Liam Dann writes:

Graeme Hart’s total worth leapt by about $6.4 billion last year. According to Forbes magazine, New Zealand’s richest man is now worth a whopping $13.6 billion dollars.

That upsets some New Zealanders.

A Herald letter writer last week declared this wealth gain a symbol of “a vulgar and bankrupt capitalist system”.

Yeah how dare Hart be successful.

But, seriously, the answer to that question about “meaning” is to look at what Hart does with his life.

He hasn’t spent it counting dollars. He has spent it building a business empire. That’s his buzz. He told me more than a decade ago – when he became New Zealand’s first billionaire – that the dollars were a “byproduct” of what he does.

“Business is what gets me out of bed in the morning,” he said in 2003. “That’s my hobby.

If I was a mountaineer or an athlete, or had an interest in politics or teaching, then I’d spend my day trying to do that to the best of my ability.”

It is being the best at what you do that is the motivation – not whether you are worth $1 billion or $5 billion.

That in itself is hard for some to understand. Particularly in New Zealand we have never celebrated our business leaders at mainstream cultural level.

Peter Jackson has become very wealthy making movies. Lorde and Lydia Ko should also both end up very wealthy if they stay at the top of their respective fields.

In those examples we can easily see how the money came second to realising their dreams.

From time to time we talk about how much money these star Kiwis make, but mostly we take pride in their success on the global stage.

It is socially acceptable to make hundreds of millions through singing or sport or making movies. But for many it is socially unacceptable to make hundreds of millions by being good at business. If you win $5 million in Lotto you’ll be feted. But become a world class CEO and get a salary of $5 million a year and you’ll be condemned.

Some interesting predictions from 538 staff. They have each done a prediction they think is 90% likely, one which is 50/50 and one which is only 10% likely. So by category their predictions are:

90% likely

1. Democrats will pick up at least 14 seats in the House of Representatives in 2018 (note they need 24 for control)
2. The government won’t shut down.
3. The Mueller investigation will not end in 2018

50/50

1. Democrats win both the House and the Senate.
2. Jared Kushner gets indicted
3. Someone resigns (not sacked) from Trump’s Cabinet in 2018.

10% likely

1. Republicans get rid of the Senate filibuster in 2018
2. Justice Department indicts Hillary Clinton
3. That H R McMaster, James Mattis, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and John Kelly are all gone by the end of 2018

Feel free in the comments to make your own three predictions in the same format – 90%, 50/50 and 10%. They can be on US or NZ politics.

The NY Mag has a lengthy extract from Michael Wolff’s book on Trump. It is known Steve Bannon was a principal source, but so were scores of others.

Wolff had almost unlimited access to Trump himself, and scores of staff. He details it here.

I doubt everything in the book is true, but I think the extract does show overall what the Trump White House is like – disorganised chaos. Never has an administration lost almost its entire senior staff in less than a year.

It is now election year for the House and Senate. It will be very interesting to see what happens if one or both chambers fall to the Democrats.

A compelling and persuasive take on the Scott Watson case by Andi Brotherston.

Brotherston was the first journalist to cover the case of the missing teenagers and covered it to and including the trial, which she sat through hearing all the evidence. She has little doubt Scott Watson killed Ben and Olivia (the same conclusion another journalist who sat through the trial also reached – John Goulter). In fact she tells how of the 13 journalists who sat through the trial 12 thought Watson was guilty and just one not convinced.

Read her entire article, but for me here are some key takeaways:

• The so called mystery ketch has only ever been sighted by Guy Wallace (and not even him at first). Not one of the other 1,500 people there ever saw it and no photo exists of it among the several thousand taken. It was allegedly moored “rafting up” to another two yachts but neither of those yachts recall it
• Scott Watson’s yacht was moored in the exact place Wallace dropped Ben and Olivia
• The description Wallace gave of the ketch was a beautiful yacht with brass portholes and ornate roping. It would have been admired and photographed by many if it existed.
• When Watson was first interviewed by police he lied about what he was wearing on New Year’s Eve
• Watson has refused to give the Police the clothes he was wearing on NYE. He claims he doesn’t know where they are. Brotherston suggests an innocent man would do everything they could to find those clothes if they had no incriminating forensic details on them
• In 70 hours of recorded conversations between Watson and his former girlfriend, Watson never denied doing it. His attitude came across as smug and completely devoid of compassion.  The defence didn’t use one minute of the recordings in their defence even though they could have.

Stuff reports:

US President Donald Trump is blasting his former chief strategist ahead of the release of a new, unflattering book.

Trump says in the statement that when Bannon was fired, “he not only lost his job, he lost his mind”.

“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” Trump said. “Steve doesn’t represent my base – he’s only in it for himself.”

So of Trump’s two campaign chairs, one is indicted for money laundering and the other he now labels as mad. What does that say about the judgement of the person who hired them?

Bannon slammed Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner (US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a close campaign and White House adviser) and Paul Manafort (his campaign chairman at the time of the meeting who has been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller).

“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers,” Bannon continued, according to The Guardian. “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s…, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Bannon is correct that calling the FBI was the prudent course of action.

Stuff reports:

This group of New Year’s Eve revellers got busy at low tide on Sunday and spent the early afternoon building a sandcastle in the middle of the Tairua estuary, a holidaymaker, who asked not to be named, said.

A Coromandel-wide liquor ban is in place over the New Year period, which means no alcohol in public places, including beaches.

Once the crew’s creation was complete, they installed a wooden picnic table and chilly bin.

The tide soon came in and they cracked open a few cold ones, the witness said.

The photo was posted on the Tairua ChitChat! Facebook page and punters were keen to pile on.

Upon building their sandy fort, members of the group were reported to have said the liquor ban didn’t apply to them as they were “in international waters”.

The holidaymaker said the group was seen drinking into the night, watching the fireworks from the relative safety of their picnic table.

That’s great Kiwi ingenuity. Legends.

Waikato eastern area commander Inspector John Kelly said police weren’t aware of the novel attempt to circumvent the liquor ban.

“That’s creative thinking – if I had known that I probably would have joined them.”

And what a great response from the local Police commander. This is why I love New Zealand.

The annual Fairfax political predictions:

1. National retains a polling lead on Labour, but it narrows somewhat, as NZ First’s share of the vote remains low. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stays ahead in the preferred PM stakes.

Astonishing that they are predicting that Labour will not even overtake National in the polls despite being in their honeymoon first year of Government.

2. National leader Bill English announces that after 28 years in Parliament and two election campaigns he won’t stay on to see a third as leader in 2020. As he goes he cites the need for “generational change”.

3. The competition to replace English is fierce but mostly kept away from the prying eyes of the public. Likely contenders will include Simon Bridges, Nikki Kaye, Amy Adams, Jonathan Coleman and perhaps a couple of wildcards. Steven Joyce and Todd Muller?

Not sure how this is a prediction you can score. If English does go, of course there will be a contest to replace him.

4. KiwiBuild – the plan to build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 years – stumbles out of the gate, and the Government aren’t all that clear about how many houses have been built. Estimates have it at less than 300, but the Government insists it will ramp up much more in the following year.

Wow. They are promising 10,000 a year and Fairfax thinks they’ll achieve just 3% of their target!

5. A member of the Trump family visits New Zealand and is met with protest.

6. The prime minister will announce her engagement to Clarke Gayford, delighting many but causing some to dismiss it as a “distraction”.

Hopefully it will delight Clarke most of all!

7. The budget will feature few goodies, much of the cash already being spent in the mini-budget. But there will be one or two headline-catching surprises.

Again a non-prediction.

8. A backbench MP will come under fire for a professional, or unprofessional as it were, indiscretion.

Almost a non-prediction also. A backbench MP will get criticised for something!

9. Kelvin Davis will stay on a deputy leader of Labour, despite a few more bad patches as acting-PM.

Again a non-prediction. Of course Labour won’t dump their deputy leader within a year of electing him.

10. The Green Party will select Eugenie Sage as co-leader, surprising many who assumed Marama Davidson or Julie Anne Genter would take up the role.

Finally an actual prediction.

11. The Kermadec Sanctuary Bill will be pulled from the ballot and cause a major rift between the Greens and NZ First. But after the spat, the Greens will back down and vote along Government lines.

Sadly all too likely the Greens will sell out.

12. David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill will end up narrowly passing following a divisive national debate and some changes in select committee. It won’t go to referendum.

13. The Prime Minister will be forced to require the discipline of a NZ First member of the executive.

Pretty likely yeah.

14. Abortion law reform will not be openly pursued by the Government, despite a promise to take it out of the Crimes Act.

Jacinda promised it in a widely televised debate. It will hurt her reputation if she doesn’t live up to her words.

15. National’s Nicola Willis will enter Parliament when a list MP retires – likely Nicky Wagner.

Nicola is 2nd in waiting on the list so needs two MPs to retire for her to enter. I agree it will be in 2018.

16. Foreign Minister Winston Peters will be involved in international efforts to talk down North Korea.

17. A natural disaster will put the Government books out, breaking the Government’s Budget Responsibility Rules. Steven Joyce will still not have much support for his $11 billion hole.

18. There will be a political bombshell that will see the ousting of a minister.

19. Iwi leaders will take fresh water rights all the way back to the Supreme Court, after a broken promise by the Government to address the issue.

20. Jian Yang will remain on in the National Party pulling in serious donations, but negative stories about possible Chinese Government influence will continue to swirl. An inquiry will be talked about but not actually launched.

No 20 is a bit of a non-prediction also. An MP will remain an MP but there will be further stories on him.

After their low score for 2017, they seem to have gone for quite a few automatic 10/10 predictions.

I’ve yet to do my 2018 predictions but will try and have some riskier ones.

Stuff reports:

Dairy owners across New Zealand are concerned that violent robberies will escalate following the increase in cigarette prices on January 1.

At the same time, design experts are urging them to counter crime by decluttering and pulling advertising hoardings off the windows – saying shops open to the public gaze make less attractive targets. 

Smokers will take another hit when the tax on tobacco products increases by 10 per cent for the second year in a row on January 1 as part of the Government’s plan to make New Zealand smokefree by 2025. This increase is due to be repeated annually until 2020.

Excise tax increases have worked in the past but we have reached tipping point where they now have fuelled a massive increase in the black market and robberies.

The Pavan Dairy on Arthur St has been targeted several times, and the owner (who was too frightened to be named) fears he faces bankruptcy as a result.

Further down Arthur St, the Chhiboo family have run the Arthur St Superette for the past 20 years. Each member of the Chhiboo family has been the victim of an aggravated robbery. 

Muneer was 13 years old when he had a shotgun pointed at his head, sister Samira only just escaped after robbers tried to drag her back in the shop. 

The Government has created this problem through its decisions to keep increasing the tax. They need to realise that what was a very good policy in the past, no longer works.

Fairfax scores their 2017 predictions:

1. John Key will feature in the Queen’s Birthday honours list, but as befits the man who reinstated knights and dames he will be dubbed “Sir John”: Easy pickings – it’s offered to every PM. 10/10

2. Shane Jones will join NZ First: Worst kept secret in the Beltway, but you have to rack up the easy wins. 10/10 

3. Raymond Huo will enter Parliament before election and be given a winnable place: Another non-shocker – we didn’t predict that a prominent academic would question his links to the Chinese government however. 10/10

4. ACT will fail to increase MP count, will get Epsom lifeline: Completely true, but nobody mention the Epsom deal to David Seymour. 10/10

5. Marama Fox will exit Parliament: 100 per cent correct and then some – turns out the whole party was on the out. 10/10

6. Barack Obama will visit New Zealand in 2017: Nope. What wishful thinking that was. 0/10

7. National will move tax thresholds in the budget but only bring in tax cuts in full if re-elected: Mostly true, they brought in threshold movements and then promised some more relief if re-elected. 8/10 

8. Gareth Morgan’s TOP will fail to crack three per cent or enter Parliament: TOP hit 2.4 per cent. 8/10

9. The Greens will do little better – and little worse – than their 2014 result: Wrong. The Green Party’s support dropped four and a half points on their 2014 result, losing them six seats in Parliament. 0/10 

10. Judith Collins and Steven Joyce will clash over the party’s economic direction, and Joyce will prevail: If they have, nobody’s told us or anybody else. 0/10

11. Chris Finlayson, Peter Dunne and Annette King will call it a day: Two out of three ain’t bad. 6/10

12. One National and one Labour MP in electorate seats will leave within six months before the general election, under an unspoken deal that will maintain the voting balance in the House: Specific but correct – David Cunliffe and John Key. 10/10

13. The Greens will be given a free run in some electorates, under a deal with Labour, but will still fail to win any constituency seats: No dice – they did run a seat for the first time, however, no deals were struck. 0/10

14. Louise Upston and David Bennett will prove the weakest links in the English ministry: Our apologies chaps, turns out Nick Smith had designs on this one. 0/10

15. Jonathan Coleman will take over the foreign affairs portfolio from May, but only after an internal tussle with at least two other ministers for the plum job: There was an internal tussle, and we’re confident he was in the running. 4/10

16. Winston Peters will not be prime minister, nor be in line to be, under any deal he does to support the next Government: He’s deputy, but only “in line” to be acting prime minister every now and then. If Ardern resigned, the new Labour leader would become PM. 7/10

17. Economic growth will top 4 per cent during 2017: Nope – but this Statistics NZ recalculation means it did hit 4 per cent last year. 0/10

18. Auckland house prices will be lower in real terms by Christmas than they were at the start of 2017: Despite all this talk of  “flat to falling” prices, the median house price in Auckland has still risen $85,000 from January to November to $890,000, according to REINZ. Inflation is a long way off accounting for that. 0/10

19. There will be one more political bombshell in 2017 that will change the course of the election and install Andrew Little as prime minister: So close but so far. There was a bombshell or five, but any bombshell in relation to Andrew Little carried the opposite effect of what was predicted so points off. 4/10

20. At least two party leaders will be heading for the door by Christmas: Yes – but not by choice. We get points for Metiria Turei, Peter Dunne and Andrew Little. 10/10

TOTAL SCORE: 107/200

Not bad for a topsy turvy year.

Reuters reports:

Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, Iranian news agencies and social media reports said, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.

Police dispersed anti-government demonstrators in the western city of Kermanshah as protests spread to Tehran and several other cities a day after rallies in the northeast, the semi-official news agency Fars said.

The outbreak of unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern about the Islamic Republic’s costly involvement in regional conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.

This is a hopeful sign. One day hopefully the Iranian people will throw off their theocracy.

Luke Kinsella writes:

ONCE upon a time, society designated universities as intellectual battlegrounds where fights weren’t won by intimidation, but with logic and reason. That’s what separated them from the outside world and its ugly improprieties.

Censorship was antithetical to these refuges of intellectual civility. In fact, it was a sign of cowardice. Unlike the outside world, universities were sanctuaries where all ideas were welcomed and everyone had a seat at the table.

Not anymore. Students around the world have a disturbing intolerance to different opinions. When faced with unfamiliar or offensive views, their gut reaction is to ban them, or condemn those who have them.

And universities are kowtowing to them.

Instead of actually disproving opinions they dislike, they’ll just insult them. They have an array of go-to jargon and insults, but their favourites include: ‘problematic’, ’violent’, ‘unsafe’, ‘hate speech’, ‘bigoted’ and ‘invalidating of lived experiences’. They blame everything on a white supremacist, heteronormative, capitalist, imperialist, patriarchal society.

They act like the most victimised people in the world, but many of them are literally the most privileged people of all time. They live in Australia in the 21st century and often, come from extremely privileged families and go to the most prestigious schools in the country.

So why has this become so common?

• Firstly, students (both left and right) have forgotten the art of respectful disagreement. 
• The second reason is a form of identity politics which says it’s not the merit of one’s argument that matters, but their racial, gender or sexual identity.
• The third reason: virtue signalling. At university, your level of outrage toward certain people and opinions directly corresponds with your social status. Student leaders are ideological clones of each other.
• The fourth and final reason is that there is a short supply of bigotry, but a high demand for it. Students want to be offended, and for that, they need offensive people. But as racism and sexism have declined, they have to maintain their high level of outrage by lowering the bar for what’s considered offensive.

A good analysis.

One new addition to the Order of NZ:

Ms Cassia Joy Coles (Joy Cowley), DCNZM, OBE, Featherston, for services to New Zealand

Dame Joy has written more than 600 children’s books and through them has touched generations of children.

Dames Companion

Ms Rangimarie Naida Glavish, ONZM, JP, Auckland, for services to Māori and the community

The Honourable Annette Faye King, Wellington, for services as a Member of Parliament

Ms Denise Ann L’Estrange-Corbet, MNZM, Auckland, for services to fashion and the community

 The Honourable Georgina Manunui te Heuheu, QSO, Auckland, for services to the State and Māori

Knights Companion

Mr Herbert John Te Kauru Clarke, CNZM, Lower Hutt, for services to Māori and heritage preservation

The Honourable Douglas John White, QC, Wellington, for services to the judiciary

Mr Bryan George Williams, CNZM, MBE, Auckland, for services to rugby

A bit of balance there with Dame Annette and Dame Georgina and Dame Naida (Labour, National and Maori Party). Also nice to see Dame Denise for her huge contribution to fashion.

Sir Bryan Williams will be a popular choice.

Stuff reports:

One of the country’s largest training institutes is understood to be ditching a mandatory drug testing regime, over claims it’s seen as a “barrier to education”.

The Bay of Plenty-based technology institute had trumpeted its mandatory tests, at a time when former Prime Minister Bill English was lamenting high levels of drug-use among young workers.

But now, with National out of government and mandatory drug-testing out of favour, Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology has quietly ditched the drug tests.

National’s tertiary education spokesman Paul Goldsmith warned that it was impossible to keep workers safe in high-risk industries without drug-testing.

Generally, he said, it should be up to education institutes whether they introduced mandatory drug testing. “However in high risk courses like construction or forestry, it’s important that everyone is able to exercise judgment and show responsibility so you’d expect that everyone is drug free and the only way to know that for sure is by testing.”

Toi Ohomai was formed from the merger of Rotorua’s Waiariki Institute of Technology  and Bay of Plenty Polytechnic last year. Its trades department teaches carpentry, electrical, engineering, automotive and collision repair.

Mother-of-two Katherine Page was a Level 3 carpentry student this year, and is firmly in favour of the test. “You need to be able to trust your fellow students and make sure they’re fully alert,” she cautions. “Because it could impact your life, not just theirs, if they’re on drugs.”

I suspect a motivating factor here is the free fees policy. Every tertiary institute around will be trying to sign up as many students as possible, so they maximise their revenue. When students had to pay even a small portion of the cost of their training, they would be discerning. But now it will be open slather.

Sam Warburton writes:

When I left the Ministry of Transport in July, I asked the two managers I reported to for a bunch of spreadsheets and background documents in areas I expected to continue working on at The New Zealand Initiative.

Most of these were documents I had authored. Some included analysis of the rising road toll back in 2016 which failed to find much interest at the ministry, but more with the public in the past few weeks. Others included technical models I said I’d be developing further and would be happy to share back with the ministry.

I specifically excluded anything that was advice to the minister

Sounds reasonable. But what was the response:

In short, the ministry’s response to my request was late and full of potentially – ombudsman ruling pending – unlawful redactions including of material that was previously publicly available.

The Ministry even password protected the spreadsheets, thus preventing copying, pasting and editing.

So they deliberately made the data hard to use. But this is not the crux of the story. He then did an OIA request on his OIA request – to see who was involved in deciding to redact so much stuff etc.

The 2nd OIA was 240 pages long. So the Ministry of Transport had 249 pages of e-mails discussing his first OIA request.

Things start off promisingly before the 20-day maximum clock even starts with Carr telling policy adviser Andrew de Montalk: “I expect we can release it all in full, but do test that assumption if you feel it is wrong in any particular regard.”

By day 7, De Montalk had tested his views with at least one other policy advisor and a legal advisor and prepared a draft memo recommending full release of every requested document. While the legal advice has been withheld as privileged, it’s highly likely to have supported release, otherwise De Montalk would presumably have noted this.

So the managers involved at the start were basically saying looks fine to release everything. But then as time goes on:

Another email noting that Ministry lawyers have agreed to provide “a list of robust legal options”. These options and the discussion around them have been withheld.

Another still, from van der Lem, observes: “Lots of drama on this OIA”.

De Montalk, the adviser who recommended full release and, for his sins, is tasked with administering the increasing farce: “This is the largest meeting room available at this time.”

So a large meeting room is needed just to discuss releasing documents they are obliged under law to release.

Ten public officials are invited to discuss what should be a straightforward information request. The room’s capacity is six.

Data is withheld on the grounds that it was provided to the Ministry by the NZ Transport Agency, and to the NZ Transport Agency by councils, under an obligation of confidence.

Most of the data is public or has been in the past. The rest of it would be subject to request from NZ Transport Agency or councils individually.

There can be no obligation of confidence here, and suggesting that agencies can share non-personal information with each other and label it “confidential” to hide it from the public is somewhat sinister.

So if one public body shares info with another public body, then they think that allows them to label it confidential and hide it.

At no point in all of this did any staff member refer to the Ombudsman’s guidelines, or even the Ministry’s own internal guidelines. (De Montalk can be perhaps excused because of how obvious it was that all the information should have been released.)

Similarly, there’s zero discussion of the public interest in releasing the information. If not for the release of the information, the ministry might still be saying the road toll’s trending down.

At least 50 people were involved in this request, 42 of those ministry staff.

Outrageous and such a waste of taxpayer money. They obviously have too many staff if they can afford to have 42 staff involved in one single OIA request.