ABC journalist Ashleigh Raper has made the following statement:

In November 2016 I attended an official Christmas function at New South Wales Parliament House for state political reporters, politicians and their staff.

This is what happened on that night.

The party moved from Parliament House to Martin Place Bar after a number of hours.

Later in the evening, Luke Foley approached a group of people, including me, to say goodnight.

He stood next to me.

He put his hand through a gap in the back of my dress and inside my underpants.

He rested his hand on my buttocks.

I completely froze.

This was witnessed by Sean Nicholls, who was then the state political editor at the Sydney Morning Herald and is now an ABC journalist.

Mr Foley then left the bar.

Sean and I discussed what happened.

The next state election is on 23 March so just a few months away. Polling has shown it neck and neck. But I can’t imagine Foley can survive this so it will be interesting to see who becomes the new leader.

UPDATE: He has resigned. He claims the allegations are false and he is launching defamation proceedings. If they are false, why did he twice phone the journalist to apologise? Also the fact there was a witness suggests he will not follow through.

Alwyn Poole writes:

The New Zealand education system is in major trouble.

The gaps between New Zealand’s Asian population (67 per cent of school leavers with UE), European (44 per cent), Pasifika (22 per cent) and Māori (19 per cent) are a national disgrace and we have given up on believing it can be different.

That’s a shocking disparity.

Our ageing teaching population, our massive educational bureaucracy, many of the failing schools, the teacher unions, bizarre social media sites and blinkered politicians who use slogans and parrot nonsense to attempt to impress those in their own bubble, all lost the plot over 12 out of 2600 schools.

It came to a head in Parliament when some politicians felt they were naming and shaming these individuals and organisations in the House. One said that they had treated children “like dogs” and the Minister of Education even used the word “dodgy”.

The messages: If you are an educator who thinks there may be different ways of doing things, keep your head well down. To families; you better hope that your child fits the one-size-fits-all model or that you have enough financial means to make some choices in terms of where you live or schools you can access.

To those that don’t — including many of our Māori and Pasifika families — the inequities will be perpetuated in succeeding generations.

The vested interests couldn’t handle 12 schools that succeeded in trying a different model.

Newshub reports:

Newshub can reveal KiwiBuild has just become a much better investment.

The Housing Minister has quietly softened up the penalties applied to buyers who flip their home.

Documents obtained by Newshub show owners will no longer have to give up all capital gain they make on the house if they sell it within three years. …

Phil Twyford has secretly backed down on penalties for KiwiBuild buyers who sell up.

When Labour announced the policy in 2016, its plan to stop buyers reaping windfall gains was they must not on-sell their home for five years – or else they had to hand all the money they made to the Government.

That’s now changed to if buyers sell within three years, they must give up 30 percent of their profit.

This is heaven for wealthy families. They now don’t even have to move into the Kiwibuild house for a few years. They enter the lottery, win the house, and sell it the next day for a huge profit – keeping 70% of it.

Here’s how it works. Alan and Amanda have an 18 year old son called Andrew. Alan and Amanda are very well off, earning say $500,000 a year between them.

Andrew works part-time while studying. His parents tell him to enter the ballot, as they will finance the house if he wins. Andrew enters the ballot and wins a Kiwibuild house in Auckland for $650,000. His parents arrange the money and he buys the house.

The next day he sells his house for $800,000. Andrew and his parents get $150,000 profit. They keep 70% of it and so that is $105,000 for winning the taxpayer subsidized lottery.

Andrew continues to live at home with his parents but they now have $105,000 in the bank. Andrew goes off to London after he graduates very grateful to the stupid taxpayers.

Point of Order blog writes:

The  poor old taxpayer who  poured more than  $1bn into   state-owned  KiwiRail during the term of the  National  government  is  being hit up  for  another $35m   to reverse the decision taken  two years  ago to  ditch the  North Island  electric locos  and  replace them with diesel-powered engines.

The Ardern-Peters-led coalition has decided to refurbish the 15  units in  the electric fleet — even  though the   argument  to replace  them  was “compelling” .

While  the  government  now  says it is keeping electric locomotives on the North Island Main Trunk Line running to help meet its long-term emissions goals and boost the economy,  KiwiRail  earlier  said it was essentially running “a railway within a railway”by having the electric section.  (The North Island Main Trunk runs from Auckland to Wellington but is electrified only between Hamilton and Palmerston North). The doubling up of service facilities, inventory, training and maintenance required with two separate systems on the line, KiwiRail said, adds to  inefficiencies and unreliability.

It basically nuts. Instead of a train service that can go from Auckland to Wellington, we effectively have three train services – Auckland to Hamilton, Hamilton to Palm Nth and Palm Nth to Wellington.

What this does is make it more likely freight will go by road instead of rail, which will actually produce more greenhouse gas emissions, not less. So once again the Government puts optics ahead of substance when it comes to the environment.

Stuff reports:

Two years after he won the Porirua mayoralty, Mike Tana’s family still lives 432 kilometres away in Rotorua.

One councillor said it was “bloody disgraceful” that, despite a promised move, his wife and six children had still not joined him in Porirua and another said he should back up claims the city was a great place to raise children. …

During his 2016 election campaign, Tana said his family would join him if he was elected. Following the election he said they would have to move eventually.

“Rotorua’s great, but Porirua has elected me their mayor and I need to do them justice.”

Councillor Anita Baker said she was sick of the issue and he should have done as promised. “I think it’s bloody disgraceful. He’s told us from the beginning they would move here and every year they don’t.

 

“It’s not satisfactory and I’ve heard people in the community say if it’s not good enough for his family why should it be good enough for theirs’?”

Generally it should be of no concern where a Mayor’s family lives. But if he campaigned on a promise that he and his family would live in Porirua, then it is a legitimate subject of scrutiny.

On Tuesday, Tana did not answer questions on times he commuted to Rotorua, how often he used the mayoral car for the trip or whether his family still intended to move to Porirua.

Porirua City Council chief executive Wendy Walker said the council provided a vehicle to Tana for full private use.

“Mayor Tana forgoes a portion of his salary to recognise his personal use.”

This is the other area of legitimate scrutiny. If the Council pays all expenses for his car, then commuting to Rotorua on a regular basis will cost massively more than just using it around town.

House

The Democrats have taken the House. This is a big achievement and significant. Nancy Pelosi will become Speaker. They Dems will take the chairs of every committee and will be able to launch investigations of the Trump administration. They might even compel Trump’s tax returns to be published. And no laws can be passed without them now.

It is not unusual for the House to change in mid terms. Clinton lost the House in 1994, Bush lost it in 2006 and Obama lost it in 2010. But the projected net loss of 33 seats is larger than average.

Of interest is that the new Democrats tend to be more moderate. They won because they were moderate. This may put strain on the activist base who want them to impeach Trump.

There may be a silver lining in this result for Trump. He needs an enemy. Clinton was a great enemy for him. Since the election he has made the media his faux enemy. Now he may have a real enemy he can rally against – Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats. Could this help him in 2020?

But weigh against that fact that there is likely to be investigations of the Trump administration that will bring to light stuff the President would rather stay hidden. No not Russia, but all the other stuff.

Senate

The Republicans exceeded expectations, looking to gain three net seats. This is important for two reasons. The first is they are no longer vulnerable to just one or two Senators voting the other way. The second is their chances of retaining control in 2020 are better with 54 or 55 seats than 51 or 50.

In 2020 there are ten competitive seats – eight Republican held and two Democratic.

By keeping a majority Trump can still appoint Judges. That is what is most important to his base.

While the House Democratic caucus has moved to the centre the Senate Democratic caucus moves left having lost some centrists. And the Republicans have had some of their centrists retire so overall the Senate is more polarised.

Governors

A good night for the Democrats taking four or five state mansions. However they failed in Florida and Georgia and lost Ohio. But wins in Michigan and Kansas help them in 2020.

The Republicans will be very happy to have retained Florida as they need to win that in 2020.

State Houses

Not looked at this in great details but overall some good wins for the Democrats. In a few states they now hold all three branches – Governor, house and Senate. This is good timing for them as redistricting is coming up and they can gerrymander in their favour, as the Republicans are so adept at doing also.

New Zealand has only had 12 Chief Justices. Their tenures have been:

1. Sir Robert Stout 26 years (1899 – 1926)
2. Sir James Predergast 24 years (1875 – 1899)
3. Dame Sian Elias 19 years (1999 – 2018)
4. Sir George Avery 17 years (1858 – 1875)
5. Sir Michael Myers 17 years (1929 – 1946)
6. Sir William Martin 16 years (1841 – 1857)
7. Sir Harold Barrowclough 13 years (1953 – 1966)
8. Sir Richard Wild 12 years (1966 – 1978)
9. Sir Ronald Davison 11 years (1978 – 1999)
10. Sir Thomas Eichelbaum 10 years (1989 – 1999)
11. Sir Humphrey O’Leary 7 years (1946 – 1953)
12. Sir Charles Skerrett 3 years (1926 – 1929)

The Prime Minister has announced the process to appoint the 13th Chief Justice. The Chief Justice is appointed by the Prime Minister, unlike all the other senior judges who are appointed by the Attorney-General.

In theory the Prime Minister could appoint any judge to the role of Chief Justice, but it would be very unusual if it wasn’t a senior and experienced member of either the current Supreme Court or Court of Appeal.

In deciding whom to appoint, it is worth noting what have been some of the criticisms within the legal profession over the current Chief Justice – mainly that the Supreme Court has often had split decisions (meaning precedent less clear for future cases), and is slow to release judgments. Often the Chief Justice herself has been the dissenting party. Some in the legal fraternity also have a view that 20 years is too long for one person to be Chief Justice, and that the ideal term should be 10 – 13 years like the four before Elias. So ideal age would be 57 to 60.

The five names most commonly being talked about are:

1. Justice Mark O’Regan. A judge for 19 years including four years on Court of Appeal and four on the Supreme Court. Was Court of Appeal President and widely regarded as excellent in that role. Aged 64.
2. Justice Stephen Kós. A judge for seven years including three years on the Court of Appeal. Currently Court of Appeal President and again widely regarded as excellent in that role. Aged 59.
3. Justice Susan Glazebrook. A judge for 18 years including six years on the Supreme Court. Some lawyers consider her a bit abrupt or rude in court. Once told a lawyer to stop speaking crap (I suspect many Judges have thought the same, just not said it). Aged 62
4. Justice Helen Winkelmann. A judge for 14 years including three years on the Court of Appeal. Was Chief High Court Judge for five years. A very popular Judge with her colleagues. However has had a lot of decisions over-turned on appeal, especially in the Kim Dotcom cases. Age not clear but estimated to be around 56.
5. Justice Joe Williams. A senior judge for 10 years including eight months on the Court of Appeal. Was Chief Judge of Maori Land Court for nine years and Chair of the Waitangi Tribunal. A very good public speaker. Has been criticized for some very slow judgements and has relative little experience in the appellate courts. Age not clear but estimated to be around 52.

These are just the five names most talked about. As I said, the PM could appoint any member of the Supreme Court or Court of Appeal. In theory she could even appoint someone who has never been an appellate judge.

Stats NZ reports:

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent in the September 2018 quarter, Stats NZ said today.

This is down from 4.4 percent last quarter and is the lowest unemployment rate since the June 2008 quarter, when it was 3.8 percent.

The fall in the unemployment rate in the latest quarter reflected a fall in the number of unemployed people (down 13,000) and a strong rise in employment (up 29,000). This quarter’s employment rate rose to 68.3 percent, the highest rate since the series began more than 30 years ago.

This is great news, and very welcome. Good to see the strong job growth of the last few years continue. Here’s the increase in employment for the last few years to September:

• 2013: 54,000 or 2.5%
• 2014: 69,000 or 3.1%
• 2015: 33,000 or 1.4%
• 2016: 143,000 or 6.1%
• 2017: 102,000 or 4.1%
• 2018: 74,000 or 2.9%

Use this thread to discuss the mid-term election results as they come in. The polls have just closed in Kentucky and Indiana.

Here’s the 538 forecasts of projected changes. We’ll see how they go:

Senate

• Nevada from Republicans to Democrats
• Arizona from Republicans to Democrats
• North Dakota from Democrats to Republicans
• Missouri from Democrats to Republicans

So if correct the GOP will remain 51 to 49 ahead.

Ari Mahler writes:

I am The Jewish Nurse.

Yes, that Jewish Nurse. The same one that people are talking about in the Pittsburgh shooting that left 11 dead. The trauma nurse in the ER that cared for Robert Bowers who yelled, “Death to all Jews,” as he was wheeled into the hospital. The Jewish nurse who ran into a room to save his life.

A wonderful twist in such a sad story – he killed 11 Jews, and a Jewish nurse helped save his life.

The FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center note that Jews only account for two percent of the U.S. population, yet 60% of all religious hate crimes are committed against them. I don’t know why people hate us so much, but the underbelly of anti-Semitism seems to be thriving.

Anti-semitism seems to thrive in three key areas. The fascist right, the hard left and Islamists.

I’m sure he had no idea I was Jewish. Why thank a Jewish nurse, when 15 minutes beforehand, you’d shoot me in the head with no remorse? I didn’t say a word to him about my religion. I chose not to say anything to him the entire time. I wanted him to feel compassion. I chose to show him empathy. I felt that the best way to honor his victims was for a Jew to prove him wrong. Besides, if he finds out I’m Jewish, does it really matter? The better question is, what does it mean to you?

Love. That’s why I did it. Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope. It demonstrates humanity. It reaffirms why we’re all here. The meaning of life is to give meaning to life, and love is the ultimate force that connects all living beings. I could care less what Robert Bowers thinks, but you, the person reading this, love is the only message I wish instill in you. If my actions mean anything, love means everything.

A wonderful piece of writing.

by John©Stringer.

The Blue Wave? More like a Trump nose bleed.

The Herald reports:

An entire family was forced into witness protection as a result of criminal behaviour by Czech man Karel Sroubek, National Leader Simon Bridges has said in Parliament.

Bridges today asked Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern whether she was aware of the case of the family, which he said in Parliament was forced into New Zealand’s witness protection programme as a result of the actions of Sroubek, for which he faced criminal charges.

Court documents provided to the Herald showed that an associate of Sroubek sought to give evidence against him in an upcoming trial by video link because of fears for his safety. The application was denied but the High Court at Auckland was told in July 2010 that the associate was allegedly threatened by Sroubek and two other men with connections to the Hells Angels over a deal gone bad.

The court was told Sroubek, or Jan Antolik as he was known then, went to his associate’s home with the two other men and assaulted him and threatened him with a knife over a debt of $12,000.

They took his watch and his partner’s car but made it clear the money was still owed, the court documents alleged.

“After this incident, [name withheld] went to the police and he and his family were placed in the witness protection programme. Even so, [name withheld] says that two anonymous threats were made to his immediate family after he had made his complaint to police.”

The threats have to be real and significant for a family to go into witness protection. His behaviour is not surprising as he was a convicted criminal and gang associate. The Minister knew he was a convicted criminal and gang associate yet still gave him residency.

Bridges questioned whether Sroubek was the kind of person Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway should give residency to.

“Residency already existed. The decision put before the Minister was around a deportation order. He made that decision based on information put in front of him,” Ardern said.

Residency did not already exist for Karel Sroubek, which is the man in question. Residency had been granted in the name of a Jan Antolik, but it had no validity as no legal person of that name exists.

The PM is trying to spin her away out of the fact her Minister did grant residency to Sroubek.

Ardern said she would not discuss specifics of the case but said there were well over 100 such cases National dealt with while in government.

Yes and none of them involved a drug dealing gang associate.

Stuff reports:

2degrees has warned that Kiwis can expect to pay more for mobile services if Chinese giant Huawei is barred from selling 5G telecommunications equipment to New Zealand.

Spark warned a ban would also impact its costs.

Huawei, which has global revenues of close to US$100 billion (NZ$153b), is already well entrenched as a supplier of mobile technology to both companies.

I was a guest of Huawei to their HQ in China a few years ago so follow these stories with interest.

As far as I can tell the campaign against Huawei is protectionism masquerading as security concerns. Huawei is sensitive to this campaign so they have gone out of their way to be more open than their competitors and have done stuff such as putting the former UK Government CIO in charge of their security.

There has never been a shred of evidence that Huawei gear is compromised with some sort of backdoor. And plenty of people have looked. And frankly the worth of Huawei to the Chinese economy is far far greater as a successful business than anything else.

But Communications Minister Kris Faafoi has acknowledged it is possible New Zealand could take similar action to Australia, which along with the United States has blocked the firm from supplying 5G equipment, citing security concerns.

We shouldn’t, unless there is some evidence. So far there is none.

2degrees spokesman Mat Bollard said Kiwi consumers could expect to feel a direct impact if Huawei did face any ban.

“We have been with Huawei for the better part of 10 years and it is important it remains around as an option because it provides quality network kit and brings price-competitiveness to the market.

“That filters through to the prices people pay when they use their mobile,” he said.

Before I visited Huawei I thought they were successful just because they compete on price, using cheaper labour. But the reality is that they produce really innovative gear and products that lead the market in many ways. It is innovation, not price, that is their real strength.

Bowater said Huawei was under more scrutiny “than anyone else in the market”.

“New Zealanders can have a lot of confidence that every major piece of work we do in New Zealand goes through independent evaluation in the UK through the cybersecurity evaluation centre there, which we haven’t really acknowledged publicly before.

“Everything we do goes through that evaluation centre which has oversight from [British spy agency] GCHQ and they feed that through to [New Zealand spy agency] GCSB.”

Huawei realised it had to “go above and beyond because we are headquartered in China”, he said. 

“Risks have to be addressed in a rational manner –  saying ‘you are Chinese, or you are from an okay country’ is not going to solve anything.

“We can only do what we can to put the checks in place and ensure we have thorough checks around everything, but there has never been evidence of any wrongdoing by Huawei – there has never been a ‘backdoor’ found. The smoking gun has never been there.”

Again this is mainly protectionism at work, not true security concerns.

Newsroom reports:

A new report has warned of “serious storm clouds” on New Zealand’s democratic horizon, calling on the Government to limit voting rights to citizens, crack down on lobbyists and make political parties declare the source of all donations.

Let’s take these in turn:

Chapple said Parliament and the public service did not represent New Zealand society when it came to wealth and socio-economic backgrounds, while voter participation in local and national elections had been declining since World War II.

Our turnout was 80% of those enrolled which isn’t bad. In 1931 it was 83%. The big decline wasn’t so much post WWII but since 1984 which was 94%. And the last two elections has seen it increase by 3.7% and 1.9% respectively.

He said the MMP electoral system had led to lower levels of public scrutiny for list MPs, “and a developing notion that at least some of these MPs informally represent an ethnic community rather than New Zealanders as a whole”.

“The move to MMP has coincided with the growth of identity politics, which has a tendency to formalise and reify the fracture lines of identity groups as the basis for political action, rather than to break down group barriers, emphasise a common humanity and seek shared ground.”

If that is a concern, then surely the Maori seats are a bigger concern. They explicitly are for one ethnic community rather than New Zealanders as a whole.

Chapple said one solution was to “consciously limit” democratic rights to citizens, setting up civic education programmes that would run in parallel with the pathway from residency to citizenship.

“New migrants should be strongly encouraged to become citizens, rather than remaining indefinitely as simply sojourning residents.”

I am 100% in favour of this. Very few countries allow non-citizens to vote, like we do. we provide little incentive for residents to become citizens and we should as shared citiizenship builds communities.

He called for an outright ban on any foreign contributions to political parties – currently there is a $1500 limit – as well as a requirement that all domestic donations be declared regardless of their size, source or nature.

The $1,500 limit is already pretty low. It is designed so that parties don’t have to verify the identity of every raffle ticket buyer etc. You could lower it to say $500 but less than that would just be an admin nightmare.

And what is the problem trying to be solved? The total level of overseas donations across all parties is probably a few thousand dollars out of $10 million or so. It is a solution looking for a problem.

As for requiring every $20 donation to be disclosed, that is basically what they have in the US. It leads to more dark money and fewer small donations. Just as voting is by secret ballot, so should be smallish donations. The main impact of requiring small donations to be disclosed is to stop them, or to allow partisans to vilify people who have donated to the other side – as happens in the US. Why do we think US donation laws are what we want here?

Chapple said there also needed to be greater transparency around political lobbying, such as conflict of interest provisions, stand-down periods for both politicians and public servants to avoid “revolving-door appointments”, and a ban on MPs holding membership of foreign political parties.

Again what is the problem this solution solves? Is it a problem a former National MP become executive director of the funeral directors association?

As for MPs being members of foreign political parties, I agree this is undesirable. But is this a problem? Are any MPs? What if an MP has been a member of an Australian union and hence is a de facto member of the Australian Labor Party?

He suggested the introduction of a strong civics programme at schools, coupled with lowering the voting age to 16 – although he acknowledged there would be “significant political challenges to overcome”, including a perception that most teachers held centre-left beliefs.

A perception?

Addressing concerns about the decline of traditional media and “fracturing” of media sources into groups identifiable by ideology, Chapple said there was a need for “well-funded, independent state-funded” outlet covering multiple platforms and languages which was “clearly and consistently politically neutral”.

You can be state funded or politically neutral but not both. Any state funded media outlet automatically leans left because they have a vested self interest to support parties that promise higher taxes and spending. It isn’t conscious bias but unconscious.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she is not blaming officials or Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway for the botched handling of the Karel Sroubek residency saga.

She said the main issue for her now was figuring out why important information about Sroubek was not put in front of the minister in the first place.

Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, Ardern was quick to absolve the blame from the officials who provided Lees-Galloway with information about Sroubek.

“Before anyone jumps down the track of saying ‘I’m blaming officials here,’ I’m not. There seems to be a range of things at play here, we need to get this decision right.”

Ardern also defended Lees-Galloway and said on Friday that the minister had to rely on the information put in front of him.

How weak.

First of all even on the information in front of him, it was an obvious case for deportation, not residency. He was a convicted drug dealer in prison. He had numerous runs in with the law, and entered NZ with a fake identity.

The burden of proof is with him to make an overwhelming case for why he should stay. It seems all he did was claim he feared for his life, and the Minister took his word for it, without any proof.

A smart Minister would have asked questions such as whether it was credible that a member of the EU would really have such corruption that someone couldn’t be deported there safely.

She was also publicly critical of the process for the first time.

“He had certain information in front of him. Now we have contradictory information in the public domain. Of course that’s not good enough.”

Last week, Lees-Galloway told Parliament he would be reviewing Sroubek’s case after “new information” had been made available to him.

In the subsequent days, a High Court judgment revealed that Sroubek had been back to Europe in 2009, undercutting any belief that his life might be in danger if he was deported.

Lees-Galloway said this week he was not aware of the court judgment and said it was not standard practice to have all court decisions relating to Sroubek handed to him.

Even without that information, he should not have been given residency. Let’s try this with numbers. Let’s say you need to score 8/10 to make the case to stay. His case was a 2/10 at best on the information known to the Minister. The additional information makes it a 1/10. The PM thinks what is important is the info not given to the Minister. What is important is the Minister was so gullible he handed out residency on the basis of an improbable sob story.

Newsroom reports:

“KiwiBuild is great for middle class New Zealanders with higher household incomes. But … KiwiBuild properties are not helpful to our working poor or to those in poverty because they’re totally out of reach and unaffordable.”

Limited insight and planning has also raised major concerns for community housing providers, Smith said

“For instance, in Māngere – just one of many projects that the Government is working on at the moment – 2700 state homes are going to be demolished and 3000 state homes are going to be rebuilt, but in a third of the land area.

“The other two-thirds are going to be KiwiBuild and affordable.

“By my estimations, in 2700 homes there now, there’s probably 12,000 to 15,000 people in those homes. Multiply that to be 10,000 homes [on the site in total] and we’re looking at 25,000 to 30,000 people living on the same land mass.

“That’s 30,000 human beings of different cultures, different religions, differing values and life, living in the same space as 12,000 people used to.

“The Government says it’s got it sorted. Housing New Zealand will be resourced to meet this intensification and for staff to deal with high and complex tenants who are allocated off the top 5 percent of the housing register – in other words, our community’s most vulnerable.

“I would suggest … this model will become a community trainwreck in three to five years,” Smith told the lecture.

And he has reason to fear this:

Smith spent about seven years working in Cairns redoing the government’s “intensified” state housing model.

“Years after the intensification, the government spent millions on what they called ‘Community Renewal’,” he said.

“They demolished homes, they created open green spaces for community activities, they sold some of their state houses off to private homeowners, and pepper-potted in the community.

“They also remodelled the odd house to create a community property centre that also had government tenancy staff and government community development staff resident there five days a week.”

That worked for about a year or two, Smith said dryly.

However, once the playground equipment was damaged and repaired too often to justify ongoing maintenance, parks became drug exchange locations, and sex and other illegal activities meant they were no longer used by children.

You need more than just houses. You do need green spaces and playgrounds and facilities.

GQ reports:

Politics in 2018 is a nightmarish hellscape that is largely devoid of heroes, so let us take a brief moment to revel in the astonishing stupidity of one of its third-tier villains: Jacob Wohl, who you may recognize as the greasy 20-year-old doofus who pops up first in the replies below every other Donald Trump tweet. This delightful tale began on Monday, when the disgraced teenaged hedge fund genius posted a tantalizing hint about a major forthcoming news story: Special counsel Robert Mueller, the evil mastermind behind the insidious left-wing plot to take down Wohl’s beloved president, has been hiding a dark past from the American people all along. 

Alas, Wohl’s prediction was a fervent bit of wishcasting, because it sure seems—seems—that he and his crew of MAGA-adjacent dorks cooked up the entire thing themselves. According to NBC News, several reporters were told in recent weeks that a mysterious individual had offered various women $20,000 to claim that Mueller, while an attorney in private practice in the mid-1970s, and engaged in some form of sexual misconduct. Independently of one another, those reporters determined that literally none of the relevant aspects of the story checked out, and so they passed along the tip to the special counsel’s office, which in turn referred it to the FBI for investigation.

The scheme has backfired, which is a good thing.

It does make me wonder though if this is going to become the new norm, at least in US politics. If you want to take someone down, try to find someone who will accuse them of inappropriate behaviour many decades ago.

Stuff reports:

NZ First’s president called a sudden party meeting on Saturday to deal with “concerning issues” that were said to involve a rift.

New president Lester Gray flew into Nelson with the party’s judicial officer, lawyer Brian Henry. One source said he was demanding members toe the party line, or face expulsion.

Members across parts of the South Island received an email late on Friday morning, calling them to the meeting the following day.

The members met at a Nelson hotel on Saturday afternoon. There were claims of a rift between senior members, but Gray denied that.

The short-notice invitation from Gray said “this week I have been notified of some potentially concerning issues for the NZ First Party. We have therefore called a special meeting in Nelson for Saturday.”

However, Gray said it was a standard electorate meeting, with the agenda closed to members.

So it was a standard electorate meeting except he called it as President, saying it is a special meeting to deal with potentially concerning issues.

Not a very convincing denial.

Stuff reports:

The Government says it will fund 600 new “learning support coordinators” to work one-on-one with students with complex needs to take the pressure off teachers and other students.

The extra teachers will work in schools to ensure children with diverse learning needs get the support they need to learn,  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced in her speech to the Labour Party conference in Dunedin.

The first 600 coordinators will be rolled out from 2020 under the scheme, which will cost $217 million over four years. The Government says it will roll out more positions over future years.

The roles are not new though they have been renamed – schools already employ Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCO), but they are usually an existing senior staff member – often teachers or deputy principals – and the work is on top of their other duties.

Ardern said the job of learning coordinators would be to make sure that children with extra needs were identified and work alongside teachers to ensure “kids with high and complex physical needs” get the support they deserve.

I’d much rather the Government spent money on stuff like this than subsidised houses for doctors and free tertiary education for lawyers. This is helping kids and families who really need assistance. It’s good to see them do it.

The Herald reports:

A new leaked conversation between National Party leader Simon Bridges, Paula Bennett and embattled MP Jami-Lee Ross, shows the trio apparently discussing how to present Ross’ medical leave at the height of speculation the party had a leaker in its midst.  …

At one point in the recording Bridges says: “There are downsides for me, letting you off with what you’ve done, OK, I just want you to understand that. But if you take the statement for you, and your behaviour subsequently is good, I will never refer to the matters we’ve talked about … again.”

Bridges also reportedly says: “The truth is Jami-Lee we can get through it, and you can get through it, and you can come out the other side if your attitude after the time out is good and positive, and you can be promoted again.”

So Bridges and Bennett were not hellbent on forcing JLR out. They were basically offering him time off, a demotion to the backbenches and potential promotion again in future if his behaviour was good.

Sadly JLR still seems to regard himself as the victim in this.