Fran O’Sullivan writes:

Jacinda Ardern has the momentum at the 2017 election, but she should stop the charade and issue a detailed capital gains tax policy. …

But all we hear from Ardern is the mantra that she is “being transparent” with the public by saying Labour will put capital gains taxes on the working group’s agenda to give a “direction of travel”. This is disingenuous.

Particularly as Ardern has indicated that instead of seeking an electoral mandate on September 23 for new capital gains taxes, Labour will simply seek the working group’s advice and then (in all probability) introduce the taxes in its first term in Government.

It is almost inevitable that Ardern, if elected, would introduce a Capital Gains Tax. But she won’t tell us any details of it, including what the rate will be. So a vote for Labour is a vote for whatever type of Capital Gains Tax they decide in Government to implement without an electoral mandate for.

She has stipulated that Labour will ring-fence family homes from the new regimes. But what about businesses and farms which are integral to New Zealand’s productive sector?

In Labour’s 2014 election policy, the first $250,000 of gains would have been tax-free if the seller was aged over 55 and had personally owned the business for more than 15 years. Then a 15 per cent tax would apply on the capital gain from sales.

Is that still the case? Or does Labour intend more swingeing reforms?

Capital gains taxes are complex. They can be blunt instruments.

Lots of vital details are needed such as what the rate would be. What about when your parents die – is their house suddenly taxed?

Then there are the water levies and tourist levies (still to be announced).

Again, how hard is it for Labour to introduce some certainty for farmers by spelling out the size of the water levy?

Farmers have been told Labour is proposing a levy of 1 or 2 cents for each 1000l of water that farmers use.

But the party will consult with farmers on the exact size of the levy once in office.

Farmers deserve some certainty – 2c on 1000l would be twice the cost of a levy of 1c per 1000l.

Would it not make more sense for Labour to put the levy at 1c per 1000l and reassess its effect at a later date?

Fundamentally, this “trust us” approach is insulting.

The only reason I can imagine that Labour won’t reveal what the rates of their water and capitain gains taxes will be, is they think they will lose votes if people realise how high they will be.

The Guardian reports:

Ken Livingstone, a former mayor of London, has blamed the turmoil in Venezuela on the unwillingness of the former president, Hugo Chávez, to execute “oligarchs” after he came to power.

Livingstone, who is suspended from the Labour party, also blamed the economic crisis in the country on the government’s failure to take his advice on investment in infrastructure, which he said would have reduced the Latin American state’s dependence on oil.

The former mayor, a longtime supporter of the late president Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro, said the socialist leader’s enemies wanted to restore their power.

“One of the things that Chávez did when he came to power, he didn’t kill all the oligarchs. There was about 200 families who controlled about 80% of the wealth in Venezuela,” Livingstone told Talk Radio.

“He allowed them to live, to carry on. I suspect a lot of them are using their power and control over imports and exports to make it difficult and to undermine Maduro.”

Socialists can never admit their policies have failed in every country that has tried them. So they find people to blame. In this case he seems to lament that the lack of executions of wealthy families has led to the collapse of Venezuela’s economy.

News.com.au reported:

The decision, which has rocked the longstanding Jewish community in the iconic suburb, was upheld in court this week as the nation reeled from the alleged airline terror threat and debate raged over increased security measures at airports and other public places.

The Land and Environment Court backed the decision by Waverley Council to prohibit the construction of the synagogue in Wellington St, Bondi — just a few hundred metres from Australia’s most famous beach — because it was too much of a security risk for users and local residents.

Jewish leaders are shocked the decision appears to suggest they cannot freely practice their religion because they are the target of hate by Islamist extremists — and that the council has used their own risk assessment of the threat posed by IS against it.

Isn’t this disgusting. They’re saying that because you may be targeted by violent extremists due to your religion, we won’t let you have a synagogue near a populated area – that way only the Jews get killed when it gets blown up – and not anyone else nearby.

The head of the local Jewish community said the council and the court had effectively stifled freedom of religion and rewarded terrorism.

“The decision is unprecedented,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman told news.com.au.

“Its implications are enormous. It basically implies that no Jewish organisation should be allowed to exist in residential areas. It stands to stifle Jewish existence and activity in Sydney and indeed, by creating a precedent, the whole of Australia, and by extension rewarding terrorism.”

Incredible.

Imagine if a Council ruled that (for example) a black community centre can’t be built near a beach in case the KKK firebomb it.

Stuff interviews Shane Reti and Shane Jones:

What’s the most important issue to you?

Jones: “Winning Whangarei and losing weight so that in my victory speech I look svelte and quite agreeable.”

Reti: “Serving the people of Whangarei, listening and meeting their needs.”

A rather nice contrast I thought.

I was at a presentation by Stephen Topliss from BNZ and this graph caught my eye so with permission I am blogging it here.

The difference between NZ and the US (and to a degree Australia) is stark. In 1990 NZ and Australia both had a 63% participation rate and US was 67%.

Today NZ is over 70%, Australia declining at 65% and the US down at 62%.

This is part of why we have a strong economy. We don’t have huge numbers sitting on welfare and/or out of the job market. We have lots of people in work or looking for work.

Stuff reports:

Christians are threatening to boycott a US network after one of its dramas aired a sex scene involving Jesus on the night of the Last Supper.

The show Preacher is under fire for its creators taking things too far.  The latest episode opened with Jesus and a woman having sex, speaking graphically about various acts and showing the couple’s various positions in silhouette.

I like Preacher, having watched the first season. I have no problems with the show depicting Jesus having sex. If it offends those who do, then they simply should not watch it.

But imagine if instead of showing Jesus having sex, it showed Mohammed having sex. We all know there is no way such a scene would ever be aired, as the death toll from doing so would probably reach hundreds or thousands.

The Herald reports:

Former Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei and Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce are frontrunners for the 2018 New Zealand of the Year Awards.

Despite Turei’s fall from grace after she publicly admitted she lied to Winz about her living circumstances in the 1990s she has received the most nominations.

Destroying the electoral chances of the Green Party is a very worthwhile act, so maybe Metiria should be New Zealander of the Year?

Joyce, whose New Zealand-born father makes him a New Zealand citizen, came second.

The revelation he had dual citizenship hit the headlines this month.

I’d vote for Barnaby!

I’m very pleased to see Labour rule out any increases in income tax rates or GST. The PREFU clearly shows we don’t need to increase taxes to fund extra spending (Labour have pledged to keep spending to under 30% of GDP). So any increase would have been purely punitive, to punish people for being sucessful.

But Labour are still refusing to state whether or not they will introduce a Capital Gains Tax, and are saying that if they decide to do so, they can’t wait until the next election for a mandate. So they are asking for a blank cheque from the public – the right to introduce a Capital Gains Tax, without any public knowledge of the all important details of it.

A CGT can be incredibly complex and the details matter a lot. It is also not something that you can introduce quickly as it requires pretty much every business and family in New Zealand to get their assets valued and assessed so that future capital gains can be taxed.

So even if a decision was taken in late 2018 to introduce a CGT I think realistically you would not implement it until after 2020 anyway – which negates Labour’s claim they need to move urgently on this.

Also the bright line test for capital gains on housing is a de facto CGT already on investment properties.

A Capital Gains Tax that has no exemptions, and is part of a tax swap reducing other taxes is something I would support. But Labour’s last CGT proposal was one which would tax families and businesses an extra $3.7 billion a year. That was based on a 15% tax rate. What if Labour decide after the election it should be a 28% CGT – then you are talking $7 billion a year more in tax.

A guest post by Ngahiwi Apanui, Tumuaki (Chief Executive) of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (The Māori Language Commission) responding to David Garrett’s guest post:

Kia ora tātou

David Garret’s guest post “Why is te reo Māori critically ill” (24 August) begins with a wrong premise.

Te Reo Māori is not ‘critically ill’. It is spoken to the level of conversational fluency by three times the number of people who spoke it in 1900: about 130,000 people. It is being studied in preschool and school by 300,000 young New Zealanders. A further 10,000 are studying it at tertiary level.

Although it is an endangered language, Māori and other New Zealanders in their private capacities and the government are supporting its revitalisation. It is a growing part of our national identity. Mr Garrett asks and answers:

“Why did the Maori language effectively almost die out?

The answer given by – frequently white – university educated agitators is that it was “beaten out of them” due to the cruel honkey gummint. Incredibly, my daughter was told last year by her 23 year old teacher that Maori children were “beaten for speaking their language” as recently as the 1970s”.

Umm no; that is not what experts in universities say. They say that Māori has become threatened by a whole series of events. But it has proven itself to be extraordinary resilient in the face of these challenges. The wars of the 19th century, disruption caused to communities as a result of land confiscations, the exclusion of Māori language from education from 1857, the collapse of Māori newspapers without the financial means to start them again, the development of English-only print media, radio and television, the ‘pepper-potting’ policies in housing that prevented the development of Māori urban communities, the delay for two decades in a government response to the decline observed in the 1960s the exclusion of Māori language from tertiary study until the 1970s and the massive dominance of English in all public and commercial affairs are just some of the complex factors behind the language’s decline among Māori.

Language loss has occurred since language first developed in human society. But we have choices. Māori overwhelmingly consider it a good thing that the language continues to not only survive, but goes on to thrive. An increasing majority of wider New Zealand agrees.

I’m pleased that Mr Garrett’s relatives and local retailers are succeeding in passing on their languages to their children. So too are many Māori. A recent report from the Council for Educational Research (Te Ahu o te Reo) has shown clear evidence of this, and of the fact that this is happening in areas of the country where intergenerational transmission was thought to have died out in the 1970s.

The law about the Māori language was reformed in 2016. While it is affirmed as a taonga of the Māori people, the Maori Language Act now makes clear that te reo Māori is for all New Zealanders and a part of our national identity.

More and more non-Māori are learning a little Māori language and using a little. Others are learning more and using more. This includes members of cultures that are not traditional English speakers. Their use of Māori enhances its status as a force for national unity.

Mr Garrett points to the fact that Māori leaders of the past promoted monolingual education. So they did. But they did so before the great depression, the second world war, urbanisation and the rise of mass media. Their confidence in the future of language transmission in the home was misplaced. They should have looked at the massive infrastructure of teaching, publication, broadcasting and use that supports the English language.

My experience is that in today’s New Zealand the Māori language holds a special place in the hearts of New Zealanders and they welcome its use and revitalisation. New Zealand’s future is as a country in which the Māori language is seen not primarily as a passport to tradition and history but a vibrant part of our everyday New Zealand life.

Māori language week this year kicks off on September 11 with a celebratory parade through Wellington. I invite Mr Garrett to come with me and see the exuberance and enthusiasm held by many New Zealanders from many backgrounds for our indigenous language. It will be fun!

Kia ora te reo Māori!

Image: Last year’s Māori language parade. The sign says “I am from Vietnam”.

The Herald reports:

Light rail linking Wellington’s central train station to the airport would be built by 2027, under Green Party policy announced tonight.

A fully-electric bus fleet would also be introduced to Wellington by 2030 under the Green Party’s transport policy for the capital.

The light rail line would run separate from traffic, from the train station to Newtown by 2025 and to Kilbirnie and the airport by 2027.

The line would cost between $630-700 million, depending on the route, the party said.

This just shows how nuts the Greens are with light rail. No matter what the cost, or where the location is, or how much demand there is – the answer is light rail.

The Wellington Regional Council looked at light rail for Wellington. They found the benefit to cost ratio was 0.05. Not 0.5 but 0.05. That means for every $100 spent you get $5 of benefit.

Their policy is the equivalent of burning 33 million $20 bills.

The Herald reports:

As part of today’s trade policy, National has pledged to seek FTAs with:

• the European Union

• the United Kingdom, after Brexit is completed

• Sri Lanka

• Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (Mercosur)

National says it will also seek to complete negotiations with:

• TPP 11

• Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru (the Pacific Alliance)

• Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (Rcep) countries

McClay said National will also seek to upgrade existing FTAs with China, Singapore and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

Trade deals are very important for a small remote country such as New Zealand. They help both our exporters and NZ consumers. The benefits of free trade have been seen globally as hundreds of millions in China and India have been lifted out of poverty by their countries embracing trade and markets.

Labour have abandoned their former pro-trade stance. They think protectionism is best, like the Greens and NZ First.

Voters have a choice about what sort of economy they want – open and competitive, or closed.

The Herald reports:

The Auckland Council has overwhelmingly voted against trading on Easter Sunday, with the mayor leading the move not to make the change.

At a meeting this morning, councillors voted 20 to 1 to keep the ban on trading on the Christian holiday.

Mayor Phil Goff issued a strong statement about his stance not to change – and was applauded for his support of keeping the status quo.

“Make no mistake. If it’s Easter Sunday now that becomes commercialised, the next step will be Good Friday – because the same arguments apply,” he said.

 

“Maybe Christmas Day and even conceivably Anzac Day.”

Goff said the fact the council had to make the decision was a “hospital pass” from an indecisive Government.

Orakei councillor Desley Simpson was the lone voice in the favour of trading.

Simpson urged councillors to think about developing a policy that allowed opportunity as well as fairness.

“That allows the visitors whom we work so hard to attract to benefit and contribute to our economy,” she said.

If employees want to work on a particular day and earn more money, and business owners want to open and earn more money and members of the public want to shop and spend money, then the Government or Council should not stop them from doing so.

Desley Simpson seems to be the only one on Auckland Council who gets this.

Newmarket Business Association chief executive, Mark Knoff-Thomas, said the decision was disappointing for business.

He had been in the area on previous Easter Sunday weekends and often seen tourists wandering around confused about why nothing is open.

The vote was disappointing in that retailers were not being given a choice, which was unfair, he said.

“Our argument is – it’s not about businesses having to open, but it’s about them having the choice to open if they so wish.

“Our friends down the road in Parnell still trade on Easter Sunday, which is all well and good for them. They have an exemption under the existing law which lets them trade as they wish because it’s a destination for tourism – as much as we are!

“In Newmarket, we get a lot of our out-of-town visitors over the Easter period who are here and [people] from overseas. But sadly, we’ve been denied the right to make the choice to open or not.”

So shops can open in Parnell but not Newmarket!

A guest post by David Garrett:

Last weekend we had a celebration for my daughter’s 16^th birthday. I say “we”, but it was actually  one of those celebrations – a pig on a spit, mountains of delicious food, lots of singing – which my  Tongan rellies organize so well. I was pretty well superfluous, other than as a gofor and guest.   It was a wonderful occasion, with several of the young girls doing traditional Tongan dances, which are significantly different from those in other Pacific countries, and everyone singing in those wonderful Tongan harmonies.

 

My children have “dozens of cousins” – so many I can’t keep up, and don’t even bother trying to remember names, and who belongs to whom.  Whoever their parents are there is one  characteristic they all share: most of them are fluent in Tongan, and those who aren’t can understand it, and speak it  well enough to get by. When I remarked to one of Aunties that this was wonderful, and asked how they all  did it, she looked puzzled, gave me a playful poke – which nearly knocked me over – and said “It’s easy Tevita; we just talk to them in Tongan all the time and pretend we don’t understand if they answer in English”.

 

I tried hard to have my two children  also be brought up bi-lingual, but for whatever reason it didn’t work. Perhaps it was my presence – I don’t understand the language, so of necessity my wife had to speak to me in English, and I spoke to the children in English. They are significantly poorer for the lack,  and disadvantaged and somewhat embarrassed because of it,  at the kind of event we had last Saturday.

 

The bilingual second generation phenomenon is not unique to the Tongans of course – our local general store owners are Chinese, and their three children are fluent both in English and not one but TWO Chinese languages.  The Cambodian family who own one of the bakeries in nearby Helensville (best Chelsea buns I have ever tasted) have two university educated children – both doing very well I am proudly informed  – who are both fluent in English and their parents’ native language.

 

Why are things so very different for Maori, with the supposedly treasured te reo being spoken only  by a tiny percentage of the Maori  population, most of them – I suspect –  university educated professionals?  Why are there incessant demands for “funding” and government action of various kinds to preserve the  Maori language? Why did the Maori language effectively almost  die out?

 

The answer given by – frequently  white – university educated agitators is that it was  “beaten out of them” due to  the cruel honkey gummint. Incredibly, my daughter was told last year  by her 23 year old teacher that Maori children were “beaten for speaking their language” as recently as  the 1970’s. I suppose for her, 1975 is as remote as 1840.

 

First some facts: It  is undeniable that in the past – the far distant past, NOT in the 1970’s –  Maori children were strapped or caned for speaking Maori at school. Perhaps I should repeat that slightly differently, so as to forestall those who repeat this claim ad nauseum – YES, back in the early to mid 20^th century, Maori children were required to speak only English when at school, and were punished using the methods of the day if they broke into Maori.

 

What is always missing from the now widely accepted heartbroken and  outraged  “narrative” is that the policy of enforcing the speaking of English only  at school came from Maori themselves! Most particularly it originated from the guy on the back of the $50 note – the eminent Maori lawyer and Cabinet Minister Sir Apirana Ngata. (A lot more very non PC initiatives which would make today’s  pakeha fish hook wearers squirm came from Ngata, but I digress)

 

In the 1920’s and 30’s Ngata, as Minister for Native Affairs, was ranked third in the cabinet, and occasionally served as Deputy Prime Minister. He was responsible for the then “native schools”, and was firmly of the view that to succeed  in the modern world, Maori needed to be fluent in English as well as Maori. Thus came  the policy – harsh as it may seem to the soft inhabitants of the 21^st century – to physically punish those who broke this cardinal rule: Maori at home, English at school.

 

As far as I am able to ascertain – and I look forward to any reliable evidence to the contrary – the policy of “beating” Maori kids for speaking their own language was gone by the late 1940’s; it certainly did not continue into the 1960’s as the callow young woman who taught  my daughter last year told her class.

 

It is important to emphasize that certainly at the end of the war, the Maori language was alive and well, particularly  in provincial and rural areas.  Old documentary  footage of post-war  Maori Battalion functions shows those addressing the audience of their former comrades in te reo not English, and the speakers were  in turn acknowledged in te reo.  Clearly then, those who were being addressed – then still relatively young men – understood and spoke Maori.

 

For whatever reason the language died away within a generation or two, so that by the 1970’s Maori fluency  was confined to the old or very old, and to a very few university educated Maori like Moana  Jackson and his whanau. So, here’s the $64,000 question: WHY did it virtually die out, and why are taxpayers of all races – including my Chinese friends who run our local store – being asked to stump up to save this supposed treasure?  And why is the loudest noise coming from “Maori” who are as white as me?

 

It is quite clear from my Tongan rellies that “resourcing” – aka “government funding” – has nothing to do with why all my daughter’s cousins at least understand their parents and grandparents’ language, and most are fluent in it. My older  Tongan rellies are all from the bottom end of the socio-econmic spectrum; they are factory workers, kiwifruit orchard workers, and manual labourers.

 

 But the next generation won’t be: like the children of our Chinese store owners and the Cambodian bakers’, the next generation – my daughter’s cousins – are either aiming to become skilled tradesmen or to follow some profession.  But again I digress: this piece is about the fluency in their own language of our Pacific community, and other immigrants from further afield. In short, only the Maori seem to need a great deal of help with fostering a language which  THEY allowed to be virtually lost; other ethnic groups manage just fine without any help from me.

 

I will be blunt (just for a change); if Maori value their language so much, it is up to them to save it.  It is not the gummint’s fault or my fault that it became critically endangered. It is not up to me or to the gummint to save it. If they need any advice on how,  I can direct them to my rellies in Manurewa.

Stuff reported:

James Shaw: I don’t own a house, I never have and at this rate I never will.

Shaw as Leader of the Green Party has a remuneration package of $250,000 a year. I really don’t think it is credible for him to say he can’t afford to own a house.

Stuff reports:

On Wednesday morning Richard Prosser, NZ First’s state-owned enterprises spokesman, told an audience in Wellington that the party planned to bring all the major electricity generating asset under a single “state-owned, state-controlled” company.

“So if you’ve got shares in Contact, get rid of them now,” Prosser said in prepared comments.

Asked by a staff member of Mercury, one of the partially privatised electricity companies how the party would fund the policy, Prosser announced the holders would not get the market value.

“They will be purchased back at whatever they were sold for, and no more.”

This is known as confiscation, as practised in Venezuela. Where the Government takes your property off you and doesn’t pay you market price for it. Let this be a warning for anyone thinking NZ First is an economically rational party.

Peters initially said the policy was long established, but later stressed that NZ First would only take back ownership by buying shares in the market.

This is obfuscation. If the Government announces it wants to buy back every share in a former SOE, then the price of those shares would skyrocket. The only way you can really do it is as Prosser outlined – confiscation.

He had spoken to Prosser directly about the comments.

“We don’t believe in nationalisation,” Peters said.

“On that aspect he [Prosser] is just not accurate and I made it very clear to him.”

No one would be required to sell their shares at a price they were not happy with. NZ First would wait until the share price fell, Peters said.

Which will mean the share price won’t fall.

Stuff reports:

The Green Party has dealt an unexpected blow to Labour’s chances of winning the hotly contested Wellington seat of Ohariu by deciding at the 11th hour to stand a candidate.

Tane Woodley was the surprise revelation at an Ohariu candidates meeting in the suburb of Khandallah on Wednesday night – revealing to the crowd that he was entering the race following the shock departure of 33-year incumbent Peter Dunne.

Woodley planned to campaign solely for the party vote. But the decision is likely to benefit National’s Ohariu candidate Brett Hudson, as it could split the vote on the left and dent the lead in the polls enjoyed by Labour’s Greg O’Connor.

Labour will not be happy The Greens have reneged on their previous decision. However they are fighting for their political survival, so this makes sense for them.

Megan Hands writes at The Spinoff:

When Labour’s policy was first announced, there was little detail of pricing. It appears now we are looking at a price of 2 cents per cubic metre, or 1000 Litres.

For some context, to apply 1mm of water over 1 hectare of land it takes 10,000 litres of water or 10 cubic metres. So, to supplement that shortfall of rainfall and sustain crop or pasture growth it quickly equates to large volumes of water.

To keep the maths simple, a 200ha cropping farm growing grain or grass seeds in mid Canterbury applying 500mm of irrigation water a year would have a new additional tax bill of $20,000 a year.

A 100hectare vineyard in Blenheim might use 199,500 cubic metres of water through a drip micro system and have an additional tax bill of $3,990.

Another dairy farmer well known on Twitter has calculated his annual water tax bill on his farm to be $53,000.

Suddenly a couple of cents doesn’t sound so small.

And that is assuming it stays at 2c!

One arable farmer at a meeting in Ashburton on Friday said that he had calculated that at 2 cents/m3 his annual water tax bill could equate to half his annual income. Another wondered aloud what happens if he has a crop failure and he receives zero income for that year but still must pay the tax for the irrigation water he used?

This is generally why you tax profit.

In districts where there are significant areas of irrigation this tax would mean millions of dollars being removed from these local economies in additional tax. In these regional areas, the small towns and cities rely on primary industry to keep them going. For Ashburton and Timaru some estimates have come in around $40 million. Tim Cadogan, mayor of Central Otago, is quoted as saying the tax will cost his district $6 million dollars. That’s millions of dollars not transferred to local tradesman, the local café or the rural supplies store.

A tax on rural and provincial NZ only.

This proposed tax has been portrayed as the solution to NZ’s water quality problems, although the more we learn about this policy the more difficult it is to link the purported benefits with the method proposed. If Labour do as they say and return the tax to the areas from which it is collected (minus the percentage that goes to iwi), the areas with the poorest water quality will only receive a small slice of the tax. This is because there is almost no correlation between swimability of rivers and irrigation.

A key point.

When questioned on the price, Mr Parker warned the room that he wasn’t there to negotiate and threatened the farmers in the room that if they pushed him it would be 2 cents instead of 1 cent. He continually referred to the farmers in the room as “you people”, taking aim at them and telling them they alone were responsible for the rural urban divide.

It is the responsibility of us all to manage our water well and that includes irrigators, towns and cities, and other commercial users. If we are going to tackle these challenges we must do it together, instead of pointing the finger at one another.

The management of our freshwater is important for our ecosystems, our businesses and our recreation. Water is precious to all of us and deserves far more sophisticated and collaborative policy development then soundbites and feel good election policies if we are to deliver the kaitiakitanga it deserves.

A system of tradable water permits is a far better way to deal with water issues as the price will reflect the scaricty (or not) in each region. Far far better than a tax just on provincial and rural NZ.

Stuff reports:

The Green Party turmoil has hit the top tier of its back office, with both its political director and chief of staff stepping down. 

Joss Debreceny has resigned as political director, and Deborah Morris-Travers has been shifted to a specific poverty project, while the party’s digital director Tory Whanau will be acting chief of staff. 

Sacking (or having them resign) your top two staff members 32 days out from an election is a sign of panic.

Stuff reports:

According to the latest YouGov poll, published at the beginning of August, just 36 per cent of the French now approve of their president, roughly the same as the percentage of Americans who approve of Trump. On May 7, 66 per cent of French voters supported Macron.

That is a huge decline in just three months.

In three months in power, the new head of state has been reluctant to grant interviews, preferring to deliver lengthy orations in the halls of Versailles, France’s historic seat of absolute monarchy, and such regal optics have not played well with the media or the public. Macron is more unpopular at the three-month point of his first term than any of his immediate predecessors – Francois Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac – were at the same point, according to Ifop, the Paris-based polling firm.

Maybe he thinks he is Emperor not President!

After his inauguration, the new president quickly set his sights on military expenditures, a not-unexpected move given his promises to slash government spending as a way to keep France in line with European Union budgetary guidelines. Although he pledged to increase military spending by next year, he plans to go ahead with previously announced cuts of almost US$1 billion (NZ$1.36 billion) to the 2017 defense budget.

That amount represents a small fraction of the French military’s total annual budget of US$37 billion. But against the backdrop of France’s efforts to combat terrorism at home and abroad, Macron’s decision was seen by military officials as a betrayal. In mid-July, the country’s top-ranking general, Pierre de Villiers, resigned in protest.

As France faces internal and external security threats, it is not a good time to reduce security spending.

He told a gathering of military officers that he is their boss and doesn’t need their commentary!!

Stuff reports:

The fate of a university anti-abortion club will be decided this week in a referendum that could see it disaffiliated. 

Auckland University Students Association members are now able to vote on whether the ProLife Auckland group should remain affiliated with the association.

The referendum also asks whether clubs with a “similar ideology” should be banned from affiliating in the future.

Clubs should be able to affiliate without discrimination. Again we see some on the left not wanting to debate issues, but to supress the views of those they disagree with.

I am personally strongly pro-choice. But I would no more vote to ban a pro-life group than vote to ban Young Greens as a affiliated club.  Campuses should be about differing views.

It is not the first time the club has faced disaffiliation since its inception in 2010. There have been multiple motions to have the group disaffiliated, but all have failed. 

They just won’t give up.

Middleton, who is in her second year of a Bachelor of Science majoring in statistics and biology, said the group was “very peaceful”. 

Being disaffiliated would mean the group would struggle to get funding and would be restricted in its activities and advertising on campus, she said. 

Disaffiliation is not a ban on being on campus, but it disadvantages the group.

AUSA is funded by all students through Auckland University. If AUSA decides to restrict affiliation based on political opinion, then the University should cease funding them.