You can submit here on the End of Life Choice Bill. Submissions close on 20 February.

Stuff reports:

US President Donald Trump signed a bill reopening the government late on Monday (Tuesday NZ Time), ending a 69-hour display of partisan dysfunction after Democrats reluctantly voted to temporarily pay for resumed operations.

They relented in return for Republican assurances that the Senate will soon take up the plight of young immigrant “dreamers” and other contentious issues.

The vote set the stage for hundreds of thousands of federal workers to return on Tuesday (Wednesday NZT), cutting short what could have become a messy and costly impasse. The House approved the measure shortly thereafter, and Trump later signed it behind closed doors at the White House.

But by relenting, the Democrats prompted a backlash from immigration activists and liberal base supporters who wanted them to fight longer and harder for legislation to protect from deportation the 700,000 or so younger immigrants who were brought to the country as children and now are here illegally.

Basically it is a total backdown by the Democrats. Tying immigration policy to keeping the Government open was a stupid idea and they backed down as they realised that outside their activist base, they’d lose support.

Mark Jennings writes:

Mediaworks CEO Michael Anderson is about to go to war with the Government over RNZ’s planned new TV venture.

“It won’t work and it puts at risk the very thing they want – media diversity.”

Anderson says Labour has failed to think through the consequences of its plan to sink $38 million into a new public service television channel called RNZ+.

“This is one of the most pivotal points for media in the country’s history. We have real scale (audience size) issues in New Zealand and free-to-air TV is going to be really challenged in the next few years. Further fragmentation is going to create very serious stress.”

If this sounds like a man who is worried about the future of his TV network (Mediaworks owns Three and Bravo) then Anderson is frank in his assessment: “Is the business model challenged? Yes.”

Anderson said Three was in the same boat as other free-to-air (FTA) networks around the world.

“We need to look at doing things differently but we need to buy ourselves some runway, we need to buy time.”

The Government, he said, should step back and reconsider RNZ+.

“I’m worried that we could accidentally be wiped into oblivion by a decision that hasn’t been worked through.”

“Government already own five channels (TV1, TV2, Duke, RNZ and Māori TV) in a country of only 4.5 million people.

“I’m not against giving RNZ some more money to continue to develop the platforms it is doing really well on – radio and online – it does a great job. But another FTA TV channel doesn’t make sense.”

Michael Anderson has a valid point. TV broadcasters are already struggling and pouring taxpayers money into a state funded competitor could well see private news broadcasters fail. TV3 is in a precarious state and Sky TV not that healthy either.

You could end up with the only news TV broadcasters in NZ being owned by the Government – TV1, Radio NZ and Maori TV.

This may of course be a target, not a bug. Labour has always preferred state owned broadcasters as they by default favour parties that promise more and more state funding.

Stuff reports:

The Green Party’s Marama Davidson has all but announced her bid to be co-leader.

Davidson, ranked number 2 on the list but not a minister, is seen by many within the party as the obvious choice to take the top spot.

She has set up a Facebook event for an “announcement” in Auckland on February 4 but will not tell media what that announcement is.

Which means it is obviously that she is running.

The Party’s membership votes for its leaders at the Green Party Annual Conference in June or July.

However the Greens have announced the timetable for the decision will be moved to slightly earlier in the year.

While Davidson is a favourite she is not without competition. 

Green Party ministers Eugenie Sage and Julie Anne Genter both have support within the party.

It is understood that if Davidson runs Green MP Jan Logie will rule out running herself.

Minister for Women Genter could suffer from a perception that she comes from the more buttoned-up version of the Green Party, exemplified by male co-leader James Shaw.

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage would be more of a compromise candidate, with strong credentials in the environmental movement and the proven experience of the coalition negotiations behind her.

The decision on co-leader will be a proxy decision on what issues matter most to the Greens and how they plan to brand themselves going forward.

This is Part 6 of my family tree covering the Feuers, my father’s father’s father’s family.

Jacob Feuer is my 2^nd great grandfather. Little is known of him except he was the father of Marcus and married to Baila.

Markus Feuer, my great grandfather was born in 1870 in Tarnow, Poland. Tarnow had a Jewish population from the 15^th century and before WWII the Jewish population was 25,000 (around half the total population). In 1965 only 35 Jews remained in Tarnow.

Markus moved to Vienna and was a leather merchant. Another leather merchant in Vienna was Max Lazar (maternal grandfather of John Key) so it is possible the families knew each other.

Markus married Gisela Spira in 1895 when they were both aged 25.  They had three children – my grandfather Frederick (Fritz), and my great-aunts Hedwig (Hedi) and Margarete (Greta).

Markus lived on Wipplingerstrasse in Vienna. On the 15^th of February 1941 he was transported to Opole, Poland. His prisoner number was No 90.  He was taken to the Majdanek or Lublin concentration camp and died there along with around 80,000 others.

His son Fritz Feuer (my grandfather) was also imprisoned by the Nazis but his wife managed to secure his release and they were able to emigrate to New Zealand as refugees. Fritz was a successful architect in New Zealand, and upon arrival he anglicised his name to Farrar. Hence I’m not related to any other Farrars except my parents and brother.

I’m quite glad they picked Farrar as our surname as the literal translation of Feuer in English is Fire.  I’m sure being David Fire would have resulted in many hassles during school years. The Jewish history of the name Feuer is “shedders of light and wisdom” which sounds good.

Of the eight great grandparents, the one I know the least about is the one whose surname (anglicised) I carry.  If I ever get back to Austria I hope I can discover more.

The regular newsletter is (finally) out. The summary:

Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 114, November and December 2017

There were two polls in November and December – a Roy Morgan poll in November and a One News Colmar Brunton in December.

In November National was 1% ahead of Labour and in December 7% ahead.

 The seat projection for November was centre-right 51 seats, centre-left 61. In December, it is CR 57 and CL 56.

We show the current New Zealand poll averages for party vote, country direction and preferred PM compared to three months ago, a year ago, three years ago and nine years ago. This allows easy comparisons between terms and Governments.

National’s party vote in December was 1% above a year ago and 2% lower than three years ago.

 Labour’s party vote was 10% higher than a year ago and 11% higher than three years ago.

In the United States, the Democrats are polling 12% ahead of The Republicans in a generic House ballot.

In the UK, Labour has a modest 3% lead over the Conservatives.

In Australia, Labor starts 2018 with a 6% lead over the Coalition on a two party-preferred basis.

In Canada, Trudeau’s popularity has slid from 40% Preferred PM a year ago to 30% today.

We also carry details of polls on MMP and prostitution as well as business and consumer confidence.

This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://curia.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e9168e04adbaaaf75e062779e&id=8507431512 to subscribe yourself.

The Herald reports:

Ardern is expected to release concrete targets for reducing child poverty in coming days, along with legislation intended to make the government accountable for measurable reductions and to allow public input on the government’s level of ambition.

While the government would maintain the previous administration’s innovation to have a set of high level Better Public Service targets, it would more explicitly target such issues as cold, damp homes and levels of absolute child poverty than the National-led government, which used proxy measures such as reductions in the incidence of rheumatic fever to signal improvements in both areas.

I’m pleased they will keep having BPS targets which measures actual outcomes, not just how much you spend. This is a vital piece of accountability that you can actually measure if policies and funding are having a desired impact.

The Herald reports:

The Labour-led Government’s offer to take 150 asylum seekers is being blamed for an escalation in people-smuggling operations with New Zealand being marketed as a “back door” into Australia.

The Australian is reporting fears the latest Manus Island resettlement offer has sparked an increase in “chatter” in recent months with New Zealand mentioned as the final destination.

Last month an Australian naval patrol intercepted a boatload of 29 Sri Lankans off the coast of Western Australia. Those on board told Australian authorities they were bound for New Zealand.

The Australian said Sri Lankan authorities disrupted two people-smuggling ventures in their waters late last year in which the asylum seekers were also headed for New Zealand.

So Labour says they want fewer immigrants but they are turning New Zealand into a destination for boat people and people smugglers.

A guest post by Bob Edlin:

We should be dismayed not that Treasury number-crunchers erred with child poverty figures but that the numbers which emerge from their economic models can be so blatantly peddled as the stuff of political certainty.

Just before Christmas Radio New Zealand – along with other media – reported on the Government’s income package, to come into effect on 1 July next year and reckoned to cost $5.53 billion over the next five years.

Let’s keep on eye on that number.

More significantly for headline writers, we were told the package “will lift about 88,000 New Zealand children out of poverty”.

Oops. Maybe not.

This morning Radio NZ says Treasury is admitting it made a “deeply regrettable mistake” by likely overstating how many children would be lifted out of poverty as a result of the families package.

The extent of the error – which also affects National’s package – is still being determined.

Officials had estimated Labour’s plan would lift 88,000 children out of poverty by 2021.

Secretary to the Treasury Gabriel Makhlouf said it is currently remodelling the projected impact of both packages and expects the new numbers to available in late February.

The Dominion Post reduced news of the Treasury blunder to a brief on Page 3 but the Stuff website says the child poverty reductions were over-estimated when the previous National Government delivered its Budget in May last year and the error appears to have carried through to affect the current Government.

Reporter Stacey Kirk expects one of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s first big speeches of the year to include a child poverty focus and says the Government is planning to introduce legislation in early February that will require government’s to set child poverty reduction targets.

In Kirk’s report, Makhlouf says a coding error led to flaws in the Treasury simulations. The extent of any change in the projections on child poverty is still being determined.

Kirk nevertheless seems to have astonishing confidence in the robustness of the numbers that eventually will be spat out when fresh figures are fed into the Treasury model. She writes:

“…the exact number of children expected to be lifted out of poverty was not expected to be known until the end of February.

The exact number?

Bollocks.

Let’s just recognise it will be the Treasury’s best bet, in much the same way as officials are obliged to do their best to project the Government’s Budget deficits, then proceed to constantly revise them as updated figures flow into their considerations.

Stuff reports:

The US federal government shut down at the stroke of midnight on Friday (local time) halting all but the most essential operations and marring the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration in a striking display of Washington dysfunction.

Last-minute negotiations crumbled as Senate Democrats blocked a four-week stopgap extension in a late-night vote, causing the fourth government shutdown in a quarter century. The slide toward closure lacked for high drama: The Senate vote was all but predetermined, and since the shutdown began at the start of a weekend, many of the immediate effects will be muted for most Americans.

Still, it comes with no shortage of embarrassment for the president and political risk for both parties, as they wager that voters will punish the other at the ballot box in November.

The Republicans were to blame for earlier shutdowns but this one is primarily the fault of Democrats who demanded immigration changes in order to keep the Government funded. It will be interesting to see which party gets punished the most (may be both equally).

The Herald reports:

The sanction on solo mums who refuse to name the father of their child is making life harder for 16,842 children in low-income households, a government report shows.

Ditching the sanction, which the Government has signalled it will do, would cost $100 million over four years, according to a report from the Ministry of Social Development.

Actually the vast majority of those households will be getting payments from the dad in return for not being named. They’re actually better off than those who name the Dad.

But ministry officials also warn that the costs could be “potentially considerably” higher if levels of compliance fall – a possibility that the National Party has previously warned about.

The advice is contained in a November 10 report, released under the Official Information Act. The report notes that it is unclear whether the policy is working as intended.

The sanction was put in place to encourage the establishment of paternity and child support payments from the father. Failure to name the father sees a $22 weekly penalty on the solo mum, increased to $28 after 13 weeks.

 

Several exemptions can be granted such as if the mother is at risk of violence, or if there is insufficient evidence of who the father is.

It will be very interesting to see if there is an increase in Dads not being named. I predict there will be over the medium term.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced she is pregnant with her first child, due in June.

Ardern discovered she was pregnant just six days before she became Prime Minister-elect. Winston Peters announced NZ First would form a coalition with Labour on October 19.

Ardern shared the delightful news on social media saying that she was excited about the pregnancy.

“And we thought 2017 was a big year! Clarke and I are really excited that in June our team will expand from two to three,” she wrote on Instagram.

Congratulations to Jacinda and Clarke. As I have found out, becoming a parent is life changing. It is hard to put into words how your focus changes when you have a wee one so dependent on you. He or she becomes the most important thing in your life.

Parenthood is of course very challenging, and more so with a busy job such as Prime Minister. But Benazir Bhutto managed to do it while PM of Pakistan at age 33 and Marissa Mayer had twins at age 37 while CEO of Yahoo.

Stuff reports:

There was a moment in the not-so-distant political past when American voters, sick of the hypocrisy of mainstream party figures, felt the magnetic pull of a potential outsider candidate with a resume boasting zero political experience, industry success, and plenty of history in front of a camera.

No, the contender was not Donald Trump in 2016. This was Louisiana in 2009. The likely candidate was Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress at the centre of the latest allegations against the US president.

Reports of a possible liaison between Trump and Daniels rolled into the news cycle this week like a tabloid hand grenade; discussions about a US government shutdown and DACA deal were suddenly competing with talk of a US$130,000 (NZ$178,000) payoff of “hush money” to Daniels and whether media outlets had been wrong not to report the relationship before the election. Daniels, it was alleged, carried on a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006, months after his wife Melania gave birth to their only son, Barron.

I’m not sure this hurts Trump. I think most voters know he is a womaniser and worse. He cheated on his first wife with his second and went on Howard Stern often boasting about his sex life.

It is a bit of a mystery why he remains with strong support from evangelical Christians but I guess they are prepared to overlook his personal failings so long as he appoints Judges they approve of.

A new report measures electoral freedom. They explain:

The project for a World Electoral Freedom Index was born out of conversations held by the author with members of the Political Science academic community in several countries. While many academic works aim at ranking countries on the quality of their democratic system, few of them have striven to measure the actual freedom and empowerment enjoyed by citizens in their capacity as electors.

This index is therefore likely to be the first attempt to classify countries according to their electoral freedom. To this end, it takes into account fifty-five indicators producing four sub-indices: political development, active suffrage, passive suffrage and elector empowerment. Altogether, the work is based on almost eleven thousand individual figures converted into a homogeneous scale for the one hundred and ninety-eight countries ranked.

They give scores out of 100 and outstanding is over 80, very high over 75, high over 70, acceptable over 65 down to remarkably low under 50.

The bottom ranked countries:

1. Brunei 4.5
2. Saudi Arabia 12.6
3. Thailand 13.8
4. Qatar 16.4
5. Eritrea 18.9
6. South Sudan 20.1
7. China 34.4
8. Oman 34.6
9. North Korea 35.9
10. UAE 37.4

The top 10:

1. Ireland 80.4
2. Iceland 79.0
3. Switzerland 79.0
4. Finland 78.2
5. Australia 77.3
6. Denmark 76.0
7. Portugal 75.5
8. Dominican Republic 75.3
9. UK 75.0
10. Lithuania 74.8

So where is NZ? Way back in 39th place with a score of 70.8.

Our sub-scores are:

• Political Development 80.6% (8th)
• Active Suffrage 83.7% (4th)
• Passive Suffrage 69.5% (105th)
• Elector Empowerment 55.6% (112th)

Stuff reports:

Chelsea Manning confirmed via Twitter that she is a candidate for US Senate returning the transgender former soldier to the spotlight after her conviction for leaking classified documents and her early release from military prison.

Three days from the one-year anniversary on which former US President Barack Obama made the surprise decision to commute her 35-year prison sentence and three days after making her intention known to federal election officials.

Manning tweeted “yup, we’re running for senate” with an attached campaign video indicating her intention to run in the 2018 Maryland Democratic primary. She sent a subsequent tweet seeking donations to her campaign.

The Republicans will be hoping she wins the primary. To liberal activists on Twitter, Manning is a hero. To most voters she is regarded as a traitor.

It will also highlight Obama’s shortening her sentence.