Stuff reports:

The Reserve Bank will be required to consider how it can maximise employment when it is setting interest rates.

Adrian Orr, who becomes governor of the Reserve Bank on Tuesday, signed the new policy targets agreement with Finance Minister Grant Roberton in Parliament on Monday.

As widely flagged, the agreement will require the bank to consider not only inflation when considering the ideal level of the official cash rate (OCR).

“The Government expects monetary policy to be directed at achieving and maintaining stability in the general level of prices over the medium term and supporting maximum sustainable employment.”

This sounds like a change but it isn’t really. It is just Labour virtue signalling.

Some other central banks have this dual directive also. And they all interpret it pretty much the same way – that higher inflation doesn’t lead to lower unemployment in the medium term, so by keeping inflation low we are doing our job.

I doubt it will have any significant impact on OCR decisions.

Stuff reports:

Helen Clark says it’s “unbelievable” that Jacinda Ardern was not told about sexual assault allegations at a Young Labour camp before they surfaced in the media.

“Jacinda was let down. She should have been told immediately, actually, then events would have taken a different course.

“And I cannot understand why she wasn’t told. Unbelievable.”

If Clark had been left in the dark, she would have had H2 flay the person responsible alive, or done it herself.

Asked if there should be ramifications for Andrew Kirton or those in party management, Clark said: “If you get out the book and ask what would Helen have done, well, draw your own conclusions.”

You don’t need to do much reading between the lines to work out that Kirton would be gonski if Clark was the party leader.

Steven Joyce’s valedictory seemed like the end of an era. Since 2006 National had been dominated by John Key, Bill English and Steven Joyce. Now all three of them are gone. One person made the comment that a fish doesn’t know it is in water, and that National was the fish and Steven Joyce the water.

Steven had his formal valedictory in the House, followed by a function afterwards which saw speeches by Key, English, Bridges, Judy Kirk and Peter Hughes, the State Services Commissioner. Hughes worked closely with Joyce over fixing Novopay, and was full of praise for Steven’s ability to both do the big picture stuff and get into the detail.

Key, English and Joyce were all exceptionally capable and talented politicians, and Ministers (the two skill sets can be different). They were at the heart of every major decision National took in opposition and government for the last decade. National will of course miss them, but that also creates opportunities for others to step forward.

What struck me is who are the equivalents in the current Government? Labour’s absence of such calibre, is part of why they have had such a horrible first few months.

Anyway I’ll finish with some extracts from Steven’s valedictory:

So I got my office, and I went into my office on the fifth floor of the Beehive. Remember, I’d come from the private sector, and there was a sort of magnificently large office on the fifth floor of the Beehive. I was thinking to myself, “This looks extravagant.” I thought, “This smells a bit like the public service.” There were these chairs and these couches and this massive boardroom table, and I said to myself, “This is ridiculous. There is absolutely no way one Minister—lowly ranked—needs all this stuff.” Then I had my first officials meeting.

They all came in the door—processed in the door. They all came in, and they sat down around the table, others sat in the chairs, and they stood along the walls, and I realised that I’d entered a particularly different world.

What I did learn quite quickly, though, is that officials have a meeting after the meeting when they go outside and discuss what they think the Minister meant. The good thing about learning that is, until they recognise you, you can sneak out through your senior private secretary’s door and contribute to that discussion: “I think he meant this.”—and people would say, “No, no, no, no.”

I had heard this story before. Hilarious. Officials debating with the Minister what the Minister meant, not realising he was the Minister.

Building roads was something I enjoyed immensely as Minister of Transport. I know the Greens probably thought that I enjoyed the smell of fresh asphalt in the morning—it’s not completely true. But we did build some wonderful roads linking regional New Zealand with the main centres.

I think of one in particular, which was Waterview, which we inherited. I don’t know whether many people know this; that tunnel was only going to be two lanes in each direction. I looked at that and thought, “Well, I’m no transport engineer, but that feels like it’s going to be out of date pretty quickly.”, and it’s very hard to widen a tunnel. So I said to the officials, “Could you do it three lanes in each direction.”, and they said, “Well, anything’s possible, Minister.” I said, “It also looks too expensive, so is it possible that you could possibly reduce the price of it in the same process”—because three lanes in each direction was $3 billion; two lanes was $2.4 billion. They said, “Well, what do you want, Minister.” I said, “I want about $1 billion off it and I want it a lane wider in each direction.” They reminded me at the opening that that’s exactly what they gave us: $1.4 billion, three lanes in each direction. It was one of my proudest moments as a Minister.

And hasn’t Waterview made a huge difference. Since it was built a 45+ minute trip from the airport is now 20 minutes.

And now we have an ultrafast broadband network, fibre to the home to places like Mōkau, Kaitangata, and Naseby. Nobody else in the world has done that—nobody else. Yes; they’ve had fibre to the home, but nobody’s tried to get it to the Nasebys of the world. It’s fantastic.

We have one of the best fibre to the home networks in the world. It’s not just the big cities. So great to be able to 100 Mb/s download speeds with no data caps for basically the same price as the old copper broadband plans.

My other job—my weekend job, if you will—was as National Party campaign chair. That happened a bit by accident, too. It started off in 2005, when they quite literally couldn’t find anybody else. So I was the campaign chair, and with Don Brash as leader we went from 22 to 39 percent. It was a massive rollercoaster—red-blue billboards, taxathon ads, the Exclusive Brethren, American bagmen, the first online tax calculator—and ultimately it was close but no cigar.

We tried an interesting technique in that campaign: running our own positive and negative campaign, so as not to give Labour a look-in. We would do all the positive side, and then we’d attack ourselves! I think of a particular example—because there were many, and I was trying to work out which one was safe to say. We were in Hawke’s Bay. Don was doing this very impressive piece about our economic story and what we were going to do, and it had been set up for months in advance. Meanwhile in Tauranga our candidate, subsequent MP Bob Clarkson, was having some difficulties with the media. So we sent Tony Ryall, experienced MP, back to Tauranga to sit with Bob and help Bob with his interview, which was good, until Bob decided he had to stand up and rearrange himself in front of the camera. He actually declared, “Oh, look, I’ve just got to rearrange myself a bit here.”, and then he went outside, and Tony Ryall put his head in his hands on nationwide television. The media, of course, went to Don for his comments on this, and Don, bless his heart, was a master of the six-second soundbite—just not the one you want. He said, “Eh, I don’t think any of my candidates should be adjusting their testicles on national television.”, and that was that day!

Heh I recall that episode, and especially Don’s comment.

I have two children: Thomas and Amelia. Amelia’s here today. They have known nothing about me except that I’ve been a Minister for their entire lives, which is strange, because I see myself as quite short term in politics. They know me as leaving at 5.20 every Monday morning before they wake up and coming back Thursday night after they’ve gone to sleep, or on Friday or on Saturday. Then on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, they were used to me sequestering myself outside and reading papers for four or five hours each afternoon at the weekend.

I have to confess that I’ve often worried about the example that I’ve been setting them. Of course parents travel for work. It’s just the relentless nature of the ministerial job, day and day out for years on end, and in my case nine. Then there were the particularly arduous times. During one such time in 2011, my then four-year-old daughter—there were friends around at the house and she wandered up to the TV and I had a video of the Rena on, and she turned around to everybody and said, “That’s where my daddy lives.” Tommy doesn’t say anything, literally. He’s what they call non-verbally autistic. He is 8 years old, doesn’t have any vocabulary at all, but I know he likes having his dad around. He tells me with this laugh and with his eyes, and now he’s going to have dad around some more.

There were a few moist eyes in the place as Steven talked about Thomas.

NewstalkZb reports:

New Zealand is being called an international laughing stock for claiming there are no Russian spies here to expel.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that the NZ Security Intelligence Service has told her there are no Russian “undeclared intelligence officers” in New Zealand, but if there were, she would kick them out.

New Zealand has garnered international headlines for not following other countries that are expelling Russian diplomats in protest over the use of a Russian nerve agent to poison former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal.

Twenty six countries have reportedly expelled Russian envoys in the past few days, among them New Zealand’s Five Eyes security partners Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.

I’m in Australia at the moment and the newspaper here had a column on how ridiculous Ardern’s claims were.  They’ve made multiple international newspapers.

But security analyst Paul Buchanan said Ardern’s claim that there were no Russian spies in New Zealand was laughable.

“Unbelievably silly thing to say, and it has made New Zealand a laughing stock,” he told Radio NZ this morning.

The hold that Russia has over Peters, and through him Ardern, seems to be monumental. Even Trump has acted strongly on this. But NZ has done nothing more than a couple of press releases.

I thought it would be useful to unpick different threads of this issue. They are:

1. Was it wrong for Carol Hirschfeld to meet with Clare Curran?
2. Was it wrong for Clare Curran to meet with Carol Hirschfeld?
3. Was it a chance encounter or an arranged meeting?
4. Was it an official or unofficial meeting?
5. Why did Curran only use initials for Hirschfeld in her ministerial diary?
6. Why did Curran omit the mention of the meeting in written questions?
7. Why did Hirschfeld lie on multiple occasions about the nature of the meeting
8. Why did Curran’s office only contact Radio NZ, but not correct the public record?

Was it wrong for Carol Hirschfeld to meet with Clare Curran?

Yes. It undermined her CEO and Board Chair. Staff in a government organisation don’t have private meetings with the Minister without the permission or knowledge of their CEO.

It seems highly likely this was not a one off meeting. The texts imply they have met regularly.

How often had they met one on one when Curran was Opposition Broadcasting Spokesperson? Did the idea for RNZ+ doing television come from Hirschfeld, and got picked up by Curran? If so, then you have the head of news for a state broadcaster involved in developing policy for the opposition.

Was it wrong for Clare Curran to meet with Carol Hirschfeld?

Once she was Minister, yes.

Firstly for the reason that it undermines the Board and CEO of Radio NZ to be having private meetings with their news director. Especially as it seems they were discussing Radio NZ issues.

Secondly because Radio NZ is meant to be editorially independent. Having the news director in private secret meetings with the Minister is a huge conflict of interest. Especially with the Minister saying they want to give Radio NZ an extra $30 million a year. As no officials were present, who knows what assurances may have been sought or given about what Radio NZ would do in return for the money. Maybe replace Guyon Espiner with Bomber Bradbury on Morning Report (obviously not that, but the point is the news director has huge influence on who works at Radio NZ, and the editorial direction).

The Cabinet Manual (s3.81) says “If an employee wishes to communicate privately with a Minister about a matter concerning the agency by which he or she is employed, the Minister should ensure that the employee has first raised the matter with the agency’s chief executive.”

Was it a chance encounter or an arranged meeting?

It was arranged, at the initiative of Clare Curran. Hirschfeld said it was a chance encounter, and Curran never publicly corrected this.

Was it an official or unofficial meeting?

It was clearly an official meeting. It was to discuss issues in the Minister’s portfolios, with a senior employee of Radio NZ. It was not a gossip about politics generally. It was about the Minister’s portfolios and the company (Radio NZ) that Hirschfeld worked for.

Why did Curran only use initials for Hirschfeld in her ministerial diary?

Presumably to hide the identity of Hirschfeld from her staff.

Why did Curran omit the mention of the meeting in written questions?

She says it is because it was not official. The Prime Minister has said she was wrong not to disclose it. Note that she is the Minister of so called Open Government.

As she hid the identity of the person she was meeting from her staff, presumably this is part of the reason they did not include it in the responses they drafted.

Why did Hirschfeld lie on multiple occasions about the nature of the meeting?

This is the big question. It seems very out of character for Hirschfeld, who was a very popular manager at Radio NZ, and hugely liked.

There can really be only two possible reasons – to protect herself and/or to protect Curran.

Either way it seems obvious that Hirschfeld knew the meeting was wrong or inappropriate. Otherwise she would have told the truth about it. It makes you wonder exactly what was discussed there.

Why did Curran’s office only contact Radio NZ, but not correct the public record?

A very good question.

TVNZ reports:

The Prime Minister has advised DHBs establish an “independent panel” to resolve their pay dispute with the nurses union after they today rejected a two per cent pay rise.

Jacinda Ardern said in a post-cabinet media conference this afternoon, she would “like” to see an independent panel work through the barriers to reaching a settlement between DHBs nationwide and the NZ Nurses Organistaion (NZNO).

This is passing the buck. The Government funds the DHBs. If it wanted nurses to get a bigger pay rise, it would tell the DHBs that the upcoming Budget will make provision for an x% pay rise.

Audrey Young writes:

If Ardern does not make this clear now, Mfat will continue to present it as a take-it-or-leave-it option for the visiting country to dictate.

The Widodo visit followed a high-level visit the previous week from Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, again during which no press conference was organised. 

These two examples should not set a pattern for the rest of her premiership.

Holding a joint public press event was an expectation for VIPs under both Helen Clark and John Key’s leadership.

Audrey Young is write that there should be press conferences with visting heads of government.

Several readers have alerted me to an interesting fundraiser held on the 8th of June 2017 for Ginny Anderson’s campaign for Hutt South.

It was a whiskey tasting sessions with tables costing $700 for a table of 10. It was mainly focused on corporates.

So nothing wrong with that, except for one thing.

It was held in the Labour caucus room in Parliament.

In my 30 years of political involvement I’ve never heard of parliamentary premises being used for a campaign fundraiser.

It is absolutely common for caucus rooms and the likes to be held for meetings, conferences, policy discussions, seminars and the like. Also for functions that are free (caucus parties etc).

But I can’t ever recall a party using a caucus room as a venue for a campaign fundraiser. This is probably why attendees were explicitly told not to post any photos to social media.

The question is whether this could be a breach of the rules. But who would one complain to?

You could complain to the Prime Minister. But guess who was listed as the host of the fundraiser. One Jacinda Ardern.

Maybe one could try complaining to the Speaker. But Ardern had to pull out at the last minute, so guess who hosted it on her behalf. One Trevor Mallard.

So I guess there’s no point in doing a complaint.

But media could ask questions about whether Parliament is an appropriate venue for campaign fundraisers.

Stuff reports:

National leader Simon Bridges says it was “cheap, silly talk” for Women’s Minister Julie Anne Genter to say old white men need to “move on” from company boards to help close the gender pay gap.

Speaking to students at Christchurch’s Cobham Intermediate School on Thursday, Genter said the private sector needed to address the low level of female representation on New Zealand company boards if more businesses were to be led by women.

About 85 per cent of board members were male, and many were “old white men in their 60s”.

Speaking on The AM Show on Monday, Bridges said: “It’s a silly statement… [what] I don’t like is the virtue signalling here. It’s pointless stuff”.

The current Government’s Cabinet had fewer women on it than National’s had when it was in government. “Their front bench has fewer women than ours did,” Bridges said.

“I’m all for positively trying to increase your diversity over time and doing the right thing there as long as you’re bringing merit through.

“But they’re not doing that in the reality. So this is just cheap, silly talk,” he said.

“I just don’t think it’s good to go negative about a segment of society … older, white men, who are actually performing, and who actually this Government appoints every day… many older men who’ve got a lot to contribute.

“What you do is you positively over time increase your diversity. We did that, actually we’ve got a better record to date than these guys have,” Bridges said. 

It’s interesting to compare the percentage women at each tier of five for the Government and Opposition. They are

• Top 5 – Government 20%, National 60%
• Top 10 – Government 30%, National 40%
• Top 15 – Government 33%, National 33%
• Top 20 – Government 35%, National 40%
• Top 25 – Government 32%, National 40%
• Top 30 – Government 33%, National 37%

Mike Hosking writes:

But back to this current deal. It’s 29 hectares and 4000 houses at under $600 grand a pop. Do the numbers. That’s 72 square metres per house, that’s the land content by the way not the size of the house, although I doubt many of the houses will be a lot bigger. 72 square metres of land per house, in a country where the quarter acre one reigned supreme, and these days 300 squares is seen as about as small as you’d want.

Even if some of them are apartments, that is going to be mighty squashed. Matthew Hooton has done some calculations also:

Twyford Bullshit by David Farrar on Scribd

So a density of housing akin to Manila or Mumbai.

Richard Meadows writes:

When you stop and think about it, the humble plastic bag is a remarkable triumph of technology. It costs a couple of cents to make, holds a thousand times its own weight, is waterproof, surprisingly durable, and 100 per cent recyclable. After carrying your groceries home, it might hold feijoas off the tree, your togs and towel, dirty rugby boots, and then end its life as a bin liner.

Having grown up with a ready supply of these miraculous freebies, I have mixed feelings about their imminent demise. Even if the Government doesn’t follow through on its proposed ban, the supermarkets will phase them out by the end of this year.

The big question is what will replace them. It’s counterintuitive, but plastic bags are far more energy efficient than any of the other options. Paper’s out – it causes seven times more global warming than a plastic bag reused as a bin liner. A cotton bag would have to be used 327 times to break even with plastic, and trendy “organic” cloth bags are hopelessly inefficient.

Bjorn Lomberg has noted:

Plastic bags best for the environment:
You must reuse a regular cotton bag 7,100 times to make it better for the environment
Organic cotton bag needs 20,000 reuses
Paper needs 43 reuses

New Danish EPA analysishttps://t.co/bsK7MOwCkq pic.twitter.com/Xlwu94H65m

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) March 15, 2018

Meadows continues:

If you’re a twice-weekly shopper, you’d have to remember to bring your reusable bag on every single trip for three years straight. If you slip up a single time and buy a new one, or break or throw one away, you’re doing more harm than good.

Yep.

The supermarket chains can’t believe their luck. The overseas experience suggests they’re about to receive a massive boost in the sale of bin liners, which they essentially gave away for free all these years, and come out of the whole thing looking like heroes, despite potentially making global warming worse.

Yep we’ll now pay for them.

There’s a flaw in our psychology called “moral licensing”, which makes us less inclined to behave virtuously after we’ve already done some token good deed. This is how someone can pilot a two-tonne SUV from their massive home filled with stuff, emerge from the supermarket with an eco-bag full of packaging, shrink-wrapped slabs of miserable animal flesh, and plastic junk “collectables”, and still see themselves as someone who cares about the environment. After all, they’ve done their bit.

The truth is that eating one less meat dish a week would make vastly more of a difference. So would biking or walking to the supermarket. So would stepping off the hamster wheel of consumerism. So would donating money to offset carbon emissions, or to cleaning up the ocean. These are the hard things, and no-one wants to do them.

Banning plastic bags is fiddling while Rome burns. It’s not important to make a difference, as long as you look like you’re making a difference; preferably with a limited edition hemp tote that has a cute picture of a seal on it and only cost $2.

Giving the remarkable plastic bag the respect it deserves is as simple as reducing, reusing, and being a tidy Kiwi. If you want to be truly virtuous, a meaningful lifestyle change is required.

Well said.

The Herald reports:

A French police officer who offered himself up to an Islamic extremist gunman in exchange for a hostage died of his injuries, raising the death toll in the attack to four, and the officer was honored today as a national hero of “exceptional courage and selflessness.”

Colonel Arnaud Beltrame was among the first officers to respond to the attack on the supermarket in the south of France on Friday.

Beltrame, who first took his place among the elite police special forces in 2003 and served in Iraq in 2005, had organized a training session in the Aude region in December for just such a hostage situation.

At the time, he armed his officers with paintball guns, according to Depeche du Midi, the local newspaper.

 

“We want to be as close to real conditions as possible,” he said then.

But when he went inside the supermarket on Friday, he had given up his own weapon and volunteered himself in exchange for a female hostage.

Unbeknownst to the Morocco-born captor, he left his cellphone on so police outside could hear what was happening in the store.

They stormed the building when they heard gunshots, officials said. Beltrame was fatally wounded.

An absolute hero. Nous te saluons.

The Herald reports:

Carol Hirschfeld is leaving Radio NZ, effective immediately, after saga over her meeting with Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran.

Hirschfeld had earlier repeatedly assured RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson a meeting with Curran on December 5 last year was coincidental, after she and the minister had bumped into each other in a Wellington cafe.

The saga became public after National MP Melissa Lee asked questions Hirschfeld’s meeting with Curran at a Wellington cafe.

Lee asked Radio NZ chief executive Paul Thompson about it by Lee at a select committee and Thompson said it had been a chance encounter between the pair.

But on Sunday, Hirschfeld told Thompson the meeting had been arranged.

So the nature of the meeting was lied about. We were assured at the time they just happened to run into each other at Astoria, and this is now revealed to be a lie.

Why a lie? Who asked for the meeting and arranged it? If they tried to cover up the nature of it, that is an admission they knew it was inappropriate.

The meeting had already drawn criticism from National, which claimed Curran had tried to hide the meeting as it was not included in her diary.

And Curran failed to mention the meeting in response to written questions. You could possibly understand that for an unplanned meeting, but this was an arranged meeting.

Also why did Hirschfeld after months of lying about the meeting, suddenly tell the truth to her boss at Radio NZ. Was it about to be exposed?

So questions for the Minister are:

1. Who requested the meeting?
2. Why was it requested?
3. Why did she not include the meeting in her diary as it was pre-arranged?
4. Why did she omit the meeting in the response to written questions on meetings with RNZ staff?
5. What specifically was discussed at the meeting?
6. How many other meetings had she had with Hirschfeld, before or after the election?
7. Having seen multiple media reports describing the meeting as coincidential, why did the Minister never correct them?

Stuff reports:

The United States and more than a dozen European nations kicked out Russian diplomats on Monday (Tuesday NZ Time) and the Trump administration ordered Russia’s consulate in Seattle to close, as the West sought joint punishment for Moscow’s alleged role in poisoning an ex-spy in Britain.

Warning of an “unacceptably high” number of Russian spies in the US, the Trump administration said 60 diplomats would be expelled – all Russian intelligence agents working under diplomatic cover, the US said. ..

The American penalties were echoed by announcements in European capitals across the continent, including those in Russia’s backyard. All told, 18 countries were ousting more than 100 Russian spies, British Prime Minister Theresa May said, in addition to 23 already kicked out by the UK.

The list included at least 16 European Union nations, with more likely to follow. Germany, Poland and France each planned to boot four, the Czech Republic three and Italy two. Ukraine, a non-EU country with its own conflicts with Moscow, was expelling 13 Russians, President Petro Poroshenko said. All three Baltic states said they would kick diplomats out. Canada, too, said it was taking action, kicking out four and denying three who have applied to enter the country.

Yep nothing from New Zealand. I wonder why that is!

In a fit of naivety or incompetence the PM has said:

Speaking to Morning Report today, Ms Ardern said the diplomats being expelled overseas were “undeclared intelligence officers”, and she had been assured by MFAT that New Zealand did not have any operating here.

What part of undeclared is hard to understand? Russia doesn’t tell MFAT which of its staff are spies.

There are other steps the NZ Government could do also, such as recall the Ambassador for consultations.

CBS has the transcript of the interview with Stormy Daniels about her relationship with Donald Trump.

I’m not sure this will hurt Trump.

For any other President, it would probably be game over. To have an affair with a porn star and then pay her hush money would be fatal.

But it may not be with Trump.

The reason is that it is entirely consistent with what we know about him. He’s had three wives. He’s talked about how he can grab women by the pussy. He went on Howard Stern show regularly to talk about his sexual conquests.

So while I am sure the vast majority of Americans will believe Stormy Daniels, I think the vast majority will be totally unsurprised.

The Herald reports:

National MP Mark Mitchell has claimed a NZ First MP told him to pull out of a regional development project in Mahurangi and stop questioning Regional Development Minister Shane Jones if he wanted funding for the project.

Mitchell, the MP for Rodney claimed that over the weekend NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft told him the Mahurangi River Restoration Project would be considered for funding from Jones’ Provincial Growth Fund “but for that to happen I would have to end my involvement with it as a local MP”.

He said Marcroft told him she was speaking on behalf of a minister, but would not say who.

“Ms Marcroft told me this was because the Government was unhappy with me revealing the illegitimate use of Defence Force aircraft by Defence Minister Ron Mark.”

“She also said if I ended my involvement and the money was granted, that they did not want National’s Regional Economic Development spokesperson Paul Goldsmith asking Shane Jones questions about it in Parliament.”

 He said it was “rotten politics” and an attempt to use the Fund to silence political opponents.

However, NZ First leader Winston Peters said Mitchell had “misunderstood” the conversation with Marcroft – who had later apologised for it at Peters’ direction.

He said Marcroft was not acting under the instruction of a NZ First Minister.

Alfred Ngaro was only sounding off to supporters to gee them up for the the election campaign when he made the empty and rhetorical threat to stop funding Willie Jackson if he continued to criticise the government. And yet Bill English called him in and dressed him down. In contrast, Ardern does nothing with the NZ First ministers who are certainly involved. Says it all…

John Armstrong writes:

During the past couple of weeks, her prime ministership has looked about as fresh and pure as mud-caked slush.

She has been deluged with unwanted distractions which have dominated the headlines and made it commensurately difficult to talk about the things she would prefer to have highlighted by the media.

Dealing with such an unrelenting litany of political mishaps goes with the territory of prime minister, however.

The Herald reports:

An Auckland school paid nearly $20,000 to send 12 teachers to the Cook Islands for two weeks.

The Auditor-General is probing the spending by Blockhouse Bay Intermediate, which saw teachers visit the archipelago – including the tourist hotspot of Aitutaki – during the July school holidays last year.

The school is defending the spending, saying it was “very much a working trip and not a holiday”.

Yeah, I’m sure it was. You need 12 teachers there for 14 days and it is just coincidence that they have the sun, the pools and the beaches.

Its purpose was to immerse staff in Cook Islands culture and teaching practices to ensure Blockhouse Bay Intermediate’s teaching practices benefited Pasifika pupils’ learning, principal Michael Malins said.

You could send one or two teachers if that really was the purpose, and they could share their findings.

Also each Pasifika country is different. Going to the Cooks won’t help you with Tongan pupils. Just like going to China won’t help you with Indian pupils.

According to an Education Review Office’s 2016 report, pupils of Cook Island ethnicity made up about 1 per cent of the Blockhouse Bay Intermediate’s roll. Other Pasifika peoples made up 6 per cent.

So 20% of the school’s teachers went to a country where 1% of their pupils are from. Again this screams junket.

They spent most mornings observing in classrooms or churches and afternoons on “de-briefing/reflection”.

I think reflection is code for cocktails at the bar.

The Herald reports:

About 200 people are expected to set up a blockade to disrupt an oil industry conference in Wellington tomorrow.

Activist groups from around the country are gathering in the capital this week to protest the New Zealand Petroleum Conference.

Will the Prime Minister join the blockade I wonder?

Sky reports:

A “large number” of EU countries are set to impose tougher sanctions on Russia after the Salisbury poisoning.

Luke Kinsella writes:

The rapid ascendancy of Dr Jordan Peterson from psychology professor to intellectual rock star begs the question: What’s his secret?

Peterson’s Wikipedia page is here. They note his videos have had tens of millions of views. He is a greatly effective critic of authoritarian political correctness.

His secret? After watching several hours of his lectures, I think I’ve figured it out. It can be summarised in a single word: responsibility.

Dr Peterson’s message is a hard one to hear: “Life is suffering.” Hardship is inevitable and life will always find some way to make you resentful. But don’t complain about it, because that’ll make it worse. Instead, find some reason to make life worth it, despite that suffering.

Something terrible happens to you. Should you be angry? Bitter? Resentful? Well, you could be. And you’d probably have every right to be. But is that the answer?

Maybe the answer is to find enough meaning in your life to bear your suffering, to carry it with you. Find a reason to keep going. Responsibility, he claims, is that reason. Being responsible for something or someone is what gives life meaning.

So if you’re going to have some responsibility, and if people are going to rely on you, you should strive to be the best person you can be. Start by improving yourself. Fix what’s wrong with you because you’re not perfect.

So don’t blame society for everything.

My generation rarely hears this. It’s not that we think we’re perfect — though narcissism is on the rise. We’re just rarely told to improve in such harsh terms. Instead, we’re told we’re special and that we should feel good about ourselves, no matter what. We get prizes for coming in last. We’re the “self-esteem generation”, so it’s always somebody else’s fault.

Dr Peterson’s saying the exact opposite: You’re not perfect, so stop blaming other people for your problems and take responsibility for yourself. Get your act together — you’ve got things to do. Aspire to a greater version of you.

“Why should you feel good about who you are? You should feel good about who you could be,” he said. And we actually like that message. It allows us to take responsibility for ourselves and it gives us a goal to strive toward. It gives us direction.

Dr Peterson isn’t in the “self-help” business, he’s in the “self-improvement” business. Rule number one in his book is: “Stand up straight with your shoulders back.” Rule six: “Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world.”

He writes: “Start with yourself. What good are you? Get yourself together so that when your father dies you’re not whining away in a corner and you can help plan the funeral. And you can stand up solidly so people can rely on you. That’s better. Don’t be a damn victim.”

The antidote of the legions of professional victims.

He’s preaching strength and resilience during a time when victimhood is the primary means of gaining status and respect. Sociologists call this “victimhood culture”, and many argue that we’re currently living in one. In victimhood cultures, respect is given to those who publicise their oppression, victimisation and, ultimately, their lack of responsibility over their lives.

Victimhood is, after all, antithetical to responsibility. A victim is someone who isn’t responsible for their state of affairs. Dr Peterson’s response: “Life is an existential catastrophe and a tragedy.” We’re all victims in life. You’re not owed anything because you’re a victim. That’s not the answer.

The only way to overcome victimhood is to attend to your responsibilities and return to the genuine meaning in your life. Don’t reward someone for being a victim, reward them for adopting responsibility amid victimhood. Reward them for not acting like a victim despite being one. Admiration always beats pity.

Be great to have him come speak in New Zealand. Of course no university campus would dare allow him to speak, but I am sure there are other institutions that still like free speech.

You might be asking: Why young men though? Why aren’t young women flocking to him to the same degree as young men?

Well, he attracts a lot of young men on the peripheries of society. Young men who aren’t particularly successful and spend a lot of time on the internet, but have been told they’re the beneficiaries of an oppressive patriarchal system which bestows upon them “male privilege” — their ticket to success that somehow isn’t working.

“We’re so stupid. We’re alienating young men. We’re telling them they’re patriarchal oppressors, denizens of rape culture and tyrants-in-waiting. It’s awful … It makes me sad, deeply,” he said in an interview with the BBC.

Dr Peterson treats young men like individuals.

Rather than be one of our Ministers who tells men they need to start resigning their roles.