Liam Hehir writes:

Veteran New Zealand journalist Gordon Campbell penned a glowing obituary of Chavez, which proclaimed him “an example of how much a third-world nation can achieve when it takes control of its natural resources from the US and its corporate allies, and uses them to benefit its own people and the region”. He went on to say: “The main beneficiaries of Chavez’ 14 years in power were the ordinary people of Venezuela.”
Chris Trotter, clearly an admirer of “El Presidente”, mused wistfully about what the Kiwi analogue of Chavez would look like. “Imagine Hone Harawira blended into Willie Apiata, with the ideological fervour of Jane Kelsey and Annette Sykes,” he suggested. He dreamed of such a composite being sent “into South and west Auckland on a mission to build a movement capable of smashing the neoliberal order in New Zealand”, and spreading “his revolutionary Aotearoan socialist ‘circles’ across the entire country”.
Keith Locke, the Green MP with a good heart, but a history of questionable judgments, slated John Key for not attending Chavez’s state funeral.

All three gentleman should travel together to Venezuela to interview the locals about how well off they now are thanks to these socialist policies.

Stuff reports:

A Massey University professor is concerned the fallout from the cancellation of a Don Brash speaking event at the institution is damaging its reputation.
Former National Party leader Brash was meant to speak at the university in August, but vice-chancellor Jan Thomas cancelled the venue booking, citing security and other concerns. It was later revealed Thomas didn’t want the university to be seen endorsing racist behaviours. Brash was later allowed on campus.
Associate professor Grant Duncan, who teaches political theory and New Zealand politics, says the actions of the vice-chancellor and the university council have made the university, as well as academic and non-academic staff, look bad, even though it had nothing to do with them.
“From my point of view, the cancellation of Brash’s speech was an embarrassment to me and to the university,” Duncan said. “What surprises me is there has been no public apology, because I think New Zealanders and the academic community are owed an apology.

An apology would be an excellent thing to do.

David McNab is the co-president of the Massey University Extramural Students’ Society and he had two years on the university council, finishing in September.
He said he had spoken with some staff and there was a “chill in the air”, with people worried they needed to keep their mouths shut or risk jeopardising their career.
“People are concerned the brand of Massey University is being weakened by [it] being seen as a place where opinions can’t be fairly pursued and expressed. I am aware of a number of students transferring to other institutions.”

It is very apparent that if you have a view of the Treaty of Waitangi which differs from the university’s hierarchy, Massey is a very dangerous place to teach or study at.

It was obvious it would not pass, but the margin is staggering. Only 202 MPs voted for it and 432 against. Over a third of Conservative MPs voted no.

The next step is a no confidence vote in Theresa May. It is expected she will survive it as there is a difference between rejecting her deal and voting for a snap election which could see Corbyn become PM.

Options going forward are:

• No Brexit. Very unlikely as Parliament has voted to Brexit and to vote to cancel Brexit in the face of a referendum result would be suicidal
• 2nd Brexit referendum – the hope of the Remain lobby. Almost impossible to occur before 29 March so only a possiblity if Brexit is delayed
• Brexit no deal – the default option and now more likely
• A Brexit delay – possible but opposed by May and many pro-Brexit MPs.
• New negotiations with the EU – May needs to work out what sort of deal could get a majority in Parliament and then see if EU can accept it as better than no deal. Likely to need a delay.

But really no-one knows how this will play out. Fascinating times.

Stuff reports:

The Chinese edition of the NZ Herald edited translated articles from the NZ Herald to put a better light on the Chinese government.
It has also omitted articles entirely that discuss the Chinese Government in a negative way, in one case taking a much more sanitised version from a Chinese wire service.
The Chinese NZ Herald is the result of a 2016 joint venture between NZME, which own the NZ Herald, and long-running Chinese publication The Chinese Herald. The website and WeChat channel, which use the NZ Herald branding, feature both translated pieces from the English-language Herald, articles from the Chinese Herald, and stories from other Chinese news sources.

This is hugely embarrassing for the NZ Herald. Their Chinese edition has been turned into a sanitized pro-Beijing propaganda outlet.

Some of their journalists will be aghast. Matt Nippert has written some excellent stories about Chinese influence, and the burglary of Anne-Marie Brady. The English version of the Herald has been reporting that the Chinese Government tries to influence Chinese language media in foreign countries, and the Herald’s own Chinese version turns out to be doing exactly that.

Graham Adams writes:

The Government voted for the first UN global agreement on a common approach to international migration on December 19 
– amid a flurry of mostly negative commentary. Bridges said National would withdraw from the pact if elected because it “could restrict the ability of future governments to set immigration and foreign policy, and to decide on which migrants are welcome and which aren’t”.

Coverage of the issue died down over the Christmas and New Year holiday period but it’s hard to believe that the matter has blown over or the damage to Peters and NZ First will not continue.
NZ First’s Facebook page shows just how much some of Peters’ supporters (including those who declare themselves now to be former supporters) are outraged by his support for the compact. The words “traitor”, “deceiver”, “turncoat”, “quisling”, “sellout” and “Judas” appear frequently among hundreds of hostile comments, alongside predictions of the annihilation of NZ First at the next election.

What’s fascinating on their Facebook page is the anger isn’t just on the post about the UN migration pact. Even Winston’s Xmas message has scores of former supporters denouncing him as a UN puppet etc.

Voting for the compact wouldn’t matter nearly as much, of course, if the Government had already cut immigration substantially – as both Labour and NZ First promised individually on the campaign trail – but it hasn’t.

It’s a clear breach of a campaign pledge and Peters can’t even palm off the blame to Labour as the dominant partner since he has previously asserted that the coalition is not “Labour-led” but rather the meeting of two more-or-less equals. Certainly, his success in persuading Labour and the Greens to pass the waka-jumping law alone indicates just how much clout he has.

Few would believe therefore that he wouldn’t get his way if he wanted immigration numbers to be slashed by 20,000-30,000 – which Ardern said was the Government’s aim after coalition talks were concluded. 

While Peters has been quick to point out that net immigration numbers have indeed fallen, the reduction of 8900 in the year from October 2017 – the month when Peters pledged his troth to Jacinda Ardern – is less than half the lower range of these figures. And a net figure of 61,800 migrants for the year ended October 2018 is still extremely high for a small nation. 

The small reduction is even smaller when you look at what makes it up. Here’s the data for Oct 17 year vs Oct 18 year.

• Migrants gone from 99,650 to 96,760 (a 2.9% reduction)
• NZers returning home from dropped from 32,140 to 31,300 (a 2.6% reduction)
• Citizens or residents leaving NZ gone from 61,060 to 66,430 (a 8.8% increase)

So the vast bulk of the already modest drop in net migration is because more people are leaving NZ, rather than fewer people are migrating here. The drop in actual migration was fewer than 3,000.

In this regard, it’s worth noting that Peters campaigned on cutting the net figure to 10,000

Labour said they would reduce it be a third to a half. Winston said he would reduce it by over 80%. The reality is they have done next to nothing.

The Herald reports:

A 26-year-old woman connected to the troublesome English tourists who have left a trail of destruction in Auckland has been arrested and charged with theft in Hamilton.
A police spokeswoman said the woman will be appearing in Hamilton District Court tomorrow.
The group were pulled over by police in Hamilton and warned about inappropriate child restraints just hours after being served a deportation notice.

What the “arsehole” tourists should do is claim that the English Police are corrupt and they fear for their lives if they are deported and no doubt the Minister of Immigration will grant them all permanent residency.

Then they can join the lottery for a Kiwibuild house.

Farah Hancock at Newsroom reports:

The red-fleshed apples developed by Plant and Food Research’s scientist Professor Andrew Allan and his team are so contentious they’re not allowed to eat them in New Zealand.
“In the end we had to take them to America.”
The cores were removed from the apples so no seeds were present. They were triple-bagged and sealed. Phytosanitary certificates were gained to get approval to move the apples from their glasshouse in Auckland’s Mount Albert to the airport, and then on to the United States. Allan and the science team flew the precious cargo to San Francisco where a taste-testing panel of 50 people waited.
Plant and Food Research’s Mount Albert glasshouse is a contained facility, with regulatory and logistical hurdles, because Allan’s apples are genetically modified.

After six years of working on the apple he was keen to understand whether the apple was a winner or a fizzer.
“We had measured everything on a machine. We measured volatiles, we measured compounds and we measured vitamin C levels. We measured everything we could.”
Eating is banned within the glasshouse – even sipping a cup of coffee is a no-no. So taking a bite of the apples within the greenhouse was out of the question. Two years spent trying to gain approval to taste-test them outside the glasshouse were unsuccessful. The only solution was to take the apples to a country where eating fresh genetically modified foods was permissible.
The apples have high levels of anthocyanin in them which causes the red-flesh, and Allan wanted to know if this might make the apples bitter.
“The best way to test that is to eat it.”
The apples tasted like winners, according to Allan. The blind-folded taste-testers identified them as Royal Gala apples and rated them favourably on flavour.
“They took the blindfold off and they went, ‘Wow, that’s amazing’. They were absolutely shocked by how wonderful it looked.
“One of them said, ‘You must be rich’, and one said, ‘Where can we get these from? We want them.’”

The Government goes on about trusting the science on climate change (which I do) but when it comes to the science on genetic engineering we have such an anti-science framework that you can’t even taste a GE apple within New Zealand.

In New Zealand, Sir Peter Gluckman, the former chief science advisor to the Prime Minister, finished his term with a discussion about genetic modification onTVNZ’s Q+A show. “The science is as settled as it will be. That is, it’s safe, that there are no significant ecological or health concerns associated with the use of advanced genetic technologies.”

Note the phase the science is settled. The Greens use that phrase as holy mantra with climate change yet refuse to accept it with genetic modification.

The Herald reports:

A $350,000 donation to the Greens in December is the largest single donation to a major political party in almost a decade.
It was also the largest to the Green Party in its 30-year history.

Now I think this is a good thing. I think it is good when people who support a political party donate to it. I have no problems with large donations from people, living or estates, so long as they donor is disclosed.

But there is one party that does have a problem with large donations. They want to ban them. They say that such donations are potentially corrupt and you can’t trust the motives of donors or parties.

Here’s their policy from the last election:

place an annual limit of $35,000 on total donations from any single person or entity

So will this political party condemn the Greens for accepting a donation of $350,000 from this estate. That is ten times the limit they say should be possible.

Of course they won’t, as the said political party is also the Greens in a classic case of do what we say, not what we do. When other parties get large donations is is corruption, but when the Greens get them it is democracy in action!

Stuff reports:

The Ministry for the Environment spent $45,000 a month to jet its staffers around the globe.
Policy experts were sent on 116 individual international trips – to countries including Korea, Jamaica, Germany, France, Africa, Canada, the United States and China.
An Official Information Act request by the Taxpayer’s Union has revealed the ministry spent $769,955 on international travel between July 2017 and December 10, 2018.

No doubt most of these meetings were to discuss climate change.

Williams said sending policy analysts on first class trips to international conferences was an “insane use of money for a ministry who tells Kiwis not to fly”.

The ministry’s website offered advice to New Zealanders looking to reduce their carbon footprint, including flying less, working remotely and using video conferencing. 

Do what we say, not what we do.

Stuff reports:

A US woman accused of stalking a man met on a dating site and sending him more than 65,000 text messages apparently sent more than twice that many.
Jacqueline Ades sent a man more than 159,000 text messages – some of which were threatening – over the course of nearly 10 months, according to police records the Arizona Republic obtained via a public records request.
The two went on a single date.

159,000 messages over 10 months is on average one every three minutes which is admirable dedication. If you take into account sleeping time, it is probably one every two minutes.

I do hope she was on an unlimited text plan.

This was on Reddit, and worth sharing as it is equally piss taking of all sides.

The Herald reports:

People with previous cannabis convictions should be able to supply legal medicinal cannabis and, if recreational use became legal, be offered a clean slate, Green MP Chloe Swarbrick says.
But the National Party say only “fit and proper persons” should manufacture legal cannabis.
Swarbrick’s comments follow an email exchange – released to the National Party under the Official Information Act – showing that the Greens had asked Ministry of Health officials to look at proposals for the medicinal cannabis legislation, including one that would “allow individuals with previous drug convictions to manufacture cannabis”.
The Greens’ proposal never came before the House, but that door has not closed.

Who should be eligible to supply medicinal cannabis will be a key aspect of the Government’s new regulatory framework, which will be in place by the end of the year following public consultation.
National’s associate health spokesman Shane Reti said medicinal cannabis manufacturers and employees should be “fit and proper persons”.
National has proposed clean slate legislation requiring no terms of imprisonment and no convictions for seven years for employees, and even tougher standards for licence holders including no associations with gangs.

I have to say that a requirement to have no convictions within the last seven years seems sensible to me.

A guest post by Lewis Holden:

Pending a miracle, the UK will leave the European Union on 29^th March. Whether Brexit is a no-deal “hard” Brexit or under the auspices of Theresa May’s transitional Brexit deal will be determined when the deal goes to a vote in the UK’s parliament as soon as next week. There’s a myriad of issues to be dealt with, but either way, Brexit creates an immediate opportunity for New Zealand’s exporters. For New Zealanders who remember or at least have studied the effects of the UK’s 1973 membership of the then European Economic Community (EEC), it’s an opportunity with more than a hint of historical irony and for that reason alone one we ought to leverage to our maximum benefit. We have the best chance in almost half a century to get a deal with the UK that is very much in our favour – and we should grab that chance.

After all, when the former Brexiteer UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson stated that New Zealand was “stabbed in the back” along with other Commonwealth members in 1973, he wasn’t wrong. The immediacy of Brexit means a New Zealand – UK Free Trade Agreement is now a priority. While the transitional period deal that the House of Commons will shortly vote on could mean a drawn-out negotiation of an FTA with a clear timeframe, New Zealand would be one of many players trying to secure our trade with the United Kingdom. A no-deal scenario would be best for New Zealand to get maximum leverage in FTA negotiations. The UK’s government will be desperate to get new agreements in place and fast – in their own words “from exit day or as soon as possible.”

Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has recently launched a dialogue on the proposed FTA as part of public consultation. Asking such apparently non-rhetorical questions as what we want to see included in the deal, the consultation comes with positive comments from the Prime Minister about our “deep” relationship with the United Kingdom. This is an odd way of describing our former coloniser – with whom trade has always been a major issue. It’s clear though that simply ensuring trade as it stands carries on post-Brexit is the priority. We could aim a bit higher.

Leaving the EU means that Britain’s farmers will no longer be a part of the Common Agricultural Policy. This agricultural subsidy program is described as not achieving any of its stated objections and being the most environmentally destructive policies in the northern hemisphere. The EU spends about 40% of its annual budget on CAP. Incidentally, one of its biggest supporters in the UK is Prince Charles, the man who would be our King. Prince Charles’ support for CAP is partially self-serving, his estate receives millions of pounds in support from the EU annually. However, his stated reason for supporting the subsidies is that they prevent intensive farming. In other words, they keep smaller inefficient farmers in the UK in business while locking our more efficient farmers out.

Again, this is an opportunity for New Zealand to grab in the FTA negotiations: no farming subsidies to UK farmers. Kiwi farmers should compete on the same basis as the UK farmers. While we are at it, there should be a ban on food miles, that clunky mechanism for climate change that does not consider the carbon efficiency of our farmers. A “grandfathering” of the Overseas Experience visa perhaps. Or maybe we’ll get those things post-Brexit anyway.

This isn’t about getting back at the UK for 1973. It is, though, acting in our national interests at a time when it is opportune to do so. It’s been my view for some time that New Zealand’s free trade priority post the successful initiation of the (CP)TPPA is India. Aside from a common language, legal system and a lot of synergies in our booming tech sectors, a deal with India is geopolitically smart. It would provide an excellent counter-balance to our dependence on our two largest trading partners – Australia and China. Economically, the OECD expects India’s GDP to grow 7.5% this year. That is on top of a similar performance in 2018. At that rate, India will overtake the United Kingdom as the world’s 5^th biggest economy sometime this year. Despite this, since John Key’s October 2016 visit to India there hasn’t been much progress. Our path to an agreement with India is not that clear.

Focusing on an FTA with the UK right now makes perfect sense. It’s our chance to grab changes we want to see. 

The Manawatu Standard editorial:

More importantly, there’s a badly battered reputation in need of repair. Massey’s self-inflicted wounds came from the university forgetting what universities are supposed to be about – robust debate, for example.

The university council brought in Douglas Martin of consulting firm MartinJenkins to review the decision to cancel a politics club event where former National Party leader Don Brash had been due to speak. 
The review team made many reasonable observations. The conclusion vice-chancellor Jan Thomas did not lie about her intentions was also fair.
However, Thomas had turned Massey into New Zealand’s most embarrassing university and the university council’s response was to endorse this state of affairs.

It takes some effort to beat Victoria University for the title. Vic Uni managed to alienate their graduates, students and staff in pushing for a name change that the Minister turned down. A huge vote of no confidence in the Vic Council.

But Massey managed to alienate even more people – they hit nationwide paydirt in the foolish stakes.

We may infer from council members’ quick backing of the vice-chancellor that they didn’t grasp how badly into the mire the institution had been plunged.
The council also showed its naivete by expressing the hope not talking about the controversy might avoid adding fuel to it. With advice of this calibre, Thomas has every reason to doubt the council’s usefulness as a bearer of wisdom.

If you were on the Massey University Council at the moment, would you list it on your CV?

The front cover of the final report proclaims that it will be about “lessons from this episode”. Yet there was a lesson almost impossible to miss and the reviewers missed it.
The university’s leadership failed to place sufficient value on freedom of speech and that’s one big reason why it managed the crisis so badly for so long.
Freedom of speech is important to the public. It is important to students, former students and parents of students. It should be important to universities too.

It should be of critical importance.

The Guardian reports:

Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic US representative from Hawaii, said she will run for president in 2020, CNN reported on Friday.
“I have decided to run and will be making a formal announcement within the next week,” she said in an interview with CNN that is scheduled to air on Saturday.
Gabbard is a 37-year-old Iraq war veteran and the first Hindu and first Samoan-American elected to the US Congress. She said “the issue of war and peace” would be the main focus of her campaign.

I’ve been following Gabbard’s career with interest for a while.

She won’t win the nomination. At age 37 she is barely eligible to run. But if she does well, it sets her up well for the future.

She is in her fourth term in the House. She stands out as a Samoan American (father’s side) and a Hindu (mother’s side). She served in Iraq and Kuwait for two years, and before that was the youngest ever woman to be elected to a state legislature.

She enlisted at age 22 and volunteered to go to Iraq at age 23. She was a medic specialist in a combat zone. In 2007 she became a
second lieutenant and joined the Military Police. She then became a Captain and finally a Major, a rank she still holds in the Hawaii National Guard.

She is on the left of the party, and nominated Sanders at the Democratic convention. She was critical of Obama’s Syria policy and was considered by Trump for an appointment.

She is also photogenic and energetic – traits that may appeal both within the Democrats where many activists don’t want an old white man, but also in the general election as a contrast to Trump.

But again highly unlikely to win the nomination. But a good showing from her could set her up for 2024.

Chris Baker of Straterra writes:

The reality is, we have allowed mining on conservation land for many decades. Such activity is consented under the Resource Management Act to standards demanded by society. If, for whatever reason, the RMA and other environmental regulations are deemed to be not robust enough, they should be reviewed.
Our current estimate is that only 0.04 per cent of the conservation estate is affected by mining. This is because the realities of finding and developing a commercial mine are very challenging. Resources are scarce and are becoming harder to find and mining will always have a very small footprint.
And consider this – about 33 per cent of New Zealand’s land area is conservation estate. And 35 per cent of the conservation estate is National Park land and off limits.

People may not be aware of what a radical change is planned.

Currently mining is banned only in national parks and other high value parts of the conservation estate (called Section 4 lands). I have no problem with this.

But the Government is proposing a total ban on mining in the entire conservation estate. This is one third of NZ, and much of the estate is of low conservation value – it is called stewardship lands.

Rare earth elements (REEs) have been flagged as of significant strategic importance – the Government has rightly made many references to strategic minerals, including at the 2018 Minerals Forum in Queenstown. A recent GNS study found 79 per cent of land prospective for REEs in New Zealand lies in the conservation estate.
A blanket ban would close down access to these and other minerals important for the low carbon economy.
Like it or not, we can’t function without mining, the products of which are vital for modern society. Aggregates for infrastructure, housing, concrete; coking coal for steel; gold, copper, cobalt, REEs, lithium and vanadium for electronics, electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries – this list goes on. We mine to meet demand and the demand for minerals exists to maintain and grow our standard of living.
And if we don’t mine in New Zealand, we must import the resources we need. We can choose to allow all mining to occur overseas, but that will often be in jurisdictions with lower environmental standards than New Zealand’s. And even if you overlook the environmental trade-off, the increased carbon footprint (and associated costs) of importing minerals make no sense.

So this isn’t about coal mining. It is about being able to mine for metals that we need and use. Do we mine what we have, or just import them?

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.