The Herald reports:
New Zealand-bound Lions fans are facing huge surges in accommodation prices, including one motel seeking a nightly rate of seven times its normal charge.
A Weekend Herald investigation has revealed Wellington motel, Fernhill Motor Lodge, is charging $1000 a night at the time the city hosts the second test, compared with a regular rate of $135. The Quadrant in Auckland CBD is seeking $1125 on the night of the first test, more than three times its room rate the following week.
According to online booking sites, only 5 per cent of hotel rooms in Auckland’s CBD are still available for the first and third All Blacks-Lions tests on June 24 and July 8.
This is where competition is a good thing.
If you go to Airbnb, you can get a room near Eden Park for under $60 a night and an entire apartments or houses for under $200 a night.
An interesting poll of 1,000 Londoners. They found:
Corbyn is a London MP. Even his own London voters think he is failing.
A guest post by Keeping Stock:
I had the privilege of attending a National Party candidate selection in Whanganui yesterday, and it was a most interesting experience. Four candidates had made it through pre-selection, the first contested National Party selection in the Whanganui electorate since Chester Borrows won the nomination in 1999.
Each of the nominees spoke for 10 minutes, then answered questions from the party president and PM which were handed to them in a sealed envelope. In the end, it may well be that the responses to the questions were the final determinant.
There was no clear winner on either of the first two ballots, and the lowest-polling candidate dropped out each round. On the third ballot, Whanganui lawyer Harete Hipango won the nomination ahead of Whanganui District Councillor Hadleigh Reid. She will be an outstanding candidate, and if elected, a terrific replacement for Hon. Chester Borrows. She is also the first Maori woman ever to win selection for a seat already held by the National Party.
But the best bit of the whole day was this; there were 60 voting delegates, all members of the National Party’s Whanganui branch. There was a presence from National Party HQ, but that was only to ensure that the rules were observed; the decision on a local candidate was made solely and entirely by local party members. Contrast that with Labour, where all too often Head Office has a major say, often trumping the wishes of the local membership.
I certainly prefer National’s method of selecting candidates to Labour’s; it is local democracy at work. Perhaps that’s why National pretty much has a mortgage on provincial New Zealand, with Palmerston North and Napier being the only provincial seats Labour holds. And as long as the local party members continue to have the ability to select a candidate they want, not to have to accept someone forced on them by Head Office, that’s unlikely to change.
As KS says, it is good when you have a decision made by local members, not head office.
The Herald reports:
Labour leader Andrew Little upped his offer from $26,000 to $100,000 in a last-minute bid to settle the defamation claim against him by hoteliers Earl and Lani Hagaman but Mrs Hagaman rejected it as too little and too late.
Little’s offer was revealed in Mrs Hagaman’s evidence at the High Court in Wellington, during which she read out letters between lawyers for the two.
The Hagamans are now seeking more than $2 million in damages from Little over comments he made last year about a $100,000 donation from the Hagamans to the National Party in 2014 and a contract later awarded to their hotel chain – Scenic Hotel – to manage the Matavai resort in Niue.
At the time, the Hagamans gave Little a deadline to apologise and retract his comments, but he refused. Mrs Hagaman said at that point, all the Hagamans wanted was an apology and “minimal” costs: “just a couple of legal letters.”
Why on Earth didn’t he just apologise at the time? Who was advising him?
Mrs Hagaman said in February this year, Little offered the wording of an apology and $26,000.
In response the Hagamans said although they “have no wish to destroy Mr Little by rendering him insolvent,” a more realistic offer was needed.
His return offer of $100,000 was also rejected – Mrs Hagaman said her costs by then were already $215,000 and the wording of the apology was inadequate because it did not state there was no link between the donation and the hotel’s business interest in Niue.
If your offer a year later doesn’t even come close to the costs of the other party, it is possibly not a big surprise they say no.
Mr Hagaman was now very ill and had been given only weeks to live and Mrs Hagaman said she decided to go ahead with the defamation suit to clear his name before he died.
“We are very proud of what we do. We are very proud people. His name is very important to him and it’s incredibly important that he does die with dignity – and for our children.”
She said it was offensive and “distasteful” to suggest the Hagamans would expect something in return for the donation – they were regular donors to various charities and community groups, including $1 million for the Christchurch Cathedral from Mr Hagaman: “a true atheist”.
Very generous.
The Hagamans are suing over six separate statements Little made, one in a press release and the rest in media interviews after that. In those, Little had questioned whether there was a link between the donation and the Matavai contract which was awarded to Scenic Hotel soon afterwards, as well as a $7.5 million Government aid fund to upgrade the resort at a later date.
The comments the Hagamans claim amount to defamation include phrases such as: “it looks murky from the outside, it looks shady,” “stink to high heaven,” “there’s just something about this whole deal that really stinks” and reference to National Party’s “dodgy deals” such as SkyCity and the agrihub in Saudi Arabia.
Mrs Hagaman said the overall insinuation was that the Hagamans had done something corrupt and she felt they were being targeted.
The court will decide if the statements were defamatory or fair game. But as I have said before, Little would have been fine if he had merely called for an investigation. It is his angry language of stinking to high heaven etc which has made him vulnerable.
Bill English has said that after reviewing the video footage of the raid, that he sees no reason to have an inquiry into Operation Burnham.
This is a pity, because I thought an inquiry would be useful reassurance. Of course those alleging war crimes can and should go to the New Zealand Police whose job it is to investigate any crimes, including war crimes.
Does this mean we will never know what happened? Well based on both the book summaries and the NZDF responses, here’s what I think did happen.
Civilian Casualties
I think it is very very likely that Hager and Stephenson are correct in that there was at least one civilian casualty on the raid – the three year old girl. There is no way she was an insurgent, and no reason to think her death wasn’t due to the raid.
This is highly regrettable, and NZDF earlier descriptions of civilian deaths as unfounded was almost misleading. They should have said “unknown but possible” as they were aware of the building hit by mistake.
Insurgent Casualties
H and S say no insurgents were killed while NZDF says they have video of those killed being armed.
It seems that the main insurgents they were after were not killed in the raid. They had left the village. But that doesn’t mean those killed were not also insurgents, just different ones. If you come out firing with a gun, you’re treated as an insurgent.
The families may claim those adults killed were not insurgents, but there are many reasons they would say that, including compensation. I suspect H and S have taken everything claimed by the families at face value as it fits their world view.
War Crimes
Did the SAS commit war crimes? Well not even the book claims they do, just they may have. Civilian casualties does not equate to war crimes – otherwise Churchill and FDR are war criminals.
NZDF say only two shots were fired by SAS snipers and the person killed was an insurgent.
More telling is the fact that there was a lawyer involved in the operations of the raid, personally saying who is and is not a legitimate target. This is a level of caution and respect for the laws or war which is hard to beat. It is not compatible with the H and S version of a blood thirsty revenge raid.
Independent Review
While I don’t think there anything untoward happened except a gear accident on a US helicopter that probably killed a civilian child (and maybe some adults), it isn’t great to have everything based on NZDF internal investigations.
The US military have Inspector-Generals, the NZ Police have the iPCA, the SIS and GCSB have the IGIS. It would not be a bad idea to consider an independent watchdog for NZDF.
Liam Donovan writes at Politico:
The problem for Schumer and his caucus is this: Republicans are not bluffing when they say Gorsuch will be on the court one way or another. The squishes, the institutionalists, even the erstwhile “Gang” members are unwavering in their support. Gorsuch is well-qualified for the job, acquitted himself admirably by any measure, and if an unprecedented partisan filibuster is the only thing standing between him and the bench, the Reid Rule will be invoked for the second time.
The Democrats are on the verge of making a huge mistake – for the second time.
The first mistake was when Harry Reid used the nuclear option to get rid of the 60 vote threshold for cloture on Cabinet and judicial (except Supreme Court) appointments. It has come back to bite them in a major way as Trump has managed to get all his Cabinet confirmed, despite many getting less than 60 votes.
It also means there is almost no political pain for McConnell to get rid of the 60 vote threshold for Supreme Court appointments. If Reid has not done what he did a few years ago, there would have been huge resistance to changing the rules for Trump nominees. I doubt the Republicans would have got the votes for it.
But saying Republicans have the political will to put Gorsuch on the court is different than saying there are 50 GOP senators who are otherwise prepared to end the filibuster. Their appetite is entirely a function of circumstance. Were Democrats to lay off Gorsuch, keeping their powder dry for the future and maintaining the moral high ground, it would be rather easy to imagine the Susan Collinses, John McCains and Lindsey Grahams of the world getting cold feet with a lesser Trump pick, particularly one who shifts the balance of the court rather than maintaining it.
This is key. Some Republican Senators do not want to use the nuclear option but if the Dems are going to block a vote on someone as suitably qualified as Gorsuch, then they will get rid of it as the only remaining option.
Now if a liberal Justice dies in the next three years, the next Trump nominee will dramatically shift the balance on the Supreme Court. And if the 60 vote threshold has been abolished this time around, he is almost certain of getting his pick confirmed no matter who they are.
However if they let a vote occur on Gorsuch, and kept the 60 vote threshold, it would be far harder to have the Republicans invoke the nuclear option for the next nominee.
So the end result of this is not just going to be that Gorsuch gets confirmed, but also that Trump will have a much easier time with his next nominee. A huge own goal.
Another aspect to all of this, is that the Senate has become so partisan, that I believe no future Supreme Court nominee will be appointed unless the President’s party has a majority in the Senate. There will be years of vacancies.
Stuff reports:
Wellington’s oldest cinema – The Paramount on Courtenay Place – will celebrate its centenary before it closes its doors.
Cinema Paramount (CPL) director Janet Carson said the theatre would close in September.
“After 100 years we’re gutted to be the ones closing the door … it’s hard,” Carson said.
It is a pity, but it is partly a victim of newer niche cinemas. On top of the Reading complex, Wellington has the Lighthouse, Embassy, Roxy, Empire, and Penthouse also.
Daniel Hannan MEP writes:
In 1917, Lenin’s Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd. …
The revolution, in other words, began as it was to continue: with looting. It wasn’t long, though, before the looting turned to bloodshed – bloodshed on an unimaginable, oceanic scale.
Nothing had prepared humanity for so much slaughter. Perhaps ten million indigenous Americans were killed by European pathogens after Columbus. A similar number of people died in the Atlantic slave trade. The Nazis killed 17 million. The Communists killed 100 million – some shot after show trials, some tortured to death, some starved to enforce collectivisation.
Never have so many died for an ideology.
The Communists took over or banned every voluntary association, emptying the civil space that used to exist between state and citizen. When the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party seized power in 1948, for example, Janos Kádar, as Minister of Home Affairs, abolished over 5,000 independent associations: churches, charities, chess clubs, Boy Scout troops, village bands.
If you think the state must be all powerful, then you want to eliminate all other institutions.
How often we see some moral idiot wearing a Che Guevara tee-shirt. We should react as we would to someone wearing an Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden tee-shirt; but, in general, we don’t.
I recall the Labour and Green MPs mourning the death of Fidel Castro, despite the murders, executions and torture he oversaw.
There are always ideologues who say they’d be happy to break a few eggs in order to make an omelette. These ideologues need to be refuted with the observable data of the last hundred years. Setting aside the vast fact that human beings are not eggs, there has not been a single case of an omelette actually emerging. Communism leaves us with empty eggshells and empty bellies. Every time. This story shall the good man teach his son.
Communism has failed in literally every country that has tried it.
Stuff reports:
One of the frontrunners to potentially take over from Paul Eagle as Wellington’s deputy mayor has only been a city councillor for just over five months.
Northern ward councillor Jill Day is understood to be one of Wellington Mayor Justin Lester’s two preferred candidates to take over as his sidekick should Paul Eagle become the MP for Rongotai after September’s general election.
The other potential candidate is long-time Lambton ward councillor Iona Pannett. …
Lester would not comment on potential deputy mayor replacements on Tuesday. But sources close to the mayor’s office confirmed he was only considering Day and Pannett.
This is probably code for “The Mayor speaking off the record”
When asked for comment and opinion on the frontrunners, all other city councillors said the ultimate decision was up to Lester and they would support whoever he chose.
Although Day has been tipped as Lester’s favourite, it was clear that Pannett’s decade of civic experience made her the clear favourite among her colleagues.
Many were surprised a first-term councillor would be considered for such a big job.
None of the other councillors expressed an interest in the deputy position and most were surprised that experienced councillor Simon Marsh was not in the mix.
Simon is one of the more moderate Councillors and would be a more reassuring pick than a Green Party councillor who has opposed almost every roading project the city has seen.
Stuff reports:
A Waikato medical school wouldn’t be a priority under Labour.
The proposal is for future doctors from rural communities to be selected for four years of training – much of that out of the city environment.
The idea is driven by two major Waikato players – the university and the district health board – and has the full support of Waikato mayors and a $5 million pledge from Sir Owen Glenn.
But it has faced an apparent counter-bid from the country’s existing medical schools in Auckland and Dunedin and Labour leader Andrew Little says his party has other priorities for precious health dollars.
The comments follow lukewarm receptions from local Labour list MP Sue Moroney and education spokesman Chris Hipkins.
“I just know that the investment required to get a medical faculty up and running and attract the academic community to go with it is a big ask,” Little said.
New Zealand is clearly short of doctors in rural areas, he said, but he’s cautious.
“I haven’t seen any of their paperwork … but for a country of 4.7 million people, with two med schools at the moment, I would need to be convinced that there’s benefit not just to Waikato University but to New Zealand generally. That’s not to say they can’t prove that case.”
I think Labour are wise is being skeptical. While it is good to have a focus on rural health, it is very unclear that we need a third medical school, or that Waikato could attract the expertise to run one.
I think part of this is a desire by Waikato to gain funding. Medical schools bring in immense levels of funding – not just for the teaching, but also for the research that goes with it. So the proposal is great for Waikato University. It would produce some benefits to the wider community, but I am doubtful anywhere near the $100 million cost.
The Herald reports:
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff’s chief of staff, Fran Mold, has resigned to take up a job with the United Nations in war-torn South Sudan.
Mold will work alongside former Labour Party leader David Shearer, who has the tough job of leading the United Nations’ mission in South Sudan.
South Sudan is becoming a very popular place to be!
The initial Green Party List has been released. It then goes out for a membership vote, and then back for final moderation to ensure all the quotas are met. While they will get some new blood in, the existing MPs are largely protected.
The list is:
On current polling they would get 14 MPs. They normally do worse than they poll though so Hart, Swarbrick and Roche are on the cusp.
This list will not be the final list as the Greens have rules that require the final list to have gender balance and they have too many women in their top ranks. Very ironic that a rule designed to help women get representation will end up pushing them down the list.
Men must make up at least 40% of the list at each rank after the first three. So the male percentage at each rank is:
This means that Hughes, McDonald, Coates etc will have to be pushed up the list ahead of Davdison, Sage and Logie to meet their gender quotas.
The NYT reports:
Venezuela took its strongest step yet toward one-man rule under the leftist President Nicolás Maduro as his loyalists on the Supreme Court seized power from the National Assembly in a ruling late Wednesday night.
The ruling effectively dissolved the elected legislature, which is led by Mr. Maduro’s opponents, and allows the court to write laws itself, experts said.
The move caps a year in which the last vestiges of Venezuela’s democracy have been torn down, critics and regional leaders say, leaving what many now describe as not just an authoritarian regime, but an outright dictatorship.
Their socialist policies have failed, the economy is ruined, people are starving, and now they are desperately trying to hold onto power in the tried and tested way of failed socialist regimes.
But it won’t work. It will come to a bloody messy end, as they all do.
Stuff reports:
Wellington’s Town Hall looks set to reopen in 2021 – but costs have ballooned to almost $90 million.
The restoration of the 113-year-old venue, which was declared ‘earthquake prone’ in 2009, will also bring it up to 100 per cent of building code.
The council’s previous estimate to restore the heritage category one listed building was $58.5m for the project.
So a 50% cost blowout before it even starts. Who thinks it will end up under $100 million? On past performance, I expect costs to keep climbing.
There are around 75,000 households in Wellington City so the cost per household just for this one project is likely to be around $1,300 or more.
Stuff reports:
Cities like Invercargill are now caught up in the “major mayhem up and down the country” from the housing crisis, Labour leader Andrew Little told a public meeting in Invercargill on Wednesday.
Investors cashing up from the housing bubble further north, were looking to properties in regional cities like Invercargill, pushing up both house prices and rents for working people on reasonably low incomes here, he told a crowded Big Willys bar at the Newfield Tavern.
Though he offered no figures, Little said he was “astounded to see how quickly rents are rising in New Zealand, including Invercargill.”
I bet he did not offer any figures.
Trade Me shows that rental prices in Southland have gone up 3.1% in the last year on average.
MBIE data has the median rental for Invercargill at $210 a week.
This week’s Focus on Politics from Radio NZ is on polling, and I’m one of those interviewed so for those interested, the clip is below.
A link to the audio is also here and an article based on it is here.
The Telegraph reports:
Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary, has condemned the UN human rights council criticism of Israeli bombing of Hezbollah positions in the Golan Heights as “absolutely preposterous” and “a profound absurdity”.
He was speaking after the UK mission to the UN in Geneva put the UN “on notice” that it would vote against all resolutions about Israel’s conduct in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories unless the human rights council ended what the UK mission described as anti-Israel bias.
The HRC is obsessed with Israel.
In its statement, the UK mission made clear its “serious concerns about the growth in illegal demolitions and settlement activity” and said the UK stood “shoulder to shoulder with the international community” in support of a two-state solution, but added that the council’s “unacceptable pattern of bias” would only make the goal harder to achieve.
The UK said: “Israel is a population of eight million in a world of seven billion. Yet since its foundation, the human rights council has adopted 135 country-specific resolutions; 68 of which [have been] against Israel. Justice is blind and impartial. This selective focus on Israel is neither. Israel is the only country permanently on the human rights council’s agenda.”
Not North Korea or any of the most awful abusers of human rights.
Stuff reports:
The Government has started the process of “completely rethinking” the Resource Management act, Prime Minister Bill English says.
He said the act was past its use-by date.
“We have been amending the original Resource Management Act, which was written 25 years ago, and I reckon it’s the last time,” English told a group of Auckland businesspeople.
“The Town Planning Act lasted 25 years, the Resource Management Act is 25 years old and it could be at the end of its life.”
This follows the Productivity Commission’s proposed overhaul of the Resource Management Act, something business associations have said they would welcome.
In the Productivity Commission’s final Better urban planning report, published on Wednesday, the commission makes 64 recommendations, including replacing the Resource Management Act with one law governing both the built and natural environments.
The RMA had become a point of weakness in the planning system, the commission said.
Business NZ chief executive Kirk Hope said a key aspect of the report was the distinction between built environments and natural environments. He said planning problems in cities are due to the “broad and unclear” provisions of the current Resource Management Act.
I think the Productivity Commission report provides and excellent way forward. It is time to replace the RMA, not amend it.
Stuff reports:
The $630 million Kapiti expressway has actually doubled the amount of time it takes to commute into Wellington during the morning rush, some motorists say.
One Kapiti Coast resident believes the morning crawl into the capital is now so bad that she is vowing to use the train instead, even though it will cost her $100 more a month.
Councils across the Wellington region have asked the New Zealand Transport Agency to look into the problem. But there may be no quick fix until construction of the Transmission Gully motorway is finished in 2020.
This is not a total surprise that if you clear congestion from one part of the network it moves to another part. But that is not a reason to improve the roading network. It is a reason to do it properly according to an overall plan.
The overall plan is four lanes from the airport to Levin. That network will make a huge difference to scores of thousands of motorists. The level of traffic going north of Levin is small enough that any congestion at Levin would be quite minor.
But what is needed is to get Transmission Gully done, and also to get a solution to the Basin Reserve. Once you have that, then you get the full benefits.
Stuff reports:
On Friday Hughes announced the funding policy at Wellington’s Journalism Matters conference.
The contestable Public Journalism Fund’s $3m, administered by Creative New Zealand, would be available to “support public interest journalism and help tell New Zealand stories across a range of platforms,” the party’s announcement read.
Public interest journalism means journalism that the Greens approve of. They want taxpayers to fund stories that Government appointees will deem worthwhile.