How is this for great service beyond and above the call of duty.

We ordered a bathroom vanity off Cherrytree. I was away in Copenhagen when it was ready and it became apparent when my partner went to their store to pick it up that it was too heavy for her to get up the steps at our place.

The kind people at Cherrytree said no problems, and they would drop it around in a ute, and get it up the steps for us. And they did.

We are huge users of Cherrytree and have saved thousands with them. Even the savings on small households items (laundry liquid etc) soon add up, let alone the larger purchases.

Stuff reports:

Christchurch religious leaders have rallied to support Anglican bishop Victoria Matthews in her battle over the Christ Church Cathedral.

Eight religious leaders from all the major Christian denominations – including Presbyterian, Methodist and Catholic – have written a letter to The Press calling for Anglicans to be “left to make decisions as to the future of the cathedral”.

“The role of the wider community (including other Christian denominations) is to respect their decision (whatever it might be) as being one that is true to their understanding of their call from God, in this place, at this time,” the letter states. …

The letter states church buildings are primarily places of worship.

“The costs – spiritually, emotionally and financially – of all our buildings are borne by those for whom these places of worship are their spiritual home,” the letter states.

“First and foremost the Cathedral in the Square, like all Christian church buildings, is a place of worship to the God we know in Jesus Christ and a reminder to the wider community of God’s presence. The reason why all churches exist is to make Jesus Christ known and to enable people to gather in community and worship. The church is not primarily a landlord tasked with caring for stone or wooden edifices.”

Either someone should buy the cathedral off the church, so they can turn it into a tourist attraction or they should leave the Anglican Church alone to make a decision.

A guest post by Simon Lusk:

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff’s targeted rate on accommodation providers is one of the riskiest political moves in New Zealand political history. By charging a small section of the community millions of dollars per year he has created a natural funding stream for his opponents at the 2019 election.

From a straight business perspective he has created a powerful incentive for those who will pay the tax to remove him from office. A sensible right wing mayor elected in 2019 would likely remove the targeted rate, so funding a credible right wing candidate would save businesses tens of millions of dollars. Funding a campaign to remove the mayor and councillors who vote for the targeted rate will cost a fraction of the rate.   

Goff’s extensive political experience has not included being directly opposed by a well funded group of people he has personally cost vast amounts of money. If those being forced to pay the targeted rate get moderately organised and fund a sensible right wing candidate over the next two and half years Goff is very, very beatable. So are the councillors, especially the councillors in right wing wards who vote for the targeted rate.

Even if Goff is not beaten, a political near death experience caused by angry hoteliers will likely mean Goff is unwilling to increase this rate every year to cover his budget gap. Removing one or two sitting councillors in 2019 will have a similar effect. Councillors will be terrified they will face a well organised and well funded campaign because their vote has cost businesses a very large amount of money.

Any industry campaign against Goff and councillors who vote for the targeted rate would be completely legal under the Local Electoral Act. Donations to candidates would have to be declared, but any third party campaign asking voters to vote against Goff and against councillors supporting targeted rates would not have to be disclosed. There are no spending limits for negative campaigns against local government candidates, and the Local Electoral Act does not mention campaigning against candidates, only campaigning for candidates.

Goff appears not to have thought through the implications of the targeted rate. It could easily be career ending for him, or leave him with a right wing council for his second term. While the Auckland Mayor has some executive power, a right wing council could prevent him from promoting his agenda a second term.  

Simon is right that there is no spending limit in the Local Electoral Act for a campaign against a candidate – only for campaigns for a candidate.

Eric Crampton writes:

Keith Ng’s ‘mythbusting’ around net taxpaying annoyed me enough that I started digging around for more of the literature on this stuff.

Keith argued that it’s a myth that 40% of households pay no net taxes. While he’s right that the commonly cited measure just focuses on income taxes paid versus cash transfers received, it isn’t like correcting for that shows the system is less progressive or relies less heavily on the top deciles’ tax contribution. When Aziz et al had a look, they found this:

So in fact the bottom50% of households received far more from the Government than the taxes they pay.

Those nasty rich pricks in the top decile are funding a huge proportion of the Government.

This breaks down net contribution by gender and age. Basically men pay net tax between around age 25 and 65 while women only between age 45 and 65. This reflects many things such as higher earnings, parental leave etc.

Today

• NZ beat Sweden
• Sweden lost to NZ and UK
• US beat France
• France lost to US
• UK beat Sweden

Overall results

• US won 5 lost 1
• NZ won 5 lost 1
• Japan won 2 lost 3
• France won 2 lost 4
• UK won 2 lost 4
• Sweden won 2 lost 5

Points

1. US 6
2. NZ 5
3. UK 4
4. Sweden 2
5. France 2
6. Japan 2

Stuff reports:

For some time now, Dunne’s been talking up the merits of Portugal’s drug laws, where every drug is decriminalised – albeit with a caveat: If you’re caught with less than 10 days of any drug – cannabis, heroin, methamphetamine, or anything in between – you won’t be prosecuted. Instead, you’ll be fined or sent to treatment.

Rather than creating a free-for-all, Portugal saw its people’s drug use slump: in the 1990s, one in every 100 people in Portugal was addicted to heroin; since then, overall drug use has dropped 75 per cent.

Dunne wants to see that replicated in New Zealand.

“I think the full Portuguese solution, personally, might be the way for us to go long term. That might be where we head,” he says.

This seems sensible to me. Several US states have legalised also and so far there seems to be no evidence of increased ill effects.

Parliament announced:

Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, the definitive text on how our Parliament works, has been updated to reflect key changes in parliamentary law and practice over the last decade.

The fourth edition was launched at Parliament yesterday by current Clerk of the House of Representatives David Wilson, former Clerk Mary Harris and previous Clerk and original author David McGee.

Well-known by MPs, parliamentary staff, lawyers and the state sector as the definitive work on the practice and procedure of the New Zealand House of Representatives, it was first published in 1985 and last revised in 2005.

David Wilson says the new edition updates the key changes that affect how things are done in the House.

“Parliament operates within its own rules so it can maintain independence, hold the government to account and work for the public good” he says.

I purchased a 1st edition in 1985 when I was still at school. Yes I was that tragic. McGee was then the Deputy Clerk and it was clear he would be Clerk one day.

The rules of Parliament are very abstract to some people, but they are what makes our Parliament one of the more effective ones around. They protect the rights of the minority and stop the Government determining everything.

The fourth edition of Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand is published by Oratia Books and now available in bookshops. An e-book is also available for quick browsing and searching. An electronic version will soon be available free of charge on the New Zealand Parliament website.

Any candidates who get elected to Parliament in September should make this book their summer reading!

The final top 20 for the Green Party list is below with changes from the initial list in brackets:

1. Metiria Turei (nc)
2. James Shaw (nc)
3. Marama Davidson (+1)
4. Julie Anne Genter (-1)
5. Eugenie Sage (nc)
6. Gareth Hughes (+1)
7. Jan Logie (-1)
8. Kennedy Graham (+3)
9. Chloe Swarbrick (+4)
10. Golriz Ghahraman (+5)
11. Mojo Mathers (-3)
12. Barry Coates (-2)
13. Jack McDonald (-4)
14. John Hart (-2)
15. Denise Roche (-1)
16. David Clendon (nc)
17. Hayley Holt (+13)
18. Teall Crossen (+1)
19. Teanau Tuiono (-2)
20. Leilani Tamu (-2)

The top 14 are likely to be MPs on current polling so they may get new MPs of Swarbrick, Ghahraman, McDonald and Hart and lose Roche and Clendon. That’s pretty good renewal, and I have to say a pretty strong party list which will appeal to their target voters.

However the Greens seem to have ignored their rule that men should make up at least 40% of the list at each rank after the first three. The male percentage at each rank is:

• 4 – 25%
• 5 – 20%
• 6 – 33%
• 7 – 29%
• 8 – 38%
• 9 – 33%
• 10 – 30%
• 11 – 28%

Now I personally think a rule demanding equality is stupid and if they have better female candidates than male candidates they should be able to rank them higher.

Their rules are a bit complicated and require each place to be allocated by looking at the next three places on the member voted list. If there is some-one there from an under-represented gender then they should be given the place.

So for there to be only three men in the top 11, means that the members voted only three men in the top 13 – or they ignored their own rules.

Stuff reports:

Media companies Fairfax New Zealand and NZME are appealing the Commerce Commission’s decision this month to block their proposed merger.

The companies announced the decision on Friday morning saying the commission had made errors with facts and law.

Fairfax NZ acting managing director Andrew Boyle said the commission’s ruling was a “breach of natural justice and procedural fairness”. 

He said the appeal process would “take some time”.

Procedural fairness? It was the media companies that kept coming back with more and more submissions delaying things. The Commerce Commission bent over backwards to be procedurally fair to them. I wonder if the media companies kept making all these extra demands, just so they could try and appeal when they lost?

At this rate the media companies will be spending more on lawyers than they do on sub-editing.

Their appeal includes a statement that the Commerce Commission did not give enough weight to the competition the two media companies face from blogs and sites such as Scoop. Good luck with that argument.

• NZ beat Sweden
• Sweden lost to NZ
• France lost to Japan and beat UK
• UK lost to France
• Japan beat France

Overall results:

• US won 4 lost 1
• NZ won 4 lost 1
• Sweden won 2 lost 3
• France won 2 lost 3
• Japan won 2 lost 3
• UK won 1 lost 4

Points

1. US 5
2. NZ 4
3. UK 3
4. Sweden 2
5. France 2
6. Japan 2

Yesterday The Spinoff published an article on the battle over Auckland Council’s budget. At the centre of the story was an allegation (actually they reported it as a fact) that the Taxpayers’ union had been sending white feathers to Councillors who might vote for Goff’s budget, accusing them of cowardice.

This get a few on Twitter into their normal lynch mob mentality, including Russell Brown who added (now deleted) that we had been nailing the white feathers to the doors of Councillors homes.

Most people would agree such acts are pretty despicable.

The story had a large picture of me (and two others) on it, and I started to get calls asking why had I done or authorised such a awful thing.

Of course I hadn’t, and neither had the NZTU or ARA. The Spinoff has now said:

An earlier version of this story attributed the distribution of white feathers to The Taxpayers’ Union, a charge the organisation has since vigourously denied. The Spinoff has since been told that the feathers were in fact distributed anonymously, and accepts that The Taxpayers’ Union had no role in the distribution of the feathers. The story has now been updated to reflect this. The Spinoff apologises to the Taxpayers’ Union, Jordan Williams, David Farrar and Jo Holmes for the error.

I appreciate the apology and I should say I have generally been a fan of The Spinoff’s writings, and especially Simon Wilson’s. But I am angry over what they did. They published a story that was highly damaging to me and others, without even checking. If they had checked in advance of publication we would have all told them we know nothing about this, and they would have presumably checked back with their sources (who may have misled them) and determined the truth.

I presume as well as not checking with us (which is a gross breach of Press Council principles) they never asked for any proof of the allegations. Instead they ran a story based on anonymous sources, did no verification and gave no opportunity for comment in advance of publication. That’s pretty shoddy.

To add to the irony we have someone (Russell Brown) who has spent over a decade producing shows about media ethics who jumped on the bandwagon and implied we hadn’t just e-mailed white feathers to Councillors but had stalked them at home and nailed them to front doors. And again no verification before publishing – he just threw it out there on Twitter to enrage the lynch mob.

It is true the ARA has been vocal in reminding Councillors who pledged to vote for no more than a 2% rates increase that if they break their pledge, voters will be reminded of it. Most people regard holding elected officials to their words to be a good thing.

My suspicion is that this story was planted by a staff member or Councillor of Auckland Council to try and smear us. The timing is no coincidence, that it is the week of key votes on the bed tax which is on the verge of not getting the numbers. There is no journalist protection of sources when they have lied to you, so I hope The Spinoff reveals who told them NZTU were behind the white feathers.

The Spinoff notes:

The Spinoff Auckland is sponsored by Heart of the City, the business association dedicated to the growth of downtown Auckland as a vibrant centre for entertainment, retail, hospitality and business.

Heart of the City is of course an organisation almost fully funded by the Auckland Council. I’d like to think commercial motivations were not part of this story, but you wonder why else did The Spinoff so flagrantly breach Press Council standards and run a defamatory story without even seeking comment from the people named in it. Because the sad thing is that despite their retraction, the damage is already done.

For some years now Labour have lied and lied and said that National has cut health spending by $1.7 billion. The media run this as a statement of fact often, despite it having no basis in truth.

The most generous interpretation you can make is that Labour is saying that they have calculated the level of funding they think Vote Health needs, and that it is $1.7 billion more. But that is very different to saying it is a cut.

If you are on a $60,000 a year salary and ask for $70,000 but only get $64,000 then you can’t say your salary has been cut by $6,000.

Now let’s look at what at what Vote Health has done between 2008 and Budget 2017.

• Nominal Vote Health – increased by $4.85 billion a year from $11.92 billion to $16.77 billion – a 40.7% increase
• Real Vote Health – increased by $3.00 billion a year from $13.77 billion to $16.77 billion – a 21.8% increase
• Real Vote Health per capita – increased by $341 a year from $3,233 to $3,574 – a 10.5% increase

You can claim it is not enough. You can claim more is needed. You can claim growing elderly population needs more funding. But you cannot claim it has been cut. That is a lie.

As it happens a fixation on spending, rather than outcomes is at the heart of what is wrong with Labour.  Here’s three examples:

1. Say you spend an extra $2 billion a year on Vote Health. You can use it to increase the number of doctors and nurses by 30% or you can use it to give all existing doctors and nurses a 30% pay rise. The former would see a huge increase in patients being treated and the latter would see some really happy medical staff (which has benefits). But the difference in outcomes in huge.
2. Say you save $50 million on cleaning contracts through a nationwide contract. You spend $25 million on extra operations. By focusing just on spending this looks bad, as spending has decreased by $25 million even though outputs have increased
3. Pharmac gets a great deal in drug negotiations and gets more cancer drugs for a lower price. There is no increase in spending, but a significant increase in drug availability for patients

We’ve seen some highly beneficial outcomes for relatively small amounts of money. Independent research has found the maximum six hour waiting time target for 95% of ED patients has saved several thousand lives. Yes there was some money dedicated to this (which is sensible – tie money to outcomes) but the outcomes were phenomenal compared to the monetary investment. It was mainly better systems that contributed.

So remember everytime Labour lie and say health funding has been cut, it has not – it has increased 41% nominally, 22% real and 11% real per capita.

The Herald reports:

The Manchester suicide bomber used taxpayer-funded student loans and benefits to bankroll the terror plot, police believe. …

Abedi’s finances are a major “theme” of the police inquiry amid growing alarm over the ease with which jihadists are able to manipulate Britain’s welfare and student loans system to secure financing.

One former detective said jihadists were enrolling on university courses to collect the student loans “often with no intention of turning up”.

Abedi was given at least 7000 ($12,700) from the taxpayer-funded Student Loans Company after starting a business administration degree at Salford University in October 2015. It is thought he received a further 7000 in the 2016 academic year even though he had already dropped out of the course.

Abedi, 22, never held down a job, according to neighbours and friends, but was able to travel regularly between the UK and Libya.

Yet some argue radicalism happens because they are poor. Here he was raking in money from the taxpayer.

Prof Anthony Glees, director of Buckingham University’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, said: “The British system makes funds readily available to jihadist students without checks on them. There needs to be an inquiry.”

The Government has previously admitted it has no idea how many terrorists could be using benefits and student loans to finance activities.

Would be useful to determine.

The better Chris Bishop does as a local MP, the more Trevor Mallard tries stuff like this, showing how desperately scared they are that they are going to lose Hutt South to him.

Could you imagine the outrage if a National MP smeared a Green MP, and implied the reason they took the train was because they were drunk.

This is not just any MP, but the MP whom Labour says should be the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Is this a standard of behaviour compatible with being an presiding officer of Parliament?

Trevor Mallard has now deleted his reply, but that doesn’t change the fact he did it.

I don’t know why he ever thought it was a good idea. It really just shows how desperately scared they are of Bishop winning.

Audrey Young writes:

It is a Budget that makes life better for many low and middle-income Kiwis and it makes life worse for the Opposition.

The design of the $6 billion package to lift incomes over four years makes it difficult for the Opposition to complain.

Under the package 50,000 fewer children would be in low-income households (as measured by the OECD) at April next year – a 30 per cent reduction in that particular measure of child poverty.

I’m not a huge fan of that measure of child poverty, but the left use it constantly to claim that we have dire child poverty. So they should be cheering from the rafters a Budget that reduces the number of children in households below the poverty line by 50,000.

Certainly Opposition claims that it is a tax cut for the wealthy in disguise is not sustainable.

That is unless they think someone on the average wage is wealthy.

I think Labour regard anyone earning over $14,000 a year as wealthy according to their arguments.

Steven Joyce, Bill English and Andrew Little will get the same tax cut as someone on the average wage.

Someone on the average wage of $58,900 will get the same tax cut as someone earning twice the average wage or three times the average wage – $20 a week – as will anyone earning over $52,000.

Yep.  And some low income households will be getting an extra $150 a week. Yet Labour votes against!

Stuff reports:

It may have been unintended, but the Government had effectively passed over a large portion of middle New Zealand, Little said.

“National’s Single Child Tax will see a family with one child lose as much as $830 a year in Working For Families payments.

Which is a desperate lie.

Families earning between $44,000 and $59,000 were those affected. Under the Government’s package, which was unveiled in Finance Minster Steven Joyce’s maiden budget last week, a single-earner family on $55,000 a year would be $20.38 a week better off. 

But a single-earner family on the same income, with one child under 16, would only get an extra $14.18 a week.

So actually they are around $750 a year better off. Claiming they are worse off is like claiming that if you win $800 in Lotto and someone wins $1,000 in Lotto you are $800 worse off.

“Whenever you’re putting these packages together, there’s always a complexity about it. But I’d be surprised if they understood there’s 20,000 odd single-child families that will now be worse off – but that’s the reality. “

A lie. They are not. They are $15 a week better off as a minimum and if they get accommodation supplement may be up to $115 a week better off.

Joyce said those families still saw an overall gain, and Labour was failing to see the bigger picture. 

“The abatement changes mean they don’t get as much from the Working for Families part of the package, but they gain more from other parts of the package, in particular the tax changes. They may also in some cases gain from the Accommodation Supplement Changes.

“It’s important to note that these people are already receiving Working for Families so currently get more than couples with no children who don’t get anything from Working for Families. They continue to get more until the Working For Families is fully abated,” he said. 

“One of the aims of the Family Incomes package is to focus Working for Families on lower income families and that middle income families are less dependent on Working for Families and keep more of what they earn through the tax system. This is an example of that occurring.”

Pretty desperate stuff from Labour but they do it because they don’t get called out on it. They have claimed for years that health funding has been cut when in fact it has increased in nominal, real and real per capita terms.

• NZ beat UK and Japan
• Sweden lost to France and beat US
• France beat Sweden
• US beat UK and Japan and lost to Sweden
• UK lost to US and NZ
• Japan lost to NZ and US

Overall results:

• US won 4 lost 1
• NZ won 3 lost 1
• Sweden won 2 lost 2
• France won 1 lost 2
• UK won 1 lost 3
• Japan won 1 lost 3

Points

1. US 5
2. NZ 3
3. UK 3
4. Sweden 2
5. France 1
6. Japan 1

The Herald reports:

Trustees had been considering a Government offer to restore the cathedral, which involved most of the $104m cost being funded by the Anglican Church’s $42m insurance payout, a $10m government grant and $15m loan, and $15m from the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust.

Today, Peters said the Government’s offer was not nearly enough.

“There’s some economic debate, but the tax take from the Christchurch rebuild sits between $7 billion and $11 billion. A bonanza from your catastrophe. Don’t you think you should get some of it back?

“Here’s one project that just needs a tiny ounce of that quake gold.

This is a new level of stupid for Peters. He thinks an earthquake is an economic bonanza. Yes there is a boost from reconstruction but that is far smaller than the costs of the damage, the opportunity cost and the taxpayer contribution.

If Peters was right that an earthquake leads to an economic bonanza for the Government, then what we need is more of them clearly. An earthquake every year and we’ll all be rich.

That contribution would rule out asking Christchurch and the rest of New Zealand to fill the donation buckets.”

More economic literacy. He seems to think Government expenditure doesn’t come from NZ taxpayers. Peters is in fact demanding people in the provinces up and down New Zealand fund his election bribe to Christchurch.

The Herald reports:

When Seth Rich’s Gmail account received an alert this week from Mega.com, attempting to start a new account on a website created by the New Zealand-based internet businessman and convicted hacker Kim Dotcom, his family knew that something was off. …

According to experts and Rich’s family, the emailed invitation from [email protected] appeared to be an attempt to gain access to Rich’s email. Joel Rich, who maintains his late son’s Gmail account, did not click the link. Meanwhile, Dotcom was promising on Twitter to prove that the younger Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks – and Fox News host Sean Hannity was telling his 2.37 million Twitter followers to be ready for a revelation.

Looks like an attempt to manufacture evidence.

The latest revelation – that a hacker from New Zealand may have been trying as recently as this week to hack into Rich’s email – offered fresh evidence that the conspiracy theory is false. Dotcom, it seemed, may have been willing to create a fake archive of emails from Rich to “prove” his role in the DNC hack.

Well there is history when it comes to fake e-mails.

Results from Day 1 of the Louis Vuitton Cup:

• NZ beats France by 2 minutes 33 seconds and loses to USA by six seconds
• USA beats France and NZ
• Sweden beats Japan and loses to Great Britain
• Japan beats Great Britain and loses to Sweden
• Great Britain beats Sweden and loses to Japan
• France loses to USA and NZ

Looks like the team which writes the rules is in the best position!