Rich Lowry writes:

His exit from the agreement is another instance of the Trump paradox: The president who says more outlandish and untrue things than anyone who has ever occupied the office of the presidency is also extraordinarily determined to deliver on his big promises.

Trump often doesn’t mean what he says, but when he says what he means — watch out. The combined forces of international pressure, polite opinion, outraged New York Times editorials, resistant advisers and sheer inertia aren’t an obstacle.

This is insightful. Trump doesn’t have much of a grasp on reality or facts but he does have a strong focus on keeping his big promises.

Many of Trump’s loose promises in the campaign weren’t remotely deliverable. He wasn’t really going to forswear vacations as president. He’s not going to give us 6 percent GDP growth. He was never going to bring back waterboarding or kill the relatives of terrorists, or for that matter, drop Bowe Bergdahl out of an airplane over Afghanistan with no parachute.

Heh that last one was so typically Trumpian.

But on his signature pledges, he’s been committed, usually more than anyone around him. He’s been particularly stalwart on those promises that require blasting through entrenched conventional wisdom and elite resistance. In the areas run-of-the-mill politicians would shrink from — ditching or delaying their pledges indefinitely—he has gladly grasped the nettle.

What was most remarkable about Trump’s promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. Embassy there wasn’t that he said it—every recent president made similar sounds—but that he actually did it.

Yep and the world did not end when he made the decision. In fact the reaction was muted. A few days of protests.

But it’s not at all clear that another GOP president, even if he was on record favoring these moves, would have pulled out of the Paris climate accord and withstood the howls about imperiling the planet; or ended DACA despite all the media pressure to keep it; or exited the Iran deal with the Europeans waging an intense lobbying campaign in its favor.

It wasn’t simply that these decision had opponents. Their opponents were over-represented in (allegedly) sophisticated circles with disproportionate cultural clout. Even conservatives who disdain the elite feel this cultural pull. Whereas Trump, who has never been house-trained as a politician, is more immune to it. He may, at one level, crave the approval of respectable opinion, but on another, he is perfectly content to defy and outrage it.

So he is following through where others might equivocate or back off.

It’s a problem for those who believe a promise was a bad promise. What is worse – breaking a promise, or implementing a bad promise. Trump obviously thinks they were good promises.

He’s not telling the truth about the Stormy Daniels controversy and is unlikely to unless his hand is somehow forced.

His problem is not cheating on his wife with porn stars. Everyone knows he did, and few are surprised he would and did. But the cover up may bring him down, as it almost did with Clinton.

When Trump was elected, it seemed he might be endlessly flexible and up for grabs. He certainly is willing to say anything at any time, as he demonstrated in televised congressional meetings on immigration and gun policy. But he hasn’t shifted or shrunk from the core commitments that defined his candidacy.

So far, “he said he would do this,” has been a remarkably reliable guide to the Trump agenda. 

So will he get his wall?

Stuff reports:

Pushy and unprofessional telemarketers are turning away some aspiring philanthropists from donating with Greenpeace NZ.

Pressuring, guilt tripping and in some cases withdrawing more money than originally agreed upon, are some of the criticisms levied against some staff at the New Zealand branch of the well-known environmental conservation organisation.

On Thursday, one would-be donor was left a voicemail message which said “come on, give us your money or f… off”.

Another voice in the background, seemingly on another call, yelled “what’s the amount you can donate … come on mate, don’t be a dick about it”.

They’re as chamring with fundraising as they are with their advocacy.

The Spinoff reports:

Statistics released under official information legislation reveal a tiny group of 100 Supergold card holders hoover up over $200,000 worth of free trips to Waiheke Island every year. …

For much of the country this is busses and trains, often limited to off-peak times and thus a very defensible effort to allow older people to get around when the load on transport networks is relatively low. In Auckland though, after 9am, it means ferries too – including the 23 kilometre trip from the city’s Downtown Ferry Terminal to Matiatia wharf in Oneroa.

This has created a quite extraordinary situation in which one of the country’s prettiest and priciest commutes, from one of the most expensive suburbs in the country, costs a select group of its users exactly nothing.

Which is not to say that it’s free. You and I and every other taxpayer in country contribute as much as $1.9m a year – from a total Supergold national travel budget of $28m – to this one narrow trip.

So around 7% of the entire budget goes on ferries to under 0.1% of the population.

It revealed just how concentrated the benefits of this scheme are: the data showed that the top 1000 users of the scheme used almost $1.9m in the 22 months to May 2018 – an average total of over $1,800 per pensioner, and over half of total payments to ferry operators.

The top 100 users have an even more shocking slice – they have claimed over $400,000 in free rides in less than two years: an average of $4,087 each.

The cost of an adult return fare to Waiheke is $38, and there is no discount for HOP card users or seniors who don’t hold a Supergold card. The upshot is that the 100 most frequent users of the service are using over 10% of the total budget for ferry travel to Waiheke.

To use the ferry that frequently you’re not taking day trips, or even holidaying there: you’re commuting. It’s the equivalent of over 200 one way trips a year – a usage rate which would be near impossible to achieve unless you were working on the mainland and living on the island.

If something is free, of course people will maximise its use. The problem isn’t Waiheke. It is that when you make something absolutely free to the user, they will use it to the max.

Any subsidised transport scheme should be based on income, not age. And it also should be a partial discount, not free. Otherwise you will always get stuf like this.

To put it another way – to put it as bluntly as I can: the Waiheke ferry’s inclusion in the Supergold card’s transport scheme represents an immense subsidy to a tiny group of people, who are almost by definition amongst the most wealthy and privileged group of New Zealanders you could assemble.

Yep. But the problem isn’t including the ferry. It is the entire scheme. If you subsidize public transport, you can’t pick and choose which routes are worthy.

The whole superannuation system is riddled with absurdities – our Deputy PM is both its strongest defender, and a man who collects his Super while also earning well over $300,000 a year.

Yep. All welfare should be targeted at those who need it. Not turned into welfare for everyone.

Andrew Bolt blogs:

What’s more, he says he will hand over power to his new party’s true leader, Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy who remains in jail thanks to the trumped up sodomy charges first laid against him under Mohamad.

Never been a fan of Mohamad, partly because of how he got Ibrahim jailed on made up charges.

But at the age of 92, he seems to have finally come right and done the right thing.

So who knows, maybe in 19 years time a NZ politician might do the same.

A few more thoughts on why Trump’s decision on the Iran deal is bad.

US can no longer be trusted

It is important to note that the US is not withdrawing from the Iran deal. It is reneging on it. Some agreements have provisions for withdrawal, and you give notice etc. What has happened here is Trump has said he will ignore the agreement and impose sanctions despite the US having agreed not to.

It actually puts the US in violation of an agreement that was given legal force by the UN Security Council, while NZ chaired it.

Iran has kept up its end of the deal. That is not just my view, but the view of the US Defence Secretary, US Dept of State, NSA, CIA and all the European countries that were parties to the agreement. Iran is far from a model country, but there is no evidence that they have not wound down their nuclear program as agreed.

So what this means is that an agreement with the US Government now means little. At best it is something they may honour for a few years. Trump doesn’t care of course. His only concern is how his decisions impact him. But it will have a profound impact on the ability of the US in future to be able to get agreements.

It strengthens the radicals in Iran

This deal was made by the moderates in Iran and basically opposed by the hardliners. They said you can’t trust the Great Satan and Trump has proven them right. This weakens the moderates and may lead to the hardliners accumulating more power.

This matters, as the difference between a moderate and hardliner in Iran is huge. Far far more difference that between say Trump and Clinton.

It helps Russia and China

The US sanctions stop US companies trading with Iran but in reality few were anyway. The companies affected will tend to be European as if they continue to trade with Iran they will be blacklisted in the US. So only small European countries will continue to trade. But there is no return to a global sanctions on Iran so this will open up huge opportunities for Russian and Chinese companies.

It makes Iran look like the good guy

Iran is not the good guy. They still do many bad things such as support Hamas. They are a theocracy. The Iranian people are wonderful but the Government is not.

However as they have kept to their end of the deal, the US looks like the bad guy and Iran like the good guy. In fact it pushes Europe and Iran closer together as they are looking likely to stay with the deal, despite the US pulling out.

The Herald reports:

A bill targeting child poverty is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reset social outcomes for the country’s most deprived children and their families, Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft says. …

In his submission, Becroft said one of the primary measures of child poverty must be either 60 per cent or 50 per cent of the relative, median income, after housing costs.

This is absolutely the wrong figure. It is a measure of inequality, not poverty.

Let’s say NZ made some huge discovery that led to a doubling of our economy. And let’s say that every family in New Zealand suddenly had twice the disposable income they had a year ago.

Under Becroft’s measure not a single family would have moved out of poverty.

And to go the other way. Let’s say we had an economic downturn and the economy shrank 25% and every income in NZ shrunk 25%. Again under this measure not one extra family would be in poverty despite having 25% less money to spend.

The only sensible measure is material deprivation.

If your measure is how many people earn under x% of the median income, then the only possible solution is to tax people more and hike welfare payments. Getting people off welfare into work won’t reduce the numbers.

Politik reports:

Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran has “dumped” pages, and pages of emails and other documents in response to an avalanche of Official Information Act requests over the RNZ – Carol Hirschfeld affair.

Most of the documents have been redacted.

Some of the redactions are ridiculous’ a letter written by the RNZ Chair and CEO to the Economic Development Select Committee before their latest appearance has had all its content redacted yet the Committee itself has made the letter public.

Ironically, Curran is also Minister of Open Government.

Other requests have journalists’ names redacted but their signature blocks included (including POLITIK) ; one name has not been redacted at all.

Welcome to Open Government Labour style. They even redact stuff already in the public domain.

On the morning of the appearance by RNC Chair, Richard Griffin and CEO, Paul Thompson, at the Select Committee when Griffin had explained (at times vehemently) that the meeting between Curran and Hirschfeld was a casual encounter with Hirschfeld still in her gym gear, Curran’s office phoned RNZ at 1142 shortly after Griffin left the Select Committee.

A note of the calls reads: “To confirm what RNZ had said to the Select Committee and as a result advise that it was not a chance meeting, as it was in the Minister’s diary. Incorrect information had been given to the Select Committee.”

RNZ called back at 1500: “To advise RNZ had checked again with Carol who maintained her story that it was a chance meeting.”

Then on the 22^nd of March — three weeks later — Curran’s office phoned RNZ again: To advise RNZ again that the meeting was not a chance meeting and that it had been in the diary since 23 November.”

Why did Curran’s office do nothing for three weeks. They told Radio NZ it was a planned meeting and Radio NZ reported back that Hirschfeld was still saying it was coincidental. Her office knew that Hirschfeld was lying to Radio NZ, but left the matter for three weeks.

But Griffin was privately furious that he had been misled not just by Hirschfeld, but he felt, by Curran’s tardiness in confirming the facts of the meeting, which had led him and Thompson to mislead a Select Committee.

His relationship with Curran had begun to break down.

It was a far cry from November 8 last year when he met the Minister, and a released email quotes him thanking her for the courteous and constructive discussion she had with him over the future of RNZ that day.

“And I want to thank you also for supporting my continued leadership of the board through the introductory stage of what promises to be the most innovative programme of change to the organisation in decades,” he wrote.

What he didn’t know was that five days before, on March 3, Curran had texted  Hirschfeld suggesting they meet, in effect, behind Griffin’s back..

Ministers don’t meet with staff in private meetings that their CEOs and Chairs know nothing about. Any MP or Minister should know this.

Stuff reports:

A Labour MP’s bill to entrench the seven Māori seats will not have the numbers to pass due to opposition from both NZ First and National.

Rino Tirikatene, who holds the Te Tai Tonga seat for Labour, had his member’s bill drawn out of the ballot last week.

His bill would give the seven Māori seats the same protection as the general seats, meaning a 75 per cent majority is needed to overturn them – currently Māori seats can be abolished with a majority of just 51 per cent.

Even if NZ First did support it, it would not become law. Any bill which seeks to entrench a section with a 75% majority itself needs a 75% vote in favour at the committee of the house stage, under Standing Orders.

The argument that the Maori seats should have the same protection as the general seats is superficial and misleading.

Without general electorates, we don’t have MMP. Abolishing electorates would be a major constitutional upheaval. It would negate the referenda results implementing MMP.

The inclusion of Maori electorates does not change the basic electoral system. In fact the Royal Commission recommended the Maori electorates not be part of MMP.

Doing away with the Maori electorates will just mean seven fewer electorates, and seven more List MPs.  Actually it might be just five or six fewer as we would then have more North Island seats. But anyway the only difference is everyone would be on the general roll.

I don’t actually advocate taking away the Maori seats without the agreement of Maori. But neither do I support entrenching them.

I believe there should be a referendum every ten years on whether they should be abolished as the Royal Commission recommended, and in return the threshold for Maori parties eliminated.

For a referendum to pass, I would advocate a majority of all voters plus a majority of voters of Maori descent would have to vote in favour.

Stuff reports:

Selling alcohol at some school fundraising events may violate the right of children in the eyes of the United Nations.

That is the view of Hawke’s Bay District Health Board, which has vowed to start opposing applications for alcohol sales at school functions where children are present.

Well if that is how they used their taxpayer funding, how about we take it off them and give it to a DHB that focuses on making people better, not pushing wowserism.

A paper going before the board later this month said that Hawke’s Bay schools may be particularly prone to selling alcohol as the region was known nationally and globally for its strong wine industry, which was a large local employer.

Oh the poor dears. They live in a region with a wine industry. How upsetting for them.

Between March 2014 and October 2017, 139 special licenses were granted to schools in the region, of which 39 per cent were for primary or intermediate schools, 29 per cent were for secondary schools and six per cent were for early childhood centres.

Most were from higher decile schools and most were for quiz, casino, bingo, movie or auction nights. Most events had children present.

There is nothing wrong with kids seeing adults drink alcohol in moderation in an appropriate setting. Treating it as something so bad it must be hidden will just make it more attractive.

Allowing alcohol to be consumed in school settings normalised and increased the perceived acceptability of alcohol use, and using children to promote the sale of alcohol at some events may contravene the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, which required signatories – including New Zealand – to “prevent the use of children in the illicit production and trafficking of [narcotic and psychotropic] substances”, the paper said.

What planet are these DHB people on. That is a convention about child labour and illegal drugs. To try and say it applies to having a wine at a quiz night at a school is demented.

In Hawke’s Bay. opposition to applications for any future events on school grounds and where children are likely to be present “will increase substantially”, the board said.

Let them. They become such zealots that the local licensing authorities will learn to just ignore them.

Rachel Eyre, who leads the board’s alcohol strategy, told Stuff its position was that “alcohol and schools don’t mix” and ideally there would be no alcohol at school functions, whether children were present or not.

Why not just campaign to bring back prohibition.

Gerald Piddock writes at Stuff:

Six months have passed since the new Government has taken office and made a vast array of decisions negatively impacting on provincial New Zealand and in turn, farmers.

The list is depressingly long: The ban on offshore oil and gas exploration in Taranaki, the end of government money for irrigation, the loss of air ambulances in Rotorua, Taupo and Te Anau, the refusal to give $600,000 funding to the Rural Health Alliance, regional fuel taxes and just recently David Parker talking up the prospect of nutrient limits – effectively a cap on stock numbers.

And that’s all in just six months. Imagine what they’ll do over three years or even worse six years.

Labour will also almost certainly be campaigning for a water tax in the 2020 election.

Tax, tax, tax.

So after six months, how has the Government performed for farmers and provincial New Zealand? 

Rather than grade them using National Standards gobbledygook, for now, it gets a C+. In the old School Certificate system, that was a bare pass mark.

Too many policies have been announced in the last six months that negatively affect rural New Zealand for it to be graded higher, but it is still early days and its judgment must be measured by that.

The true test of the Government’s commitment to regional New Zealand and to the primary sector will be on May 17 when this year’s Budget is unveiled.

In the past few years, Labour and the Greens have talked plenty of farmers having to transition to practices that lower their environmental footprint and improve water quality.

The amount of cash thrown at  the primary sector in the Budget on this will show literally if they have put their money where their mouth is.

I suspect the C+ will be a high water mark.

This graph from Human Progress shows the huge reduction in extreme poverty since 1970. An 80% reduction from 25% to 5% of the world’s population.

Most of this has come from China. The fall in absolute numbers from 700 million to 100 million in China.

Now what has caused this? Was it luck? No.

They freed up their economy. It really can be that simple.

A guest post by Bob Edlin:

Measuring rainbows

Statistics New Zealand reports that more than 900 New Zealanders shared their views about how sexual orientation should be measured during a three-week public consultation which closed on 1 May.

Feedback will guide development of a new statistical standard to report in a consistent way on how people identify their sexuality.

Stats NZ explains that sexual identity refers to how each person thinks of his, her or whatever’s own sexuality and which terms they choose to identify with, including lesbian, gay, heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, and asexual.

The department will analyse the responses, then work with other organisations to develop a new statistical standard for sexual identity. The final statistical standard for sexual identity will be released later this year.

A great deal of effort – and cost – apparently is being invested in this venture, although not soon enough for some people in the so-called rainbow community.
Howls of criticism followed the decision in January not to include gender-identity questions in this year’s census.

RadioLIVE aired the expostulations of one Aych McArdle (or should that be H.McArdle?), who demanded an “immediate investigation” into Stats NZ’s lack of action and asked if this was an example of “institutionalised homo/trans/intersex phobia”.

According to the RadioLIVE report at that time:

The LGBT community is slamming Statistics New Zealand after the decision to leave questions over sex, gender and sexuality out of the 2018 census.

Social activist Aych McArdle, who uses gender neutral pronouns, spoke to RadioLIVE on Friday and says they’re “absolutely flabbergasted” by the decision, despite more than 25 years of fighting for change.

“If you don’t count someone, you’re almost saying they don’t count,” they say.

Let’s wait and see how many are counted at the next census and in which categories.

For now, let’s note the numbers reported in the Stats NZ press statement and the remarks of the department’s products, services, and insights general manager, Dean Rutherford. He said.

“More New Zealanders have shared their thoughts with us than we’ve seen in any other recent public consultation.”

The headline on the press release amplified this:

“Strong interest in Stats NZ’s sexual orientation consultation”

According to Stats NZ, the estimated resident population of New Zealand is 4,844,200.

Generously lifting “more than 900” to 1000 for the purposes of our calculation, we find the number of New Zealanders who shared their views with the statisticians about how sexual orientation should be measured amounted to just 0.02 per cent of the population.

This gives a useful insight into the meaning of “strong interest” when the department calls for public comment. It also gives a hint of the numerical strength of the very vociferous rainbow lobby and those whose interests it is championing.

Dominic Sandbrook writes:

In many ways, the story of the 20th century was that of Marxism in action.

From the Russian Revolution in 1917 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, one regime after another tried to put his revolutionary ideas into practice.

Venezuela still is!

Capitalism, Marx argued, was destined to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

Instead of bringing prosperity for all, economic growth would only widen the gap between a tiny, greedy elite and a huge, downtrodden and increasingly resentful majority.

Eventually, the working class, encouraged by a revolutionary vanguard, would seize the means of production in a violent uprising.

Then, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, human history would move into an entirely new age: no individual wealth, no class distinctions or economic ones. Mankind would have reached the promised land of communism.

So, how did Marx’s vision work out? Well, the death toll speaks for itself. In the Soviet Union alone, his disciple Stalin killed perhaps 12 million people.

In China, Chairman Mao killed even more. Many experts think that, during his purges, collectivisations and massacres in the Fifties and Sixties, 45 million people lost their lives.

In the most chilling example of all, Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge attempted to create a Marxist utopia overnight.

They forced the entire population of Cambodia’s cities into the countryside, killed every teacher, merchant and member of the middle-class and even murdered people for wearing glasses.

In their pursuit of Marx’s dream, the Khmer Rouge banned private property. Cambodians were limited to the ownership of a single spoon, but they had to eat communally. 

Picking wild berries, for example, was seen as private enterprise, punishable by death.

But all those regimes just did it wrong. They should have been allowed two spoons, not one!

The idea they were all guilty of some dreadful misunderstanding, and were not true Marxists at all, strikes me as ludicrous.

The best example is Stalin. As the U.S. historian Stephen Kotkin has shown, the Soviet dictator was not a monster who happened to be a Marxist. He was a monster because he was a Marxist.

As a young man, Stalin studied Marx’s theories with obsessive dedication. Then, after winning power, he put them into practice.

Stalin did not kill millions of his own people because he was mad. He did it because he believed Marx’s theories required it.

He thought their deaths were a price worth paying for the collectivisation of agriculture, the end of private farms and the coming of a socialist society.

Life and liberty means nothing under Marxism.

In fact, violence had formed part of Marx’s worldview from the very beginning.

‘There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated,’ wrote Marx in 1848, ‘and that way is revolutionary terror’.

Here is Marx a year later, addressing his conservative adversaries: ‘We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you,’ he writes. ‘When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.’

The truth is that Marx’s vision was inherently violent. How could it be otherwise? How, without bloodshed, would you get your revolution? How would you abolish private property?

No country I know of has ever voted to abolish private property. It only happens via force.

Here is a crucial distinction between Marxism — which is often called a ‘political religion’ — and genuine religions.

Christianity, for example, abjures violence and Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek.

But Marxism is violent by definition. If Marxists turned the other cheek, they would never get their revolution.

The other difference is that most religions venerate the individual.

In Judaism and Christianity, the wellsprings of mainstream Western politics, individual life is sacred, because man is made in God’s image.

But, for Marxists, the individual is irrelevant. Man is merely the servant of history. All that matters is the collective, the grand sweep.

And if that means some people — Russian landowners, Chinese merchants, Cambodian teachers, Cuban dissidents — end up in mass graves, prison camps or psychiatric hospitals, that is just their tough luck.

A good contrast on the differences.

I understand why people still read Marx and why they take him seriously. What I will never understand, though, is why people put him on a pedestal, grovelling before his statue like worshippers in some weird cult.

How, for example, can Labour’s John McDonnell seriously think that Marx, a man born in 1818, has the answers to the problems confronting Britain in 2018?

And how can people ignore the damning evidence of the crimes committed in his name?

Good questions. Maybe a former President of the IUSY could answer them!

Stuff reports:

NZ First leader Winston Peters says if Nanaia Mahuta and Willie Jackson want to be in the Government they will need to watch their words.

Māori Development Minister Mahuta said compulsory te reo in schools was a matter of “not if but going to be when” on Tuesday morning. …

Peters, the deputy prime minister and leader of NZ First – who oppose compulsory te reo – issued a sharp rebuke towards Mahuta and Jackson on Tuesday afternoon.

“Neither of them are speaking for the Government policy full stop,” Peters said.

“If they want to be in this Government they’ll be on the same page.”

A Deputy Prime Minister threatening to get two Ministers fired. Now he can’t actually do that as they are Labour Ministers. But once he is Acting Prime Minister, I assume he would be able to do so.

10News.com.au reports:

LABOR senator Katy Gallagher will quit Parliament over dual citizenship and three other MPs are now being shown the door.

WE are set for an expensive, unsettling and prolonged season of elections from individual seats to a national ballot.

Katie Fitzpatrick writes:

Education Minister Chris Hipkins has just appointed a high-level taskforce of five people to lead the review of Tomorrow’s Schools — the school governance structure that has been in place since the 1980s.

To date, the taskforce comprises Bali Haque as chairman (independent consultant who has worked for NZQA, NZ Principals’ Association, PPTA), Dr Cathy Wylie (NZ Council for Educational Research), Professor Mere Berryman (Waikato University and Te Kotahitanga), Professor John O’Neill (Massey University and NZ Association for Research in Education), and Barbara Ala’alatoa (chair of the Education Council).

Each is esteemed and respected within the education community and, as a group, they also appear reasonably diverse.

However, a closer look reveals that they are all representatives of educational institutions, most of which are partially or entirely funded by the Ministry of Education or the Government in some way. As a group then, they largely represent existing sectoral interests.

Yep.

Where is the evidence that the taskforce will employ 21st century thinking when, as a group, they are heavily invested in, and representative of, institutions that reinforce and benefit from the status quo?

It does seemed a missed opportunity.

Stuff reports:

A convicted killer who strangled his wife to death is on the run from police in Canterbury.

Police are searching for 54-year-old Dean Raymond Purdy, who has a warrant for his arrest for a breach of his parole release conditions.

Purdy, aged 27, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1991 after he strangled his wife Debbie Purdy in Auckland after they argued over her work as a prostitute. Her body was found in a toilet cubicle behind Karangahape Rd in Auckland.

So he must have a life sentence. Parole should be a privilege for people like Purdy.

Sensible Sentencing Trust victims’ advocate Jayne Walker said the department had been “too soft” and put the public’s safety at risk.

“Clearly this dangerous offender has no respect for the law or gratitude for the privilege that the current law allows parole for killers handed a life sentence.

“We urge anyone who knows the whereabouts of Mr Purdy to come forward.”

Walker also said the board should “be sensible” and, after Purdy has been arrested, never let him out of prison.

It was not the first time Purdy has breached his parole conditions. In 2014 he was recalled from parole after police caught him approaching prostitutes.

Three weeks later he escaped while he was being escorted to a corrections van after a medical appointment at Christchurch Hospital.

So how often has he breached parole conditions? That’s at least three times so far.

In 2008, Purdy left the Salisbury Street Foundation, where he was attending a 16-week programme, without permission. He was free for two days before surrendering to police.

Four times!

Stuff reports:

Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta says compulsory Te Reo in schools is the logical endpoint of her Government’s language policy. …

But on Tuesday morning Mahuta made clear what that first step was towards in her mind – compulsory Te Reo.

“In order to deliver on compulsory Te Reo Maori we would have to increase the number of Maori teachers in our schools,” Mahuta said.

Asked directly if that meant compulsory Te Reo was the end goal Mahuta said it was “I think it’s only a matter of time”.

“It’s not if it’s when.”

I disagree that it should be compulsory. Few subjects should be compulsory – English, Maths, Science etc. Other subjects should certainly be promoted and available but parents and students are best placed to decide for themselves what subjects to take.

The Government says officially it is not making it compulsory, but Mahuta has made clear that they will eventually make it compulsory.

Stuff reports:

US President Donald Trump has announced the US will pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran, dealing a profound blow to US allies and potentially deepening the president’s isolation on the world stage.

“The United States does not make empty threats,” he said in a televised address.

Trump’s decision means Iran’s government must now decide whether to follow the US and withdraw or try to salvage what’s left of the deal. Iran has offered conflicting statements about what it may do – and the answer may depend on exactly how Trump exits the agreement.

This is bad for the US and bad for security.

If the US pulls out of agreements with other countries on a whim, then no one will trust the US or see merit in a deal with them.

Trump said he would move to re-impose all sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 deal, not just the ones facing an immediate deadline. This had become known informally as the “nuclear option” because of the near-certainty that such a move would scuttle the deal.

So Iran will probably now resume its nuclear program unfettered.