538 has launched their forecast for the House for the 2018 elections. Key data is:

• 75% chance Democrats take the House
• Average gain for Democrats is projected to be 35 seats
• Current result projection is 230 seats for Democrats and 205 for GOP

The breakdown of seats by probability is:

• Definite Dem 190
• Likely Dem 11 (=201)
• Lean Dem 14 (=215)
• Toss Up 15 (=230)
• Lean GOP 17
• Likely GOP 55
• Definite GOP 133

If the Democrats do take the House, will they try and impeach Trump?

A guest post by David Garrett:

Gangs are changing alright – for the worst

One of the “experts” at Andrew Little’s justice talkfest is Dr Jarrod Gilbert of Canterbury University. Gilbert has pretty much supplanted Greg Newbold as the media’s “go to” guy on gangs and crime. Gilbert is the author of “Patched: the history of gangs in New Zealand”. In it, Gilbert manages for the most part to disguise the fact that he is essentially an apologist for gangs. His recent message – and no doubt the message  he will  preach  at the Justice Summit – is that gangs are changing for the better, and so must our attitude to them. The subtext is that gangs are becoming more like the “alternative form of whanau” that Tariana Turia has claimed for years that they are. Nothing could be further from  the truth.

This morning, 21 August,  Stuff reports a gang shooting in Wanganui in which a gang member died  when a rival gang invaded his house. Two months ago there was a similar incident in which a young gang associate died and his girlfriend, who he apparently died trying to protect, was seriously injured. Wanganui was also the scene of a drive by gang shooting in which a young baby was killed in 2007.

And it’s not just  gang members shooting at  each other. In January 2017 the Black Power took a funeral procession through Mongrel Mob “territory” in Whakatane. It was an organized confrontation in  which numerous shots were fired at police in the streets of Whakatane. The members of the two gangs involved  were obviously totally unconcerned about the safety of innocent bystanders. By pure chance, no-one was killed.

This sort of behaviour has been going on for at least twenty years, and contrary to Gilbert’s claims,  gang violence involving firearms is becoming more not less common.  This morning’s murder is just the latest such incident. And for any reader of Gilbert’s book, none of this can be a surprise. The Mongrel Mob for example idolize  and aspire to ever more “mongrelish behaviour”. “Mongrelish behaviour” is anything which is contrary to and grossly affronts the norms of ordinary civilized behaviour: raping and sometimes killing women to get a patch (Mallory Manning); bashing and even  killing anyone who gets in their way; bashing raping and intimidating the “bitches” who serve their material and sexual needs.

The gang problem is of course not new: in 1972 Norman Kirk pledged to “take the bikes off the bikies”. Once in office, nothing was done. In the 80’s various gang outrages occurred resulting in supposedly strict  non association laws being passed. They were never enforced, and gang members congregate pretty much where they like. At least the police have woken up, and no long appoint “gang liaison officers” whose function was to facilitate gang “runs” and other group activities –  so long as the boys didn’t do anything too obvious or too extreme.

And let’s remember that politicians’ naivety about the true nature of gangs is not confined to Andrew Little and his colleagues in the Labour and Green parties. In 2009 then National Justice Minister Simon Power organized a “Drivers of Crime” summit at parliament. I quickly discovered that while several gang leaders were on the guest list – and had their expenses paid to attend – leading criminologist Greg Newbold was not.

When I tackled Power about this omission, I was told that it was deliberate, and was because Newbold was “too negative.” The reality of course is that Newbold is the only criminologist in the country who “tells it like it is” – for example that Maori are grossly over-represented in prisons while Pacific Islanders are not because, as he puts it, while PI’s have strong family structures and value success in education and particularly in sport, “..Maoris (sic.) are too busy drinking piss and partying”.

Newbold has not been invited to Little’s talkfest, but Jarrod Gilbert has. He, along with Professor John Pratt – the latter’s  speciality is trying against all the evidence to “prove” crime is no more prevalent than it ever was – will be telling the audience what it wants to hear: that all Maori problems, including gangs, are down to colonization, systemic racism in the justice system, and a lack of understanding of Maori.

Successive governments have thrown their hands up and put gangs and membership of them in the too hard basket. Any suggestion that they be banned is met with nonsense about the supposedly consequential   unavoidable infringement of the rights of members of peaceful organizations like the Rotary Club to assemble wearing their insignia. I say this is nonsense because at least two western democracies – Eire and Germany – have managed to ban “gangs” without members of the Rotary Club having their human rights infringed.

I refer of course to the Nazis and the IRA respectively. Throughout the years of “the troubles”, the IRA was a banned organization on both sides of the Irish border. It continued to exist of course, but its activities were severely curtailed. Germany is probably a better example: appear on the streets there waving a swastika flag or carrying images of Adolf, and you will quickly find yourself in jail.

Across the Tasman, various gangs have been banned, most recently the Mongrel Mob in Queensland. The success of those laws has been patchy, at least in part because in Australia, as here, there are legions of “human rights” lawyers just dying to defend the human rights of the sort of scum they would never dream of inviting to their dinner parties.

Gangs are a scourge and a cancer on our society, and they have been for at least two generations. If Andrew Little was really serious about reducing the prison population by 30% – a totally ludicrous goal – he would start by making hard decisions about gangs, and rather than inviting their leaders and  apologists for them to talkfests like the present one, set up one of their currently much favoured “working groups” with a brief to come up with ways of eliminating this scourge from our society. Without unintended consequences for the Rotary Club.

The Herald reports:

TVNZ news presenter and journalist Greg Boyed had been battling “depression”, his grieving family say as they pay tribute to an “adored” son, brother, husband and father.

Boyed died on Monday while on a family holiday in Switzerland with his wife and young son.

The family said in a statement that Boyed, 48, had been “battling depression”.

“Greg was the kindest and most caring man, a devoted father who cherished and loved his two children.

“We are all struggling to comes to terms with this,” the family said.

“He was absolutely loved and adored. A treasured son, brother, husband and father, he will be deeply missed.

This is so very very sad. He was a lovely lovely guy and I doubt had an enemy in the world. A very good broadcaster and interviewer.

My thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues. They will be devastated.

A great speech by Hutt South MP Chris Bishop at Massey. Some extracts:

As a few of you may know, I did a lot of debating at both high school and university. I had the privilege of debating for Vic all around the world; including in the famous Oxford and Cambridge Unions. I said in my maiden speech that one of the proudest moments in my life was competing in the Grand Final at Oxford, actually standing at the same dispatch box that David Lange used in the famous 1985 Oxford Union debate about the moral indefensibility of nuclear weapons.

Debating is all about free speech, reason; and argument. Ideas are proposed and challenged; supported and critiqued. There is virtually no topic that university debating won’t touch; everything from abortion to euthanasia to the death penalty to female genital mutilation to USA foreign policy, the Israel/Palestine conflict, free trade, human rights, everything.

As a debater, as a Parliamentarian, and as someone who loves freedom, I worry about where free speech is heading, particularly on university campuses. We must not let the illiberal contagion currently affecting the United States spread to New Zealand.

The third justification for free speech being a fundamental right is the classical liberal conception of the marketplace of ideas. Unrestricted public debate allows the truth to prevail and the best ideas to win out over bad ones.

Fourth and finally, free speech is often regarded as a societal safety valve. Speech that is suppressed does not cease to exist; it is merely driven underground where it is difficult to subject to criticism in the “marketplace of ideas”, and where conspiracy rather than truth is likely to triumph. On this rationale it is better to have bad, even offensive ideas, out there in the public domain where they can be defeated.

Essentially what your Vice-Chancellor chose to do was appoint herself as the arbiter of what speech qualifies as “hate speech” and what speech does not; replacing a careful objective judgment by a court with a subjective judgment by herself. That is deeply worrying. Her claim she supports free speech is wrong.

Goff’s decision was, like Professor Thomas’, basically discrimination on the grounds of political opinion. Goff seems proud of it. He should wear it as a badge of dishonour, not pride. I well remember the hideous demonstration in the Auckland Town Hall two days out from the 2014 election, with Kim Dotcom and a parade of people telling everyone how to vote. There didn’t seem to be any issues with booking a Council venue for that grotesque event. If Kim Dotcom can book a ratepayer funded venue for a controversial political event; why can’t two Canadian right-wing provocateurs?

The Herald reports:

New Zealand’s first offender, a Whanganui stabber, to be given the maximum sentence available under the controversial three-strikes rule is the law working as it was intended, says Act Party leader David Seymour. …

The three-strikes law requires a person convicted of a third serious violent, sexual or drugs offence to be sentenced to the maximum available sentence without parole, unless it would be “manifestly unjust”.

Justice Collins, a former Solicitor-General of New Zealand from 2006 to 2012, sentenced Hayze Neihana Waitokia to seven years’ imprisonment for wounding with intent to injure after stabbing a man in the leg while on bail.

So he was on bail and he stabbed someone. What else is in his record.

Waitokia has 14 previous convictions, including six for violent offending.

In 2012, the 26-year-old was sentenced to five months’ home detention and was given his first-strike warning for a vicious assault using a piece of wood.

In 2014, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and given his second-strike warning for stalking and sexually assaulting a 17 year-old girl.

Waitokia was also sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for domestic violence assaults in March this year.

A perfect example of why we need Three Strikes. He is a violent recidivist who has bashed, sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple victims. He was on the bail and parole merry-go-round and it has now come to an end.

At sentencing today, Justice Collins said he was “not convinced that it would be grossly disproportionate” to sentence Waitokia the the maximum term.

“I acknowledge that your sentence will be much harsher than I would otherwise
have imposed, however, that will invariably be the case for a third-strike offence,” the judge said.

“Parliament deliberately designed a harsh response to offenders who persistently
commit serious offences despite clear warnings.

Justice Collins continued: “I have reached the conclusion that this is not a clear and convincing case to depart from the full effects of the three strikes regime. This conclusion is based in part because I consider that you are at a high-risk of reoffending and there is a need for community protection. Your previous three strike offences, and the pattern of behaviour they demonstrate, are very telling.”

Justice Collins has it right.

Here’s what we know about Waitokia from the sentencing notes:

• 14 convictions by age 26
• Six convictions for violent offending
• Wounding with intent in 2012
• Sexual violation in 2014
• Domestic violence assaults in 2018
• Rated high risk of reoffending
• Involved in violence against prison guards

Now if we did not have the three strikes law, his sentence would have been two years and three months. And he would have been eligible for parole after just nine months in prison.

Labour wants to repeal the law which means he could be out back on the streets after just nine months to stab, bash or sexually assault further victims.

It would be nice if someone can find a way to rehabilitate him, and stop him offending. I’m all for that. But until we can, I want the community safe from him. Here’s what the Judge said about his second strike:

Your second-strike offence, while for a different kind of offending, was more serious than your first-strike offence. You followed a 17-year-old girl as she was walking home. She either tripped or was pushed to the ground. You indecently assaulted her and forcibly pulled down her underwear while telling her to calm down. You then forcefully penetrated her genitalia with your finger. She screamed and yelled for help, begging you not to hurt her further. You also threw her cell phone away during the attack. You attempted to remove your pants with one hand while holding her with the other. At this stage, the victim managed to bite your forearm and fortunately, she managed to escape.

Your offending had major negative emotional impacts on the victim.
The pre-sentence report for this offence described you as reluctant to
even discuss the incident. It also concluded there was no evidence of remorse and that you displayed no emotion

And the Judge also noted:

All three of these offences occurred within a period of approximately six and half years. You continued to offend on each occasion shortly after the end of your previous sentence.

Basically the moment he is out, he creates a new victim. So if he is out in two years, there is a new victim in two years. Have him in for seven years, and that is a further five years without a new victim.

The Herald reports:

Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump’s winning presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes today.

It is the first trial victory of the Special Counsel investigation into the President’s associates. A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the President’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York as part of a separate deal with prosecutors.

The Cohen plea is the more significant one. Manafort’s corruption was pre-Trump, and at this stage there is no link to Trump. Of course will he now do a plea bargain or is he hoping for a pardon from Trump?

The Cohen plea is far more dangerous for Trump. The WP reports:

President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Manhattan courthouse to eight violations of banking, tax and campaign finance laws in a federal investigation that scrutinized his business dealings and efforts to silence women with negative stories about Trump.

Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a bank and two campaign finance violations: making an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.

The campaign finance violations are the dangerous ones as Trump may be named as a co-conspirator on them.

Politico further reports:

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, stated Tuesday that Trump directed him to pay women to stay silent about damaging stories during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The statement came as part of a plea deal that Cohen struck Tuesday afternoon with federal prosecutors in New York.

Not a good day for Trump.

The Government announced:

The Government will pay former residential red zone owners 100% of the 2007/08 rateable value for uninsured homes, Minister Megan Woods has announced today.

What a kick in the teeth for the tens of thousands of home owners who did pay for insurance. The Government has just told us all we’re muggins. Don’t bother insuring your property because if you don’t, Labour will bail you out using taxpayers money.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced plans to freeze the salaries of MPs while a review of the pay-setting system is carried out.

A smart move politically.

The Taxpayers’ Union has welcomed the MP pay freeze announcement.

“This is a very welcome and wise decision from the Prime Minister, and acknowledges the problems we flagged last year,” Taxpayers’ Union executive director Jordan Williams said.

“When the previous government decided to tie MP salaries to public sector wage growth, we pointed out that it would create perverse incentives for politicians to boost public sector wages. We’re glad to see Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern listening.”

“We will be engaging with the Government and publishing a report in the coming weeks, proposing more taxpayer-friendly ways to set MPs’ pay.”

I have said for some years that the simple solution is to set a rate of pay for an entire Term of Parliament. I’ve submitted to Parliament on this, yet the MPs keep up the masochism of payrises that always attract derision no matter what their size.

So if the Government is sensible they’ll look at a law change which states the salary and perks for an MP remain fixed during the term of Parliament. A few months before the term expires the Remuneration Authority sets the salary and perks for the upcoming term.

Mike Hosking writes:

Almost as practical as Paul Goldsmith’s bill to let restricted drivers – including 17-year-olds – get work exemptions to drive home after hours, is Melissa Lee’s NZ On Air bill.

Lee’s bill has been pulled from the ballot, and it aims to make New Zealand On Air and its Maori equivalent be made accountable in terms of ratings, as to what it actually funds and whether it’s been successful.

NZ On Air is in charge of millions of our dollars. It funds programmes which look to be getting increasingly eclectic, and watched by fewer and fewer people.

If a show is targeted at a minority audience (ie a Pasifika focused show), then it is no surprise that it has a smaller viewing audience. Ratings are not the only metric of success. But if absolutely no-one is watching a show, then the public should know this.

Regarding releasing figures about the success of their choices, an NZ On Air spokeswoman said: “I don’t know there would be a great deal of appetite for it, because you are sort of inviting the court of public opinion to make decisions about things.”

Oh my god. Public money for public consumption of product?! Heaven forbid those who pay and consume have a say! What on earth would we know about what we want to watch?

If the public funds the programmes, then the public have the right to have an opinion.

Melissa Lee’s bill potentially opens the door into a cloistered world of elitism, and very little accountability. If she can change that, all power to her.

The Minister of Broadcasting is also the Minister for Open Government. This is a chance to prove the commitment to open government is not just lip service.

The Herald reports:

Malcolm Turnbull’s support in the Liberal party room has collapsed and he is facing the prospect of a leadership challenge as early as this morning.

Mr Turnbull has gutted two of his own signature policies in the last 24 hours in an effort to save himself, removing the carbon emissions target from the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) and depriving the big four banks of his company tax cuts.

A senior source has told The Daily Telegraph Mr Turnbull is “in panic mode” and “clearly rattled” amid reports Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is considering launching a leadership challenge at today’s Liberal party room meeting, which starts at 9am.

The Australian says nine of Mr Turnbull’s 18 Liberal cabinet colleagues have lost confidence in him, and the Prime Minister spent last night ringing MPs to shore up support.

The only question appears to be whether Mr Dutton will strike immediately or wait until parliament returns on September 10. That would potentially coincide with Mr Turnbull’s 40th consecutive Newspoll loss.

The Coalition has generally been 4% to 6% behind Labor for the last few years. But the latest poll has them 10% behind and in a (sort of) FPP environment that is a huge margin.

But he beat Dutton in a vote today by 48 to 35. However still very likely he will be topped at some stage.

If Dutton becomes Prime Minister, that will be interesting for the Government here as he was absolutely ropeable about Andrew Little interfering in their domestic politics by taking part in an Australian TV show and labelling the Australian Government as venal.

If Turnbull is eventually rolled, then no Prime Minister who has won an election since 2004 has lasted until the next election. That’s extraordinary. The record is:

1. Rudd won 2007 election, rolled in 2010
2. Gillard won 2010 election, rolled in 2013
3. Abbott won 2013 election, rolled in 2015
4. Turnbull won 2016 election, rolled in 2018?

When was the last time a NZ Prime Minister was rolled in their first term? As far as I can tell this has never happened.

The Herald reports:

Ministry for Primary Industry officers will be able to go on to farmers’ properties unannounced and without warrants and seize items without cause, says National Party agriculture spokesman Nathan Guy.

The Government introduced the NAIT Amendment Bill last Thursday, and passed it under urgency yesterday. The Bill makes changes to the Act which will allow for warrantless inspections of farms, clarifies animal movement requirements, and makes it an offence not to record animal movements.

While some industry groups have been quick to welcome changes to the National Animal Identification and Tracking Act (NAIT), the Government has come under fire for rushing through legislation to help tackle cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis.

Guy said that while some changes to NAIT were needed, Parliament had been “denied the opportunity to properly scrutinise Government amendments which may not be in the best interests of farmers”.

“Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has had months to introduce this Bill into Parliament, but instead he expanded wide-ranging search powers under urgency.

“Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) will be able to turn up to farmers’ properties without getting a warrant and seize anything they want, unannounced and without cause.

Guy said National asked O’Connor to send the Bill to select committee during the two-week recess to allow public input and ensure there were no unintended consequences for farmers, but the Minister refused.

A two week hearing during recess seems reasonable and better than not giving the public any say at all.

“National proposed amendments during the debate that an officer needs reasonable cause to suspect non-compliance with NAIT before entering the property.

That also sounds very, well, reasonable.

Stuff reports:

When a Muslim couple sat down for a meeting with a municipal commission in the Swiss city of Lausanne, their interviewers found that they “showed great difficulty in answering questions asked by people of the opposite sex,” the city’s mayor said.

So they were both denied Swiss citizenship.

Mayor Gregoire Junod told Agence France-Presse on Friday that the man and woman declined to shake hands with people of the opposite sex and that their behaviour during the interview signalled to the three-person commission interviewing them that they had not adequately integrated into Switzerland.

Quite sensible. If you can’t bare to even shake hands with someone, you are highly unlikely to integrate. Far better to live in a country where shaking hands with the opposite sex is not a cultural norm.

Swiss teachers often expect their students to shake their hands in a move that is considered to signal respect for their authority. But in 2016, two male students from Syria refused to greet their female teacher in that way. The teenagers’ parents then faced fines of around US$5,000 (NZ$7535), after the region’s educational authorities said “a teacher has a right to demand a handshake.”

Again highly unlikely to integrate.

Stuff reports:

The Opportunities Party (TOP) has decided to contest the next election – and National leader Simon Bridges isn’t ruling out doing a deal.

TOP announced on Monday morning it had decided to fight on, after getting 2.4 per cent of the party vote in 2017.  …

Wellington economist Geoff Simmons, who was deputy leader in the 2017 campaign, would take over as leader of the party, while Morgan would be chair of the policy committee, the announcement said.

Morgan was highly polarising but he would get media attention. The challenge for TOP will be relevance. Will they get any media for their views? Will they have money to advertise?

TOP was strong in Wellington Central where the Greens were also strong. “If you look at the Greens, they’re always divided between the protesters and those who are more realistic,” Bridges said.

“It seems to me that TOP has the makings of something that’s more centrist and more realistic, very evidence-based and they could hold any sort of government to account on a bunch of issues.”

He acknowledge National needed partners. “I have always said to you, options will come up. We’re seeing the first one today.”

Talking to Radio NZ, Simmons said TOP was looking to win seats at the next election, and “be in a position where we can negotiate with either of the big establishment parties”.

TOP on current policy has more in common with Labour than National.

The Herald announces:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be the guest editor of the New Zealand Herald’s 125th Suffrage edition, to be published on September 19.

This is very efficient. Having the PM edit the Herald directly cuts out the middle man!

Jonathan Tracy, a classics lecturer at Massey writes:

As a humanities lecturer in Classical Studies at Massey University, I am disturbed by the recent push toward censorship – or, in the current euphemism, “no-platforming” or “de-platforming” – of dissenting viewpoints, both at Massey and in New Zealand and the Western world as a whole.

It is interesting he explicitly recognises it has happened at Massey. Presumably he rejects the official propaganda that the decision had nothing to do with the views of Dr Brash, and was just a security issue.

This illiberal trend is a betrayal of the heritage of free thought, inquiry, speech, and debate bequeathed to us from the ancient world. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, the key distinguishing feature of life under good emperors – as opposed to bad, tyrannical emperors – is that a good emperor leaves you “free to think what you like and to say what you think”.

We owe Tacitus a lot. A lot of what we know about the Roman Empire comes from him.

Nero’s reaction was a gag order banning Lucan from all public speaking, including recitation of his works. Incensed by this attack on the free expression of his poetic voice, Lucan ended up joining a conspiracy to assassinate Nero. The warning for us today seems clear. If heretics, misfits, and troublemakers are denied the right to communicate peacefully with interested audiences – and that is exactly what “no platform” means – they may eventually feel justified in resorting to more drastic measures. Free speech acts as a vital safety valve for the discontented members of society.

And the reason hundreds or thousands of people are willing to pay money to hear Lauren Southern speak, is basically because so many people try so hard to deny her the ability to speak.

From the early Church onwards, some Christian fundamentalists stridently insisted on a complete break from this whole classical culture, demanding that “no platform” should be given to such dangerously pagan authors. One famous example was the Church Father Tertullian, with his dismissive rhetorical question, “What has Athens (i.e; pagan Greek philosophy) got to do with Jerusalem?”

It would have been very easy for the monks just to let Classics die, on grounds of its obvious deviance from the ideological consensus of medieval Europe. But we would be much poorer today as a civilization if all the beautiful, dissident, dissonant voices from classical antiquity had indeed been systematically and permanently “no-platformed” into silence during the Middle Ages. The Renaissance would certainly never have happened, nor – in all probability – would the scientific revolution or the rise of modern democracy.

Instead, the monks made the active choice to pass on to future generations – including us – the perspectives of classical authors with whom they often vehemently disagreed. They had the full courage of their convictions, believing that if their Christian faith was true, it could stand the test of exposure to non-Christian – and even anti-Christian – opinions and arguments. And thanks to their enlightened stance, we continue to read and be enriched by Homer, Plato, Ovid, Lucretius et al.

An interesting observation that had not occurred to me before.

As a modern institution of higher learning, Massey should strive to be at least as open-minded and tolerant of diverse viewpoints as a monastery from the so-called Dark Ages. After all, as long as we can discern the truth clearly, love it passionately, and defend it vigorously, we have nothing to fear from open debate; and if we can’t do those things, then why are we claiming to be a university at all?

That is Massey’s challenge?

Will it retract and apologise for the ban on Don Brash, and labelling his advocacy hate speech?

Kirk Hope writes:

Business can only react to what’s in front of it. If the perception is that the seas are calm, confidence reflects that.  If the perception is of a few waves ahead, confidence suffers.  

Right now, business is looking ahead and seeing looming waves.

A list of costs is coming down the pipeline that business will have to figure out how to afford. 

The obvious ones include increases to the minimum wage and the pressure that then puts on wages at higher skill levels, plus a long line of wage claims with industrial action firmly attached. 

Every initiative adds costs and removes jobs at one level or another.  And unless productivity increases, business won’t be able to absorb those costs. 

Add to that a significant legislative agenda – some 120 reviews announced so far plus a number of policies with the potential to impact on growth and therefore on business. 

Basically business has no idea what the Government is going to do. This is probably because the Government has no idea what it is going to do.

And there is now indisputable evidence of a downturn in business confidence impacting on actual activity. 

Lead indicators like the BNZ BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI) and the Performance of Services Index (PSI) provide some of the most up-to-date pictures of business activity across the country. 

Both surveys show lower levels of expansion that have not been seen in some time. 

Out just this week, the latest PMI shows New Zealand’s manufacturing expansion continuing its downward trend. It has revealed the third consecutive month where expansion has weakened as well as a second consecutive monthly reading below the series’ long-term average.

More concerningly, given that the Index is based on actual activity, it is hinting at further than just a slowdown in the manufacturing sector. If that continues, the economy will start contracting.

Remember all those years of Labour claiming there was a manufacturing crisis. Well they may finally be right!

The unadjusted PMI has dipped below 50 – 49.5. Seasonally adjusted it is at 51.2. This is the lowest (except last December) since December 2012.

Stuff reports:

Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter has biked to the hospital to have her first baby.

The 38-year-old – who is the Minister for Women and Associate Minister of both Health and Transport – posted a series of snaps to Instagram on Sunday.

“Beautiful Sunday morning for a bike ride, to the hospital, for an induction to finally have this baby,” she wrote.

Now that is walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

I recall one former Green MP in Wellington who was always going on about public transport, yet it was very obvious she had not used a bus in decades.

Biking to hospital to give birth is impressive. If JAG cycled fast enough over some judder bars, she might not even need the induction!

Stuff reports:

An Auckland law student is starting a female-only ride-sharing service, believed to be the first of its kind in New Zealand.

DriveHer is similar to Uber, where users can hail a car using a cellphone app. The difference is its drivers – and riders – must be women.

DriveHer founder Joel Rushton, 23, told Stuff he often worried about his partner’s safety when she caught taxis home late at night when they were living in Melbourne and was inspired to start the business after learning about a women-only ride-sharing service in Australia called Shebah.

“It’s a service that we shouldn’t need. It’s sad that that is the way that the world is, but it is the way that the world is. We need to protect people that we care about,” said Rushton, who is in his third year of an LLB at the University of Auckland.

People were vulnerable when they got into a car with a stranger and while some women might feel safe alone with a man, a women-only service was a good option for women who felt uncomfortable in that situation, he said.

Seems like a good idea to me. It gives passengers a choice.

Stuff reports:

The pin has officially been pulled on a joint convention centre and Sir Peter Jackson movie museum in Wellington.

On Tuesday, his company, The Movie Museum Limited (TMML) and Wellington City Council jointly announced the “mutually-agreed parting of the ways” for the venture that was revealed in 2015.

However, Jackson said he was not ruling out a capital-based museum in the future and was considering other options.

It would be great to have a museum that can showcase the incredible collection Jackson has. But I prefer one which has less reliance on the ratepayer.

The project was first budgeted to cost $134 million, increased to $165m but Wellington Mayor Justin Lester said the envelope of money was closer to $180m.

Too much money, but I’d rather it did go on a movie museum that a second classical concert venue.

The council would now move forward with the convention centre plan, replacing the movie museum with a 1500 square metre exhibition space that looks set to be run in partnership with Te Papa.

Exhibition spaces around the world were undergoing a renaissance and the council expected it to be a revenue earner – on par with the movie museum estimates, he said.

Really? If is it such a good revenue earner, can’t a private company be found to rent the space and they run an exhibition business there?

Caitlin Flanagan writes in The Atlantic:

Two years ago, I walked downstairs and saw one of my teenage sons watching a strange YouTube video on the television.

“What is that?” I asked.He turned to me earnestly and explained, “It’s a psychology professor at the University of Toronto talking about Canadian law.”

“Huh?” I said, but he had already turned back to the screen. I figured he had finally gotten to the end of the internet, and this was the very last thing on it.

That night, my son tried to explain the thing to me, but it was a buzzing in my ear, and I wanted to talk about something more interesting. It didn’t matter; it turned out a number of his friends—all of them like him: progressive Democrats, with the full range of social positions you would expect of adolescents growing up in liberal households in blue-bubble Los Angeles—had watched the video as well, and they talked about it to one another.  

The boys graduated from high school and went off to colleges where they were exposed to the kind of policed discourse that dominates American campuses. They did not make waves; they did not confront the students who were raging about cultural appropriation and violent speech; in fact, they forged close friendships with many of them. They studied and wrote essays and—in their dorm rooms, on the bus to away games, while they were working out—began listening to more and more podcasts and lectures by this man, Jordan Peterson.

A guest post from an Australian lawyer who looks at free speech battles in Australia and NZ:

I am an Australian lawyer working in Australia.

I care about free speech.

My firm disparages free speech and its ‘Nazi’ adherents.

Mr Farrar generously agreed I could guest post as anonymous.

I reached out after I saw Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux speak in Melbourne, then abused and banned in New Zealand.

It is surreal New Zealand disdains free speech more then Victoria. Victoria has a dedicated Minister to end free speech and create inequality called the ‘Minister of Equality’.

I’m not here to criticise New Zealand. Free speech in New South Wales (NSW) is worse.

On 27 June 2018 the Crimes Amendment (Publicly Threatening and Inciting Violence) Bill 2018 (Act) was assented. A new section 93Z of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) is now in force in NSW.

In summary the Act:

• makes all speech an offence depending on the reaction of a recipient (this bit’s technical – but examples clarify);
• punishes true statements;
• makes it illegal to try not to get AIDS/HIV in NSW;
• makes a bureaucrat (the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP)) the speech God of NSW;
• Wrecks personal/national security, kills free speech

Do not let the Act happen to New Zealand.

I will describe for you how the Act must work.

To follow along, copy paste and open the Act in your browser.

The Act creates a new indictable offence committed when:

A person who:

by a ‘public act’;

‘Intentionally’ or ‘recklessly’;

‘threatens’ or ‘incites’ ‘violence’;

towards ‘another person’; or

‘group of persons’;

on the ground of a ‘protected trait’ [my term] being:

‘race’; ‘specific religious belief or affiliation’; ‘sexual orientation’; ‘gender identity’; ‘intersex status’; ‘that the other person has, or one or more of the members of the group have, HIV or AIDS’.

The max penalty for an individual is 3 years in prison and/or $11,000.00. For a corporation – $55,000.00.

The key term in the Act is ‘violence’.

All Speech is Potentially an Offence

‘Violence’ is the trigger for an offence and is undefined. That’s deliberate.

The Act’s coverage says its purpose is to punish standard Islamic clerics like Ismail Al-Wahwah who say muslims must kill all non-muslims. As the peaceful Koran says ‘metaphorically’.

It can do that. But that’s not all the Act does.

Look at the qualifications; the paragraphs immediately after the penalties section. Consider the second one:

“in determining an offence…it is irrelevant whether…any person formed a state of mind or carried out an act of violence”.

Take the element ‘incites’.

How do you prove speech (a public act) ‘incites’ violence?

Examine the scenario used to justify the Act:

1. Imam calls for Jihad (Speech)

 

2. Fanboy (Recipient) consequently drives truck of peace into a European pedestrian (Violence).

Formula: Speech plus action by its Recipient = Violence.

You have to prove the Imam’s speech caused the Fanboy recipient to be violent to punish the Imam.

The problem is connecting the truck of peace to the Jihad obligation reminder.

Because maybe it wasn’t the speech. Maybe it was the Koran. The weather. Alcohol. Maybe all four. To what extent? Etc.

That ‘problem’ of proving a consequential link between speech and action has been prohibitive. For 30 years pre-Act that problem’ prevented successful prosecutions of pure speech in Australia. Speech was free. You couldn’t punish speech as an action.

Now read the second qualification.

It means you don’t have to prove that causal link between speech and action. Or between speech and change in state of mind. i.e. Imam calls for Jihad, muslim kid in London buys acid. The kid doesn’t use the acid. But its possession proves speech changed state of mind.

It means to prove speech incites violence, you don’t have to identify any actions which objectively proves that.

Before?

Speech plus action by its Recipient = Violence (to discharge the element ‘public act incites’).

Now?

Speech = Violence. Because it’s irrelevant if anyone does anything in response to the speech.

Under the Act, all speech is violence.

But that’s unworkable.

If you don’t have to prove speech causes an action, you must prove it does something. Otherwise how can you distinguish between speech that ‘incites’ absent action, and speech which doesn’t incite absent action?

Here’s the only way. Define violence so you don’t need an intermediary to do the violence. i.e. the guy who hears the Imam and drives the peace truck and hurts someone. Take out the middle-man.

To make this Act work a NSW adjudicator must define violence so broadly words can cause violence by themselves. Remember, you offend as a person who:

“By a public act [speech], intentionally or recklessly…incites violence”.

Words can’t incite broken bones. What can they do? Incite hurt feelings.

What violence hurts feelings? Psychological violence.

Violence under this act must & will be defined as largely spurious non-DSM psychological violence – ‘stigma’, ‘exclusion’, ‘peripheralization’, ‘cultural denigration’, ‘fear inducement’ etc. Subjective things proved by unimpeachable assertion. ‘It hurt my feelings – 3 years jail, racist’.

This example clarifies:

1. Imam calls for Jihad (Speech) Sonia Kruger says Muslims commit terrorist (Speech)

 

2. No intermediary does anything

 

3. But, speech incites psychological violence in Recipient (Violence).

= Offence

Speech = Violence = Offence

To punish words that ‘incite’ without linked actions, violence under this Act must be defined as psychological violence. That’s why violence was left undefined. It’s a door left open by the Act’s ancient and esteemed clever architects to enable total speech suppression in Australia.

Under this Act, speech will be an offence if someone can claim it caused them psychological violence. All speech in NSW is now an offence, depending on the reaction of a recipient.

The architects of the Act, the ‘Keep NSW Safe Alliance’ (Alliance), were 31 different non-European minority bodies. Led by one. They’ve designed the Act cleverly so that subjective ‘psychological violence’ will trigger the Act. Speech in NSW, after a tribunal defines violence broadly, as it must for the Act to work, is going to be at the mercy of progressives’ psychological resilience.

Which means speech is dead in NSW.

‘Threatens’ works the same way.

But that’s not it. Because additionally…

The Act Punishes True Statements

The Act punishes true statements:

“it is irrelevant whether the alleged offender’s assumptions or beliefs about an attribute of another person or a member of a group of persons….were correct or incorrect”.

It’s irrelevant to committing an offence if what you say is true.

So, if you say a true statement in NSW about any protected traits and that true statement incites or threatens ‘psychological violence’ in a recipient – you go to prison for 3 years.

Truth about a protected trait is an offence under the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW).

The Speech God

The DPP decides what cases get standing under the Act. Until Labor get in. Then it will be the Police. Ah yes, the corrupt NSW Police on a muslim recruitment drive – they’ll be great at picking speech winners. Labor will also lower the standard from ‘incite’ to ‘promote’.

The ‘AIDS or GULAG’ Act.

The Act makes it illegal not to get AIDS in NSW.

The Act should be called the ‘Get AIDS or Get GULAG’ Act. Why?

The Act punishes true statements.

The Act will punish psychological violence or ‘potential’ violence (via the ‘threatens’ element) caused by those true statements.

Look at the last protected trait on the list: ‘a person who has HIV/AIDS’.

The only way a person can avoid AIDS they might get from someone who won’t tell them they have AIDS is to be informed by a third party. The Act makes such notification illegal.

Because that notification is a true statement. Truth is irrelevant to determining an offence under the Act. Does disclosing that someone has AIDS due to its stigma potentially threaten or incite violence against that person. Yes. Violence in the usual sense, and absolutely violence in the leftie sense it will be defined – ‘social exclusion’ blah blah blah.

I don’t dismiss the right of someone with AIDS to privacy. Individuals with AIDS deserve minimisation of the condition, empathy, kindness, solidarity. But it’s not violence to not have sex with them and die from AIDS. Look at what the ‘Keep NSW Safe Alliance’ has done:

Person A – has AIDS, won’t tell Person B.

Person B – doesn’t have AIDS. Probably doesn’t want AIDS. Going to have sex with person A.

Person C – knows Person A has AIDS. Knows and likes Person B. Likes not being in prison.

The Attorney General of NSW, the ‘conservative’ member of the ‘Liberal Party’ Mark Speakman said the Act strikes the right balance between freedom of speech and ‘stopping violence’. Lets look at Speakman’s ‘balance’.

The Act says the right of person A with AIDS not to be embarrassed and suffer ‘sexual exclusion’ ‘violence’ 100% overrides the right of person B not to get AIDS and die, horribly, and person C not to go to prison for three years for saving B from the AIDS.

Succinctly, this Act is going to cause lots of people to get AIDS in NSW and die.  Or, it’s going to cause lots of people to break the law because they’d rather not get AIDS.

It’s the ‘make it illegal not to get AIDS’ Act. From the ‘Keep NSW Safe Alliance’.

The Sonia Kruger Exemplar

Sonia Kruger, an Australia TV personality, faced hearings from 19 June 18 at the NSW Civic and Administrative Tribunal for saying the startlingly obvious trite truism:

“there is a correlation between the number of people who, you know, are Muslim in a country and the number of terrorist attacks”.

She said that before the Act – and is currently moving through hearings for racial vilification.

Well, Sonia should be happy. Because now, if you say the empirical truth that Muslims commit most rape, almost all terrorism, steal welfare etc, you go to prison for 3 years.

Ramifications

Just two:

National Security

The Act makes it impossible to make true statements linking protected traits to bad things they do. Per Sonia Kruger.

President Trump just banned funding to all communist Chinese Confucius Institutes in the United States because they are centres for corruption and espionage.

If he was subject to the Act, he couldn’t say the Confucius Institutes were Chinese. Australia has dozens of Confucius Institutes. Oh well, can’t say anything about that now. I’m sure it’s different.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, has been senior on the United States Senate Intelligence Committee for nearly 20 years. It was just disclosed via Politico and others she employed a communist Chinese spy as her office manager for 20 years, called Russell Howe. If America had the Act, no one could say things like ‘Russell betrayed America to China because he’s Chinese’. I’m sure it’s different in AU too.

The Act is going to wreck Australia’s national security against Chinese and muslim hostility/exploitation. And of course, Chinese and muslim groups led by another group demanded the Act. Seditious? Subversive? Hostile? No, surely not. Australia is a multicultural utopia.

Personal Security

All the minority groups say the Act will make Australians safer when it makes them get AIDS and sends them to muslim run prisons for saying muslims’ run prisons.

Conclusion

The Act is a joke. Except it’s not a funny one. Free Speech is dead in NSW. The Alliance will kill it everywhere else too. Don’t let the fake diverse destroy your free speech.

Our leftist imbecility will retard our economy. Don’t be like us. Defend your free speech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGSfHIPnupY – This video I think has media footage in NZ. The world noticed your primitive media. Quite amazing. Have a look.

Thank-you Kiwiblog