This shows what happened to the NZ dollar after the Reid Research poll came out on Tuesday night.

That’s a huge gain.

The Labour Party is misleading New Zealand workers by trying to suggest they won’t increase income taxes.

It is time for Bill English and Steven Joyce to stop the scaremongering and lies, and front up to New Zealanders about the impact of their tax cuts.

New Zealanders should be very concerned that a principal National Party fundraiser and a list MP, highly placed inside the party, was a member of the Chinese intelligence service. The National Party either spectacularly failed to check out this candidate, or were totally naïve about what his background meant. In China, once a spy always a spy.

With the polls closing in just ten days The Opportunities Party has launched a strategic voting campaign designed to remove Winston Peters and New Zealand First from their position as monarch makers in the New Zealand election.

The Green Party will provide genuine support for students by bringing in a universal post-graduate student allowance and increasing allowance rates for all students.

Today’s decision by the Electoral Commission clearing Māori Party candidate Wetex Kang of a bribery allegation which the New Zealand Herald “beefed up” on its front page last week, shows that Wetex is the victim of a smear campaign led by a troublemaker angry that he didn’t want her as his campaign manager.

ACT would increase the period that young people can be sentenced to youth justice facilities to 1 year, to remove them from the situations they were in when they were offending. Currently, youth justice facilities are available for young people on remand or sentenced to the youth court for 3-6 months.

Legalising prostitution has been a dismal failure. In 2003 our Government used the dubious process of Conscience Votes to legalise prostitution. There was no mandate from the population to do so and it was based on a false premise of making sex work safe.

National 10-points ahead in Reid Research poll, Jacinda under pressure, and Nats launch new attack ad.

Newshub Reid Research: National 47.3%, Labour 37.8%, NZ First 6.0%, Greens 4.9%, Maori, ACT 0.6%, TOP 1.6%, Maori 1.1%

Latest update as of 9am Tuesday:

National Party $8.17b; Labour Party $22.91b; Green Party $13.28b; NZ First $27.53b; Maori Party $12.17b; ACT -$2.43b; TOP $13.69b Full details here.

Newsroom has a story alleging that National List MP Jian Yang was a Chinese military intelligence officer trained by Chinese spies and is being investigated by the SIS.

The story seems to be the modern day equivalent of reds under the beds. No proof, and unnamed sources. Jian Yang has denounced the story as a smear campaign out to damage him and National, just because he is Chinese.

Maybe anyone with a Chinese sounding surname is in fact a spy!

An excellent ad from National.

Stuff reports:

A Labour Party proposal to boost Radio New Zealand’s role in the media market and pay for it to launch a television channel has copped criticism from Fairfax New Zealand.

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern announced on Tuesday morning that the party would provide funding for Radio NZ to set up a new non-commercial television channel if elected, with the radio broadcaster morphing into a multi-media “public digital media service”, which it has dubbed “RNZ Plus”.

The plan would likely see Radio NZ get the bulk of an additional $38 million a year that Labour would allocate to public broadcasting, said Labour broadcasting spokeswoman Clare Curran, who denied the plan was a snub to Television New Zealand.

Fairfax NZ chief executive Sinead Boucher said it was “great that Labour recognises the importance of high-quality journalism to a sound democracy”.

“But I would question their approach of piling more money into state-owned media, and their plans to turn Radio NZ into a super-media platform and broadcaster.

“Whilst Radio NZ is a great organisation, it has just had a big funding boost and I am not convinced New Zealanders have much appetite for more of their journalism to ultimately flow up to government control,” she said.

Labour is going to set up a Public Media Funding Commission which they claim will be free from political influence. Yeah, right. You can just imagine who will be appointed to this!

The Canterbury Star reports:

An ailing Jim Anderton was presented with an insignia for his services to Parliament at a special investiture ceremony on Sunday.

The long-standing politician was awarded the insignia of a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit by Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy, after being named on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June.

A small group of family and friends, former Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Helen Clark, and Mayor Lianne Dalziel, were at the ceremony.

Mr Anderton, 79, is frail and was in a wheelchair at the ceremony. It was held at Nazareth House, where he is now living.

Sad to see Mr Anderton so frail. He was one of the most energetic politicians of his time, and carried this energy into retirement. I agreed with him on little, but admired his tenacity and energy.

An good ruling from The Press Council:

On July 23 Stuff NZ published an article headed ‘Bath bombs cause painful reaction among females’ about a painful skin reaction suffered by two girls, in separate incidents, after they had bathed in water infused with bath bombs sold by nationwide retailers.

The story identified and quoted the mothers, who described their daughters’ vulvas as “red and irritated” and ‘red raw, raised and sore’ after their baths. Both children, one a toddler and another a preschooler, were named in the story.

Ms Woods complained that it was inappropriate for Stuff to have mentioned the names of the children particularly when the state of their vulvas was being described.

“This is on the internet, which as everyone knows, means it can be around forever,” she said.

She quoted Press Council Principle 3, Children and Young People, which states: “In cases involving children and young people editors must demonstrate an exceptional degree of public interest to override the interests of the child or young person.”

Naming the girls in this case was not necessary for public interest, she said.

Can’t agree more.  No kid wants to google their name in 15 years time and find out that there was a story about their inflamed vulvas.

The Council found:

The editor’s response that the mother of one of the girls approached Stuff with the information, and that both parents agreed to have the children’s names published, and were happy with the story after it was published, offered the Press Council a compelling argument against upholding the complaint under Principle 2, Privacy, in that the parents are the legal guardians.

The Press Council finds that the circumstances of this case however did not warrant naming the children. Principle 3, Children and Young People, states:“In cases involving children and young people, editors must demonstrate an exceptional degree of public interest to override the interests of the child or young person.” We see no public interest in naming the children, let alone the exceptional degree required by the Principle.

The thrust of the story is a warning that bath bombs can cause an allergic skin reaction in children. In our opinion, naming the sufferers of that reaction does not add to the validity of the story in any way other than to provide a human element. Given the explicit and highly personal nature of the details published, it is likely the children would be embarrassed if they found their names linked to such details in the future.

A good reminder that just because the parents consent is not sufficient reason in itself to publish the names.

Barry Soper writes:

Bill English, who’s essentially been pulling the public purse strings for the best past of a decade, has been doing his best to rattle the loquacious Jacinda Ardern, who for the most part’s been hiding behind the taxation working group she’s planning to set up after the election, if she gets the chance.

But she does herself a disservice by continuing to declare what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to tax, with her group’s options being diminished by the day.

The latest tax to come off their drawing board’s inheritance and that follows capital gains on the family home and the land that lies beneath it, even if the property’s owned by a trust. 

Possible increases to the top income tax rate were canned after the Government’s books were opened, and even though she said it’d take days to analyse the figures on that one, it took a couple of hours.

Then there’s the wishy washy water tax that’s as popular as a wet, mouldy blanket down on the farm.

The more taxes she takes off the table, the greater the impression is that she knows exactly what she wants to do with the system and that creates the uncertainty.

Voters have the right to know how much tax they will be paying if the vote for a particular party.

There are two acceptable options for Labour and one unacceptable option. The options are:

1. Be upfront with New Zealand and tell us that there will be a capital gains tax and/or a land tax and how much they’ll be. That is an acceptable option. Voters can them make an informed choice.
2. Give a commitment that any tax changes recommended by the Tax Working Group will not be implemented until after the next election. That is an acceptable option.
3. Their current policy of refusing to say what they will do, but reserving the right to implement billions of dollars of new taxes if elected. That is unacceptable

Been trying to add up the costs of Labour’s various taxes so people can get an idea of the cumulative impact on families and businesses. The ball park estimates for when taxes are fully implemented are:

• Capital Gains Tax $3.7 billion/year if at 15% (Labour’s own estimates in 2014)
• Canceled changes to tax thresholds $1.9 billion/year
• Imposing ETS on Agriculture $830 million/year
• Water Tax $200 million/year
• Regional Fuel Tax $160 million/year
• Tourist Tax $75 million/year

So in total the extra tax cost in New Zealand will be a massive $6.9 billion a year. Think about that for the size of our population. And that is leaving out any land tax or wealth tax which they have also not ruled out.

Rural NZ will be hit especially hard. Based on Labour’s previous CGT policy the rural sector would be hit with $1.3 billion from the CGT, plus the ETS change and the water tax for a total of $2.3 billion. This will significantly impact the competitiveness of the export sector.

It may of course be far worse than this. Labour refuse to reveal details of their planned Capital Gains Tax. We should not assume it would be at 15%, like their previous policy. This may be why they refuse to give details. They could well decide it should be at 30% or 33%, to match the main income tax rates. Is Labour likely to decide capital gains should be taxed less than income? So if they go for a 30% Capital Gains Tax (and again they refuse to reveal their tax plans) then the CGT revenue from families and businesses would be $7.4 billion and the total tax cost of Labour would be over $10.6 billion.

Jacinda was asked this week if Labour would reduce other taxes to compensate for the new taxes (as National did in 2010 with the GST and income tax switch). She wouldn’t say. So taxpayers are facing the greatest take hikes in history with Labour being the first party in recent history saying they reserve the right to impose new taxes if elected, but won’t give details before the election.

The latest Newshub Reid Research is at Curia.

It shows National up and Labour down, with the Greens at 4.9% and NZ First at 6%.

Hell if we got a result with both Greens and NZ First at 4.9% I’d be so happy and drunk I wouldn’t care who actually forms Government!

This is obviously different to the One News Colmar Brunton poll last week. As always I suggest looking at the average of the polls when they diverge.

On the time and size weighted average, National is at 43%, Labour 30%, NZ First 7.7% and Greens 5.2%. The Greens are in great danger of being wiped out.

Ironically if the Greens were wiped out it would help Labour form a Government. With the Greens there the poll average is:

• Nat + NZF = 62 seats
• Lab + NZF = 59 seats

But if the Greens get 4.9% then it is:

• Nat + NZF = 65 seats
• Lab + NZF = 62 seats

So if the Greens make 5%, then NZ First less likely to go with Labour. But if they drop below 5% then a Labour/NZF Government is possible.

Going to be a very interestign next 10 days.

400 people showed up in Ashburton to hear from English and to protest Labour’s tax plans.

Jacinda Ardern and 39,444 have already voted – up by more than 20,000 since 2014. 88 per cent of CEOs see Ardern as the lightning rod which could catapult Labour to power.

We want Kiwi not iwi – ditch the Waitangi Tribunal.

Green Party in government will put $5 million of funding into LGBTQIA+ school support services.

Federated Farmers will protest Labour’s tax plans in her home town of Morrinsville next week. Hundreds turned up today down south.

Newshub Reid Research (Update):  National could govern alone 47.3%, Labour on 37.8%, Greens out on just 4.9%

Latest update as of 9am today:

National Party $8.17b; Labour Party $22.91b; Green Party $13.28b; NZ First $27.53b; Maori Party $12.17b; ACT -$2.43b; TOP $13.69b Full details here.

The SMH reports:

It was easy news, if not exactly news based on fact. It all began on Saturday, when Australia’s Prime Minister went to see the Sydney Swans play, and posted on social media a photo of himself cuddling his baby granddaughter, planting a kiss atop her sweet head.

In his non-baby-cuddling hand, Malcolm Turnbull held a beer in a plastic cup. …

One Facebook commenter, it was reported, asked “When was drinking while holding a child OK?”

Another, displaying contempt not just for the Australian PM but also for the proper use of apostrophes, said it was “disgusting to see people breathing grog all over baby’s but sadly I’m not surprised by Malcolm doing it”.

One Australian tabloid referred to an “online meltdown” over the photograph, and duly sought comment from properly Australian Australians, who could be relied upon to reaffirm Australian values regarding the appropriate co-mingling of beer and babies.

“Social researcher” Mark McCrindle said Australian had become a “nation of judgers”. Dick Smith said people could “go and live somewhere else” if they didn’t like the photo, and Ita Buttrose was very ticked off indeed.

Nothing brings a people together like a public shaming on social media, and in this case it was the original  Australian Prime Minister-shamers who were being shamed, bringing about an awe-inspiring shame-cycle that could well stay alive in the media for weeks, if properly stoked by an Andrew Bolt column or an Alan Jones editorial.

There is only one small problem, and it is a small problem indeed in the era of post-fact news. So small it barely warrants noting, except by pedants.

That is, the number of Facebook commenters who were “outraged” by the Australian PM holding a beer while cuddling a baby, numbered two.

On Monday morning, the post had been “liked” by 17,000 Facebook users, and 1500 people had commented on it. Because I value my mental health I did not read all the comments, however I couldn’t find a single one that wasn’t sticking up for the Australia Prime Minister in the face of the moral outrage he provoked, even though that moral outrage was not in evidence anywhere except in two comments quoted in the tabloid media and now, presumably, buried under an avalanche of nice comments.

So two people out of 1,500 didn’t like it, and the media turn this into a major story and fake controversy. No wonder trust in media keeps plummeting.

Stuff reports:

Auckland Council is unconcerned about the growing scrutiny over councillors’ eligibility to hold office. …

Government requirements state that in order to be a councillor, one must be both a New Zealand citizen and enrolled as a Parliamentary elector – which also means being 18 or older.

However, despite more than half of its councillors choosing not to respond to the eligibility inquiry, Auckland Council were not ready to hit the panic button.

General manager democracy services Marguerite Delbet said council would not look internally at staff citizenship, electing to instead trust the information they were provided with at the time members were elected. 

“No, we don’t plan on looking into staff citizenship. When a candidate lodges his/her nomination for an election, it is done on an official, prescribed nomination paper,” Delbet said.

“The candidate is required to consent to be nominated and to certify that they are qualified to be a candidate. Certifying they are qualified is done by ticking two check boxes, and then signing the nomination paper.” 

The council’s electoral officer then checked each nomination paper when they were lodged to ensure both criteria (NZ citizen and Parliamentary elector) were ticked and accepted the information contained on the paper as correct, she said. 

I’m sorry but this is appallingly slack. The returning officers have a responsibility to verify that someone is eligible for election and someone ticking a form declaring they are eligible does not count.

If someone ticked a box on a form declaring they are a deity and immune from rates, would they accept that.

It would presumably take around five minutes for a Council to check with Internal Affairs if someone is a citizen. There is no excuse for them not to do so.

Christoper Niesche writes in the Herald:

A capital gains tax was introduced in Australia over three decades ago and since then house prices have roared out of control.

But does this mean that capital gains taxes can’t help control house prices?

Not necessarily. It depends on why they were introduced and how they were designed.

As New Zealanders contemplate casting their vote in a couple of weeks’ time and voting for a party that may or may not introduce a capital gains tax (perhaps things are clearer on the other side of the Tasman than they are from this distance) there are some lessons from Australia.

 

The capital gains tax was introduced in September 1985 by the Labor government of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

In 1985, the median Sydney house price was just A$92,000 ($102,000), compared with A$1.1 million in 2016.

But before we jump to the conclusion that capital gains taxes can’t limit property prices, we should look a few of the reasons that it hasn’t done so in Australia.

The first reason is that it was never intended to limit house price growth. In Australia, the CGT was intended to raise money for the Government and to ensure that those people who were lucky enough to have investable assets paid tax on those gains, in the same way others pay tax on their wages.

There is a case for a CGT in NZ, which is to broaden the tax base. But Labour are selling it as something that will lower house prices. It’s a fallacy.

To maximise the amount of money raised, the tax was applied to any investments, be they houses, other property, shares, bonds, works of art, or whatever. Thus it did nothing to divert investments away from property.

And Labour are saying they will exempt the so called family home, which means again it will have almost zero impact on house prices.

The Herald Mood of the Boardroom survey has ranked Ministers and MPs. Here’s the rankings on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being not impressive and 5 being very impressive.

1. Bill English 4.13
2. Jacinda Ardern 3.81
3. Steven Joyce 3.71
4. Nikki Kaye 3.62
5. Amy Adams 3.58
6. Paula Bennett 3.56
7. Chris Finlayson 3.49
8. Simon Bridges 3.18
9. Anne Tolley 3.11
10. Todd McClay 3.05
11. Kelvin Davis 2.97
12. Grant Robertson 2.96
13. David Seymour 2.85
14. Stuart Nash 2.82
15. Phil Twyford 2.82
16. Winston Peters 2.64
17. David Parker 2.54
18. Julie-Anne Genter 2.49
19. James Shaw 2.43
20. David Clark 2.35
21. Megan Woods 2.25
22. Andrew Little 2.06
23. Chris Hipkins 2.04
24. Carmel Sepuloni 1.98
25. Gareth Hughes 1.86
26. Tracey Martin 1.57

Interesting that Jacinda is the only opposition MP ranked higher than 3/5. Everyone else is below a 3.

Brendan Moyle does some ballpark sums on Labour bringing agriculture unto the ETS:

Some back-of-the-envelope calculations show putting agriculture into the ETS isn’t straightforward. Supposing the price of carbon is say, $16 per tonne, and 1 kg of beef protein takes the FAO average (see below) of 342kg of CO2 emissions.  If a beef cattle yields 200-250 kg of meat (about 1/6th of which is protein), then that’s about 40kg of protein. That’s associated with about 13-14 tonnes of CO2. So that’s an additional cost of about $200 per beef steer. Any way you play with these numbers, the cost of sheep, beef and dairy farming in NZ is going to rise dramatically.

So there are 3.5 million beef cattle in NZ. That’s a $700 million extra cost just on those farms.

The average export price for beef per head is almost $1,200 so that $200 extra charge is one sixth of the income. So if the current profit margin was less than one sixth, those farms are now making a loss. This is not a minor policy impact – it is huge.

Maori TV has released polls to date for five of the seven Maori seats. The electorate votes are:

1. Hauraki-Waikato poll – Mahuta (L) leads by 56%
2. Te Tai Tonga – Tirikatene (L) leads by 35%
3. Waiariki poll – Flavell (M) leads by 20%
4. Ikaroa-Rawhiti – Whaitiri (L) leads by 16%
5. Te Tai Haururu – Tamati (M) leads by 13%

So at this stage the only seat looking to change hands to Te Tai Haururu from Labour to the Maori Party.

The Herald reports:

Ardern said a Labour Government would focus on students by putting mental health teams in every state secondary school.

She said Labour’s target for New Zealand’s suicide rates would be zero: “Because anything else suggests we have a tolerance for loss to suicide in New Zealand.”

I prefer the Government to have achievable targets rather than nonsencial ones that just make people feel good. A target such as “reduce the suicide rate by 10%” doesn’t mean we want anyone to kill themselves any more than a target such as “reduce the road toll by 10%” doesn’t mean we want people to die in road accidents.

Using this logic, we should have a target of a zero road toll, zero unemployment and zero accidents in the workplace.

This is unfair on Jacinda, and unfair on the 75% of New Zealanders who do support euthanasia.

Simon has strong and sincere views on euthanasia, but people have sincere views the other way also.

Most people do not see euthanasia as comparable to suicide, especially suicide. The former is something generally reserved for those who are dying already or in unbearable pain and there would be a strict legal process to go through.

That is very different to people struggling with depression who kill themselves.

The reality is most people do understand the difference. That’s why there is 0% support for more youth suicide but 75% support for legalised euthanasia.

The Washington Post reports:

US President Donald Trump prepared for a pivotal meeting with congressional leaders by huddling with his senior team – his chief of staff, his legislative director and the heads of Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget – to game out how to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling and provide Hurricane Harvey relief.

But one option they never considered was the one the president ultimately chose: cutting a deal with Democratic lawmakers, to the shock and ire of his own Republican Party.

I think there is a decent chance Trump will stand at the next election as an Independent or on his own ticket – the MAGA Party. He’ll try and do a Macron and get his supporters elected to the House and Senate.

The downside for him is that when he leaves the GOP, they won’t feel the need to rein in the investigations of him.

From the Electoral Commission:

1. Gareth Morgan to TOP $1,400,000
2. Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry (NZ) Ltd to National $150,000
3. E Tu Union to Labour $120,000
4. Hon Robert Smellie to Labour $115,000
5. Alpha Laboratories to National $112,000
6. Dame Jenny Gibbs to ACT $106,200
7. Alan Gibbs to ACT $100,000
8. Bruce Plested to Maori Party $100,000
9. NZ Dairy Workers Union to Labour $100,000
10. Karl Maughan to Labour $60,000
11. Lianna Hagaman to National $57,616
12. Heartland Bank to National $57,400
13. Barry Colman to National $56,000
14. HWM (NZ) Holdings to National 55,000
15. Phillip Mills to Labour $50,000
16. De Yi Shi to National $50,000
17. Carrus Ltd to National $50,000
18. Rorohara Farms Ltd (Bruce Plested) to Maori Party $50,000
19. Lane Capital Group to National $50,000
20. Christopher Reeve to ACT $45,000
21. Maritime Union to Labour $40,500
22. Stanley Palner to Labour $39,100
23. Murray Chandler to ACT $35,000
24. MF Management Ltd to National $32,000

So by party:

1. TOP $1,400,000
2. National $670,016
3. Labour $524,600
4. ACT $286,200
5. Maori Party $150,000

No surprise with the large union donations for Labour. Labour’s industrial relations policy is a wet dream for them giving them more power and money than they have had since the 1970s. It is a sweet deal for them.