The Herald reports:

Foreign language learning in primary schools looks likely to become commonplace for Kiwi kids with widespread political support for a private member’s bill promoting second-language teaching from a young age.
Former education minister Nikki Kaye has won the support of current Education Minister Chris Hipkins and the Labour caucus, plus the Greens and Act, to progress her bill to select committee.
The bill is also likely to extend the provision of Māori language teaching in schools as well as foreign languages.
The bill requires the Government to set 10 priority languages – likely to include Mandarin, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Pacific languages and possibly Hindi as well as official languages Te Reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language.

It also requires the Government to resource the provision of those languages in primary and intermediate schools.
Schools would then consult their communities to decide which of the priority languages will be taught for Year 1 to 8. It could be more than one.
“Speaking more than one language has enormous cognitive, cultural, social and economic benefits so this bill is a big opportunity for our country,” said Kaye.

There is a lot of evidence that learning a second language early on is beneficial to kids, including it improves their ability with their primary language.

I like the aspect that each school decides for itself which languages to teach, rather than the Government dictate one language for everyone.

Good to see Labour and Greens backing the bill, even though it is from an opposition MP. And also a good reminder that being in Opposition isn’t just about opposing – but also advancing your own good policy ideas.

Todd McClay writes at The Spinoff:

As a matter of principle, National does not believe that migration policy should be governed through a United Nations framework. Migration is solely a matter for sovereign states. Each country must respond dynamically to the circumstances it finds itself in. The highly circumstantial nature of migration makes it a difficult policy area to apply a global framework to, outside of the basic tenants of human rights. For that reason alone we felt justified in our position to oppose this agreement, though as I will outline here, we have more specific concerns with this agreement as well.

This is a good point.  Some things such as the law of the sea need to be governed through a UN framework. Migration policy does not.

Kiwis have a good basis to consider ourselves good global citizens, as Bookman himself states. That is especially true when it comes to immigration. New Zealand has an excellent immigration system, we encourage talent to move to our country and welcome people who choose to come here to call our country home. National remains committed to that principle.
National is not, and will not be, the party that goes to an election calling for dramatic reductions of migrants or calling for discriminatory policies of banning people from housing markets based on the sound of their name.

We all know which party he is referring to there!

For example, objective 17 of the compact calls for a commitment to eliminate discrimination towards migrants. Wonderful, what could be wrong with this? The document then explains types of policies that could be used to do this including “sensitising and educating media professionals on migration-related issues and terminology” and “stopping allocation of public funding or material support to media outlets that systematically promote intolerance”, at the same time the document says that we must respect the freedom of the media.
But restricting speech because we don’t like it and refusing support for media based on what they say is a dangerous experiment in the limitations of basic rights. As a member of the National Party, I will regularly read or watch media that I don’t like, disagree with or feel is intolerant towards me and my party’s views and beliefs. My response is to write a column to the Spinoff, not call for the defunding or re-education of media. This is part of the problem, the commitments the document calls for do not match the specific policy settings and values of individual countries.

It is objective 17 which is the most problematic.

Cato has released the 2018 Freedom Index. The top 10 are:

1. New Zealand 8.89
2. Switzerland 8.79
3. Hong Kong 8.78
4. Australia 8.58
5. Canada 8.57
6. Netherlands 8.55
7. Denmark 8.55
8. Ireland 8.50
9. UK 8.50
10. Finland, Norway, Taiwan 8.47

The bottom three are Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. 

The detailed profile for NZ is:

• Movement 10.0
• Association 10.0
• Security & Safety 9.9
• Religious Freedom 9.7
• Expression 9.5
• Identity 9.3
• Rule of Law 7.9

Note that the data is for the 2016 year so it won’t reflect any changes in the last two years.

The election results for TOP leader are here.

Geoff Simmons won easily with 66% of the vote, three times the 20% Amy Stevens got.

Gareth Morgan was very vocal about why he thought Simmons was the wrong choice. He thought Stevens could appeal to votes on both the right and left of politics, while Simmons only has appeal on the left.

Morgan said he will donate far less (if anything) if Simmons wins, so it will be interesting to see if TOP can attract any financial support from elsewhere.

There’s an article on Stuff where I’m quoted about some polling data made public by UMR, Labour’s pollsters:

A document drawn up by Labour’s polling company delivers a brutal assessment of the public’s impression of National leader Simon Bridges

Stuff has obtained a slide presentation which UMR, which has long been used by Labour for its private internal polling, sent to “ten or so” subscribers. …

David Farrar, the principal at Curia Research, National’s polling company, said sending the material to corporate clients made it likely it would quickly become public.

“They wanted this to get out there, but they didn’t want Labour to release it,” Farrar, who also runs Kiwiblog, a website which is largely sympathetic to the National Party.

Labour has distanced itself from the document and refused to say whether it approved or influenced what UMR released.

I don’t think anyone should doubt Labour explicitly approved the release of this data. The fact they refuse to deny it speaks volumes.

The reality is that research data doesn’t belong to the polling company. It belongs to the client. The client is the only entity that can approve something being released. Only if the polling company is its own’s client, do they get to decide.

So what we have is that in the middle of the allegations from Jamie-Lee, they polled people on what they thought of the National Party Leader, and then released the data as a way to damage him.

This is not something we have seen before.

It is not a long way removed from a political party releasing an advertisement that said something like “We asked 1,000 people what they thought of xxxxx and 72% said they think he is a liar”. That sort of ad is seen as the most negative type of advertising you can do. Labour have basically done this, by way of releasing their polling data knowing it would get to the media.

Now contrast that with the Labour Party Leader who maintains she believes in gentler, kinder politics. Well her party just launched a classic dirty politics strike against her main opponent. So that should tell you something about how genuine her stance is.

Stuff reports:

From January, all Government ministers will have to release details of their internal and external meetings.

Minister for State Services (Open Government) Chris Hipkins said Cabinet had agreed to the release of summary information from their ministerial diaries from January 2019 onwards, with the first publication in February 2019.

The aim was to help build trust and confidence in government and show its commitment to improving transparency, he said.

The new policy will apply to the information recorded in the diary of each minister and parliamentary under-secretary that related to ministerial business, including meetings held outside New Zealand.

This is a good move.

The information tended to come out anyway through the OIA, but having proactive monthly release is a good thing.

For each meeting in scope, the summary would list: date, time (start and finish), brief description, location, who the meeting was with, and the portfolio.

The monthly summary will be published on the Beehive website within 15 business days following the end of each month.

Look forward to seeing them.

Bloomberg reports:

US President Donald Trump is losing his war on the US trade deficit and the evidence is growing that his own tariffs are at least part of the reason why.

The US’s monthly deficit in goods and services with the world reached its highest level in a decade in October while the deficit with China hit a record, according to data on Thursday.

The new report showed the deficit grew more than 11 per cent through October from the year before and thus pointed to an awkward emerging reality for Trump: If the pattern holds, by the end of this year the US trade deficit will have reached $600 billion for the first time. It also will have grown by more than $100 billion, or a fifth, from when Trump took office in January 2017.

Economists tend to express bemusement at Trump’s obsession with trade deficits and particularly bilateral ones. In simple terms, buying more stuff from a neighbour than they buy from you can just mean you end up with more stuff, and have more cash to buy it with. It doesn’t always mean you are worse off economically.

Yep a trade deficit isn’t that important. The fiscal deficit is far more important. But Trump is obsessed with the trade deficit, and it has grown 20% since he became President.

Through October, US exports to China were worth $102.5 billion and down almost $1 billion from the same period last year, according to US Commerce Department figures. The value of imports from China, meanwhile, was up by almost $35 billion to $447 billion.

So China is importing less from the US while the US is importing more.

The Dom Post reports:

A pro-car political party has formed to contest the next Wellington City Council elections and cyclists are first in the firing line.

Wellington First has been formed by former councillor Bryan Weyburne and businessman Digby Paape who were inspired by promoter Phil Sprey, who recently said he would donate $10,000 for any viable candidate to topple incumbent Justin Lester.

I’m pro-car, pro-cycleways and pro-public transport.

Done well, it shouldn’t be an either or.

We need cycleways, but not ones that destroy hundreds of car parks and kill off local businesses.

Wellington has (or had until the new hubs) a pretty damn good public transport system. Sensible investments in stuff such as bus rapid transport helps motorists. Wasting $100 million a a light rail project with a BCR of 0.05 helps no-one.

While neither  were anti-cycling as such they were against Wellington’s investment and focus on getting people on pushbikes.

“We are supposed to believe that the city needs to switch over to bicycles, a  150-year-old technology that cars have virtually eliminated,” the group’s first statement says.

Again it is not either or. Cycling is great for recreation and can be a great way to commute to work if you have no kids. If you have kids cars are a near essential.

“On a sunny, calm day on flat land a bike can be a very enjoyable pastime, but on a cold, wet, blustery day on the Wellington hills, taking the children to kindy, school, as well as dropping off the partner before work is a job for cars. Everyone has one, for that reason.”

Yep.

They believed the council was putting cycles ahead of cars, including a proposal to eliminate 600 car parks in a move  to get the already-controversial Island Bay cycleway into the city.

Destroying 600 car parks for a cycleway is pretty insane.

Air NZ announced:

The Aviation and Marine Engineers Association (AMEA) and E tū, notified the airline yesterday evening of a total strike by almost a thousand unionised employees on Friday 21 December. The unions have also advised to expect further industrial action.

Close to 42,000 customers booked to travel domestically and internationally on 21 December alone now face potential flight cancellations.

The average income of the maintenance engineers, logistics and other staff to strike is $115,000 – more than double the average wage in New Zealand – and around 170 of them earn more than $150,000. Work undertaken by this employee group includes carrying out scheduled aircraft maintenance, unscheduled repair work and signing off aircraft prior to departure, as well as managing the availability of aircraft parts and related activities.

While the group has received pay increases annually for the past 12 years, it has so far rejected recent proposals by the airline including an immediate two percent pay increase followed by a further three percent increase after 12 months, with a further pay review in mid-2021.

So they’re going to destroy Xmas for tens of thousands of families by striking because a 5% pay rise is not enough.

Along with pay, claims on the aircraft maintenance engineers’ side have included an extra week of annual leave for employees with five years’ service (taking shift workers to six weeks a year), free reserved car parking spaces within 500 metres of their workplace, and the right to renegotiate terms just prior to the busy Christmas season again next year.

Six weeks annual leave plus a free car park. With six weeks annual leave plus stat holidays that means you are working only 10 out of 12 months. Or to put it another way, you are almost getting paid 5 days for working four.

Stuff reports:

The optics of the Air New Zealand strike could hardly be worse, for anyone involved.

For Jacinda Ardern’s Government, this strike has considerable political risk. Her opponents warned that a Labour-led Government would lead to more strikes.

During 2018, we have already seen bureaucrats marching in Wellington, as well as nationwide action by nurses and teachers, the latter expected to take action again in 2019.

But as disruptive as the strikes by the teachers were, if the airline engineers really do go on strike, the public’s patience will be severely tested.

Travelling at Christmas is painful enough already. It is busy, expensive and the holiday is stressful for many.

The prospect of spending holidays stuck at the airport threatens to turn into actual anger.

The unions must take this seriously. It appears that there is currently a degree of public sympathy for workers wanting to use whatever power they have to win better conditions after years of low wage gains.

But that sympathy could quickly be exhausted by strikes which look to be so deliberately designed to cause distress for families who are using up precious holiday time.

Who will blink first?

Stuff reports:

KiwiBuild chief executive Stephen Barclay has quit the Government’s flagship organisation after just five months in the role. 

Barclay started the job in May, but The Weekend Herald has reported Barclay left at the start of November.  …

Twyford’s office said on Saturday he would not comment on Barclay’s resignation and directed all questions to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s press secretary said it was an operational issue and she also would not be responding to questions. 

Meanwhile, a Ministry of Housing and Urban Development spokesperson told Stuff “Barclay is currently away from the office”.

If he quit a month ago, he is not just currently away from the office.

The big question is why did he quit after just five months?

The Herald reports:

The chairman of the National Māori Authority has called for the Auditor-General to look into how Māori services agency Whānau Ora allowed a $600,000 surplus to be paid to a private shareholder.

The revelation, which emerged at a parliamentary committee this week, has led to sniping between Whānau Ora Minister Peeni Henare and his colleague Associate Māori Affairs Minister Willie Jackson. …

Henare, who is meeting Te Pou Matakana today, told One News yesterday he would prefer to see the money reinvested.

“We’re talking about public money here. There is a demand in the public that there is accountability and transparency so it’s only fair that I ask those questions.”

Jackson told One News Henare had not been given all the information and that he should be seeking more from Hippolite.

“He needs to start asking some questions of his CEO and the information she’s been giving him,” he said.

Henare responded: “That’s why I’m the Minister of Whānau Ora, and he isn’t.”

That’s an astonishing exchange.

Again it shows that this is not a disciplined united Government. You have Ministers slagging each other off, and the PM finding out about major policy changes by watching TV.

Barry Soper writes:

New Zealand’s running the risk of becoming a politically correct society of sycophants. …

In recent weeks we’ve had the Gay Pride parade’s ban on cops wearing uniforms which seemed to contradict their enthusiasm to embrace all comers, then we had the ridiculous spectacle of Santa Claus being banned as Father Christmas because he said it was a job for blokes which would seem to be bleedingly obvious. The ban was lifted at the last minutebecause of the outcry.

Nelson then added insult to the injury of enthusiastic local kids by having “Santa” perched on his coach at the tail end of the parade, only he was a Maori bloke in a Hawaiian shirt draped in a red cloak with the idea of bi-culturalism leading multi-culturalism. Fair suck of the sav!

We shouldn’t overlook one of Wellington’s poshest girls’ schools Queen Margaret’s College changing its dress code, allowing for shorts and trousers after its rainbow students argued gender dysphoria (whereby you feel opposite to your birth gender). Uniform change had been argued for, but rejected, in the past by females who’d felt comfortable with themselves.

But now our attention’s becoming focused on bullying and harassment in the workplace, thanks to Parliament’s Speaker Trevor Mallard who would have known it’d reflect worse on National than Labour, given the former was in power for nine years employing many more people.

Maggie Barry was outed by anonymous former staffers for what seemed pretty trifling transgressions, like taking the proverbial out of a staff member who’d grown a moustache and calling staff the hired help.

Can only agree with Barry on this one.

The Herald reports:

The extra Government funding brings the total amount of Crown spending on the event to $136.5 million, with a further $98.5 million coming from Auckland ratepayers.

So $235 million from taxpayers and ratepayers.

But the economic benefit of holding the race in Auckland, which the Government estimates being between $500 million and $1 billion, outweighs the costs, Parker said.

“[The cost/benefit ratio] has been watered down – but we still think that overall it’s worthwhile.”

Economic benefits are almost always over-estimated. And those benefits do not necessarily go to those who pay the taxes and rates.

The NZTU released:

A passenger service between Auckland and Hamilton requiring a reported $57.7 million in ratepayer and taxpayer subsidies works out as at least $185 per passenger per trip, calculates the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

The Union’s Executive Director Jordan Williams says, “Even if you assume that every carriage is completely full, twice a day, for three years, the three-year $57.7 million subsidy is still an insane $185 per person per trip.”

“If you need to pay people nearly $200 each to make a train-trip between Hamilton and Auckland economic then the line is not good value for money. The proposed line doesn’t even run to Auckland City – it stops at Papakura. Getting into the CBD would take another hour again.”

So the $185 per passenger per trip is the best case scenario of full carriages. In reality will probably be far more than that.

So if someone does commute to Auckland every day on this proposed line, they will receive an effective $90,000 subsidy from taxpayers for it!

David Seymour released:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stuff reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Radio NZ reports:

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

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

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

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

So what will be left for parents to do?

Boards’ would be responsible for fund-raising

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

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

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

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

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

Spiked reports:

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

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

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

I await this to be adopted as Green Party policy.

The latest from Venezuela:

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

That whole seize the means of production has worked well.