As the focus goes on the remaining asylum seekers on Manus Island, it is worth remembering why Australia has such an uncompromsing policy on not allowing people who arrive by boat to be settled in Australia.

This shows the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat every year since 2002. During the Labor Government the numbers increased exponentially. In 2013 there were over 20,000 arrivals by boat. If the policy had not changed that number was likely to keep growing. There could well have been a further 100,000 by now.

Instead there has been, well zero. Yes, zero. Why? Because incentives matter. People smugglers won’t convince desperate people to pay them lots of money and try to sail to Australia if they know that arriving by boat means they will never get to settle in Australia.

And this is the more compelling graph. The former “kind” policy saw hundreds drown at sea. I’m not sure there is any good way to die, but I am sure that a very bad way to die is in the middle of the ocean in a storm in an over-crowded boat. And many of those drowned were kids.

So the “kind” policy saw over 1,200 asylum seekers drown horribly at sea. The “nasty” policy has seen that number reduce to zero. Not ten, Not five but zero. And it has been zero for four years in a row.

So one can of course have lots of sympathy for the poor people on Manus Island. They wanted to live in Australia and instead they are now living in Papua New Guinea.

But decisions have consequences. If one allowed the few hundred remaining to live in Australia, then it is absolutely certain that the people smugglers would be back in business and the sailings and drownings would increase again. It is not a coincidence these numbers have reduced to zero. It is a direct consequence of Australia’s policy.

News.com.au reports:

A New Zealand preacher who said gay people should be shot in the head and that Kiwi PM Jacinda Ardern belonged in the kitchen has packed up shop — and moved to Australia.

Pastor Logan Robertson has announced via Facebook that he and his family had moved to Brisbane and had “planted” a new church in the city.

Our loss is Australia’s gain!

News.com.au reports:

UBER will launch ride-sharing flights in Los Angeles by 2020 that are expected to cost less than a typical Uber X ride, the company announced on Wednesday. 

Product design officer Jeff Holden told Lisbon’s Web Summit the company had already designed a prototype for an emissions-free helicopter-style ride to transport people via the skies.

The custom design includes many small motors rather than a large rotor like a helicopter and is quieter, while allowing for “emissions free electric flight”.

“This is the beginning of the end of individual car ownership,” Mr Holden said. “Except for a hobby, you won’t own your own car.”

“Just as skyscrapers were the solution to commercial and residential density in cities, we believe that moving local transportation to the sky is going to open up incredible mobility bandwidth in cities.”

Mr Holden said the company planned to “offer an Uber Air flight for the cost of an Uber X trip on the ground” as soon as it was launched.

“The gnarliest of commute, an hour and a half on the ground could become a handful of minutes in the air. That’s exciting,” he said.

This may not happen by 2020 but is showing us what the future is likely to be. It will be automated transport that picks you up from your home and delivers you to your destination.

The politicians about to sink billions of dollars into train tracks that can only go from Point A to Point B might want to think about the potential for it to be white elephants on a huge scale.

Matthew Syed writes:

A recent BBC investigation found that more than a third of amateur sportsmen and women said that they knew someone who had taken performance-enhancing drugs, and 8 per cent confessed to taking steroids. In 2016, UK Anti-Doping released information about three cases of amateur cyclists who had broken the rules, including a 46-year-old who was handed two bans in the same year and a 17-year-old who had taken EPO.

Newshub reports:

Conservationists trying to protect endangered species of dolphins aren’t happy with a government decision to pause a rollout of electronic monitoring on many commercial fishing vessels.

On Friday Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash said he had instructed Ministry for Primary Industries officials to look at options for slowing down the implementation of the Integrated Electronic Monitoring and Reporting System on commercial fishing vessels. …

On Sunday Christine Rose, chairwoman of Maui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders NZ, said the decision was a huge setback for conservation.

“Electronic observer coverage is essential to properly manage by-catch. Evidence from electronic monitoring trials showed horrific, unreported fish dumping and the death of Hector’s dolphins,” she said.

Research showed up to three times as many fish and non-target species are caught and dumped than are landed and recorded in catch records, she said.

The Government must get on top of the issues of by-catch, waste, under-reporting and non-compliance.

“The National Government was no friend of conservation, but the new Labour Government has shown itself in this move, to be no friend of science, or conservation either”, Mrs Rose said.

Does the Green Party have anything to say on this? Or are they too busy cashing in their new Ministerial salaries.

So far it is 2-0 for the fishing industry over marine conservation.

CNN reports:

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Republican, dismissed the charges brought forth in a Washington Post article about Moore Thursday, telling The Washington Examiner that the relationship would be akin to that of Joseph and Mary.

“Take the Bible: Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance,” Zeigler said. “Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.”

Heather du Plessis-Allan writes:

Labour struck a deal giving in to National because it had ballsed up the vote to get Trevor Mallard into the Speaker’s job.

That was a pretty big embarrassment on the very first day of Parliament. It was maybe predictable and probably forgivable given the massive group of MPs Labour’s whips are trying to corral. But what wasn’t forgivable was then telling us the whole thing went swimmingly and, actually, the deal was struck just to be decent.

 Really?

 

Anyone who has gone through the torture of buying a house, negotiating a pay increase or grudgingly telling the dairy owner he can keep the change knows you never give up more than you have to.

It’s not a surprise Labour tried to paint the schoolboy error in a better light. The alternative is looking unprepared for the basics of government. But what is surprising is that instead of opting for a plausible half truth, they threw themselves headfirst into a story no one would believe. That’s either amateur or arrogant.

Normally Governments get really arrogant in their third term. Labour seems to have managed it in three days.

When announcing paid parental leave would extend from 18 to 22 weeks, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made a point of rubbing in how stingy we Kiwis are. When it comes to maternity leave, she told us we have “one of the lowest in the OECD where the average is 48 weeks”.

Wait, what? Forty eight weeks is nearly three times what ours was! How did we get to be such mum-haters?

We’re not. The OECD average is really 17.7 weeks, which means we’re doing okay internationally. Labour had to jump through several statistical hoops and lump all sorts of lesser forms of maternal care into one basket to concoct that unfair comparison.

There is no way at all the average is 48 weeks. So another lie.

The trouble for this lot is that two weeks into a three-year term is very early to have us questioning their honesty.

Not a great start for them. More to come I am sure.

Stuff reports:

The Greens have announced to their party membership a contest to elect a new female co-leader to replace Metiria Turei will be held in the new year. 

It’s understood potential candidates are already considering their options, and a Facebook page espousing party number two on the list, Marama Davidson, for leader has already cropped up. 

Speculation has been rife, since the shock resignation of Metiria Turei, over her likely replacement. Close proximity to the election meant any moves to jostle into contention had been placed on the backburner. 

But among the most likely candidates was Davidson, as well as Ministers and party veterans Julie Anne Genter and Eugenie Sage. Parliamentary Under-secretary and senior MP Jan Logie was also a likely contender. 

All four potential candidates are strong in different areas. Davidson is big on social justice issues like Turei was. Genter is an expert on transport and climate change issues. Sage has a very deep background in conservation and Logie has done much work in the area of domestic violence.

So the vote may be partly about the person, but also partly about what area members see as important for the Greens to brand themselves on.

Davidson has been an MP since 2015. She is 43 years old with six children and was ranked No 2 on the Greens List in 2017.

Genter has been an MP since 2011. She is 37 years old and was ranked No 3 on the Greens List in 2017.

Eugenie Sage has been an MP since 2011. She is 60 years old and was ranked No 4 on the Greens List in 2017.

Jan Logie has been an MP since 2011. She is 48 years old and was ranked No 6 on the Greens List in 2017.

Mark Reason writes at Stuff:

The All Whites and Football Ferns are pushing a collective agreement in the name of ‘equality.’ But true equality is a luxury that New Zealand Football cannot afford. So sorry all you mums and dads out there, but there is no way that New Zealand’s age group teams will soon be flying business to their tournaments courtesy of the governing body.

The idea of equality in sport is as absurdly false as the notion that Jacinda Ardern’s extended parental leave is aimed equally at men and women.  …

People ask if you support equality, implying that if you do not, then you must be a sexist or a racist or a bigot or a whatever. They want to shut down the discussion. And that makes equality one of the most dishonest words in the English language.

Equality of opportunity is a very good thing. Equality of outcome is terrible. That is lowest common denominator. That is communism where everyone gets paid the same salary – labourers and brain surgeons. Equality of outcome means the hardest working get paid the same as the laziest.

There are two reasons (apart from historic prejudice) why NZF pays business class for the All Whites. The first reason is that the All Whites generate revenue. A World Cup place would mean financial security for New Zealand Football. The second is that the top Premiership players, the ones who stimulate fan interest, are not going to come over from England in the back of the bus. Their clubs simply would not release them.

All Whites business class seats are a necessity that come with a potential return on the investment that the Football Ferns cannot match. So when I hear Sarah Gregorius and Chris Wood pushing for “equality”, I think that their hearts are in the right place, but not their brains. Do Gregorius and Wood want to cut a junior programme because the Ferns are flying business?

It does all come back to return on investment.

Female models earn way more than men and male footballers earn way more than women because that is the marketplace. There are more women’s clothes shops on the high street than men’s, fuelled by women’s spending habits. There are more professional men’s sports matches than women’s, fuelled by men’s spending habits.

Do we ever hear complaints that male models are underpaid?

The market relies on our discrimination and we discriminate according to quality on a level playing field, not one defined by gender. So Brooks Koepka, the winner of the men’s US Open at golf this year earned $US2.16 million. Sung Hyun Park won $US900,000 for winning the women’s US Open. And Kenny Perry won $US720,000 for winning the seniors US Open.

Here in New Zealand, Brooke Henderson’s prize money for winning the NZ Women’s Open was $US195,000, whereas Michael Hendry earned $US125,000 for winning the New Zealand Men’s Open. The likes of Hendry, Brad Kennedy and Ben Campbell are not the same draw as Henderson and Lydia Ko. Old man Perry is judged to be a third of the value as the athletic Koepka.

That is interesting. The prize money in NZ was higher for women’s golf than men’s golf. That is unequal. Should the women’s money be reduced to the same as the men? No – because there is more interest in NZ in women’s golf.

Same goes for netball. The Silver Ferns get paid up to around $50,000 a year. The NZ mens netball team I suspect get paid nothing. That is because far more people will pay to watch women’s netball than men’s netball.

Greenpeace has written a letter to the Speaker asking him to ban “corporate lobbyists” from having parliamentary swipe cards because shock horror a lobbyist for Anadarko has one.

This is Greenpeace saying that swipe cards should only be given to organisations they politically agree with. They wish to politicise what is actually a simple administrative issue.

Thousands of people have a swipe card to access Parliament. All the staff of course. Hundreds of government officials. Family members of MPs. Media. Volunteers and interns. Youth members of political parties. Former MPs. And around 100 other people (including me).

All a swipe card means is that you don’t have to go through the security scanner and rather than wait five minutes at reception for someone to okay you in (which means you get given a temporary swipe card), you can go straight to the lift and to your destination.

They are not an all access card. Each political party decides who can access their areas. My swipe card only gets me into National areas. It won’t get me into say Labour and Greens.

People who see swipe cards as some sort of elite thing are wrong, and their solution of making them harder is the opposite of what we should do. The last thing you want is to make Parliament more inaccessible to people. I recall the days when there was no security scanners, and the lifts did not need swipe cards.

Anyone who has legitimate business at Parliament more than say a couple of times a year, should have a swipe card. The purpose of the security checks are to keep out people with bad intentions, not to make it hard for people to visit MPs.

The worst of all worlds would be to do what Greenpeace wants which is to allow all the groups they approve of (such as the CTU and PSA) to have swipe cards but not groups they disagree with (such as Business NZ). Decisions on swipe cards should be as simple as does that people have a regular need to meet MPs.

Jo Moir at Stuff writes:

The new Government will be sighing with relief they survived their first week of Parliament, but some basic mistakes mean they’ll hardly be popping the champagne. …

What should have been a straight-forward, nothing-to-see-here formality – the election of Trevor Mallard as Speaker of the House – turned into a comedy of errors and a series of unbelievable photos in the House that ran front and centre across every media outlet in the country.

The only thing missing for those in the press gallery watching the shambles unfold was popcorn.

It had become apparent that something was brewing. Shadow Leader of the House Simon Bridges was looking shady, he was doing far too much consulting with his colleague Gerry Brownlee and chief whip Jami-Lee Ross.

And then it came. Labour’s Ruth Dyson stood to nominate Mallard and Bridges jumped to his feet for a point of order to question whether those MPs who weren’t in the House and hadn’t been sworn in earlier that day were able to cast a vote for Speaker.

Mallard looked like he wanted to be sick, Leader of the House Chris Hipkins looked like he was about to blow a gasket, and Ardern stared Bridges down with a look that could kill.

Within seconds Bridges had declared to Hipkins they had “assumed the majority” and threatened a vote as Hipkins scrambled to work out his own numbers.

Hipkins knew he needed to fix it and he had to fix it fast in order to save Mallard, who was growing paler by the second.

The whole palava actually had nothing to do with Mallard as Speaker – National leader English was already on record saying he had no issue with him getting the job.

It was about numbers on select committees and Bridges being furious with Hipkins for not even taking his calls about Labour’s plans to reduce the size of committees.

So arrogant to refuse to even discuss the issue with the Shadow Leader of the House.

Both Hipkins and Ardern maintain they knew they had the numbers to win the vote, but would Hipkins really have gone into such panic mode if he was so sure?

The defence that Labour did a deal to avoid a vote on Mallard’s election as Speaker simply doesn’t wash.

Ardern and Hipkins argued they wanted Mallard elected unopposed and a vote jeopardised that. 

It’s just nuts to think the chaos that played out was better than having a vote. Chaos caused national headlines, a vote would have been a brief at worst.

And Hipkins himself moved Mallard against Carter in 2013. A very unconvincing lie.

Hipkins has had a rough first week as the Opposition put him under pressure for threatening charter schools with closure in this column last week, before he’d even spoken to the school sponsors.

Again such arrogance. The pupils and families are having to find out from the media, rather than having the Minister talk directly to schools.

Stuff reports:

TOP leader Gareth Morgan has sent an “upsetting” email to one of the party’s candidates, telling her to resign.

Morgan signed off with an insult, telling TOP tax spokesperson and 2017 election candidate Jenny Condie she was “a pain in the arse”.

His exact words were “Please just resign from the party – you’re a pain in the arse”.

Candidates are volunteers. I can’t see too many people volunteering to be candidates in 2020 if that is how they get treated.

I don’t think Gareth has really understood the difference between a political party (TOP) and a policy thinktank (Morgan Foundation). In the latter you have just paid staff and they do what you tell them to do. In a political party, you need volunteers. Even if you are the major funder, you need more than just money.

Labour and NZ First coalition deal includes an agreement to impose a royalty on exports of bottled water.

Jacinda Ardern said in the campaign it would be between 10 and 20 cents a tonne.

So how much money will this tax raise?

An MBIE report found we had $7.1 million of exports in 2015. The average price per litre was 64 cents so that represents 11 million litres.

Now 11 million litres is 11,000 tonnes. So at the rate Ardern announces it would bring in revenue to taxpayers of between $1,100 and $2,200 per annum!!

Yep they really are that stupid.

Incidentally we extract 10 trillion litres a year of water. So the amount of extracted water that is exported is 0.0001% of that. Or of every million litres of water extracted 1.1 litres is exported.

This is such a serious problem that we need a new tax for it!

Stuff reports:

Syria’s army has declared victory over the Islamic State terror group, saying its capture of the jihadists’ last town in the country marked the collapse of their three-year, hardline reign in the in the region.

The army and its allies were still fighting Islamic State in desert areas near Albu Kamal, the last town the militant group had held in Syria, near the border with Iraq, the army said.

But the capture of the town ends Islamic State’s era of territorial rule over the so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across Iraq and Syria and in which millions suffered under its hardline, repressive strictures.

Not an end to terrorism, but it is freedom for the millions who were under their rule. That is worth celebrating.

Professor Dave Frame writes:

National climate targets could be assessed in a range of ways – there is no single perfect measure. Ultimately, Mother Nature cares about cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide, plus a little bit besides, but exactly what we use at the national level to evaluate relative national efforts is a fairly open question. Two obvious (but not perfect) ways of comparing international climate targets are 1) to compare among countries and 2) to look at what would happen if the whole world adopted the target. On both these measures, New Zealand’s targets are reasonable.

Firstly, our 2030 target – a -30% reduction on 2005 emissions – is similar to, or more stringent than, those of Australia (-26–28%), the United States (-26–28% by 2025), Canada (-30%) and Japan (-25.4%). Our target is roughly halfway between the European Union’s and Japan’s. So we have plenty of company in terms of our target, and these targets are generally at the strong end of the spectrum, as is expected from the world’s richer countries.

Secondly, if the rest of the world matched New Zealand’s climate change commitment out to 2050, then the world would be on course to meet its goal of warming by less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In AR5, which remains its most recent Assessment Report, the IPCC said that by 2050 global emissions need to be somewhere between -35% and -55% compared with 1990 levels. New Zealand’s 2050 target is -50% compared with 1990, which is clearly within range, and is in fact toward the more stringent end. Our 2030 target is slightly less ambitious but still broadly consistent with the IPCC’s 2°C-compatible emissions range.

So the targets set by the (previous) Government are not letting the side down. They are quite reasonable compared to other countries.

So if the targets are reasonable, why the fuss about “inadequacy”? The answer is that climate activists – such as the cursory but influential Climate Action Tracker website – make these accusations about every developed country, including the EU. The result is a profusion of fairly puritanical assessments that are not useful for real governments. These assessments are a “view from nowhere” in the sense they are made by people who do not have to consider the trade-offs necessary for decarbonisation to take place. They do not need to worry about economic performance, social cohesion and the other things that actually form the main parts of what we expect from governments in liberal democracies.

This is a key point. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is about trade offs. It is not a painless thing to do. It means less income and fewer jobs for some people. It costs real money.

The real issue for New Zealand is not the targets, but achieving the targets. It is not ambition we lack, but action. Current policy will not get us to the targets we have set. This is also the case in other developed countries. The answer is to work on the policy, not to fiddle with the targets. We are like a boxer trying to drop a few kilos before a weigh-in who discovers his weight is increasing. Rational advice would suggest we focus on diet and exercise (policy), not on choosing a still more ambitious weight class (target). We need to eat less and get into the gym, not make new and more demanding promises.

I agree with this. Fiddling with targets is a distraction. You can even legislate targets, but to be blunt without policy to back them up, the targets are nonsense, even if law.

Policy is much harder. That is where trade offs bite. If you tax agricultural emissions you may just damage the export sector, help other countries to export more and end up increasing global emissions. If you ban petrol vehicles, you impose significant extra costs on households buying vehicles.

Labour is going to go on a lot about their targets. But that is really just sending a virtue signal that they care. What really matters is what policy they put in place.

Justin Stevenson writes:

It is important to realise that most government expenditure (approximately 83 per cent) is spent equally on all New Zealanders – a form of a universal basic income mainly provided through services instead of cash.

The big ticket items are public healthcare, compulsory primary and secondary education, superannuation, and core government services such as roading, law and order, and defence.

Even without NZ’s slightly progressive tax rate this results in a transfer of wealth from the richest to the poorest as those above the average income pay more tax than they get back in services, and vice versa. This is generally seen as a good outcome as it helps to alleviate inequalities in society.

Government expenditure on tertiary education is an exception. Those studying clearly receive more benefits than those that do not and, while technically available to all, attendance in tertiary education is highly correlated with the social status of one’s parents.

Therefore, government subsidies are effectively a regressive tax where the richest have their education subsidised by the poorest. In NZ, those who do not study at tertiary level miss out on approximately $1000/year (or $80,000 over the average lifetime) in government benefits.

And those who get a degree earn an extra $1.5 million extra in the average lifetime. So Labour’s policy is to steal from everyone to give the rich.

The Law Society reported:

Clifton Killip Lyon has been censured and fined $10,000 by a lawyers standards committee, following two findings of unsatisfactory conduct. …

However, it found that Mr Lyon had permitted S to draft court documents (which falls within the definition of regulated services), knowing S had been suspended and considered that to be unsatisfactory.

The committee also concluded that a response from Mr Lyon to the committee’s enquiries had been “unforthcoming in the extreme” and “at best, misleading” and that that was unsatisfactory. When asked what role S played in drafting court documents, Mr Lyon wrote “I do not know who drafted the court documents”, in circumstances where all indications were that S had drafted them.

So the Law Society is basically saying Lyon misled them and allowed a suspended lawyer to work for him.

Lyon by coincidence is the lawyer that has put together the conspiracy theory for Winston’s lawsuit.

Simon Cowan at the CIS looks at what a UBI would cost where no welfare recepient ends up worse off (which is the only politically achievable way to do one).

In Australia the net cost would be between $103 billion and $231 billion a year.

To pay for this, they would need to either:

• Increase GST to 40%
• Have a land tax of $20,000 to $30,000 a year
• Have marginal tax rates of 60% for median income earners and 80% for high income earners

The sums would be much the same in NZ per capita.

SBS reports:

Victoria’s euthanasia bill has passed the Upper House 22 votes to 18 in its second reading after robust debate over the controversial proposal.

It earlier passed the Lower House by 47 to 37.

It will be interesting to see if it passes the third reading and becomes law.

The End of Life Choice Bill will not come up for a first reading for a while. Ahead of it in the queue is:

1. New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill – committee stage and 3rd reading
2. Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Orders) Amendment Bill – 3rd reading
3. Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill – 3rd reading
4. Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) – committee stage and 3rd reading
5. Rates Rebate (Retirement Village Residents) Amendment Bill – 2nd reading, committee stage and 3rd reading
6. Newborn Enrolment with General Practice Bill – 1st reading
7. Employment Relations (Restoring Kiwis’ Right to a Break at
   Work) Amendment Bill – 1st reading
8. Education (Public Good not Profit from Charter Schools)
   Amendment Bill – 1st reading

I’d estimate that is 19 hours of debate. Each member’s day had around 4.5 hours so maybe on the 5th members day which is after ten weeks or so of house sitting.

So best guess is March or April.

You can’t spend three years railing against the impact of migrants on NZ and then claim to be upset when this is pointed out.