The Herald reports:

Kiwi kids are a step closer to being able to cycle on footpaths legally after a Parliamentary committee recommended a change to the road rules.

A Petition in the name of Lower Hutt woman Joanne Clendon asked Parliament to allow under-14-year-olds, their guardians, over-65-year-olds and disabled people to be able to cycle on footpaths without falling foul of the law.

The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has now agreed the petition should be considered, though it recommended a lower age limit of 12 years old to Government.

The committee also said bells should be mandatory for any bicycle used on footpaths or shared use paths, and that councils should be able to exclude some footpaths from being used for cycling.

Those changes sound sensible.

Under the existing New Zealand Road Rules, it is illegal to ride on the footpath unless you are a delivering mail, or unless your wheels have a diameter of less than 355mm – a rule which effectively excludes nearly all bicycles.

This has contributed to a fall in the number of primary school students using bicycles in New Zealand, from about 12 per cent in the 1980s to 2 per cent in 2014.

Sad.

In Australia, all states allow children under 12 and an accompanying adult to cycle on the footpath. Research in that country had found that footpath cycling had not led to any serious injuries for pedestrians, and that collisions were minimal.

It is a great way to get kids building up their cycling skills and confidence.

Stuff reports:

Mike Ward thought he was out of politics forever – but then he started a political party with former Nelson mayor Aldo Miccio.

The Creative Alliance is Ward’s latest venture, one he hopes will encourage the population into thinking differently about New Zealand’s place in the world.

“I thought about it for a very long time – there is a lack of urgency, a lack of optimism and dearth of collaboration,” Ward said.

The 74-year-old artist turned former Green MP turned former Nelson City councillor said every political party thought they had the answer but they were unwilling to listen to each other.

They may struggle to get 500 members let alone 100,000 votes.

The party also advocated a “sustainability role model initiative” or effective tourist tax, which tried to encourage visitors to buy into a responsibility to look after the country.

It also wanted to include “lifestyle, creativity and sustainability” components to all levels of school curricula.

What exactly does that mean?

The Herald reports:

Iran’s state television has declared incumbent President Hassan Rouhani the winner of the country’s presidential election, giving him a second four-year term to see out his agenda calling for greater freedoms and outreach to the wider world.

State TV offered its congratulations in a brief statement Saturday, based on vote tallies.

The 68-year-old has come to embody more liberal and reform-minded Iranians’ hopes for greater political freedom at home and better relations with the outside world.

Preliminary vote tallies earlier had Rouhani ahead with 22.8 million votes, out of 38.9 million counted so far.

This is a very encouraging result as it is a decisive victory for Rouhani. It is a clear sign that most Iranians want to continue on a path of better global relations.

Almost 60% of the vote is pretty much a landslide.

Change is slow to the control by the theocracy, but the direction is important and it remains positive.

Stuff reports:

Economist Gareth Morgan’s political party says cannabis should be regulated for cultivation, sale, and personal use in New Zealand.

The party’s new reform policy, dubbed ‘Real Deal’, aims to reduce harm from cannabis, the party says.

It says the current legislation is not fit for purpose under the 1975 Misuse of Drugs Act.

“With prohibition of cannabis clearly an abject failure the [policy] will take tens of millions of dollars in profits away from gangs and organised crime and use that money for drug education, addiction treatment and harm prevention.”

A very sensible policy.

Richard Harmam writes at Politik:

Carter told RNZ that MPs were “very aware” of the charges that had been laid against Harrison when they were considering Matthews for the position.

He said the committee invited the Serious Fraud Office for a briefing about how Mr Matthews had handled the situation.

“[The SFO] told the committee Mr Matthews had acted in an exemplary fashion from the moment he became suspicious of fraud and that his actions would assist the Serious Fraud Office to obtain a conviction, and that played out correctly.”

The SFO raised no concerns at all about how long it took ministry management to become aware of the fraud, said Carter.

I think there is no question Matthews is a man of probity and did the right thing once they realised Harrison was a fraudster.

The question is whether as Chief Executive, his Ministry had the right controls and procedures in place?

The test should not be that the fraud never happened. You can never be 100% robust against that. But whether there were enough warning bells that it should have been detected earlier. And based on what we now know, it seems there were a fair few warning bells.

Matthew Hooton writes:

Andrew Little has fired his best shot.

No opposition leader receives better media coverage than at their pre-election conference. For John Key in 2008, Helen Clark in 1999 and Jim Bolger in 1990, each had the feel of a coronation.

 Mr Little’s conference went perfectly well. He got on the TV news. His acting lessons with Gliding On’s Ross Jolly have paid dividends.

An appropriate choice of acting coach.

As I wrote here more than two years ago, Winston Peters has resolved to seek the prime ministership after the election, the last senior government role he has not already held.

Back then, his NZ First party was polling in fourth place at about 7% and his plan to take the top job seemed laughable. The daily media reported it had been ruled out by both Mr Key and Mr Little as if they were objective observers or even the decision makers.

Two years’ later, NZ First has doubled its polling numbers and moved into third place ahead of the Greens. As preferred prime minister, Mr Peters is second only to Bill English and ahead of the leading Labour candidate, Jacinda Ardern, with Mr Little bringing up the rear.

I don’t think we’ve ever before had a major party leader in 4th place as Preferred PM, behind his deputy.

Mr Peters knows that if he can get his party up another five points at the expense of Labour, Mr Little – a list MP – will not even be in parliament.  The result might be something like 23% for Labour, 17% for NZ First and 12% for the Greens. 

So does Winston have a decapitation strategy for Labour?

The crisis in the Labour Party would be readymade for Mr Peters to step in, declare that he will be prime minister, Ms Ardern his deputy, Mr Robertson finance minister, Mr Jones foreign minister, Phil Twyford transport and housing minister, and James Shaw climate change minister. Ms Ardern would then become prime minister after 18 months and Mr Peters would retire, to be replaced as NZ First leader by Mr Jones, Ron Mark or Tracey Martin.

Well that would certainly solve the immigration problem, as Kiwis would start leaving to go to Australia again in record numbers!

Stuff reports:

A Marlborough widow who fraudulently collected $373,000 from ACC has lost an appeal against her convictions.

ACC discovered Janice Walker was receiving a widow’s pension while living with another man. …

Walker denied nine criminal charges and took the case to trial. She was found guilty and ordered to pay the money back.

Her lawyer Rob Harrison appealed the decision, arguing last month that Autism Spectrum Disorder could have affected her communication with ACC and the court. She was diagnosed after her sentencing at the Blenheim District Court last year.

She spent 20 years lying and ripping the system off, and then claims it is due to something she found after she was sentenced!

However, the Court of Appeal in Auckland rejected Walker’s appeal on Friday.

She knew what a de facto relationship was and deliberately lied on the forms, the appeal decision said.

Walker raised four children, managed nine or ten rental properties and ran a business, so she must be a “mentally capable” person, the decision said.

Yet greedy for more.

Walker was eligible for weekly compensation from ACC after her husband died in an accident in the late 1980s.

She signed an ACC form every year until 2012 stating she was not married or in a de facto relationship. 

However, an ACC investigation discovered Walker’s new partner moved into her 400-acre Okaramio property in 1992, and helped to build a family home there.

ACC’s investigation in 2013 found their relationship was “in the nature of marriage”, and weekly compensation to Walker should have stopped in 2004.

Walker was recorded as saying in an interview with ACC that she had lied about the man living with her in case it affected her payments.

But she maintained the relationship was not de facto because there was no sexual element.

“We were still living under the same roof, but there was no intimacy, no sleeping together, no talking,” she told an ACC staff member.

A small flaw in her argument though:

They had a child together, shared a bank account and started a family trust

Maybe another virgin birth?

The full list of winners is here, and congrats to them. Some highlights:

• Best Blog Site: Villainesse
• Best News Website or App: Newshub
• Website of the Year: NZ Herald
• Feature Writer – business and politics: Simon Wilson, Metro
• Canon Newspaper of the Year: Weekend Herald
• Opinion Writer – business and politics: Simon Wilson, Public Address, RNZ and The Spinoff
• Best editorial campaign or project: “#buythisbeachNZ”, Stuff
• Best investigation: Matt Nippert, NZ Herald
• Reporter of the Year: Matt Nippert, NZ Herald
• Wolfson Fellowship: Miriyana Alexander, Editor of the Weekend Herald and Herald on Sunday

While I do not always agree with him, I do think Simon Wilson has written much excellent stuff this year – I enjoy the long form pieces. Also Matt Nippert has done some very good investigative journalism.

Nick Kearney writes in the Herald:

I was fascinated to see Andrew Little’s speech to party faithful this week. The references to ending property speculation were intriguing.

The three policy elements involved bashing property speculators, but “mums and dads” saving for their retirement aren’t going to be affected apparently.

Except they are the ones who will be most impacted.

I was reading this speech while watching a replay of the Warriors capitulation at the hands of Penrith, and right about now my pain doubled.

Surely Little was referring to investors who claim tax losses on their rental investment properties, not speculators.

It had to be, because I have never come across a property speculator who claimed a tax loss against their rental investments.

The two are mutually exclusive. Speculators are not investors, and vice versa. Indeed, the law prohibits speculators from claiming tax losses against personal income as these losses are ring-fenced. They are currently liable to pay tax on their gains, whether sold within two years, or more.

So I read more of his speech. Was it meant to hit large-scale investors who continually use equity to buy more properties and accumulate tax losses? It seemed not.

Little continued by saying the policy “is about the big speculators who purchase property after property. It’s about those big-time speculators who are taking tens of thousands of dollars a year in taxpayer subsidies as they hoover up house after house.”

Speculators two, investors nil.

Who wrote this speech? Surely the actual policy would clear the matter up. Alas, I shouldn’t be so optimistic.

Foolish boy.

The start was encouraging. It said: “Losses from rental property investments will be ring-fenced.” That’s better. It hits the proper target. Labour had finally hit the right nail.

But the nail went into rotting wood. Because with the next smack it said: “Speculators will no longer be able to use tax losses on their rental properties to offset their tax on other income, a practice called negative gearing.”

Oh dear. Maybe they just rushed it. I’d better read on.

“The biggest users of this loophole are large-scale speculators who own multiple rentals and use losses on new acquisitions to continually reduce their tax.”

Most, no all, of my clients use rentals as long-term investments, not for short-term speculation. I have some who are in their early 20s, and they understand the difference between the two.

My incredulity was almost over, or so I thought.

Yet the best was yet to come. According to Labour: “Ending this loophole will not affect most people who have bought a single rental as a long-term investment because most of them are not using it. Those that do use this loophole generally only do so for a few years after purchase.”

There are so many errors with this statement, it needs another column to explain them all. But as a sweetener, I can confidently state that most long-term investors are using the alleged “loophole”.

And it isn’t a loophole.

It’s not a loophole as such, it’s applied across the board to every investment, whether it involves property, or not.

Yep.

All of this was a shame, because some of Labour’s housing policy has a lot of merit, particularly the parts around removing the rural urban boundary to enable houses to be built.

I wish they’d mention that policy more often. It is their best one.

The Guardian reports:

Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest trade union backer has said he does not believe Labourwill win the election but would have fought a successful campaign if it keeps 200 seats, although that would be the party’s worst result since 1935.

The intervention by Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, overshadowed the launch of Labour’s election manifesto, which set out £50bn spending pledges and higher rates of tax for those earning over £80,000 and £123,000.

The union leader blamed a hostile media for the scale of the task of turning around the leader’s image in the minds of voters, but added that Corbyn would have succeeded even if he won slightly fewer seats than the 229 the party held in the last parliament.

So their worst result since 1935 will be regarded as a success.

In NZ Labour seem to think only getting their 2nd or 3rd worst result since 1922 will be regarded as a huge achievement.

The Herald reports:

Jim told Linda he was worried about his safety in Lebanon, where there was a “risk foreign workers can be kidnapped”, and asked her to be his next of kin.

Linda later said these were all tactics Jim used to “lure me into his web of deception”.

“I was led to believe that this person, who I had met through an acquaintance, was genuine and had good moral standards.”

She was given Jim’s account details at what was described as a Scottish investment bank.

After contacting the “bank” and proceeding through security checks, Linda was named as a co-signer of Jim’s account.

Up until there, all fine.

The bank asked her to make an initial deposit of US$15,000 ($21,780), before a second payment of US$45,000 ($65,350) was required for a Bank of America account in San Diego.

This is the point at which huge alarm bells should have gone off. You do not need to deposit money to be a co-signer, let alone $15,000.

Growing increasingly brazen, the scammer(s), via the investment bank, further asked Linda to pay an fee of US$85,000 ($123,430) to receive an “anti-terrorist clearance certificate” and cover wire transfers of more than US$5 million ($7.25m).

Linda didn’t pay the fee, but a few days later Jim raised the issue of helping him with a personal loan of $US10,000 ($14,500) for a Kuala Lumpur-based building supplier.

She loaned the money, after which Jim said he’d made a mistake and required a further US$40,000 ($58,000), which Linda paid.

I really don’t understand how someone can be so gullible they would transfer tens of thousands of dollars to someone they have never met.

Jim claimed his Beirut construction project had developed problems, and he had to pay income tax to the Lebanese Government.

He asked and received for a further US$50,000.

“Of course I was very reluctant to make further loan payments. Then he told me about the kidnapping of a foreign worker from a construction site next to his,” she said.

In total, Linda forked out more than $300,000.

Sad.

Karl du Fresne writes:

I can’t help wondering whether the wrong person was on trial in the Whanganui District Court last week.

The name on the charge sheet was that of Kerry James “Chester” Borrows, who was tried on a charge of careless driving causing injury. But it seems to me there were other charges that could equally have been brought as a result of an incident that occurred during an anti-Trans Pacific Partnership protest in March last year – only not against Borrows.

For example, there’s a charge of disorderly behaviour and another of obstructing a public way.

I’m not a lawyer, but it’s surely not too much of a stretch to argue that a person deliberately stopping someone else going about their lawful business is acting contrary to public order, which is how my dictionary defines disorderly behaviour.

I agree. The wrong person was in the dock.

A police witness estimated the car’s speed as 1kmh – far slower than walking speed. Borrows testified that he feathered his brakes, as he was trained to do in similar situations during his 24 years as a police officer.

In any event, the protesters had ample time to get out of the way. They chose not to.

Let me repeat, they chose not to. They seemed to think their opposition to the TPP gave them the right to prevent two elected public officials going about their lawful business.

Spot on.

Stuff reports:

An independent public watchdog has ordered Wellington’s mayor to review his council’s procedures for sharing information with ratepayers.

This week, Ombudsman Leo Donnelly told Wellington City Council to review the way it responded to requests for information made under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA), and to remind its staff of their obligations. …

The move comes after a complaint was made by Stuff when the city council ignored requests for information related to the $500 million development of Wellington’s Shelly Bay, which will likely involve the lease or sale of ratepayer-owned land for $7.8m.

The law requires a decision be made on a LGOIMA request no later than 20 working days after it is received.

The Stuff request was received by the council on January 6 and despite numerous reminders, no response has been received.

Donnelly ruled the council’s refusal was a failure to meet the requirements of the request. He ordered the council to make a decision and communicate to Stuff as a priority.

Another Stuff request for information relating ratepayer money spent on the Wellington Sevens’ tournament was submitted on January 18.

The Ombudsman found the council failed under the act and said he had reminded the council that timeliness, and compliance with LGOIMA, were “fundamental” obligations.

Many local Councils seem to think that LOGOIMA compliance is voluntary and just flagrantly breach the law by ignoring the deadlines and sometimes not even responding. Wellington City Council appears to be one of the worst offenders. It is not acceptable.

Stuff reports:

The Ministry of Health has laid charges against tobacco company Philip Morris New Zealand relating to a new type of non-burning tobacco product.

The product, Iqos, was launched at the end of last year. It was promoted through an invitation-only website and used a battery-powered holder to heats tobacco sticks known as heets to give off vapour rather than smoke.

Heets are heated rather than burned like a traditional cigarette, to give smokers a nicotine hit.

The ministry said it considered heets were tobacco products designed for oral use other than for smoking and were prohibited under the Smoke-Free Environments Act.

Which shows how silly the Act is, if a correct interpretation. Tobacco, which is lethal, is legally sold in New Zealand. Reduced harm products which provide a nicotine hit but do not produce the toxins from burning tar etc are much much much safer than tobacco.  Yet the Ministry of Health is saying they are illegal.

Philip Morris said the Ministry’s move demonstrated the need for comprehensive reform so that smokers could switch from cigarettes to smoke-free alternatives.

General manager of Philip Morris New Zealand Jason Erickson said the company believed it was helping to advance the Government’s goal of making the country smokefree when it introduced Iqos to New Zealand. 

​Erickson said the company was confident that the sale of Iqos and heets fully complied with the Smokefree Environments Act (1990) and other relevant legislation in New Zealand.

“The section of the law referenced by the Ministry in its action against Philip Morris was originally put in place in the 1990s to address American-style chewing tobacco,”  Erickson said.

“We stand behind Iqos and heets,” Mr Erickson said. “But it’s clear that old 20th century laws are not sufficient to address new 21st century technologies that New Zealand smokers are embracing as they move away from combustible cigarettes.”

The New Zealand Government announced in March that it would legalise the sale and supply of nicotine e-cigarettes and e-liquid, and establish a pathway to enable emerging tobacco and nicotine-delivery products to be sold lawfully as consumer products.

Iqos is available in in more than 20 countries around the world, including the UK, Japan, Italy and Switzerland. Globally more than two million smokers have switched to IQOS and the company had plans to expand to key cities in 30 countries by the end of 2017, Erickson said.

Ideally people should not smoke anything at all. But if they are already a tobacco smoker, then getting them on reduced harm product has immense health benefits.

If you asked most people which politician goes around saying it is essential to cut immigration to maintain our quality of life, they’d probably say Donald Trump or maybe Winston Peters.

In fact it is Andrew Little!

The Herald reports:

High level discussions are under way over the future of Ports of Auckland as mayor Phil Goff wrestles with how to fund the city’s ballooning infrastructure costs.

But Goff is refusing to be drawn on whether he plans to sell the council’s ownership stake, saying only he wants to address the port’s long-term future this term.

The Herald understands an IPO, or initial public offering, of the port is being discussed in merchant banking circles. Either a sale of the operating company or a part sale of the entire entity is understood to be under discussion.

Goff would only say he has had wide-ranging discussions on Auckland’s port but no specific proposal on ownership has been presented to him.

Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett said last night he was aware of discussions around the port’s future.

It would make “real commercial sense” to sell the business and retain the land, Barnett said.

Selling some or all of the Port Company would be a great move. Ports of Tauranga has done brilliantly since being wholly Council owned. Auckland Council needs investment in infrastructure and freeing up capital is a much more sensible way to finance the infrastructure than further debt.

If Goff does go down this track, he’ll have my full support.

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Andrew Little has slapped down Green Party co-leader James Shaw’s comparison of US President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, saying the first person to bring Hitler into an argument had lost it.

Shaw said Trump was “the most dangerous person since Adolf Hitler” on TV show Backbenches on Wednesday night as part of a panel of politicians.

Little said people needed to keep things in perspective and have a little faith in the US system.

“Pretty much I follow the principle that the first person to raise Hitler in a political argument loses it.

When Andrew Little slaps you down for being a hysterical leftie, that’s a good sign of how bad you are.

Shaw comes across as a moron (he isn’t but his statement is moronic) with his assertion. To date Trump has done nothing on foreign policy except stop chemical weapon attacks in Syria, and domestically sack an FBI Director. I think Trump’s personality and psychology makes him a bad choice for President, but there is a million miles between thinking that and Hitler comparisons.

Does Shaw think Trump is more dangerous than Mao who killed 40 million people? Than Pol Pot who killed 2 million? Than Stalin who killed millions and almost started another global war.

It’s ridiculous to even talk of him in the same breath and it is insulting to the six million who were slaughtered by Hitler due to their race or religion.

Shaw should apologise.

The Washington Post reports:

Congressional investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election will continue despite the Justice Department’s decision to appoint a special counsel to oversee a separate probe, lawmakers said late Wednesday.

Republicans and Democrats welcomed the decision to appoint Robert Mueller, a former prosecutor who served as FBI director from 2001 to 2013, but said their own investigations would proceed without delay.

This is a good development – both for the US political and justice system, and also ironically for Trump. Trump’s blundering has meant that there would be no faith in an internal investigation anymore. Having a former FBI Director appointed as special counsel to oversee the investigation will mean people should have faith in the findings.

And ironically I think this helps Trump. I don’t think he colluded with the Russians, and I’m not sure his campaign did either. This is the best opportunity for him to eventually have this behind him.

If however it does turnout that a member of his campaign team actively solicited the hacking of the DNC, then it will be big problems.

The Herald reports:

A European advocacy group has ranked New Zealand 158th out of 165 countries on children’s rights.

Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft said the ranking was “a wake-up call” for New Zealand to protect children better from abuse and neglect and to give children a say on new laws and policies.

“There is a startlingly weak commitment in New Zealand to factoring in children’s voices into our policymaking,” he said.

But Canterbury University political scientist Professor Bronwyn Hayward, who specialises in child and youth politics, said the new index was “the most bonkers ranking I’ve ever seen”.

“There is no way we could compare the situation facing children in Ethiopia, where I have just been, it’s a completely different context from the situation facing children in South Auckland, for example,” she said.

Ethiopia is ranked 137th on child rights, ahead of New Zealand. The rankings are topped by Portugal, Norway and Switzerland.

The list, published yesterday by the Amsterdam-based Kids Rights Foundation, measures 23 indicators in five fields.

Bonkers is a good word for it. The rankings fail the common sense test.

According to this index NZ dropped from 45th last year to 158th. Well as nothing really changed in NZ, that again just shows how bonkers the index is.

Almost as bad as New Zealand is the UK in 156th place. If it is such a hell hole, why do so many people try to move there with their kids?

You’ll be pleased to know that countries that ranked higher than NZ were Venezuela in 71th place where the kids are starving.

Also higher than NZ is Iran at 100th, Zimbabwe at 126th and Iraq at 148th.

The Herald reports:

One of the world’s most notorious killers, Moors Murderer Ian Brady, has died in the UK at the age of 79.

Brady and Myra Hindley tortured and murdered five children in the Yorkshire Moors in the 1960s.

They later confessed to two other murders.

Hindley died in prison in 2002.

Brady’s death was confirmed by the NHS.

A truly evil man. The trial judge described him as a sadistic killer of the utmost depravity and wicked beyond belief. May his death bring some closure to the families of his victims.

If there is a hell, Ian Brady is beyond doubt now in it.