Stuff reports:

Greenpeace has been accused of “lying for financial gain” as it fights seismic surveying off the New Zealand coast.

Seismic surveying involves the shooting of compressed air to generate an underground map but it is a process protested against by Greenpeace, which fears the sounds are a danger to marine mammals. …

But Victoria University geophysics and tectonics professor Rupert Sutherland, who has studied the science and worked on seismic surveys, said Greenpeace’s campaign was “essentially lying for financial gain”.

He knew of no evidence that conclusively showed there was a single incident of a whale or dolphin being directly injured by seismic reflection vessels.

For each survey, hundreds of thousands of dollars was spent on preventing and recording direct injury, something he said didn’t happen. That money would be better spent looking into whether there was any long-term harm to marine mammals – which had been under researched, he said.

Climate change researchers used seismic surveying and drilling to collect sediment cores to look at climate records, he said.

“The current strategy of Greenpeace makes it expensive or impossible to conduct legitimate research in the ocean, including climate change research.”

And Greenpeace’s response:

Greenpeace climate campaigner Kate Simcock rejected the suggestion Greenpeace was lying and said its campaigns were based on well documented scientific evidence.

Greenpeace’s campaign did not make claims of direct impact to marine mammals, and the effects were chronic rather than immediate, she said.

“Seismic surveys have been shown to disrupt essential activities for whales, including foraging and reproduction.

“There could also be an increased risk of calves being separated from mothers… Exposure to repeated loud blasts from a seismic survey can mask the sounds they rely on and lead to stress, disorientation, changes in foraging and nursing behaviours, and, in extreme cases, direct physical damage.”

Note the weasel words of could be and can. That means they have no evidence.

GNS marine geophysicist Stuart Henrys, who was on the committee that wrote the 2012 Department of Conservation code regulating noise from seismic reflection vessels, said Greenpeace should have an open mind about noise in the ocean.

“Seismic reflection is a tool that’s used by the industry. It’s well regulated, and there’s research to underpin that regulation.

“Ship noise is continuous and at a much higher volume than seismic reflection vessels, and the accumulated sound of a busy shipping lane is far greater than seismic ship noise,” he said.

So maybe Greenpeace should call for all ships to be banned!

The Washington Post reports:

President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey on Tuesday, at the recommendation of senior Justice Department officials who said he had treated Hillary Clinton unfairly and in doing so damaged the credibility of the FBI and the Justice Department.

The startling development comes as Comey was leading a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether associates of Trump may have coordinated with Russia to interfere with the U.S. presidential election last year. It wasn’t immediately clear how Comey’s ouster will affect the Russia probe, but Democrats said they were concerned that his ouster could derail the investigation.

This is surreal. Some Democrats blamed Comey for losing Clinton the election. And Trump has sacked on the grounds he was unfair to Clinton. The same Trump who said Comey was too soft on her, and said he wanted her jailed.

So is this what it seems, or was this an excuse to get Comey out of the way for reasons related to the Russia probe?

The President has the power and right to fire the FBI Director and appoint them. Who he appoints as the new Director will be critical.

Stuff reports:

A total of 303 families have been approved for the government-sponsored Relocation from Auckland Assistance grant.

And only five of those families changed their minds and returned to New Zealand’s most populated and busiest city.

So 98% have settled elsewhere.

Beneficiaries Paul and Patricia Robinson-Hill were homeless for two years living with friends and family in Mangere, and wanted a roof over their heads.

The Robinson-Hill’s, with their two school age sons, Rune, 10, and Hunter, 14, had never been to New Plymouth.

“We didn’t know anyone here, it was like going to another country,” Patricia said.

The family applied for the grant and were offered a three bedroom state house in Marfell, a suburb overlooking Port Taranaki.

“It was the first house we were offered, we could have said ‘No’ but it’s not much fun being homeless so we didn’t think twice,” she said.

The $5000 relocation assistance grant was used to pay for removal expenses, three nights temporary motel accommodation and daily expenses while the weekly rent of $116 is automatically taken out of the couple’s benefit.

Good on them for making the move.

Stuff reports:

The Labour Party remains opposed to charter schools and supporters like Willie Jackson don’t have the ability to “change party policy”.

For five years Labour has been against charter schools, introduced by the National government under a confidence and supply agreement with the ACT party.

Jackson, who announced he was running for the Labour Party in February, is heavily involved with Te Kura Maori o Waatea, a charter school based at Nga Whare Waatea Marae in South Auckland.

Jackson’s organisation, The Manukau Urban Maori Authority, sponsored the school that opened in 2015.

On TVNZ’s Q+A on Sunday Jackson said it would be merely the “name” Labour would “get rid of”.

“…they’ll get rid of the concept but the principle of turning kids’ lives around is something that…all of Labour believe in.

“So call the school whatever you like,” Jackson said.

So Willie Jackson is saying they will just be renamed, while Little says they may or may not close and Hipkins says they must close or integrate.

On Tuesday Little said state schools have to meet minimum expectations of having trained registered teachers and teaching the national curriculum.

“If (a charter school) meets those conditions then we’ll have a look at what happens with that particular school but we’re not a party of charter schools,” he said.

This is a red herring. The key thing about charter schools is they have full funding flexibility. Is Little saying he’ll allow charter schools to continue with full funding flexibility?

The Herald reports:

During cross-examination, Slater’s lawyer Brian Henry asked Craig to read parts of a 12-page letter he wrote to MacGregor just six weeks after employing her as his press secretary.

After just six weeks? It is bad form to hit on the staff until after the 90 day period is over.

One passage concerned questions Craig said he’d been asked by people who were keeping tabs on him.

“Questions were: Colin, are you having an affair? Do you think your relationship with you PA (ie you) is special? Have you kissed her?”

Regarding the third question, Craig wrote, “And again obviously the answer to the last question was no, not that I wouldn’t want to, a lot, but that is a boundary.”

I might be old fashioned but writing to your staff telling them how you want to kiss them could be a bad idea.

Henry also questioned Craig about a part of his letter where he apologised for looking down her top.

“I owe you an apology … I was caught off-guard. My eyes went where they shouldn’t have gone.”

Likewise writing to your press secretary and admitting you stare down her top could also be seen as a bad idea.

Stuff further reports:

“Physically, I do desire you,” Craig said in a letter penned in February 2012. “There are some times I just want to kiss you and.. well.. go further.”

“I have resisted going down the kissing track and shall continue to do so. I have left the door open for you to say if you need that. But I expect it would be infrequent and of course there are still boundaries.”

So in this letter it is an offer of infrequent kissing if she needs it.

The Herald reports:

Whanganui MP Chester Borrows, cleared of a driving charge laid by police, says he is frustrated it went all the way to court.

After a day-and-a-half trial in Whanganui District Court, Judge Stephanie Edwards this afternoon found the politician not guilty of careless driving causing injury after two protesters were hit by his car.

Police charged Borrows, 59, after two women suffered minor injuries when they were among anti-Trans Pacific Partnership protesters blocking his car outside a Whanganui motel in March last year.

I would have been outraged with any other verdict. It was ridiculous it went to court. The complaint was obviously wholly politically motivated and if anyone should have been charged it was those blocking the car from leaving. There is no right to block a road. If Borrows had been found guilty it would have sent a green light to every activist out there to jump up and down and in front of MPs cars.

What the hell the Police thought they were doing by doing a criminal prosecution I do not know. Even if they thought Borrows was in the wrong (something many would dispute) you’d expect a caution at best.

The Herald reports:

The Herald on Sunday has found 128 tobacco-related hits on petrol stations, liquor stores and dairies since the beginning of last year. These were from media reports as police do not keep a record.

The actual number is likely to be higher. …

The increasing tax level on tobacco makes it more and more valuable for robberies. It is probably the most valuable thing you can steal from a dairy.

Most people now use EFTPOS to pay for items so I suspect the average dairy has say $200 cash only.

A box of 10 cigarette packets will soon have a retail value of $300.  Is there anything else in a dairy that is worth $300 let alone is so light?

A robber with a backpack can probably easily for 10 boxes in, and do it in two minutes. So $3,000 of value is why tobacco is now becoming a black market item robbed to order.

Supporters of right wing firebrands Geert Wilders of the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen of France claimed that the election of populist President Donald Trump and the British vote to leave the EU demonstrated global momentum in favour of nationalism and against globalisation and most particularly against the EU. Both candidates aggressively promoted anti Muslim migration policies in response to the wave of Islamic extremist inspired terror attacks across western Europe. But where Donald Trump and the Leave campaign in the UK succeeded against the odds (and pollsters), Geert Wilders and Marine Le Penn failed to win power and in fact both never came close to winning. There are 10 reasons why this was the case:

1. The US Presidential election and the British EU exit referendum were fought in a series of first past the post winner-take-all contests. The Dutch Parliament elects members via a proportional voting system with a very low (1%) minimum vote threshold resulting in a myriad of small parties leading to Dutch governments with four or even six coalition partners. It was difficult for Geert Wilders’ PVV (Party For Freedom) to reach a point where it was ever dominant enough to lead the process of forming a government.The French Presidential voting system threw up a myriad of candidates across the political spectrum in the first round that saw the traditional French conservative/socialist divide cast aside for newcomers. Scandal prone Francois Fillon from the traditional right was overshadowed by the more extreme Le Pen and the so-called centrist Emmanuel Macron capitalised on the unpopularity of the Hollande socialist Presidency and shut out all candidates from the left. This gave French voters an uncomfortable choice in the second round between political novices, a choice that favoured the less extreme candidate Macron.

2. Trump, if you set aside his anti-free trade populism, ran on a pretty mainstream (by US standards) conservative ticket featuring policy planks that have (at least in terms of campaign rhetoric) been part of several prior Republican Presidential campaigns: border security, tough on Islamic terror, tax cuts, fewer regulations, conservative judicial appointments to Federal Courts, more pro-Israel and strengthening the US military. Trump was controversial in his personal moral shortcomings, his propensity to strongly attack his opponents and the media and the inflammatory rhetoric that he used in his campaign appearances and social media pronouncements, but his policy announcements and actions thus far in power have been little different from what Ronald Reagan did in office. Le Pen on the other hand, espoused a raft of quite left wing economic policies such as protecting workers’ rights, raising state pensions, raising taxes on big businesses, lowering the age of retirement and increasing the disability living allowance. Wilders likewise was never an economic conservative and he sometimes voted with left leaning parties on healthcare and social welfare issues. So, whilst nationalism themes were certainly a part of Trump’s appeal, they were not the only part. Le Pen and Wilders made opposition to Muslim migration and its cultural effects the central part of their respective campaigns adding economic nationalism into the pot (supporting Frexit and Nexit referenda and also going back to the franc and guilder).

3. Trump’s rhetoric on Islamic terrorism and immigration, whilst strong in comparison to his Democrat opponents, proposed actual policy prescriptions that were simple and not nearly as extreme as his earliest rhetoric: defeat ISIS abroad (Clinton also campaigned on a similar platform) and to temporarily restrict migrants from 7 (later 6) high risk Muslim countries (the same 7 proposed by the Obama Administration) and to suspend refugee applications from Syria – all until a more thorough vetting regime could be implemented. Wilders went significantly further proposing to ban the Koran and other Muslim symbols, shut down mosques and Islamic schools and ban all Muslim migration and Le Pen similarly proposed expelling imams, removing all illegal Muslim migrants, shutting down mosques and both proposed a raft of restrictions or bans on Muslim expressions of culture such as FGM and the wearing of burqas and hijabs in public. Whilst both Dutch and French voters were sensitive to the issue of Islamic terror (the Dutch have witnessed the high profile murders of film maker Theo van Gogh and gay politician Pym Fonteyn at the hands of Muslim hit men) and France has suffered several recent Islamic extremist inspired massacres (Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan, Nice, Normandy and others), the more extreme measures proposed by Le Pen and Wilders had a more limited electoral appeal than Trump’s more measured proposals.

4. Regarding relations with Russia, when you strip away current rhetoric by Democrats and the media about supposed Russian influence on the Trump campaign, and aside from the obvious Russian sponsored hack of the DNC emails, there has been no credible evidence presented that anyone close to Trump in his campaign and now administration had any ties to Russia. Whilst Trump was less critical of Putin during the campaign than Clinton, his administration’s actions in attacking the airbase of Russia’s ally Syria, the frostier response of Trump Secretary of State Rex Tillerson towards Russia, the demand that they leave the Ukraine, accusations that Putin armed the Taliban and partially blaming Putin for Assad’s use of chemical weapons demonstrates that the Trump administration is far from Putin’s stooge as alleged. Le Pen, on the other hand, has been, and remains, a vocal advocate for Russia to the point of calling for the lifting of sanctions against Putin, saying she’d recognize former Ukrainian territory of Crimea annexed by Russia as Russian territory and her arranging an almost €30 million loan for her campaign obtained from a Czech bank with strong ties to Putin. The 11th hour likely Russian hack on Macron’s emails played nicely into his campaign’s message that Le Pen was too pro Putin.

5. The EU and its pan-European economic and judicial model is more deeply ingrained into French and Dutch political culture. France was one of the leading proponents of the Customs Union that became the EEC then the EU and its politicians and bureaucrats have been at the heart of the EU model and have been enthusiastic supporters of the various Treaties and Accords that have extended the reach and power of the EU over its member states. The same is true for the Netherlands. They were a founding member and quickly and uncontroversially embraced the EU trading model and the Euro. Populist politicians in each country were running up hard against a status quo that had broad bi-partisan support across their societies. The British were late to join the EU and always more reluctant participants compared to the French and Dutch. They strongly resisted the Euro and the open borders policy and subsequent blowout of migration from Eastern Europe and the gradual subjugation of British courts to the European Court of Justice became issues of considerably more electoral potency in the UK than in France and Holland.

6. The face of Brexit for many years was Nigel Farage of UKIP and Brexit was the main raison d’etre of his party. Unlike Wilders, who could more easily bring his party into the proportionally elected Dutch Parliament, outside of Farage’s representation in the EU Parliament, the UK’s FPP vote system largely shut UKIP out of power in Westminster. This spared UKIP the burden of trying to be a serious party of government and thus Farage’s job was much clearer cut and simple compared to that of Le Pen or Wilders. Farage sought mostly the referendum that former British PM David Cameron granted and when that referendum went the way he had campaigned for, his job was done and he retreated from the stage and UKIP is now going through its death throes in the current UK General Election campaign as senior Tory Ministers have now taken up the Brexit cause and mainstreamed it. Wilders and Le Pen sought to govern their respective countries and so their parties had to produce broader policy platforms which is much harder to do. Once Wilders and Le Pen were outside their main campaigning platform (against Muslim and other migration) they were less sure footed and exposed as being single issue politicians.

7. Trump faced Clinton who was a fatally flawed candidate with a grab bag of negative political baggage which eventually sunk her campaign. Wilders faced a relatively personally popular and politically canny sitting Dutch PM in Mark Rutte who played up the strong Dutch economic recovery under his watch and skillfully exploited attempts by Turkish President Erdogan to promote his Turkish constitutional referendum to Turks resident in Holland by provoking a diplomatic crisis between Holland and Turkey after banning and expelling Turkish politicians. This action alone saw Wilders’ narrow poll lead over Rutte’s VVD party evaporate in the run up to the March 15^th Dutch elections to eventually falling 8% behind and almost into third place. Rutte’s ruling party suffered losses but remained the largest party and so was able to lead new coalition negotiations. Le Pen similarly faced an opponent with no real political history but still with a relatively impressive CV. Macron’s globalist free trade approach, his clean break from his time as a Minister in Hollande’s unpopular government and his seeming centrist positioning was the perfect foil to Le Pen’s more extreme rhetoric. In the end, he easily defeated her.

8. Trump had no coalition of parties who could unite to oppose him due to the unique ‘big church’ nature of US political parties. The Libertarians on his right syphoned off no more votes from the GOP than did the Greens siphon from the left of the Democrats making it a wash. Wilders on the other hand faced a wall of opposition from all the other larger parties likely to be returned to the Dutch Parliament who unitedly refused to go into coalition with him and thus the fragmented nature of the Dutch electoral system diffusing votes across a wide number of parties isolated Wilders’ PVV to a minority 20% of the seats and so not a position from which to govern. Similarly, once the first round eliminated all the major parties in the French political system, it was easy for voters to unite around Macron against Le Pen. Socialist politicians, including fourth ranked run off candidate charismatic hard left socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, endorsed Macron. Many of Fillon’s centre right voters stayed home fearing the extremism and left wing economic policies of Le Pen paving the way to an easy Macron victory.

9. Despite allegations to the contrary, Trump is not anti-Semitic whereas Le Pen has clearly had a history of anti-Semitism and her party (Front National) had a long and storied anti-Semitic history not the least of which was the well-known anti-Semitic views of her father and former Presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. Wilders has worked hard to not be anti-Semitic but it was clear his PVV party was attracting some of that vote.

10. Trump had a robust and thriving right wing media to help get his message out (Fox News, popular talkback radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt, right wing magazines and newspapers and a myriad of right wing blogs). Whilst media reporting of the Brexit referendum was one sided in favour of Remain, there are still powerful media voices on the right in Britain that ensured the Leave view was heard. Wilders and Le Pen faced a largely hostile media in the Netherlands and France. Both were darlings of right-wing media overseas (e.g. Breitbart who championed both Wilders and Le Pen) but Dutch and French voters consume a diet of media that is largely pro-EU, relaxed on Muslim migration and centre-left in political and economic leaning shutting out their populist messaging and counter balancing in favour of more establishment candidates.

The defeats of Le Pen and Wilders prove that you need to offer voters more than just opposition to Muslim migration and the effects of such migration on your culture. Both populists had political systems and the establishment media firmly and strongly opposed to their platforms. Le Pen had a confused almost schizophrenic economic platform and failed to live down the extremism of her family’s past and Wilders faced a cleverer and more politically astute opponent who tapped into the anti-Muslim migrant sentiment of his opponent and turned it in his favour.

Say what you want about Trump as candidate and President but he has broader appeal than either Le Pen or Wilders. He managed to hold on to his own party’s base and steal Obama voters from Clinton and has espoused policies that, whilst controversial to the mainstream of the left leaning Washington establishment and commentariat, have struck a popular chord because they are implementable. Whilst protest against the ruling class has been a theme of all four populist leaders/movements, Trump and Brexit resonated enough with the broad centre to ensure success in way that the harder edged policies of Le Pen and Wilders failed to do.

The Herald reports:

It may be just co-incidence that Labour MP Trevor Mallard decided to bring a petition to Parliament for prisoners to have a right to be sperm donors, just after he was placed well down Labour’s published list for the coming election. Mallard says he does not necessarily agree with the proposal, he simply believes it is an MP’s duty to allow anyone to petition Parliament.

Really? Is there no proposition so ridiculous that he would not table it for the attention of the House? Or did he choose this one because it had originally been sent to National’s Chris Bishop who nearly took Mallard’s Hutt South seat at the last election and no doubt helped the veteran MP decide not to stand in the electorate again?

Bishop was promoting a bill on organ donation when he received the petition from convicted murderer Karl Teangiotau Nuku who believes it is a prisoner’s right to donate organs, blood and sperm if they wish. Bishop obviously thought it unworthy of attention and he was right.

The issue that has been talked about is whether MPs should forward petitions from constituents when they disagree with them.

I would refine the issue into petitions you merely disagree with and petitions you find repugnant.

An MP should table a petition if they merely disagree with it. For example you might support keeping the age of eligibility for superannuation at 65 but would table a petition from Grey Power calling for it to be 60.

But surely there are some issues that are so repugnant that an MP is well within their rights to say “Sorry I’m not going to table that petition for you”.

Would an MP table a petition calling for:

• The age of consent for sex to be reduced to 10 years old
• For the right to vote to be taken away from women
• For husbands to be able to legally rape their wives (again)
• For Jews to have their property confisicated

These are all so repugnant that clearly no MP would say “Yeah mate I’ll table that for you because you live in my electorate”.

Now the petition from Karl Nuku demanding the right to father children jail is not quite as repugnant as the above examples but not far off.

Nuku is a convicted murderer. He is serving a life sentence with a minimum parole period of 18 years. His victim was bludgeoned to death with a hammer while asleep. Nuku has shown no remorse and took pleasure in the killing.

The Guardian reports:

Police in Ireland are investigating a complaint of blasphemy regarding comments made by Stephen Fry on a television programme shown on Ireland’s state broadcaster, RTÉ.

Gardaí (police) in Dublin have contacted the man who reported the allegation following a broadcast in February 2015, and a full investigation is due to be carried out, the Irish Independent reported.

Under Ireland’s Defamation Act 2009 a person who publishes or utters blasphemous material “shall be guilty of an offence”. A conviction can lead to a fine of up to €25,000.

There should be no laws against blasphemy, or apostasy. It should be a fundamental right to criticise a religion, to join one and to leave one.

Bill English has said the NZ law against blasphemy could be repealed. It should be. A one page bill is all that is needed and could be introduced by the Government easily.

Stuff reports:

Uber claims it has 300,000 active users in New Zealand, “almost double” what it had two years ago.

The ridesharing app released limited data about its New Zealand business to mark three years since it launched.

San Francisco-headquartered Uber, which operates in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, also said it had more than 4000 drivers.

Many of the drivers are part-time, with “nearly half” working less than 10 hours a week.

My last driver was a young student in her 20s who is studying commerce at Vic Uni. She drives a few hours a week to help finance her studies and likes how Uber has no minimum or set hours.

The claims have been played down by the taxi industry, which said based on the feedback of its members, most Uber users probably rarely used the service.

New Zealand Taxi Federation executive director John Hart said ridesharing was having less of an impact on its members than they had feared.

Use of taxis in the cities where Uber operated had fallen by “low single digits” at certain peak times, with no impact at other times.

Great a win-win. I know several people who have never used taxis but regularly use Uber. Uber has grown the market.

Uber claimed its integration with public transport, along with other commuter focused services, meant it was taking cars off the road.

But Hart said he believed Uber may actually be leading to more car journeys, because during the day when prices were typically low, users were making suburban journeys on the ride-sharing app as an alternative to taking a bus.

I use Uber as an alternative to using my own car. Uber is so much cheaper than taxis that it is as cheap for me to Uber into town than it is to drive my car and pay parking fees. And no having to find a park.

The Herald reports:

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff says the hotel industry is being disingenuous about his bed levy by exploiting events like the Masters Games to hike room rates.

Goff has gone on the offensive with a new version of his proposed targeted rate for hotels and other accommodation providers, which has been toned down to appease industry and political concerns.

Under the latest version, hotels will pay more than motels and lodges and the targeted rate is expected to collect $15 million to $18 million, rather than the original $27.8 million.

In an exclusive interview with the Weekend Herald, Goff said hotels are the best “proxy” to pay the levy to fund spending by Auckland Council’s Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development(Ateed) to attract visitors and support major events.

Hotels and motels get 9% of the benefits from tourism and he wants them to find up to 100% of ATEED.

That is not a good proxy.

Hopefully Goff will fail in his plans, but if he does force this through then at a minimum the hotels who fund ATEED should get to appoint its board and approve its budget. They will do a far better job than Council appointees in deciding if an event actually will be beneficial to the tourism sector.

Stuff reports:

A new law has been drafted that will allow for 110kmh speed limits for the first time on some New Zealand roads.

The New Zealand Transport Agency announced on Thursday that the draft Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits (2017) would pave the way for a 110kmh limit on roads with at least two lanes in each direction, a median barrier, and no direct access to neighbouring properties.

Sounds sensible criteria.

Harry Wilson, the agency’s road safety director, said the Tauranga Eastern Link and the Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway already fit those criteria.

The transport agency has said previously that it had identified 155km of highway across Auckland, Tauranga and Waikato that would be suitable for a 110kmh limit, subject to minor treatments.

In Auckland, those roads are the Tunnel to Lonely Track section of the Northern Motorway (SH1), the Upper Harbour Motorway (SH18), and the Takanini to Bombay section of the Southern Motorway (SH1).

The article doesn’t say when the rule may come into force but consultation closes in June so it could be as early as later this year.

Chris Trotter writes:

South Auckland is another country. The country New Zealand could have been, had colonisation unfolded differently. The country New Zealand may yet become, if current immigration policies are abandoned.

South Auckland is a Pacific country: where the faces are brown; the neighbourhoods are poor; and the churches – of which there are a great many – are full of worshippers.

South Auckland is also Labour country – and that is not something one can say about many other places in New Zealand. In 2005 it was the voters of South Auckland that saved Helen Clark’s Labour-led Government and sent her back for a third term as their Prime Minister.

If Labour is saved again – if it avoids a fourth consecutive defeat at the hands of the National Party – then it will be the people of South Auckland that Andrew Little and his party have to thank.

I think Labour needs more than South Auckland. They already get most of the votes there but it’s not as large as it used to be. Here’s the top five party votes for Labour:

1. Mangere 18,470
2. Manukau East 16,925
3. Manurewa 14,579
4. Kelston 12,934
5. Mana 12,601

The top five for National are:

1. Tamaki 24,091
2. Rodney 24,051
3. Epsom 23,904
4. North Shore 23,762
5. Hunua 22,929

So only three seats really for Labour, and they don’t even come close to the best seats for National.

No surprises, then, that the place Labour chose to launch its Community Action Network (CAN) was in the spacious hall of the Otara Mormon Church. …

CAN itself is something of a paradox. It’s prime organiser, Keiran O’Halloran, is an import from Ireland via the British Labour Party. Now, someone who grew up under the government of Tony Blair, and has the accent to prove it, might not strike every observer as the ideal pick to organise the South Auckland Vote. Yet, there he was on Saturday, belting out slogans which may have resonated in the London boroughs, but which left this “Southside” audience visibly underwhelmed.

As an organisation dedicated to recruiting and training hundreds of local volunteers to get out Labour’s South Auckland’s Party Vote, CAN boasts a rather confusing name. A cynic might say that CAN’s gloriously non-partisan moniker testifies to the dwindling potency of the party’s brand. “Volunteers For Labour” would have been a more accurate description of the project: but if that was its name – would they have come?

So is this why they are hiding their affiliation?

Stuff reports:

A convicted Government employee is one of “hundreds” who have let out of court through side exits after their hearings, police say.

Jeremy Buis was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court on April 21 on charges of criminal harassment, threatening to do grievous bodily harm and intentional damage.

Judge Paul Kellar lifted his name suppression but suppressed details of his occupation.

The 39-year-old Government employee did not appear outside court after his sentencing. Waiting media were later told he was allowed out through a side entrance.

Police said Buis was allowed out through an alternative exit to “avoid a conflict with the victim’s family who were present at the public exit at that point”.

How very nice of the Police to do that for Mr Buis.

Reminder that you can’t speculate on which government department or agency Mr Buis used to work for, or hint at it.

Radio NZ reports:

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has no regrets over her handling of the Foreshore and Seabed controversy.

One of her weaknesses is an inability to admit mistakes.

National later repealed the law as part of a deal with the Māori Party after it came to power in 2009.

It restored the rights of iwi to seek customary rights in court and ruled that no one owned the foreshore and seabed.

But Miss Clark said her actions had “stood the test of time” and she would do nothing differently given the advice she had.

“It wasn’t an easy call, but here we are, years later – how much substantially has changed about the position?

“If someone had given us the brilliant advice that [the foreshore and seabed] could be classified as not belonging to anybody that might have been quite helpful, but I don’t recall ever having such advice.”

This suggests that her response was thought and considered. In fact she announced a law change to over-turn the court decision just 24 hours after the decision was delivered. It was a hasty panicked blunder. They had no need to make a decision within a day.

They also could have appealed the decision to the Privy Council. But because they were abolishing appeals to it (for future cases) they decided it would be a political embarrassment to appeal, so instead decided to legislate over property rights.

The IEA write:

Oxfam began as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. It still does valuable disaster relief work today, but it often functions like a political campaign group. Each year it releases a report on inequality just before the World Economic Forum in Davos. This purports to show the failure of the global economic system.

The conventional view of capitalism—shared by people from across the political mainstream such as Ed Miliband and Theresa May, despite their differences—is that it generates a lot of wealth, but distributes it unevenly. Oxfam’s figures are supposed to illustrate this: the latest numbers show that eight billionaires own 0.25 per cent of the world’s net wealth, as much as the 3.6 billion who make up the poorest half (in terms of net wealth) of the world’s population. Those at the bottom of the net wealth distribution include, for example, recent Harvard graduates with high levels of student debt and yet huge earning potential: they are supposed to be amongst the poorest people in the world according to Oxfam.

Focusing just on wealth instead of income and income potential is silly. As IEA say it shows a lawyer who has just graduated from Harvard as poorer than a subsistance farmer in Nigeria.

What is important for people is their income, which finances their lifestyle. There is good data available on incomes, which Oxfam could use if they wanted to talk about inequality. But that would not suit Oxfam’s narrative. Global income inequality is falling, as the poor have gained disproportionately from globalisation.

Oxfam, is basically a socialist campaigning organisation that also does some disaster and poverty relief.

It is against capitalist concepts such as free trade. When it turns out free trade has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and massively decreased global income inequality, they then change their focus to wealth inequality rather than income inequality.

Oxfam highlights how the eight richest people who top their list are mostly Americans, with four of them being tech billionaires. But tech billionaires are a paradigmatic example of entrepreneurs who earned their fortunes by creating products that benefited everyone. Facebook has enabled us to keep in contact with old friends and relatives in a way that was impossible before. Thanks to Amazon, we can purchase even rare, out-of-print books that would only otherwise have been hard to track, and get them delivered tomorrow. In America, fortunes mostly reflect exceptional contributions to society—not the exploitation of others.

The old left view of wealth is that rich people get their wealth by stealing it or exploiting it from poor people. This was somewhat true in 1880 but not very true today.

Globalisation has helped such tech billionaires to become much richer than they could have in times when markets were protected. But, this reflects the fact that their products are used worldwide, and that they help pull people out of poverty. For example, over 60 per cent of Kenyans use mobile phones to make payments. Mobiles are used by farmers to compare and check prices so that they are not exploited by local monopolies. Globalisation in general, and mobile phone technology in particular, are major contributors to the huge recent improvements in living standards in poor countries. Worldwide, there are 1.6 billion Facebook users – you are probably one of them. But, the founder of Facebook did not get rich by making others poorer. Trade is a process of mutual enrichment. Facebook has made a lot of people better off. However, Mark Zuckerberg is much better off because he benefits from the fact that so many people are using Facebook. Meanwhile, there will be many, many more entrepreneurs who have tried and failed – entrepreneurship is a risky business.

Well said.

This year they highlighted Vietnam as a case of deprivation, and it is true that Vietnam is still a very poor country. But it started from a very low base: they only began to move towards capitalism in 1986. Since then, their income per capita has increased from $100 per annum to $2,000, and it continues to grow at high rates, mirroring the much-acclaimed success of China and, to a lesser extent, India.

$2,000 per year is very little, but a lot better than $100 a year.

China’s real national income per head was $193 in 1980. Today, it stands at $6,807 per head (IFAD, 2014, p.5). This is not due to redistribution, it is due to trade and the liberalisation of some markets.

And the success of special economic zones where basically a full capitalist economy was allowed.

Globally, extreme poverty has fallen from 44 per cent in 1980 to around 10 per cent today. The literacy rate has risen from 56 per cent to 85 per cent over the same period.

Great achievements.

The world could do much better still, but not by hiking wealth taxes and closing down ‘tax havens’, but by improving the basic institutional framework (property rights, the rule of law, impartial courts) that we know allows countries to grow out of poverty.

Oxfam’s policies are about hurting the rich, not helping the poor.

Kenya and South Korea were about equally rich – or rather, equally poor – in 1960. Kenya has seen some significant improvements in very recent years, and is one of the better-off countries in East Africa. But incomes in South Korea have grown more than fifteen-fold, and are now almost on a par with Western Europe. It was sound institutions, the freedom to establish businesses and to engage in mutually enriching trade that lead to the elimination of poverty, higher literacy rates and better health.

One of many examples.

However, increases in income translate into increases in wealth only over a very long time, because most people immediately consume the bulk of what they earn. And it is the growth in incomes that really matters. Redistributing wealth would be a poor policy choice. Let us suppose that we went even further than Oxfam would like, expropriated the wealth of the world’s eight richest people, and distributed it evenly among the world’s population and over their lifespans. Depending on how you calculate it, you would end up giving everybody a pay rise of between 65p and £1 per year – or about 0.03 per cent for your average Kenyan. And, at the same time, you would have destroyed the system by which entrepreneurial-led innovation promotes economic growth and which has enriched previously destitute countries in a way that Oxfam could never have imagined back in 1980.

Yep.

It is not redistribution, but mutually enriching trade and economic growth which is the hope for the world’s poor today – just as it was in the past. To put it another way, we should stop focusing on the rich as if they were the problem, and, instead, focus on policies to reduce poverty.

Absolutely.

Radio NZ reports:

One school and several businesses in Auckland’s CBD have installed overnight sprinkler systems in their doorways to deter rough sleepers. The Chamber of Commerce says it does not condone the practice but it is an expression of frustration from business owners that the council is not doing more to deal with the issue of homelessness.

What an excellent idea. Maybe they could use them during the day also for beggars.

USA Today reports:

Facing mountainous debt and population loss, the board overseeing Puerto Rico filed Wednesday for the equivalent of bankruptcy protection in a historic move that’s sure to trigger a fierce legal battle with the fate of the island’s citizens, creditors and workers at stake.

The oversight board appointed to lead the U.S. territory back to fiscal sustainability declared in a court filing that it is “unable to provide its citizens effective services,” crushed by $74 billion in debts and $49 billion in pension liabilities.

How did this happen?

Puerto Rico has lost 20% of its jobs since 2007 and 10% of its population, sparking an economic crisis that worsens by the day.

The island’s response has worsened matters. Politicians raised taxes, allowed governmental bureaucracy to balloon, borrowed to pay the bills and promised pensions that the island could not afford.

Sounds like classic left policies.

The Herald reports:

The Department of Conservation is investigating charging overseas visitors higher fees for huts and campsites on its Great Walks on top of a hike in charges for all users later this month.

The increases announced yesterday are DoC’s first increases in five years and come as the Herald this week highlights pressure on them and rising costs of maintenance.

On the popular Milford Track – where up to 67 per cent of visitors are from overseas – hut fees will rise from $54 to $70.

That is still an incredible bargain. You are effectively getting not just the hut to stay in, but also the maintenance of the track.

I’ve done most of the Great Walks and the hut fees are the smallest cost compared to gear and travel.

DoC’s director of recreation, tourism and heritage, Gavin Walker, said the fee increase was part of a funding review that could in future include charging overseas visitors more.

“That’s absolutely still on the table for consideration but we’re unable to deploy that [differential booking] process at the moment.

A differential price is sensible as NZers also fund the huts through their taxes. But the price difference shouldn’t be huge. If we started charging $200 a night for the huts, then it would price them out of reach of some tourists.

The Herald reports:

A murderer who bashed his victim with a hammer has petitioned Parliament for prisoners to be able to father a child from behind bars via artificial insemination.

The petition by Karl Teangiotau Nuku also calls for prisoners to be able to give blood and donate organs.

No to prisoners fathering children.

Donating organs could be worth allowing, but it seems it is already:

Bronwyn Donaldson, director of offender health for Corrections, said there are no legal restrictions preventing the donation of blood, organs or sperm by prisoners.

“However, Corrections does not facilitate or support prisoners participating in [such donations] as part of their primary health care requirements…consideration would be given on a case-by-case basis by the prison director, who is required to ensure the safety of all involved.”

The challenge is the prisoner would probably need to spend a fair bit of time in hospital if they donate, and that is a less secure environment.

Michael Dobson writes at The Huffington Post:

Danyl Mclauchlan is a smart guy. Funny guy. Smart, funny guy. So I guess if he’s feeling sad after reading Max Harris’ new book The New Zealand Project, well, that’s his prerogative. But he’s also being a jerk about it, and that’s just bad spon-con. After reading his article I will now no longer be using LifeDirect by TradeMe for my life insurance needs this election year. A left wing thinker tearing down another left wing thinker in an article bemoaning the left’s inability to motivate people behind leftist ideas is folly of a type that literally makes Hooton’s case for him. It deserves to generate no brand loyalty.

I’m not sure what is funnier. Demanding that no left winger ever disagree in public with a fellow left winger (while doing exactly that himself) or his statement that he will stop using LifeDirect because they sponsor the section of The SpinOff which published McLauchlan.

I also enjoyed his conclusion:

capitalism is an unrelenting machine of environmental destruction and human exploitation that can only be safely controlled – maybe – through democracy.

I love the maybe. Funny how since India and China embraced capitalism several hundred millions people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. Previously though they were not exploited – they were just starving.

I should note that I think it is a great thing that Max Harris has written a book which is sparking conversations about values. I might not agree with his conclusions but we need more people writing about what they want New Zealand to be.