As readers will know I co-founded the Taxpayers’ Union just over five years ago. I was interested to read in a newsletter the following stats for the union in 2018.

• 70% of submissions tesponding to the Tax Working Group proposals came from NZTU members and supporters
• Staff did 162 radio interviews and 21 television interviews
• Seven published reports
• Made the front page of a NZ newspaper 27 times

2019 is looking to be an even bigger year. If the Government tries to bring in a Capital Gains Tax as a revenue grab, I expect a huge battle on that front.

Newshub reports:

The Mayor of Dunedin is hoping “common sense” will stop anyone trying to ride a Lime scooter down the world’s steepest street.

Oh dear. So naive. If students “drive” wheelie bins down Baldwin Street, they’ll certainly try scooters.

In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up having an annual race of it!

The Guardian reports:

Brexit will slice nearly one-fifth off the value of Britain’s commercial farms according to forecasters, bringing to an end the decades-long boom in agricultural land prices as EU subsidies are withdrawn.
Property experts Savills said farmland was likely to be the worst-hit sector in the entire UK residential and commercial property sector – faring even worse than shuttered high street shops – as common agricultural policy subsidies are withdrawn.
It expects that over the next five years, commercial farmland values will fall by 3.6% a year, with many more farmers choosing to sell out. Savills is pencilling in land prices falling to about £13,600 a hectare (£5,500 an acre) compared with the £17,300-plus prices common before the EU referendum.

EU direct payments make up about 60% of the profits of UK farmers, rising to 90% for livestock hill farms and are worth £3bn a year in total.

As New Zealand has shown, your primary industries actually become stronger once they are weened off subsidies.

Patrick Smellie writes:

Clearly, the New Zealand government needs to pursue any rebalancing in the relationships to the two biggest protagonists in our region with great care.
Just before Christmas, there were worrying signs to suggest such care is, if not absent, then lacking, with questionable co-ordination between Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her Foreign Minister and deputy Winston Peters.
The Ardern approach embraces multi-lateralism, ‘progressive’ free trade agreements that do more to protect national sovereignty than in the past, and a new demonstration of leadership on climate change. On the world stage, Ardern has shone as a beacon of optimism and inter-generational leadership change.
Meanwhile, Peters and NZ First Defence Minister Ron Mark have made the running on defence and security policy in ways that are pulling New Zealand much closer to the US.

So New Zealand has two foreign policies – an Ardern multi-lateral one and a Peters pro-US one.

Peters took that a step further last month. In a speech to an elite US audience on the Pacific region shortly before meetings with deputy vice-president Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Peters said: “We unashamedly ask the United States to engage more and we think it is in your vital interests to do so.”
Time was “of the essence” as “larger players are renewing their interest in the Pacific with an attendant level of strategic competition”. These and other parts of the speech represented serious new lines in the sand for New Zealand foreign policy.
But when asked whether she had read the speech prior to delivery, let alone whether the Cabinet had discussed it, Ardern gave an almost breezy dismissal.
That is deeply worrying.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

The EIU has released its 2018 Democracy Index.

It’s quite sobering. Only 5% of the world leave in a full democracy. A further 43% lived in flawed democracies. 17% in hybrid regimes and 36% in authoritarian regimes.

The average scores per region are:

1. North America 8.56 (nc)
2. Western Europe 8.35 (-0.03)
3. Latin America & Caribbean 6.24 (-0.02)
4. Asia & Australasia 5.67 (+0.04)
5. Eastern Europe 5.42 (+0.02)
6. Sub Saharan Africa 4.36 (+0.01)
7. Middle East & North Africa 3.54 (nc)

The top 10 countries are:

1. Norway 9.87
2. Iceland 9.58
3. Sweden 9.39
4. NZ 9.26
5. Denmark 9.22
6. Canada 9.15
7. Ireland 9.15
8. Finland 9.14
9. Australia 9.09
10. Switzerland 9.03

Some other interesting ones:

• 20 Costa Rica 8.07
• 25 US 7.96
• 29 France 7.80
• 79 Fiji 5.85
• 110 Turkey 4.37
• 130 China 3.32
• 134 Venezuela 3.16
• 144 Russia 2.94
• 167 North Korea 1.08

Radio NZ reported in December:

Treaty Negotiations Minister Andrew Little will be forced to go back to the drawing board after Ngāpuhi overwhelmingly rejected a mandate for its Treaty settlement.

Final voting results released yesterday confirmed the evolved Ngāpuhi treaty settlement mandate failed to win the vote of its people.
In November, the vote on the Evolved Mandate to move its Treaty negotiation forward was sent out to the people of Ngāpuhi.
The question of who should negotiate with the Crown has divided Ngāpuhi – some have sided with the group originally chosen – Tuhoronuku – and others have backed the hapu-based grouping, Te Kotahitanga.
In the months leading up to the vote, Mr Little led a roadshow across the country and in Australia promoting the new mandate.
But it was a resounding kāhore (no) from the people of Ngāpuhi – with 73 hapū rejecting the mandate and 31 in support.
The individual vote was 51 percent in favour and 48 percent against – but a threshold of 75 percent was needed to get the mandate over the line.
Mr Little said he was disappointed but the best thing right now was to “take bit of a breather”, and he was not giving up.

This is disappointing but not at all surprising.

I wish Andrew Little all the best in his endeavours here, but there is only so much the Government can do. You can’t force the hapu to agree on who represents them.

Some on the left had suggested that the failure to get a settlement was due to the former Minister, Chris Finlayson. I never thought this was the case, and the failure to once more agree on a mandate shows it isn’t about the Government.

The problem with commenting appears to have been because my anti-spam service Akismet stopped functioning because they are no longer free.

They hold comments while they check them if they are spam, which means every comment was being held until I could manually release them.

sI’ve disconnected Akismet but it is still holding up comments so delays in comments appearing will continue until I fix it

Despite having ceased publishing, Trans-Tasman has still put out their annual ratings of the 120 MPs. I don’t know who actually wrote these, but as I covered previous ones, will cover this one.

Top MPs

1. Jacinda Ardern 9.0 (+0.5)
2. David Parker 8.5 (+0.5), Todd Muller 8.5 (+2.5), James Shaw 8.5 (+2.5)
3. Trevor Mallard 8.0 (+1.0), Damien O’Connor 8.0 (+2.0), Winston Peters 8.0 (+2.0), Anne Tolley 8.0 (+1.0)
4. Amy Adams 7.5 (nc), Judith Collins 7.5 (+1.0), Shane Jones 7.5 (+2.5), Andrew Little 7.5 (+0.5), Grant Robertson 7.5 (+0.5), Eugenie Sage 7.5 (+2.5), Chloe Swarbrick 7.5)

Bottom MPs

1. Jami-Lee Ross 1.0 (-4.0)
2. Clare Curran 2.0 (-2.0), Meka Whaitiri 2.0 (-2.0)
3. Jian Yang 3.0 (+1.0), Jenny Salesa 3.0 (-1.0)
4. Iain Lees-Galloway 3.5 (-1.5), Sarah Dowie 3.5 (-0.5), Maggie Barry 3.5 (-1.0)
   

Top Labour MPs

1. Jacinda Ardern 9.0 (+0.5)
2. David Parker 8.5 (+0.5)
3. Trevor Mallard 8.0 (+1.0), Damien O’Connor 8.0 (+2.0)
4. Andrew Little 7.5 (+0.5), Grant Robertson 7.5 (+0.5)
5. Kris Faafoi 7.0 (+3.0), Carmel Sepuloni 7.0 (+3.0), Megan Woods 7.0 (+1.5)
   

Top Third Party MPs

1. James Shaw 8.5 (+2.0)
2. Winston Peters 8.0 (+2.0)
   
3. Shane Jones 7.5 (+2.5), Eugenie Sage 7.5 (+2.5), Chloe Swarbrick 7.5
4. Gareth Hughes 7.0 (+3.0),

Biggest Increases

1. Kanwalkit Bakshi, Kris Faafoi, Gareth Hughes, Melissa Lee, Carmel Sepuloni, Rino Tirikatene, Louisa Wall, Poto Williams +3.0
2. Shane Jones, Todd Muller, Adrian Rurawhe, Eugenie Sage, James Shaw +2.5

Biggest Decreases

1. Jami-Lee Ross -4.0
2. Chris Finlayson -3.5
3. Meka Whaititi, Clare Curran -2.0

Group Ratings

1. Ministers 6.3 (+0.9)
2. Cabinet 6.3 (+5.6)
3. National frontbench 6.7 (-0.1)
4. Labour frontbench 6.7 (+0.5)
5. Labour backbench 4.9 (+1.6)
6. National backbench 5.1

Overall 60 MPs got a higher score, 12 MPs stayed the same and 14 MPs got a lower score.

A reminder these are the opinions of the author/s at Trans-Tasman, not mine.

The Herald reports:

The SPCA is calling for a ban on pest control poison 1080 over concerns about animal welfare.
In a statement issued this week, the charity said it was “deeply concerned” over the use of 1080, and the use of poisons to kill animals due to the level of suffering they caused.
Environmental organisation Forest & Bird has called the SPCA’s position “naive”, and one that would lead to “cruel deaths and extinctions” of native birds.
Sodium fluoroacetate, more commonly known as 1080, is a poison, mixed into baits, and used to control the numbers of a range of mammalian species, particularly possums and rats.

The SPCA called for a greater emphasis on finding ways for species that could not be completely removed to co-exist with native birds, and for finding more humane methods of pest control.

This is real nutty stuff from the SPCA.

Without 1080, tens of millions of native birds will get ripped to pieces and eaten by stoats, rats and possums. That isn’t particularly humane either.

Forest & Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said the SPCA’s position showed a “naïve failure” to understand how nature works in the wild, and they would be seeking a meeting with the organisation to discuss its position.

“Their position reflects their history of caring for domesticated animals such as cats and dogs, without understanding the needs of New Zealand’s native animals and ecosystems.

“While the idea of stoats and rats peacefully coexisting with native birds sounds great, the reality is that an estimated 25 million native birds, eggs and chicks are cruelly eaten alive by introduced predators every year in New Zealand.

“This is the terrible death that countless native animals across New Zealand suffer every night.

“The SPCA’s position on 1080 is a blow to their credibility. It’s sad to see them promoting flawed logic whose outcome is the extinction through being eaten alive of treasured animals like our kiwi, kereru and kokako.

Forest & Bird are correct on this.

The SPCA seems to be saying it is better to have entire species of native birds go extinct, rather than poison a single rat or stoat.

A guest post by Flipper:

It is hard to decide whether Peters’ smart-arse ATM, Shane Jones, is simply a smart-arse.

Most of his answers to questions in the House, both real (Opposition) and softball (ex-regime), seem to indicate that he is.

But is he really as cunning as the  proverbial S***house rabid dog?

His strategy for the operation of his Ministerial ATM persona seems to suggest, nay confirm, that he is.

Jones travels the country dispensing a $million here, or $2 million or more there, of vote-buying money withdrawn from his ATM machine.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with gifting money from one’s ATM – provided all campaign and / or election finance laws and limitations are observed.  

The problem is that Jones’ (and Ardern-Peters-Poofies’) ATM is funded (aka stolen from and stocked) by us long – suffering taxpayers to the stated extent of $3 Billion.

Buying votes is fine, provided it is done within all election and campaign law on quantum  …. and is properly disclosed according to the Statutes.

Over the New Year holiday period Flipper (and the Memsahib, plus two Grandlings)  had a delicious lunch with friends at their Kapiti  Coast home.     But the luncheon (once the Grandlings had departed for the tennis court) changed.  A pleasant social occasion eventually morphed into a discussion on local political issues – one that was also highly informative.

Our host was once a leading bank’s Chief Business Analyst in New Zealand, and then in Australia.   While there he was lured by a smallish, but wealthy (aren’t they all), Middle Eastern nation to abandon his bank job and establish his own economic and business proposal-analysis consultancy.   

Returning to New Zealand he did just that on the back of a highly profitable contractual arrangement (with said Mid-east nation) that often brought him into head to head challenges of MFAT and MBIE analysts.  

Those skills have (since  November 2017) seen him engaged as an analyst whose role is to question / rubbish,  endorse,  or correct MBIE and/or Treasury  position papers and advice, on each and every proposal for some sort of  Jones ATM funding.   

If a proposal makes national and/or regional sense, and creates or expands employment opportunities in the originating region,  it  is certain to gain approval.   If the case is marginal, it is our friend’s role to suggest improvements and/or to give interim, parallel advice to ATM Jones.   In that event (“the word’) advice must obfuscated or capable being mis-read by the “busy” ATM.

In some instances, “the word” is preliminary, and it is specified as being the “subject of further analysis and  consideration”.

The consultant’s advice is said to also be used by the ATM Minister to poke holes in advice from bureaucrats.

Sometimes there is a “mis-understanding” and the project is announced before analysis is complete and the proposal(s) approved.

Of course, our friend’s role is kept under wraps.   But it is increasingly pissing off Ministries.

It is, of course, not our friend’s fault if his carefully nuanced, and caveat loaded, commentary and/or advice is mis-interpreted or mis-used by the ATM and his colleagues.  

Local Government, of course, is not complaining.  They are able to jump on any band-wagon that passes their way.

And bear in mind that  2019 is Local Government election year.

Mr ATM and his colleagues are quite happy to accept the LG’s support and/or endorsement.  Then, Dear Readers, there is the Prince of Serendip.  Serendipity is very, very helpful – and welcomed.
But  that is not an over-riding determinate.   There is one overall condition that must be met to guarantee approval.

Quelle ????

It is simple really. 

The project must have been  completed and in operation, or black, red and white (also Redmelon if convenient)  ribbon cutting by mid-June 2020.    That is the Jones / Peters / Ardern et al Madoff scam equivalent of Obama’s  “shovel ready” schemes (that  mostly failed).   August passes, September will be marginal, but possible, if it is seen as a crucial “biggie”.

And that, Dear Readers, brings us back to the pesky statutes and campaign finance limitations, and the cunning of a S***house rat.
I wonder why.   ? </b>

Stuff reported:

The total five-year budget for the census, granted by the National government, was $120m. The last census in 2013 cost about $90m.

The issue wasn’t funding, or being mainly digital. It was simple logistics. Stats NZ it seems failed to have enough temporary staff available to follow up those who didn’t complete it online. They should have had an army of door knockers.

Smith said the census had been historically apolitical and accepted by all parts of civil society, but this could change with the latest census.

If Stats NZ said it was confident with its final census results following the backfill Smith wanted to see the evidence the numbers were good before fully accepting them.
If National were to dispute the results it could have a serious impact on the integrity of the electoral system, as electorate boundaries are drawn based on census results and can have serious electoral consequences.

At a recent function. a number of National MPs told me they were adamantly opposed to boundaries being redrawn on data which has 10% of the population missing. I don’t think any amount of manipulation by cross-referencing other data sources will give them confidence compared to a proper census count. This is why we have a census.

I think the Government needs to seriously consider doing a bipartisan law change to give certainty by saying the 2020 election will occur on the existing boundaries. Pushing ahead with new boundaries on the basis of incomplete data which many MPs don’t trust could lead to a collapse in confidence in our system of boundary setting. We do not want to end up with a US system where the majority can ignore the minority.

Stats NZ has acknowledged internally a “high risk” it may not meet its statutory obligation of providing census population data for the redrawing of electoral boundaries.
Commission chairman Sir Hugh Williams, QC, told a parliamentary select committee last week that, for the necessary redraw to be done for Election 2020, Stats NZ would have to release census data no later than September 2019.

And they current date for release is possibly August 2019. Even if you could reassure MPs on the quality issue, this is cutting it too fine. Having final boundaries set in March 2020 would be a nightmare for a possible September 2020 election. Better to go for certainty and keep the current boundaries.

But if the 2018 census data is deemed not fit for boundaries, then the next scheduled census is 2023. That would mean the 2023 election would also be on current boundaries which would be undesirable.

There is a simple solution. Since 1881 the census was always on a year ending with a 1 or a 6. The 2011 Canterbury earthquake made the 2011 census impractical so it was delayed until 2013, and hence the next one was 2018.

The Government should set the date of the next census to be 2021. This would be doubly beneficial. It would allow the 2023 election to have new boundaries, but it would also restore the dates to the traditional years, which makes long-term comparisons much much better.

Stats NZ may claim there isn’t enough time, but there is. If the Government announced it in the next few months, that still leaves two years for a 2021 census. Rather than consult on different questions, they could just keep the exact same question as they had in 2018.

Any other decision is going to lead to real problems with the electoral boundaries. And these decisions can have a huge impact on individual MPs, and through them their parties. We need to get it right.

Marc Thiessen has now published his 10 worst Trump things, to balance his list of the 10 best things. They are:

1. His pullout of all U.S. troops in Syria will take America’s boot off of the terrorists’ necks.
2. His planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a gift to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
3. His policy to separate migrant children from their families at the southern border was an avoidable tragedy.
4. His news conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was an embarrassment.
5. His handling of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder harmed America’s moral standing.
6. His graceless handling of Sen. John McCain’s funeral was a new low.
7. He drove away suburban voters and caused the GOP to lose control of the House.
8. His misuse of power turned critics into martyrs.
9. His offensive tweets continued to undermine his presidency.
10. His comment about “sh–hole” countries blew up negotiations for a deal that would have given Trump his border wall.

Thiessen notes:

It is notable that, with the exception of troop withdrawals and family separations, most of the items on this list were transgressions of style rather than substance. With the mute button on, the Trump presidency is pretty good from a conservative policy perspective. And yet Trump’s approval rating at year’s end is just 39 percent — because most Americans don’t follow politics with the sound off.

No President has ever got re-elected with such a low approval rating. However the Democrats may select someone who will allow Trump to pull it off.

Louis Houlbrooke from NZTU writes:

Each year we get richer on paper, even when in real terms our buying power remains the same. The paper value of an asset tends to increase by about 2 per cent each year, regardless of any real increase in value.

Should we be taxed for these paper gains? The Tax Working Group’s chairman, Sir Michael Cullen, thinks so. At a recent public symposium, he appealed to a sense of consistency, pointing out that we don’t inflation-adjust other parts of our tax system. Why break the trend with capital gains tax?
Here’s why: to levy this tax on inflationary gains would be to stealthily devastate the finances of New Zealanders who are not actually getting richer.

The effect of inflation on capital gains is striking for assets held long-term. Consider a family bach in remote coastal New Zealand, worth $400,000 when the capital gains tax is introduced. After one year, we can expect the property to see a paper capital gain of about $8000. After 10 years of compounding 2 per cent inflation, this gain becomes $87,000. After 20 years, the bach is worth an extra $194,000, merely in inflationary gains.
Now imagine the owner of the bach sells up – or they die, passing the bach on to a relative. Either event triggers the capital gains tax, meaning the seller – or inheritor – is faced with a tax bill from Inland Revenue of $64,000.
That’s based on the Working Group’s suggestion that the tax would apply at the marginal rate of 33 per cent, one of the highest capital gains tax rates in the world. So our bach seller (or penniless inheritor) loses $64,000 in tax on a completely illusory capital gain.

That’s a great example of how the Government won’t just tax you on your actual gains, but will profit from inflation. You end up paying $64,000 extra tax on a zero real gain.

The Herald reports:

It will be “many decades” before New Zealand sees a substantial change in the road toll, says Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter.

Her comments come after New Zealand experienced its highest road toll since 2009, with almost 400 deaths last year.

This must set a new record in terms of Ministerial impotence.

To claim that nothing the Government does will have an impact for at least 30 years is both pathetic and of course wrong.

The road toll in fact was decreasing for the last few decades. It is only since 2013 that it has started to increase again. So all the Government needs to do is work out what has changed in the last few years.

Now compare the pathetic excuses the Minister is now making with her statement of nine months ago:

No loss of life is acceptable, is the message behind the development of the Government’s new road safety strategy, says Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter.

The development of the new strategy was announced today at the Local Government Road Safety Summit in Wellington.

“As part of the development of a new road safety strategy the Government will investigate setting a target of zero road deaths,” says Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter.

“I accept that a target of zero death would be audacious, but ambitious targets are need to focus the resources of both central and local government to save lives on our roads.

So nine months ago the Government was saying that we can get the road toll down to zero and that should be out target. Now they’re saying it is all too hard and will take many many decades to make any significant change.

This graph shows the road toll per 10,000 vehicles. It shows the Minister is absolutely off the reservation when she says it takes many decades to make a significant difference. From 1989 to 2013 the road toll declined massively.

If this Government honestly believes that they can’t make any difference to the road toll, then they should resign to allow in Ministers who don’t accept defeat after just twelve months.

Incidentally if your sole focus is to reduce the road toll, this is quite easy to achieve. You merely set a maximum speed limit of say 30 km/hrs. You could even require all vehicles to be fitted with technology to limit their speed,

Of course this would massively reduce the value of road transport and have huge personal and economic costs. So this is why road safety policy is a balancing act. How do you decrease accidents without unduly reducing the benefits of road travel.

You could pass a law requiring no car more than five years old to be certified for use. This would reduce the road toll massively but means that poorer families couldn’t afford cars.

You could upgrade every open road to modern standards with median barriers etc. That would cost billions but would definitely reduce the road toll.

You could increase the penalty for drink driving to mandatory jail time. That would reduce drink driving considerably and reduce deaths.

None of these changes would take decades to work. Some would have an impact within months.

The issue is policy. Do the benefits outweigh the costs.

Stuff reports:

Primary school children in the United Kingdom will be taught that all genders can have periods under new sex education guidelines that aim to tackle the stigma around menstruation.

Brighton & Hove City Council has released a report advising teachers that “menstruation must be inclusive of all genders”, as “trans boys and men and non-binary people may have periods”.

That’s going to lead to some fun discussions at home:

“Daddy, do you menstruate”
“Umm, no I don’t”
“Why not Daddy, is there something wrong with you”

UPDATE: The original story has been corrected, and was misleading. They now advise:

This story initially quoted the report as stating”menstruation must be inclusive of all genders”. This was incorrect and the article has been updated. The headlines and intros has also been updated to better reflect the content of the report.

So not that much of a story after all it seems.