News.com.au reports:

The Liberals are basically doomed due to both the infighting and Turnbull’s weak leadership.

Abbott has turned into the Liberal version of Kevin Rudd – will do anything to get the top job back. And Turnbull just seems unable to govern.

Bill Shorten doesn’t deserve to be Prime Minister, but the Liberals are doing everything they can to gift it to him.

Paul Little writes:

We’re used to the idea that some industries have so much trouble finding local workers they have to bring them in from overseas: fruit pickers, restaurant workers and the Labour Party are among the most prominent.

Yep brings in foreign workers to campaign against others bringing in foreign workers!

The scheme was a Labour Party scheme run by Labour.

It hadn’t been outsourced to McDonald’s, although if it had, the kids would have got paid, been better fed and had better working conditions.

True.

Labour’s justification seemed to be that when capitalists exploit people, it’s exploitation; when the workers’ friends exploit people, it’s experience.

They conned people to fly around the world at their own expense, thinking they were going to get some amazing campaign experiences and talks. Instead they were here to staff a call centre as even the Filipino ones costed too much for Labour.

The interns were undeniably “volunteers”, but the question remains: should Labour be using unpaid foreign workers to do its chores when there is no shortage of unemployed New Zealanders who know how a doorbell works and would appreciate a free feed and a bed?

The arrangement may not have been a breach of visa law; it may not have been a breach of employment law; it’s certainly a breach of Labour Party principles, from back when the party had principles.

It almost certainly was a breach of visa laws also.

The Herald reports:

Sonny Bill Williams made history for the wrong reasons tonight when he became the first All Black to be sent off in a test for 50 years, and the first ever in a British and Irish Lions test.

Second-five Williams was shown a red card by referee Jerome Garces in the 25th minute after connecting with his shoulder to the head of Lions wing Anthony Watson, who left the field for a head injury assessment but returned.

Garces watched several replays in slow motion before making his decision, and Williams can’t have too many complaints – but it was probably more clumsy than intentional.

I don’t think it was intentional, but it probably cost us the match.

It was probably the main reason for their defeat, their first in New Zealand of course since their loss to South Africa in Hamilton in 2009.

Not a bad home streak.

Stuff reports:

Gareth Morgan is not a politician.

He has a speech impediment. He wears black sweaters instead of suits. He answers simple questions about voter apathy with 13-minute rants that switch from superannuation reform to drug legalisation and everything in between.

But he’s not that kind of non-politician – the kind lighting up the Western world, the populists, the nationalists. He’s an elitist, pure and simple; a technocratic policy snob who brooks no disagreement with ideas that he sees as self-evident.

That is Gareth’s weakness. He seems to think there is only one solution to an issue – his solution.

So can a non-populist non-politician actually get the five per cent of votes for his fledgling The Opportunities Party (TOP) – what he would need to win seats and so make any difference in Parliament? Or will he just do what some in the Greens and Labour are privately worried about: take one or two percentage points of the Left vote and completely waste it.

4% would be good!

At a packed 350-seat roadshow in Wellington on Monday night, that 5 per cent certainly seemed possible, even if millionaire Morgan hadn’t stumped up to cover the bar.

Hell I’d go along if Gareth is shouting.

Rowan voted for the Mana Party in the last election, and other left-leaning parties before that, but is strongly considering TOP this time.

His father, Michael, 61, voted for the Greens last time and is considering switching too.

“It’s good to hear a politician actually talking about taking action and actually making changes. Because I don’t think any of the current policies have any kind of long-term future,” he said.

I encourage all Labour, Green, Mana voters to vote TOP!

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough write:

America’s leaders and allies are asking themselves yet again whether this man is fit to be president.

We have our doubts, but we are both certain that the man is not mentally equipped to continue watching our show, Morning Joe.

The president’s unhealthy obsession with our show has been in the public record for months, and we are seldom surprised by his posting nasty tweets about us.

During the campaign, the Republican nominee called Mika “neurotic” and promised to attack us personally after the campaign ended.

This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked. We ignored their desperate pleas.

The president’s unhealthy obsession with Morning Joe does not serve the best interests of either his mental state or the country he runs.

Despite his constant claims that he no longer watches the show, the president’s closest advisers tell us otherwise. That is unfortunate.

We believe it would be better for America and the rest of the world if he would keep his 60-inch-plus flat-screen TV tuned to “Fox & Friends.”

For those lucky enough to miss Thursday’s West Wing temper tantrum, the president continued a year-long habit of lashing out at Morning Joe while claiming to never watch it.

During his early-morning tirade, Mr. Trump spit out schoolyard insults about “low I.Q. Crazy Mika,” “Psycho Joe” and much worse. He also fit a flurry of falsehoods in his two-part tweetstorm.

Mr. Trump claims that we asked to join him at Mar-a-Lago three nights in a row. That is false. He also claimed that he refused to see us. That is laughable.

The president-elect invited us both to dinner on Dec. 30. Joe attended because Mika did not want to go.

After listening to the president-elect talk about his foreign policy plans, Joe was asked by a disappointed Trump the next day if Mika could also visit Mar- a-Lago that night.

She reluctantly agreed to go. After we arrived, the president-elect pulled us into his family’s living quarters with his wife, Melania, where we had a pleasant conversation.

We politely declined his repeated invitations to attend a New Year’s Eve party, and we were back in our car within 15 minutes.

Mr. Trump also claims that Mika was “bleeding badly from a face-lift.” That is also a lie.

Putting aside Mr. Trump’s never-ending obsession with women’s blood, Mika and her face were perfectly intact, as pictures from that night reveal.

And though it is no one’s business, the president’s petulant personal attack against yet another woman’s looks compels us to report that Mika has never had a face-lift. …

We have known Mr. Trump for more than a decade and have some fond memories of our relationship together.

But that hasn’t stopped us from criticizing his abhorrent behavior or worrying about his fitness.

During the height of the 2016 presidential campaign, Joe often listened to Trump staff members complain about their boss’s erratic behavior, including a top campaign official who was as close to the Republican candidate as anyone.

We, too, have noticed a change in his behavior over the past few years. Perhaps that is why we were neither shocked nor insulted by the president’s personal attack.

The Donald Trump we knew before the campaign was a flawed character but one who still seemed capable of keeping his worst instincts in check.

Trump doesn’t need enemies. He is his own worst enemy, and will end up effectively self-impeaching.

John Roughan writes:

Like rust, the researchers of public health keep trying to corrode our tax system. Like rust, they never sleep. They were at it again this week, holding a “fizz” conference at Auckland University in the hope of persuading political parties to put a tax on soft drinks in their platform for the coming election.

A tax that even if there was no substitution would result in an average calorie drop of 3 calories a day!

My only interest as a citizen of this country is in the integrity of our tax system. This is the thing health taxers never consider.

Thanks largely to GST we have one of the simplest, cleanest, fairest tax systems in the world. I don’t think any tax expert disputes this. The economic benefits of a broad tax net with few exemptions or arbitrary additional imposts is immense. It helps ensure investments and resources flow to activities of most value. It is undoubtedly one of the reasons we are doing so well compared to most countries today.

We are very fortunate to have a broad-based consumption tax. If it hadn’t been done in the first flush of economic reform we might have faced the same ordeal as Australia when their reformers got around to it. GST was endlessly contentious over there and they ended up with a ragged GST compared to ours.

Yep we have an excellent GST system. But people keep trying to complicate it such as when Labour demanded no GST on fresh fruit and vegetables, feminists demand tampons be exempt etc etc.

They want to use the tax system to send virtue signals.

Stuff reports:

Convicted killer Phillip John Smith has been declined parole. 

In a reserved decision released Friday, the Parole Board said Smith was still an undue risk to the public. 

His next parole hearing will be May 2019. 

Smith, 43, is serving a life sentence for the 1995 murder of the father of a boy he was molesting. 

The Parole Board needs a big stamp with “NO!” on it which they can apply to any correspondence from Smith.

The latest Gallup poll looks at how much trust the US public has in various institutions. In order they are:

1. Military 72%
2. Small business 70%
3. Police 57%
4. Organised religion 41%
5. Supreme Court 40%
6. Medical system 37%
7. Public schools 36%
8. Presidency 32%
9. Banks 32%
10. Organised labor 28%
11. Newspapers 27%
12. Criminal justice system 27%
13. TV News 24%
14. Big business 21%
15. Internet news 16%
16. Congress 12%

If you look at Republicans and Democrats , the results are:

1. Military 82% (GOP) and 64% (Dems)
2. Small business 73% and 67%
3. Police 73% and 45%
4. Organised religion 52% and 34%
5. Supreme Court 40% and 43%
6. Medical system 33% and 40%
7. Public schools 30% and 41%
8. Presidency 60% and 10%
9. Banks 36% and 30%
10. Organised labor 17% and 37%
11. Newspapers 12% and 41%
12. Criminal justice system 29% and 27%
13. TV News 14% and 31%
14. Big business 28% and 14%
15. Internet news 14% and 16%
16. Congress 14% and 11%

Dick Quax has a good idea:

Funds for the Auckland Council to deal with our region’s transport congestion and stormwater troubles can be made available at the stroke of a pen if the council is ready to take urgent action.

This is clear from a solution put forward by the chief executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, Michael Barnett.

Barnett’s solution is a comparatively simple one that involves taking our water and wastewater supplier, Watercare Services, out of council ownership and using the proceeds of a share sale to finance multi-billion dollar transport and stormwater solutions.

He does, in my opinion go a step too far, however, by advocating for private investors to come in and have the water company listed on the stock exchange.

There is, however, a solution I feel sure councillors who genuinely want to free up funds to finance Auckland’s infrastructure could support.

That is the Kiwibank model of ownership. This would keep Watercare in public ownership while releasing the funds the council desperately needs to implement the big transport and stormwater projects required for our fast growing region.

 

The NZ Super Fund and ACC have both indicated a desire to invest in utility operators. Why not get them to come in? The council would keep a significant shareholding to give voice to Auckland’s community interest.

That’s a pretty good idea. The Auckland Council needs to accept that it needs to free up capital for investment. This is a much better idea than taking on more debt.

Stuff reports:

Old and new sores are likely to be opened up by a long-awaited review of the country’s copyright law, which has now taken a step forward.

Media companies, Hollywood interests and consumers have struggled to agree on what is fair treatment of copyrighted works in the internet age.

Consumer Affairs Minister Jacqui Dean set out the terms of reference for a review and said public consultations would begin early next year.

But a Cabinet paper warned copyright was a complex area and the Government would “not be able to resolve all issues to everybody’s satisfaction”.

Of course not. So the Government should look at what is overall best for the public interest.

Hollywood interests are understood to be worried New Zealand lawmakers might go down the same path recommended by Australia’s productivity commission last year, and consider including a broad “fair use” clause in the Copyright Act.

New Zealand should absolutely do this. The United States itself has a broad “fair use” clause and you can’t argue the US doesn’t have a very active content creation industry. Israel and Singapore have the same, and are hubs of innovation.

The Australian Productivity Commission found that the greatest economic benefit to Australia would come from a broad fair use clause, rather than having a statutory list of permitted uses. Any statutory list of permitted uses will be out of date almost as soon as it is printed. Would data and text mining have been included a few years ago?

Here’s some of the uses that can come under fair use:

• research
• review
• criticism
• parody/satire
• reporting
• quoting
• time shifting
• format shifting
• library lending
• data mining
• backups

One of its client’s concerns appeared to be that a broad fair-use clause might make it easier for people to convert and store copies of movies and other content they had previously bought by uploading them to cloud storage services.

While not necessarily of major concern in itself, that could blunt the tools copyright owners have in their arsenal to detect and control outright piracy.

A great example of why we should have fair use. Of course if you have purchased a work, you should be able to back it up on a cloud device.

Below is a letter I sent to the Electoral Commission earlier this week. Labour often go on about the need for transparency over political donations, so I hope they will co-operate in determining who the mystery donor is.

I write regarding the Campaign for Change which has been the subject of numerous news stories in the last week.

The specific issues I wish the Electoral Commission to consider is whether the reported donation to the Campaign for Change should be regarded as a donation to Labour and if over $30,000 reported within 10 working days.

I also would like considered whether any of the expenses incurred by the Coalition for Change should be treated as expenses by Labour, if they fall within the regulated period.

The Campaign for Change announced their existence on 17 June (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1706/S00237/new-zealand-launches-campaign-for-change.htm) as a non-partisan campaign to change the Government. It claimed to be independent of any political party. There is considerable evidence this is not the case.

As far as I can tell the Campaign for Change is not a legal entity in the form of an incorporated society or company. There is no information on whether it has rules, members, a bank account etc. It may simply be a slogan. Other names used such as Movement for Change or Coalition for Change are not registered either. One document refers to a Movement for Change Ltd but the Companies Office has no company of that name.

There is a lot of evidence that the campaign was a campaign on behalf of the Labour Party. The evidence is:

1. The 85 “interns” were recruited from overseas as a “Labour Campaign Fellowship” with the aim of “a Labour victory in New Zealand’s most important city, Auckland”
2. The interns were told to apply to two Labour Party staff members – Caitlin Johnson and Kieran O’Halloran
3. The campaign was seemingly organised by Matt McCarten while he was a paid staff member of the Labour Parliamentary Office
4. One of the purposes of the campaign was “recruits and supports volunteers for Labour electorate campaigns” (https://www.scribd.com/document/351981366/Labour-Intern-Scheme)
5. One intern refers to “my work here for the Labour Party” (https://commons.marymount.edu/global/2017/06/19/extravagant-week-one-for-the-international-newbie/)
6. Another intern quotes a letter from the Labour Party saying “We would like you to come over here and spend approx. 50% of your time making films – such as films for politicians, films about the fellowship, films about the ground campaign here.” and he says “I will be the first person within the program who has been offered a position to film short videos and documentaries of the ground campaign that the Labour Party (a sister party of the Democratic Party here in America) does to get people to go out and vote. (https://www.gofundme.com/nzlabour)
7. A third intern wrote (screenshot attached) that they will “intern for the NZ Labour Party Campaign” and “have the opportunity to work for Helen White” (Labour’s Auckland Central Candidate)
8. The Labour Party General Secretary has taken over responsibility for the interns and their activities

 

It seems abundantly clear that this activity was organised over many months by Labour Party staff and office holders to help Labour’s campaign. Just calling themselves a Campaign for Change doesn’t affect the substance of what they were doing, which is campaigning for Labour and Labour candidates.

The Campaign was estimated by the organisers to cost between $178,000 and $240,000.

Mr McCarten is quoted by the Herald (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11881250) that the campaign was funded by a private funder. If this private funder has donated over $30,000 then this may need to be disclosed within 10 working days.

I note that the definition of a “party donation” in the Electoral Act is of money or the equivalent of goods and services (such as paying for marae accommodation for workers) and “is made to a party, or to any person or body of persons on behalf of the party who are involved in the administration of the affairs of the party”.

In order to have public confidence that the Electoral Act can’t be undermined by having donations to benefit a political party done through some sort of unofficial campaign group, I think the Electoral Commission should write to Mr McCarten and  the Labour Party and seek details of the donation so a determination can be made whether or not it is a “party donation” that has to be disclosed.

Key details that would be useful in helping make such a determination would be the identity of the donor, whose bank account was it paid into, who has control of that bank account, what has it been spent on, and what correspondence exists between the donor and the recipient/s as to the purpose of the donation.

Related to this is the need to determine if any of the activities undertaken by the interns in exchange for accommodation and meals may constitute either party or candidate expenses under the Electoral Act. The fact that one intern said they would be working for a Labour Party candidate and another said they would be producing films for politicians suggests they could well qualify.

Of course, compliance with the Electoral Act expenses provisions can only be determined once the expense returns are submitted. But it would be beneficial to seek clarification at an earlier stage so no electoral laws are broken.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

A separate issue to this is any investigation by The Parliamentary Service into how Matt McCarten was setting this all up while employed by them.

The unions are getting what they paid for when they made Andrew Little the leader of the Labour Party – a return to 1970s style national awards.

The Herald reports:

His party is promising to lift the minimum wage by 75c an hour to $16.50. Depending on economic conditions, it wants to eventually lift the minimum wage to two-thirds of the average wage. The average wage is set to rise to about $30.60 next year, meaning Labour wants to lift the minimum wage to at least $20 over time.

Two-thirds of the average wage is what the CTU has been demanding. Currently the minimum wage is 0.52 of the average wage which is basically the highest in the developed world.  Some comparisons:

• NZ 0.52
• Australia 0.44
• Germany 0.43
• UK 0.41
• Canada 0.40
• US 0.25

A minimum wage at two thirds of the average wage would kill a huge number of jobs. Minimum wage rises at lesser levels do not, but what matters is how many jobs get impacted and you work this out by comparing it to the median wage. Labour’s policy would see the minimum wage at 85% of the median wage. Now think about that – it means the most junior unskilled job in New Zealand would only get paid 15% less than what the median worker is getting.

Currently the minimum wage is at 67% of the median wage. That is the level at which it should remain. In fact I’d link to to the median wage at that level, so politicians would then realise the way to increase wages is through productivity gains, not laws.

The party will also roll out a living wage for all core public sector workers at a cost of $15m, and will eventually extend it to all contractors.

So Labour will let a Reverend in Lower Hutt decide for them how much public servants should be paid.

Labour also wants to introduce Fair Pay Agreements, which set a sort of minimum standard for pay and conditions within each industry.

Little said: “These will stop bad employers from undermining wages and working conditions to undercut good employers.

“Fair Pay Agreements will lay out the basic pay and working conditions in an industry, and prevent a race to the bottom.”

This is the most terrible part of their policy. It is what the unions have wanted for the last 40 years – a return to national awards. Ignore the Orwellian name they have given them.

Basically Labour is saying they will force every employer in an industry to pay the same wages, so there can be no competition between employers.

Hard to think of a policy that will do more to damage New Zealand’s economy than this one. It is a policy that takes no account of the differences between big and small companies up and down NZ. Labour will force the small cleaning company in Invercargill to pay the same wages as the huge multinational company based in Auckland.

Labour has dropped its 2014 policy of repealing 90-day trial laws. It will keep trial periods but will give employees recourse if they are unfairly sacked during this time.

No they have not dropped their policy. It is another Orwellian rebrand. The entire point of a trial period is that you can terminate it without fear of legal action. That is why it is a trial. Labour’s policy removes that ability.

It will establish a “referee service”, which has power to reinstate workers

So again it totally undermines the purpose of a trial period which is to allow the employer to establish if someone works out without risk of being stuck with them if they are not up to it.

Overall this is an appalling policy from Labour that grants their union overlords pretty much everything they want. National Awards being the Arkenstone in their treasure chest as it will also force everyone in an industry with one to fund the union, so it brings back de facto compulsory union membership or funding.

Later today Winston will announce Shane Jones is his candidate for Whangarei. This is a smart move by NZ First as it does give them a potential successor to Winston. However neither Ron Mark nor Tracey Martin will be wanting Jones to become Deputy Leader so it will be a very interesting caucus dynamic.

Some will claim that Jones will win Whangarei. So to assess how likely this is, I thought it would be useful to look at how he has done in the three elections he has stood in:

• 2005 – got 24% of the electorate vote in Northland
• 2008 – got 29% of the electorate vote in Northland
• 2011 – got 34% of the electorate vote in Tamaki Makarau

By comparison Shane Reti won Whangarei in 2014 with 55% of the electorate vote.

The Herald reports:

“Computational thinking” and “designing and developing digital outcomes” will become part of New Zealand’s core curriculum for all children in the first 10 years of school from next year.

Prime Minister Bill English and Education Minister Nikki Kaye visited Newmarket School in Auckland today to unveil a $40 million package to retrain teachers and help schools implement the new curriculum subjects, including a “national digital championship” modelled on an Israeli example.

“All young people from Years 1 to 10 will take part in digital technologies learning,” Kaye said.

“Students [in Years 11 to 13] choosing digital technologies pathways for NCEA will develop the more specialised skills that industry partners say are in high demand, through new achievement standards being developed for NCEA Levels 1, 2 and 3.”

Sounds good. Very much needed.

Kaye said the $40 million support package would include $24 million to “upskill” more than 40,000 teachers.

The kids often know more than the teachers!

There will also be around $330,000 in $1000 scholarships from the Ministry of Youth Development, to support young people to develop innovative enterprises, including products or businesses, that have a digital focus.

Kid entrepreneurs. I love it. The best antidote to socialism is innovation.

The Guardian reports:

Colombia’s Farc rebels, who once terrorized the country with kidnaps, killings and attacks on towns, have ended half a century of armed insurgency at low-key ceremony in which the United Nations certified that more than 7,000 guerrillas had turned over their weapons.

“Farewell to arms, farewell to war, welcome to peace,” said the Farc’s top leader Rodrigo Londoño, to a cheering crowd of former combatants at the ceremony in Mesetas, a mountainous area in south-eastern Colombia.

“Today doesn’t end the existence of the Farc; it ends our armed struggle,” said Londoño, best known by his nom de guerre Timochenko. The Farc plan to launch a legal political party in August.

“Today is a special day, the day when weapons are exchanged for words,” said President Juan Manuel Santos, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace prize for his efforts to secure a deal with the Farc to end their part in a 53-year armed conflict that has left an estimated 250,000 dead, tens of thousands of people missing and forced millions from their home.

There are a lot of armed conflicts in the world. It is nice when they end peacefully as has happened in Colombia, and not that long ago also in Sri Lanka.

Amy Adams announced:

The Guardian reports:

Nicola Sturgeon has abandoned her demands for a new independence referendum before the Brexit deal is signed, after her party lost a string of seats to pro-union parties in the general election.

Admitting she needed to “reset” her referendum strategy, the first minister told Holyrood she accepted there was no widespread support in Scotland for a second vote on independence before the UK leaves the EU.

Sturgeon said her priority now was to focus on getting the best Brexit deal possible, leaving the timescale for staging a new referendum deliberately vague. She implied she wanted to hold it before the next Holyrood election in 2021, adding that her party had a clear mandate to do so at some point.

This is a good thing. You need to see what happens with Brexit before Scotland can make a sensible decision on whether to stay in the UK.

If Scotland was not in the UK, then the 2017 election results would have been:

• Conservative 318 305
• Labour 262 255
• SNP 35 0
• Lib Dems 12 8
• DUP 10
• Sinn Fein 7
• Plaid Cymru 4
• Greens 1
• Total 650 591

A majority of 591 would be 296 so the Conservatives would be able to govern alone.

Stuff reports:

The US Supreme Court handed a victory to President Donald Trump by allowing his temporary bans on travellers from six Muslim-majority countries and all refugees to go into effect for people with no connection to the United States while agreeing to hear his appeals in the closely watched legal fight.

The court, which narrowed the scope of lower court rulings that had completely blocked his March 6 executive order, said on Monday (Tuesday NZ Time) it would hear arguments on the legality of one of Trump’s signature policies in his first months as president in the court’s next term, which starts in October.

The justices granted parts of his administration’s emergency request to put the order into effect immediately while the legal battle continues.

The court said that the travel ban will go into effect “with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” …

Three of the court’s conservatives said they would have granted Trump’s request in full, including Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch.

The decision to overturn parts of the lower court injunctions was unanimous, which is significant.

The three Justices who said they would have stayed the injunctions in full are Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch.

The SMH reports:

Rogue Greens senator Lee Rhiannon could soon be expelled from the party after all nine of her federal colleagues made a formal complaint about her conduct during recent school funding negotiations.

But Senator Rhiannon’s hardline factional supporters have hit back at party leader Richard Di Natale and his allies, calling on them to retract the complaint and hinting at retaliation if it goes any further.

Rhiannon is from the communist faction within the Greens and is very unpopular with her peers. But she has a lot of grassroots support so if they expel her there will be repercussions.

Stuff reports:

Facing growing calls from local government and even from within the National Party for government leadership on the issue of single-use plastic bags, new Associate Environment Minister Scott Simpson looks likely to opt for a levy rather than a ban – and that could be good news for local charities. …

But Simpson told a break-out meeting of delegates at this weekend’s National Party conference that he likes the UK model, where retailers charge shoppers a small fee for plastic bags and keep the money themselves to distribute to charities of their choice. …

“There are a variety of models around the world but I quite like … the model they use in the UK which is you are charged a levy. It is 5p a bag, so it’s not a ban but if you want a plastic bag at the supermarket you pay for it – 5p.

​”Now, the trick that they do – which again seems to be working quite well for them – is that that 5p doesn’t go to the Government, it doesn’t go to the council, it doesn’t sort of disappear into the big consolidated fund.

“The retailer keeps that 5p and then the retailer then distributes that money to charitable causes of their choice. And there is a self-auditing process, and certainly it was my experience when visiting the UK that actually the model seemed, on the face of it, to be working quite well.”

I’m not convinced of the merits of a tax on plastic bags, but if there is to be one I’d much rather the revenue goes to charities rather than to central or local Government. That at least reassures the tax is being done for environmental reasons, rather than just as another way to raise revenue.