The Herald reports:

Police are hunting for an Auckland teenager believed to be responsible for a prolific “crimewave” while on bail and facing a raft of serious charges, including kidnapping and assault.

They are now calling on the public to help them find Zion Tuoro, 17, in a bid to prevent any further people falling victim to his alleged offending

Tuoro is wanted after failing to appear in the Manukau District Court on charges including assault with intent to injure, male assaults female, kidnapping and unlawfully getting into or taking vehicles.

Inspector Bruce O’Brien said Tuoro was also breaching his bail conditions.

So this guy managed to get bail even under current laws. Labour wants to make bail even easier for people with a criminal record to get. So imagine how many mroe cases like this we’ll have.

Luckily he is now back in custody. I presume this time he won’t get bail.

The Herald reports:

Aucklanders have rejected the latest America’s Cup village proposal that involves a wharf extension into Waitemata Harbour the size of a rugby field, a new poll shows.

The poll, commissioned by the lobby group Stop Stealing Our Harbour, shows 70 per cent of Aucklanders want the village to be built on existing waterfront land and structures.

Just 27 per cent support the latest proposal revealed on Wednesday for a 45m x 220m extension to Halsey Wharf to house Team New Zealand and one other syndicate, possibly Luna Rossa.

Curia did this poll. As you can see, the views were firmly behind not losing more waterfront to another wharf.

The monthly newsletter is out, and the summary is:

Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 115, January and February 2018

There were two political voting polls in January and February – a Newshub Reid Research and a One News Colmar Brunton.

In January National led Labour by 2% but trailed by 5% in February.

 The seat projection for February was centre-right 57 seats, centre-left 64.

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 February was 4% below a year ago and 6% lower than three years ago.

 Labour’s party vote was 20% higher than a year ago and 17% higher than three years ago.

In the United States, Trump now has a positive approval rating for his handling of the economy.

In the UK, the Conservatives and Labour are neck and neck in the polls but Conservatives projected to win more seats.

In Australia, little change with Labor projected to win the next election with a 28-seat majority.

In Canada, for the first time since the election, the Conservatives are tied with the governing Liberals in the polls. This follows on from the much-derided Trudeau tour of India.

We also carry details of polls on Israel and abortion 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 graph below of the minor parties since 2012 is interesting:

They are both now in Government. Their challenge is how to convince people who think the Government is doing a good job to vote for them rather than that nice Jacinda.

NBR reports:

His views on pay equity – and the way they are couched – are as good an indication as any whether one is likely to find Dr Peterson’s world-view appealing or appalling.

Upon hearing of the New Zealand prime minister’s pay equity pledge, he notes there’s a similar drive in Canada – “because our prime minister is constitutionally incapable of having a single thought that isn’t completely ideologically motivated” – and then delivers his gloomy prognosis.

“So she says she won’t rest until that happens? Well, she won’t be resting for a very long time, because what’s going to happen is she – like other leaders who are attempting this impossible task – is going to find out that this problem is so intractable that it will eat them up politically.”

But wait, it gets worse.

“Give the government enough power to ensure equity of outcome,” he says, “and you will have simultaneously given them enough power to become tyrannical.”

 

Equality of opportunity is what governments should strive for, not a socialist one size fits all equality of outcome.

According to the professor, the problem is it proceeds from an axiom that Western economies are expressions of a “corrupt patriarchal system” and abetted by a confirmation bias that results in any statistic that appears to provide support for that proposition being immediately adopted as if it’s true.

The reality, he says, is “there are many reasons why a pay gap overall exists between men and women, and gender – sex, let’s say – is only one of those.”

And it’s further complicated by many of those other factors also being tied to sex.

For example, people who score high on the ‘Big Five’ personality trait of agreeableness (the other traits are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism) “tend to get paid less whether they are men or women,” Dr Peterson says.

“But women tend to be more agreeable than men, so it’s not easy to tell if it’s a sex issue or a personality issue because those two things are inextricably tangled.”

It’s the old issue of confounding factors.

Eric Crampton writes:

Sugar taxes of 10 or 20 per cent – the range usually advocated – simply do not affect consumption very much.

Everybody talks about how tobacco taxes have cut tobacco consumption, but let’s be realistic.

The tax on a single cigarette stick is $0.83. The cheapest cigarettes I can find online are Easy Reds, at $19.90 for a pack of 20.

Each of those then has 17 cents of tobacco, and 83 cents of excise. That isn’t a 10 or 20 per cent tax.

It is around a 500% tax. Now if the Government wants to proposed a 500% tax on soft drinks, so ahead and make my day!

Even if the government taxed sugar as heavily as it taxes tobacco, there is still another problem.

Until vaping, if you wanted nicotine, you had to buy cigarettes.

But there are all kinds of tasty and potentially unhealthy things out there that people could shift to if there were a tax on sugar.

The effects of tax on health would then be much smaller than you might think from a naive estimation from any reduction in sugar consumption. If people flip from chocolate bars to crisps, are they really that much healthier?

It would be like whack a mole as you keep finding more and more unhealthy things to tax.

Unsurprisingly, in the real world, sugar taxes have not done much to improve health.

But don’t just take my word for it.

The Ministry of Health commissioned the NZIER (New Zealand Institute of Economic Research) to review the literature on sugar taxes around the world.

NZIER found little effect of sugar taxes on consumption, and no evidence of health benefits.

And documents released to the New Zealand Initiative by the Ministry of Health showed that the ministry had reached a very similar conclusion about sugar taxes, advising the minister that there is “insufficient evidence that a sugar tax would be effective in reducing obesity”.

The ministry also warned that the quality of evidence presented in favour of sugar taxes “is a major concern”.

At best the evidence is that a tax on certain items may reduce consumption of those particular items. Nowhere has it been found that actual obesity levels have reduced.

Thomas Anderson and Jonathan Boston write:

The new Labour-led Government has committed to introducing a zero carbon bill later this year. But how should the aims of such legislation be achieved?

One option is to rely primarily on an expanded and improved emissions trading scheme. This approach will, many argue, ensure a higher price on carbon and this will, in turn, reduce emissions.

Yet recent evidence, both here and overseas, suggests that governments are unwilling to impose a sufficiently high price on carbon to secure a large fall in emissions. If this reluctance persists, other policy instruments – or so-called complementary measures – will remain essential.

I’m all okay with a price on carbon, but so called complementary measures tend to be politicians dictating what people can and can’t do.

A price mechanism is the best response to the external cost of greenhouse gases.

Of such measures, perhaps the most effective would be a ban on the sale of all new or imported used vehicles with internal combustion engines. Such a ban could take effect, say, from 2030.

If the Government tried to ban non electric cars, watch them get thrown out of office. Such a policy would also massively hit poorer families who can’t afford an electric vehicle.

Newsroom reports:

A group of political and legal academics has urged the Government to scrap its controversial waka jumping bill, calling it an “undesirable and harmful” law which could damage New Zealand’s democracy. …

In a submission to Parliament’s justice and electoral committee, provided in advance to Newsroom, the group of nearly 20 legal academics and political scientists said the bill should not proceed “with or without amendment”.

“We believe that it represents an undesirable and harmful extension of legal regulation into an area that is better controlled by political imperatives and electoral judgments,” their submission said.

“No matter how well-intentioned, this proposed legislation will have negative effects on our system of representative democracy.” 

While there was “an intuitive appeal” to the legislation, it would create more problems than it solved by placing too much power in the hands of party bosses instead of MPs, the group said.

“The vitality of our system of representative democracy relies on an on-going and healthy tension between party loyalty and individual conscience…

“Healthy democracies can tolerate dissent. ‘Electoral integrity’ legislation empowers party hierarchies to stifle debate within the party – to use party rules and party disciplinary procedures to force dissenting MPs not only out of the party but out of the House itself.”

Exactly. It is a draconian law.

The Herald reports:

Another top law firm is embroiled in claims of sexual relations between one of its solicitors and a law student.

A woman who attended Auckland University Law Students’ Society annual law camp in 2012 has told the Herald a Chapman Tripp solicitor had sex with a law student at the event.

The incident, which the student said exemplified a “massive power imbalance”, involved a 19-year-old female student.

A spokeswoman for Chapman Tripp said the company was made aware of the allegations last week and investigated “immediately”.

“We have become aware that one of our junior lawyers may have had personal relations with someone on the 2012 law camp,” she said.

I’m not quite sure why this is a news story – a young lawyer and a law student had sex.

Now if the law student herself was alleging that is was inappropriate, there was a power imbalance, she felt coerced etc etc – that is significant and news worthy. This is the case with the Russel McVeagh interns – they were unhappy with what happened and complained. I give a lot of deference to the views of the complainant.

But we know nothing about this case except a junior lawyer and a law student had sex at law camp. We don’t know if the law student was or is unhappy at all about what happened. In fact she may be very unhappy someone has gone to the media with this, bringing it all up.

The fact that some third party thinks what happened was bad, doesn’t mean that it was. I’m in no way saying it wasn’t – just that we simply don’t know.

I think the media have to be careful not to give equal weight to allegations from actual victims, and third party reports where someone else has expressed a view about the appropriateness.

Newshub reports:

Police broke the law when they set up a breath-testing checkpoint and collected information to identify attendees of a euthanasia meeting, authorities have found.

After a pro-euthanasia group Exit International meeting in Lower Hutt in October 2016, police stopped vehicles at a nearby checkpoint to collect the names and addresses of attendees.

An investigation from the Office of Privacy Commissioner (OPC) found the collection of information at the checkpoint breached the privacy act, and an Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) report found the checkpoint was unlawful.

IPCA authority chair Judge Colin Doherty said the establishment of the checkpoint was “an illegitimate use of police power that unlawfully restricted the right of citizens to freedom of movement”.

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards said the police checkpoint “unlawfully and unfairly collected personal information, harming some of the people affected”.

This is no surprise. What were the Police thinking.

Stuff reports:

The Government has suspended efforts to restart trade talks for a free trade deal with Russia. 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had said previously New Zealand planned to restart trade talks with Russia after they were suspended in 2014, although this had yet to happen.

Ardern said “the situation has changed”, and she and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters agreed all efforts to restart negotiations have been suspended. …

The change of direction comes after months of Peters being clear on his plans to work towards a FTA with Russia.

He reiterated that intention only a week ago when he said: “When you start talking about those moral judgements, you might not be trading with anybody very quickly. A lot of countries we deal with would not survive a serious human rights issue, or gender equality issue or an ethnic issue debate – but we still trade with them.”

It’s good the Government finally did the right thing, but wow did it take a huge amount of pressure for them to do so.

You basically had the UK High Commissioner having to use a loud hailer to tell the Ardern-Peters Government that if you don’t back us on this against Russia, then wave goodbye to a free trade deal with the UK and/or EU.

So good that Ardern finally over-ruled Peters, but our traditional allies have been aghast that it took so long. We were looking like the sole Putin supporter around.

Former Australian PM Tony Abbott said:

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has accused New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters of making excuses for Russia over the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

The media have gushed over Ardern’s foreign policy steps because she had huge crowds in the Pacific as she handed out dosh. But here’s the reality with our major allies:

1. Pissed off Australia with her interference in their domestic politics on Manus Island
2. Pissed off the US by gossiping over what Justin Trudeau said about Donald Trump mistaking her for Trudeau’s wife
3. Pissed off the UK be being so slow to back them against Russia over the nerve agent attack
4. Pissed off the EU by committing to a free trade deal with Russia while it was under EU sanctions

The Herald reports:

The Green Party will give its questions during Question Time to the Opposition to help it hold the Government, which it is a part of, to account.

Greens co-leader James Shaw announced the move today, saying it was an end to ‘patsy’ questions from the Greens. Patsy questions are ones designed to allow an answer on how great the Government is.

“We think patsy questions are a waste of time, and New Zealanders have not put us in Parliament to do that; we’re there to make positive change for our people and our environment,” Shaw said.

“Question Time is a key avenue for the opposition to interrogate the Government, so this move is a small step we can take to live up to the values we stated in opposition now that we are part of the Government.

“Using Question Time to ask ourselves scripted, set-piece patsy questions does nothing to advance the principles of democracy and accountability that are very important to us as a party.”

This is a smart move from the Greens, for a number of reasons.

1. It allows them to try and distance themselves from Labour and NZ First
2. Their backbench MPs probably hated asking patsy questions
3. It doesn’t really disadvantage the Government significantly as National is so large they had eight out of 12 questions already. Having nine out of 12 isn’t a huge difference.
4. It sends a slight signal to Labour and NZ First not to take them for granted
5. Goes down well with their supporters

The Herald reports:

Following the release of GDP figures showing slower-than-expected growth, economists estimate near-term growth will remain subdued.

Gross domestic product expanded 0.6 percent in the three months to Dec. 31, versus a 0.6 percent expansion in the third quarter, and was 2.9 percent higher on the year, Statistics New Zealand said. Economists expected GDP expanded 0.8 percent in the quarter and 3.1 percent on the year, according to the median in a Bloomberg poll.

The New Zealand dollar was trading at 73.08 US cents as at 11:55 am, from 73.30 cents immediately before the release.

The weaker result was largely because unfavourable weather weighed on agricultural output, offsetting strong services activity. Agricultural activity shrank 2.7 percent in the period, having expanded 1 percent in the September quarter. Activity in the services industries – which accounts for about 66 percent of GDP – grew 1.1 percent in the quarter versus a 0.6 percent increase in the September quarter.

Westpac Bank senior economist Michael Gordon said the economy “appears to have lost some momentum over the course of the last year (barring any future revisions to the GDP data),” and noted that annual growth peaked at 4 percent in 2016 but slowed to 2.9 percent in 2017.

Hopefully the momentum is regained in 2018. Higher GDP generally means higher wages and more people working.

Scott Keeter writes in Nature:

Is election polling — and  by extension, all of survey research — really

facing a crisis? Fortunately, the answer is no. Despite  the serious challenges facing survey  research, a study by Jennings and Wlezien in Nature Human Behaviour finds that  there is no evidence that election polling is any less accurate now than it was in the past

If anything, polling may be becoming more accurate. Their conclusions rest on

a detailed analysis of a large collection of  election polls conducted across 45 countries over the past 75 years.

Stuff reports:

Dairies that have taken tobacco off their shelves in the face of relentless robberies are paying a hefty price to stay safe. 

One Waikato business is trying to diversify and get by on local patronage while another has taken the hard line as a last defence in what they believe is their downfall.  

Both convenience stores made the bold move to deter robbers after being repeatedly hit by thieves. 

Cigarettes are often the prime prize of criminals targeting dairies and service stations around the country.

Dairy owners should not be forced to decide between their personal safety and stocking a legal product.

The Government (mainly the last one) has created this problem with massive excise tax hikes on tobacco. They used to be a good way to discourage smoking but they have now reached a level where they have fuelled a huge increase in robberies and black market sales.

Te Kowhai Food Centre, a country store 15 minutes drive from Hamilton, went smoke free last September after being subjected to at least 10 armed robberies and ram raids. 

The move has cost the dairy around $700 a week but owner Tao Liu says taking the hit is worth it to protect his family and staff. 

Co-owner Candy Tang said the store was experiencing 20 per cent less turnover than the same time last year. 

The business had been selling an estimated 30 packets of cigarettes a day. An average packet of cigarettes now costs around $26. 

At a margin of 10 per cent, Tang said they were losing roughly $78 a day, leaving them around $13,500 out of pocket in six months. 

But Tang said it wasn’t only the loss from cigarette sales – customers who popped in to purchase smokes also bought other grocery items. 

“And some customers don’t come in because we don’t sell cigarettes anymore.”

The Government has created the black market in tobacco, yet left dairy owners to suffer the consequences.

Stuff reports:

GST could fall if the Tax Working Group recommends new environmental taxes, its chairman Sir Michael Cullen has suggested.

The working group is considering changes to the tax system that could apply after the 2020 election.

Although the group will consider a variety of possible new taxes, Cullen has maintained its focus will be on changing the balance of taxation rather than increasing it.

This is somewhat encouraging. If the TWG does propose any new taxes, it should recommend other taxes are reduced in order to make any changes revenue neutral.

Newsroom reports:

A man who sent fictitious and distressing text messages to a woman has had his conviction for harassing her overturned because the police broke the law to arrest him.

Their “simple police investigatory trick” was deemed inadmissible.

The High Court judge who let him off condemned his behaviour and said he did not minimise the distress a campaign of fake messages had had on the woman.  He said he viewed it as something more sinister than a prank, anonymously targeting a woman.

But he ruled the police had committed the same offence in tracking him that the defendant had committed in the first place.

Police helping the woman, who complained of repeated false messages and orders of services to her home, texted the number from which a pizza had been ordered for her and pretended to be offering a prize of free movie passes. 

The fictitious texter answered with his name and address. When police visited his home, he denied any fake messaging, but when told by a sergeant about the movie ticket prize he slapped his forehead and exclaimed “I’m so dumb” before going to the station and making a full confession.

I don’t see what else the Police could do? If he had a phone and sim card on a pre-pay plan then he would not be registered. They had no way of tracking him, so doing a stupidity test seems fair enough.

Years ago US immigration authorities would put on Steinlager parties to attract illegal Kiwi immigrants and those silly enough to turn up were deported. Is that different?

Justice Nicholas Davidson, in the High Court at Timaru, said the defendant, Richard Arthur James Crawford, had used a mobile phone to order two Domino’s pizzas and garlic bread, giving the woman’s address for delivery. 

Crawford has form. This 2017 article reports:

A South Canterbury man who advanced on someone with an axe after they objected to his music has been convicted of possessing an offensive weapon. 

Richard Arthur James Crawford, 20, was at home with his parents in February when his father stopped him playing loud music. 

The victim was also at the address and had taken Crawford’s parents’ side. 

Crown prosecutor Nyssa Winchester said Crawford, who had been drinking alcohol during the day, grabbed “a large axe and began swinging it around”.

Crawford “advanced” on the victim, wielding the axe, forcing him to move out of the way. 

Sounds a lovely guy.

Crawford also pleaded guilty to a charge of intentional damage, after breaking a pane of glass when he was not allowed entry to a house. 

He went uninvited to the address to visit a girl on July 3, but her parents did not let him in. 

Crawford “yelled abuse” and banged on the door until eventually the pane of glass on the side of the door broke, Winchester said. 

Sounds like only a matter of time before he is back.

Eric Crampton writes:

Ryman Healthcare wants to put up a retirement village in Karori, along with a pile of related services. They’ve bought the old Karori teachers’ college.

It’s a great site – easy land to build on, right on bus routes, an easy walk to Karori village and right next door to the Karori Swimming Pool.

But there’s a problem. The old Karori teacher’s college is apparently a great example of 1970 brutalist architecture, and New Zealand has a rather low threshold for applying heritage designations to buildings. Heritage New Zealand wants to impose a Category 1 listing on it.

That’s crazy. Firstly nothing from the 1970s can be regarded as heritage. 1870s maybe.

But more to the point the buildings are so ugly that if buildings were procreated even its mother would think it was ugly.

This is just madness. Heritage NZ seem to have lost the plot.

I have a small proposal. Until the housing crisis ends, no new heritage designations. If a building or site is of sufficient value, Heritage New Zealand should solicit donations so that it might purchase the site. The good people at Architecture Centre might chip in to buy the Karori teacher’s college as they seem rather fond of it. As owner of the building, Heritage New Zealand would then be able develop the site as it deems best.

I have another proposal. Rather than Heritage NZ continuously decide more and more buildings are heritage, we should only allow such designations say once a generation.

Say every 25 years there is a one year window to decide that an old building has now reached heritage status. You shouldn’t need it more often that that.

Stuff reports:

National leader Simon Bridges says there is no difference between his views on a land value capture tax and the views of his MPs.

Bridges on Sunday said it was “pleasing” the Government are looking at a land value capture tax, despite his finance and housing  spokeswoman criticising it.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson signalled the Government is interested in such a tax, which would fund infrastructure by taxing the people who benefit the most from it. This involves a special tax being levied on property owners deemed to have benefited from new infrastructure: for example, a row of shops, the value of which increased thanks to a new rail link.

I think there is merit in looking at this as a way to fund infrastructure. It is effectively a form of user pays (which the right should support) saying those who receive the most benefit from the infrastructure should fund it, rather than taxing all ratepayers and/or taxpayers.

So a bit of a lesson for National MPs also not to criticise something just because Labour says they are looking at it, and it is called a tax. Sure 95% of the time it will be bad, but in this case it does have merit.

Of course if those who live nearby new infrastructure will be levied more to pay for it, then you need to make sure they are consulted on whether it is wanted.

The Herald reports:

Prominent Northland doctor Lance O’Sullivan is in talks with The Opportunities Party founder Gareth Morgan about signing up as the party’s new leader.

It is understood O’Sullivan is seriously considering taking the role left vacant since after the election when Morgan stepped down as leader, as did his deputy leader, Geoff Simmons.

However, O’Sullivan’s profile makes him hot property and National are also understood to be trying to recruit O’Sullivan for themselves.

O’Sullivan has met with National Party President Peter Goodfellow and is expected to meet with National leader Simon Bridges this week.

 

The doctor said after working in the health sector for twenty years he believed innovative change could only be driven politically.

O’Sullivan was a Maori Party supporter and initially intended standing for the Maori Party and seeking its leadership.

He ruled that out because he wanted to abandon the co-leadership model and be the sole leader, something it would be difficult to get the party’s base to agree to.

He hoped to enter Parliament in 2020 but he had not yet made a decision on who that would be with.

He had met with representatives of political parties across the board – from the Greens to Act.

“I have been looking right across politics because I don’t think I fit easily into any of the existing boxes – hence I have been having discussions with everyone, and probably will continue to do so for a while.”

This is somewhat concerning. Most people have some core political beliefs and can easily say which parties are and are not compatible with those. You don’t have to be wedded to one party but you should have enough beliefs you can rule some out.

Saying you are open to every party on the political spectrum sounds like you mainly believe in yourself.

Newsroom reports:

A new pharmacy code of ethics will clear the way for pharmacies to sell homeopathic products.

The Pharmacy Council’s previous code required that credible evidence of efficacy exist for any products sold at pharmacies, however, this rule was often ignored by pharmacists.

So rather than enforce the rule, they are just getting rid of it!

The new code, which comes into effect March 12, does not require credible evidence for what it refers to as complementary and alternative medicines, but does require pharmacy staff tell customers if a product lacks scientific evidence of efficacy.

As if they will! “Pardon me sir/madam, but before you pay for that did you know that there is no proof it works at all – but we are happy to sell it to you.”

The Code of Ethics 2018 update came after consumer advocacy group, the Society for Science Based Healthcare (SSBHC), complained when they discovered homeopathic products were being sold in pharmacies in an apparent breach of the industry’s own code of ethics.

The Society’s chairperson, Mark Hanna, said a parent contacted him after realising they had been sold “crap” by the pharmacy and had thrown the homeopathic product in the bin.

So the response to a complaint that a pharmacy breached the code of ethics was to change the code of ethics!

The New Zealand Medical Association’s (NZMA) chairperson, Dr Kate Baddock, made a submission to the Pharmacy Council against pharmacies selling complementary and alternative medicines during the code’s review process.

She said the Pharmacy Council has created a document the NZMA is disappointed with.

“The real issue here is you can have what is a regulated medicine, say for example omeprazole [a medicine for heartburn] sitting on the shelf next to shark oil. What happens is the presence of the omeprazole gives legitimacy to the shark oil.

“As long as you have pharmacists stocking products like that side by side you’re going to have an unsuspecting public believing them to be equally important, equally effective, equally efficacious and equally having scientific basis for them being used.”

Yep.