congress. There’s so much in there it is hard to know what is the most potent, and will his base even care?

The big takeaways are:

1. Trump knew from Roger Stone that Wikileaks was going to dump the DNC e-mails hacked by Russia. He may not have known Russia gave them to Wikileaks, but still significant.
2. Trump wrote personal cheques to reimburse Cohen, while President for the pay off of Stormy Daniels – very likely a felony offence.
3. Trump paid for a portrait of himself from his charitable foundation
4. Trump threatened his high schools and colleges to never release his grades, which implies they were pretty shit or at least well below what he boasted
5. Trump was briefed on the Moscow Tower project regularly while denying any business dealings in Russia, and Trump’s other lawyers approved the Cohen statement perjuring Cohen before Congress last time
6. Trump never expected to win the primary – he saw it as the best free infomercial ever for his brand.
7. Trump is not as wealthy as he claims (no surprise there)

No 2 may be the most problematic as it is a clear crime. He can’t be prosecuted for it though as he is President.

Circa’s production of Side by Side by Sondheim was a fantastically fun evening of entertainment.

Stephen Sondheim is one of the world’s greatest composers and lyricist. He has won eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards, an Academy Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

The revue came about in 1976 when a cast member of A Little Night Music was asked to help do a revue for a small theatre and he suggested
a revue of Sondheim material. Sondheim was asked for permission and said “By all means try, but I can’t think of anything more boring except possibly the Book of Kells”.

Sondheim was wrong and Side by Side became a major hit around the world. It first played at Circa in 1979 and returns 40 years later.

The three singers are all top performers – highly charismatic, strong voices and animated acting. Combined with Michael Nicholas Williams and Colin Taylor on the pianos, they give you a two hour festival of music. You learn about Sondheim and his successes and failures while you laugh and giggle at the songs.

The cast obviously enjoy the production immensely and it rubs off on the audience. The combination is a superb experience. I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying the show.

There were a couple of glitches. Sarah Lineham’s microphone gave some intermittent static for the first half hour or so, which got annoying. Possibly as a result of that Lineham was slightly difficult to hear in a couple of solo parts. Later on there were no problems, so I suspect it was just a teething issue.

Julie O’Brien had the most fun parts, and her facial expressions combined so well with her singing. Matthew Pike rounded off the top trio with great verve and ability.

I don’t get out to the theatre as much as I used to, since becoming a parent. But I’m glad I managed to make this production as it was such great fun. It’s also inspired me to see some more Sondheim musicals when I am next overseas.

Rating: ****1/2

Cactus Kate returns to the blogosphere just in time to kick the crap out of the Tax Working Group.

The balance in the universe has now been restored 🙂

Stuff reports:

Wellington faces a looming water shortage with water meters being put forward as one way for the region to cut back – but the city’s politicians are reluctant to confront the issue.
The region’s water authority warns Wellington faces water shortages in the future if more of it isn’t found or conserved. 
Wellington is one of New Zealand’s worst offenders when it comes to the amount it uses and, compared to people in the other big centres, Wellingtonians use significantly more water per person than those in Auckland and Tauranga do, both places with water meters installed. 

If a resource is limited, then a usage charge is a very sensible way to manage demand so it doesn’t exceed supply.

It doesn’t affect me directly as we have two 30,000 litre water tanks picking up rain water. So we already conserve water when the tanks start to get low.

But why should a pensioner who uses 1/10th as much water as a family of five with a large garden pay the same amount for water?

While Wellington city councillor, Malcolm Sparrow, thinks water pressures in the region mean meters are “almost inevitable”, others including Green Party member Iona Pannett, oppose anything that would allow companies to charge for it.

Very disappointing from a so called Green Councillor. This reflects a hatred of business outweighs a love for the environment. Water meters are excellent for the environment as they lead to water conservation.

After meters were installed water usage dropped by more than a quarter during peak hours and expensive water facility upgrades, $36 million worth, were no longer needed.

A quarter drop at peak time is huge.

But Pannett said other options should be explored before the public engaged in a “big conversation” about water meters, including educating people to waste less. 

Councils have been doing that for 40 years. Doesn’t work.

The Herald reports:

If you thought the Government (well more correctly the Labour Party) is hell-bent on committing political suicide you’d be wrong.
The Beehive is reeling and sitting in the top office of the ever diminishing building Jacinda Ardern’s in a state of shock at the reaction to the Taxation Working Group’s report.

I’m shocked that they’re shocked. They had the report for a month, which should have been plenty of time to digest it, work out the ramification, conclude the proposed model is a dog, and kill it at birth.

Now she’s wide awake to the political damage it’s doing to Labour, spending the first six minutes of her post-Cabinet press conference yesterday giving us a lesson on how to report it accurately.
Ardern was at pains to ensure the students understood her lecture. The debate should be about a fairer and more balanced taxation system and is most certainly not an attack on the Kiwi way of life as some have claimed.

How is it fair to tax people for inflation? How is it fair to double tax small business owners? How it is fair to tax people more who have a home office?

To ensure we knew what she was banging on about she reminded us that she grew up in Morrinsville, in a small town rural community. All of her jobs were mostly with small businesses and she knows the debate going on in rural New Zealand and their views will be heard, she insisted.

Now that is a brazen rewriting of truth. I can only imagine she means her stint in a fish and chip shop. The reality is that since finishing study, her only jobs have been in Government.

To claim she has worked in small business because of her school jobs is akin to me claiming I worked in the newspaper industry because I had a paper run when I was 12.

Will she claim to have aviation experience because once when she was seven she handed out lollies on a plane?

As the lesson was drawing to a close she told us the bleedingly obvious: that the tax would be paid only when a capital gain is realised, or when an asset gets sold, so there won’t be an ongoing impost.

This is not true. You can also get hit with CGT if you move overseas for a while.

The Dom Post reports:

The cost of Wellington’s Town Hall project looks set to expand to $130 million, as contractors are understood to be counting on a $20m contingency fund.
It may officially stand at $112.4m, but capital developers say the cost of Wellington’s Town Hall project will rise by a further $20m – with the “real” figure an open secret within the industry.

It was a bad idea at $46 million. At $130 million it is a terrible terrible idea. Will any Councillors have the guts to say enough is enough and we won’t force every household in Wellington to pay $1,800 for a music venue 95% of them will never use.

Spend that money on facilities that will benefit everyone such as libraries and parks, not something for the elite.

Property developer Richard Burrell, whose company Building Solutions has strengthened some 40 buildings over the last 30 years, believed the true cost of doing up the Town Hall was being hidden from the public, while its real budget was being openly talked about by the project’s engineers and preferred tenderer.
“The undisclosed contingency amount is bullshit,” Burrell said.

Of course the industry knows what the contingency is. The construction company will know for sure. the Crs know. The so called commercial secrecy is actually there to hide the figure from the public who will pay the bills.

At a press conference last week Lavery  said the price of the Town Hall contract could not be fixed citing high demand in the construction industry, which made the council just one of many customers in the city.

So the Council is just going to bend over and sign a contract allowing the construction company to blow out the costs. I guarantee you if it was their own money they would not be.

Prominent philanthropist, property developer and former Wellingtonian of the Year Mark Dunajtschik said Lavery was asking for an “open cheque for a bottomless pit”.
He had also heard the project referred to as a $130m one within his industry.
Comparing the building to an “old dog”, he believed the council would be better off to dismantle the original facade and re-apply it to a new building built to modern standards. He was confident it would then cost “less than $112m”.
“Unfortunately the ratepayers are captive,” he said.

Time for Councillors to stand up for ratepayers and say enough is enough.

The Government banned all future offshore exploration for oil and gas, despite it having lower carbon emissions than coal. They claim that the world is moving towards a future with no oil and gas.

Well if this is true, then surely other countries would be doing the same. I mean we wouldn’t be so stupid as to ban domestic production just so we have to import more would we?

Well read these snippets from a SPTEC newsletter:

China: China’s state energy giants are set to raise spending on domestic drilling this year to the highest levels since 2016, focusing on adding natural gas reserves in a concerted drive to boost local supplies. Responding to central government’s call last August to boost domestic energy security, China’s trio of oil majors – PetroChina, Sinopec Corp and CNOOC Ltd – are adding thousands of wells at oil basins in the remote deserts of Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, shale rocks in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province and deepwater fields of the South China Sea. The firms are showing greater risk appetite, expanding investments faster in exploration than production, emboldened by central government’s political push and oil prices nearing $60 a barrel, said state oil executives and analysts at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.(Selected by SPTEC Advisory from Global Times, February 10)

So the world’s largest greenhouse gas producer is increasing, not banning, oil and gas production.

How about the world’s third largest producer?

India: India is offering 23 oil and gas and coal-bed methane blocks for bidding in the third round of Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OLAP) as it looks to more than double the area under exploration to raise domestic output and cut imports. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launched the OALP-III bid round at the Petrotech 2019 conference on the outskirts of Delhi. ‘In OALP-III, 23 blocks in 12 sedimentary basins are being offered. Of these, five are coal-bed methane (CBM) blocks. Total area on offer is about 31,000 sq kms,’ he said. Last date for bidding is April 10. OALP-III will run concurrently with OALP-II, where 14 blocks covering an area of close to 30,000 sq km is on offer for bidding, he said, adding in OALP-I, 55 blocks covering an area of 60,000 sq km were awarded in October last year.(Selected by SPTEC Advisory from Energy-Pedia, February 10)

We really are the morons of the world – imposing a ban that is bad for both the environment and the economy.

Received this e-mail from a top tax accountant (over 30 years experience with one of the big 4 firms) on the proposed CGT:

I have just read your post re how CGT is a double tax on a business owner that has accumulated (tax paid) profits within their company.  All very interesting.
 
However, the idea of a CGT on sale of a business is even more flawed than that.
 
Assume that I have established a lawn-mowing service from nothing.  After years of slog, I have built up a very loyal customer base, but it is time for me to retire, and so I sell my business to you.   As part of the sale, you agree to pay me $50,000 for the goodwill of the business that I have built up.  Under the CGT proposal, this $50,000 would be a capital gain and I would have to pay income tax on that amount.
 
But the $50,000 of goodwill is not a “magic” number – as a business asset, it represents the economic net present value of the future earnings potential from the loyal customer base I have nurtured.  Now, when those future earnings are derived, they will be on your tax return as part of your business turnover – and you will pay tax on those amounts.  Given that I have already paid CGT on the goodwill amount, the direct result is economic double taxation.
 
I do note that this double tax position could be alleviated if you were allowed to claim an income tax deduction for the goodwill amount.  However, insofar as I am currently aware, beyond a suggestion that depreciation be allowed on commercial buildings again, there is no firm suggestion of deductions for goodwill and the like being offered in the TWG report.
 
At a macro level, if the CGT were sufficiently thought out so as to give you a deduction for the goodwill, then the net of the two positions would effectively cancel each other out (i.e. I pay tax on $50,000 and you get deductions for $50,000).  So the net revenue position for Government would be largely neutral (except for some timing considerations between taxation of the gain and deductions allowed for the goodwill and perhaps if you and I were on different tax rates).    This begs the question of “why even bother” for something so hideously complex as a comprehensive CGT when you get the same neutrality under the current system (i.e. no tax for me to pay on the goodwill, and no deduction for goodwill for you to claim).
 
The above analysis suggests to me that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.  Our current tax model for capital gains made by businesses seems fit for purpose, whereas the CGT proposal from the TWG carries a fundamental flaw if it does not afford corresponding tax deductions to purchasers.
 
I must admit, however, that the one place where the CGT model proposed could actually work effectively is for non-business assets (i.e. where the asset does not give rise to future cashflows that would be subject to tax).  A perfect example of such an asset would be the family home … oh, wait, this is the one thing that they have exempted from the CGT regime!  There goes the main opportunity for the fairness of the tax system to be improved.
 
I predict that, before the CGT raised the $8 billion (in first 5 years, as suggested by Dr Cullen), New Zealanders will first spend potentially billions in fees for accountants, lawyers and business valuers.  I might have been thinking early retirement, but the current Government seems to be intent on loading up the gravy train….  

It certainly will be a boon for tax accountants.

This letter from the NY State Budget Director shows how basically one union plus a Twitter mob stopped 40,000 jobs being created and $27 billion of revenue. Some extracts:

“In my 23 years in the State Capitol, three as Budget Director, Amazon was the single greatest economic development opportunity we have had. Amazon chose New York and Virginia after a year-long national competition with 234 cities and states vying for the 25,000-40,000 jobs. For a sense of scale, the next largest economic development project the state has completed was for approximately 1,000 jobs. People have been asking me for the past week what killed the Amazon deal. There were several factors. 
“First, some labor unions attempted to exploit Amazon’s New York entry. The RWDSU Union was interested in organizing the Whole Foods grocery store workers, a subsidiary owned by Amazon, and they deployed several ‘community based organizations’ (which RWDSU funds) to oppose the Amazon transaction as negotiation leverage. It backfired. Initially, Whole Foods grocery stores had nothing to do with this transaction. It is a separate company. While Amazon is not a unionized workforce, Amazon had agreed to union construction and service worker jobs that would have provided 11,000 thousand union positions.
“New York State also has the most pro-worker legal protections of any state in the country. Organizing Amazon, or Whole Foods workers, or any company for that matter, is better pursued by allowing them to locate here and then making an effort to unionize the workers, rather than making unionization a bar to entrance. If New York only allows unionized companies to enter, our economy is unsustainable, and if one union becomes the enemy of other unions, the entire union movement – already in decline – is undermined and damaged.

One bully boy union backfired disastrously.

“Third, in retrospect, the State and the City could have done more to communicate the facts of the project and more aggressively correct the distortions. We assumed the benefits to be evident: 25,000-40,000 jobs located in a part of Queens that has not seen any significant commercial development in decades and a giant step forward in the tech sector, further diversifying our economy away from Wall Street and Real Estate. The polls showing seventy percent of New Yorkers supported Amazon provided false comfort that the political process would act responsibly and on behalf of all of their constituents, not just the vocal minority. We underestimated the effect of the opposition’s distortions and overestimated the intelligence and integrity of local elected officials.

A win for the vocal minority.

“Incredibly, I have heard city and state elected officials who were opponents of the project claim that Amazon was getting $3 billion in government subsidies that could have been better spent on housing or transportation. This is either a blatant untruth or fundamental ignorance of basic math by a group of elected officials. The city and state ‘gave’ Amazon nothing. Amazon was to build their headquarters with union jobs and pay the city and state $27 billion in revenues. The city, through existing as-of-right tax credits, and the state through Excelsior Tax credits – a program approved by the same legislators railing against it – would provide up to $3 billion in tax relief, IF Amazon created the 25,000-40,000 jobs and thus generated $27 billion in revenue. You don’t need to be the State’s Budget Director to know that a nine to one return on your investment is a winner. 

So sounds like it wasn’t a special sweetheart deal.

“As the political debate rages in this country, the Governor reminds us of the fact that ‘to be a progressive, there must be progress.’ The creation of opportunity and jobs is the engine that pulls the train and, as he also often says, ‘the best social program is still a job.’ Without a tax base we are not financially able to achieve the laudable goals we seek.

Great quote.

“Make no mistake, at the end of the day we lost $27 billion, 25,000-40,000 jobs and a blow to our reputation of being ‘open for business.’ The union that opposed the project gained nothing and cost other union members 11,000 good, high-paying jobs. The local politicians that catered to the hyper-political opposition hurt their own government colleagues and the economic interest of every constituent in their district. The true local residents who actually supported the project and its benefits for their community are badly hurt. Nothing was gained and much was lost. This should never happen again.”

Yet it is cheered as a win by some.

Politik reports:

The party’s keynote panel discussion at its annual Blue Greens conference in Raglan was on biotechnology and featured the former Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister, Sir Peter Gluckman.
He wants a debate on genetic editing to begin now.
Gluckman said he could not see a way that agriculture in New Zealand would be sustainable in the long run without using gene editing.
He said gene editing, unlike genetic modification,  did not change the gene structure, only the way the genes worked.
“Do we need gene editing?” he asked.
“Well, we certainly need to talk about it and have an adaptive approach to knowledge which has come from scientists all around the world to find whether it fits our needs.
“I’ll go as far as to say that I cannot see a way that agriculture in New Zealand will be sustainable over the long run in the face of environmental change and consumer preferences without using gene editing.
“There is no way that we will get a reduction in methane production, and I can see no way that we will see an economic advantage for farmers as we shift to more plant-based foods without using gene editing.”

A great insightful report from Politik that should have got more media attention.

Sir Peter Gluckman is saying the route to sustainable environmental change is through gene editing.

What will it take for the Greens to abandon their superstition against this?

Dr Cullen and the Government would have you think that a CGT won’t affect 90% or so of the population – only a few rich pricks. But if you read the actual details of the proposal, you’ll be stunned at how many people will be affected. Here’s a short list I have compiled on a short skim through.

1. Anyone who owns shares
2. Any business owner
3. All farmers
4. Anyone who owns a bach
5. Anyone who owns a holiday home
6. Anyone who owns a rental property
7. Anyone who has intellectual property
8. Anyone who owns their own home and has sex (okay enters into a relationship) with another home owner
9. Anyone who owns a home who moves overseas for a while
10. Anyone who works in a different city to where they live and owns a apartment for them to live in during the week, as well as their family home
11. When you purchase a new family home, but are unable to sell your old one within 12 months
12. When you move into a resthome, but are unable to sell your old home within 12 months
13. When you buy a section to build a new home on, and it isn’t completed within 12 months
14. When you own a lifestyle block larger than 0.45 hectares
15. When you claim expenses for a home office
16. When you earn some extra money by listing a room on AirBnB
17. If you have flatmates or a boarder (even your own adult children) and claim expenses.
18. If you have parents who own any taxable assets who will die at some stage (CGT doesn’t apply on death but will apply if you ever dispose of the inherited taxable asset)
19. Anyone who has a taxable asset who migrates overseas (pays CGT immediately even if they keep their assets)
20. Anyone who has a KiwiSaver account (you don’t pay CGT directly but your KiwiSaver account is impacted by it)

So nothing at all to worry about if you’re not a rich prick – yeah right.

Central Western reports:

THE public spoke, they listened.
Following almost two months of debate surrounding Charles Sturt University possibly changing its name, the idea was on Monday abandoned by university officials.
When CSU announced in early January that it was considering changing its name, it was met with thousands of people calling for the idea to be abandoned.

“We heard loud and clear from your stories that you are connected to our name and our rich history,” vice chancellor Professor Andrew Vann said on Monday morning.

“We believe it’s important we reflect the views of our community in our namesake. Our name will remain as Charles Sturt University.”

A Vice-Chancellor that proposed a name change, listed to their stakeholders, and then decided not to proceed.

This is what true consultation looks like.

A reader writes in:

Should HNZ be harbouring social cancers in our communities, particularly when there are many people waiting for housing?  
 
This is a serious issue, and perhaps worthy of a KB post.  In the Hutt we have blighted areas in Stokes Valley and other parts of the city where gangs terrorise neighbourhoods and trade drugs.  They operate out of HNZ houses.  Apparently single mothers get the HNZ lease and then gang members move in.  It’s very hard to monitor and manage.
 
I have been following this for some time and each time there’s a shooting, stabbing etc involving gangs there’s always a HNZ house involved.
 
See this – clearly a HNZ block:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/109900067/reports-of-gang-fight-in-stokes-valley
 
And this:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/107674640/communities-fight-fear-as-violence-threat-hangs-over-hutt-valley?rm=m
 
Now I see the same thing in Dunedin:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12205774
 
A Google search will show that this situation is widespread across NZ.
 
“A Porirua woman has made an emotional plea to Housing New Zealand to evict gang member tenants causing chaos in her community.  Sala Nimarota says Mongrel Mob members living in a Housing NZ home in her community are making it unsafe for the rest of the community”:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/06/woman-s-emotional-plea-to-housing-nz-over-porirua-gang-problems.html

State houses are hugely subsidized by the taxpayer and are a form of targeted welfare. As with other forms of welfare, this should be part of a social contract such as looking for a job etc.

Extreme anti-social behaviour should see people lose their Housing NZ tenancies.

The Guardian reports:

A recent review into Amnesty’s workplace culture warned of bullying, nepotism and an “us v them” dynamic that threatened the organisation’s credibility as a human rights champion. The report, undertaken by the KonTerra Group and led by psychologists, was commissioned after the suicides of two staff members last year.
The report warned that while there was a risk of vicarious trauma due to the nature of Amnesty’s work, most wellbeing issues among staff were driven by the organisation’s adversarial culture, failures in management and pressures of workload. The review was based on a survey of 475 staff, 70% of the workforce of Amnesty’s international secretariat, and on scores of interviews.
“There were multiple reports of managers belittling staff in meetings, deliberately excluding certain staff from reporting, or making demeaning, menacing comments like ‘you’re shit!’ or ‘you should quit! If you stay in this position, your life will be a misery,’” the report said.
In the letter, the senior leadership team acknowledged the review’s finding that structural and cultural challenges had been prevalent in the organisation for decades, and had been exacerbated by a restructuring programme.

So they’ve been a toxic place to work for decades. So busy lecturing everyone else they forgot to practice what they preach.

Amnesty’s work culture problems were first revealed last May, when the Times reported that Gaëtan Mootoo had killed himself after complaining of stress and overwork. Six weeks later, Rosalind McGregor, 28, an intern at Amnesty’s Geneva office, was found dead at her family home in Surrey.

Terrible, especially for a human rights organisation.

Sad it took two suicides for Amnesty to admit they have a problem.

National has released the first of ten or so policy discussion documents. This is the environmental policy paper.

At the end is 20 proposals they are consulting on. Some are specific, others more general. The more specific ones are:

• developing further robust incentives to encourage New Zealanders to take up renewable transport such as subsidies for electric vehicles, increasing regulations on older, less efficient cars, and encouraging older cars to be scrapped.
• working with water stakeholders to put in place a new and more efficient allocation method for the resource
• setting a quality standard for coastal water and a timetable for regional councils to meet those standards plus implementing beach and quality standards/swimming standards.
• rewriting the Litter Act to make it fit for purpose and strengthen enforcement mechanisms against people and businesses breaching provisions of both the Waste Minimisation Act and the Litter Act
• introducing measures to see either by a container deposit scheme in association with existing kerbside and recycling programmes is introduced, or by the beverage sector itself be responsible for ensuring through initiatives they set up, that 90 per cent of beverage containers are saved from being sent to landfill.
• committing New Zealand to a nationwide zero avoidable waste timetable and target
• looking at establishing a new National Park and will investigate establishing one in The Catlins.
• increasing funding to Department of Conservation Rangers to lead biosecurity incursions where threats are of a conservation matter.
• updating New Zealand’s restrictions on the use of biotechnologies in consultation with New Zealanders to bring them into line with the latest science