Stuff reports:

The Government will spend $53 million building a pavilion to promote Kiwi business at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai.

The building of a pavilion in the Expo’s sustainability precinct was announced on Sunday by the Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges and the Trade Minister Todd McClay.

Showcasing New Zealand to the world at the United Arab Emirates’ Expo is crucial to boosting economic growth, Bridges said. …

The seven-month expo begins in October 2020 and is predicted to attract 25 million “high value” visitors from across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.

Spending that much money to be at the World Expo may be a good investment. It is quite possible.

But I’d like to know if we have anything more solid to go on that projections. What was the measureable return on investment for Expo 2008 in Spain, Expo 2010 in Shanghai, Expo 2012 in Yeosu and Expo 2015 in Milan?

It seems we are not taking part in Expo 2017 in Kazakhstan? Presumably as not seen as a good investment. So hopefully there is some rigour behind the decision to take part.

Stuff reports:

The Government is creating a new agency as part of efforts to provide more “rigorous and evidence-based” assistance to vulnerable Kiwis.

The Social Investment Agency, to be launched in July, will encourage greater use of data by social sector agencies when making decisions about what sort of support to provide.

Social Investment Minister Amy Adams said the work was about better understanding the needs of vulnerable Kiwis and how government initiatives affected someone across their whole life, not just in one specific area.

“Greater use of data and evidence, and a focus on measuring outcomes, means we can create a system that looks for more opportunities to intervene sooner and more effectively.”

I regard the social investment work as important as the welfare reforms in terms of the potential to improve people’s lives.

Stuff reports:

Erin Moran, best known for playing Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days, has died. She was 56.

Moran’s body was found unresponsive on Saturday afternoon by authorities in the US state of Indiana.

The California-born actress, who also starred in Happy Days spinoff Joanie Loves Chachi, had fallen on hard times in recent years. She was reportedly living out of a motel in Indiana, battling substance abuse.

A sad end.

Happy Days did indeed provide many happy days to my generation. Up until the point it literally jumped the shark, it was great easy viewing.

The Herald reports:

The Government is taking action following a Herald investigation, promising improvement to immigrations standards for those convicted of a criminal offence.

The Herald revealed today that a man who had emigrated to New Zealand had twice been convicted of sex offending since his arrival in 2012, but wouldn’t be deported is his record stayed clean for the next five years.

Sultan Ali Abdul Ali Akbari arrived from Afghanistan in early 2012, and has since sexually assaulted three victims, including two young girls.

Immigration Minister Woodhouse did not comment when first approached by the Herald.

But now he said he would take steps to improve the decision making authority for cases involving residence class visa holders convicted of a criminal offence.

“I have made my expectations very clear when it comes to deportation decisions involving offending of this nature and those expectations are not being met.

“So I am temporarily suspending Immigration NZ’s decision-making authority until I have confidence that the decisions being made are consistent with my expectations.

“This course of action follows today’s New Zealand Herald article regarding an individual whose liability for deportation was suspended, despite the severity of the offending.”

Good to see firm action from the Minister. It was an appalling decision by Immigration NZ not to deport this guy who has already sexually assaulted four women and girls.

Audrey Young writes:

The debate about whether Bill English calls himself a feminist or not looks even more ridiculous this week than it did when he was sworn in as Prime Minister.

Certainly the 55,000 rest home workers and other carers who will receive an extra $2.048 billion over five years in the Government’s first pay equity settlement won’t give a fig what label is attached to him.

Action counts more than words, promises, platitudes or labels.

The extra money in their pay packets, about $100 a week for most full-timers, will transform the lives of these workers who have established that they were low paid because they were women.

It is transforming National’s traditional image as well.

The settlement is the most recent in a series of measures and policy evolution that is seriously challenging Labour’s branding. Yes Labour is still the party that “cares”. But National is the party that “does”.

Not a bad distinction.

Labour claims it will build 100,000 more houses. But the reality is they constantly oppose actual housing developments, have opposed all the RMA changes to make house consenting easier etc etc.

Both of Bill English’s parents ended up in rest homes. His mother was a formidable community activist who helped to form the Farm Works’ Association. Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett raised a daughter as a sole parent and worked in a rest home as nurse aid and dishwasher. Health Minister Jonathan Coleman was raised by his widowed mother. He worked as a GP in Otara and regularly attended patients in rest homes and Workplace Relations Minister Michael Woodhouse’s mother was a nurse in Dunedin.

Some people think National today is the same National of the 1970s when almost all MPs came from privileged backgrounds.

As we remember those who died in service, it is worth recalling how massive the death tolls have been in the last 100 years, but also how thankfully they have been much less in later decades.

• 1914 – 1918 WWI – 17 million killed
• 1917 – 1921 Russian Civil War – 6.7 million killed
• 1927 – 1949 Chinese Civil War – 8 million killed
• 1936 – 1939 Spanish Civil War – 700k killed
• 1939 – 1945 WWII – 60 million killed
• 1950 – 1953 Korean War – 1.3 million killed
• 1954 – 1962 Algerian War – 700k killed
• 1955 – 1975 Vietnam War – 1.5 million killed
• 1966 – 1970 Nigerian Civil War – 1.7 million killed
• 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War 300k killed
• 1980 – 1988 Iran-Iraq War – 600k killed
• 1983 – 2005 Second Sudanese Civil War – 1.4 million killed
• 1998 – 2003 Second Congo War – 3.6 million killed
• 1979 – 2000 Afghanistan War – 2.6 million killed
• 2001 – 2013 War on Terror – 600k killed

WWI saw 42% of New Zealand men (of fighting age) serving in the NZ Forces. 103,000 served, 17,000 died and 41,000 were wounded.

I blogged in November on how Labour MP Phil Twyford launch a Twitter attack in One News journalist Andrea Vance for pointing out that their numbers don’t add up on a major policy (unless you substitute four months for six months).

Well Labour continued with their vendetta by lodging a formal complaint with the BSA. This is very rare. It is not at all uncommon that MPs don’t like how the media have covered an issue. Personally accusing the journalist on Twitter of being biased is very rare and lodging a formal complaint is very very unusual.

So what did the independent BSA find. They rejected Labour’s complaints on every count. They found the story was accurate, fair and balanced.  Some extracts:

We do not consider that the item, or the angle taken, resulted in unfairness to the Labour Party, or that a misleading impression was created by Ms Vance in relation to Mr Jasper’s comments on the costing analysis. As outlined in relation to the accuracy standard, based on the information provided to us we are satisfied that Ms Vance accurately and fairly summarised Labour’s position. As Labour omitted from public disclosure assumptions in costing its policy, Ms Vance sought to draw her own conclusions about this. Her comments represented an opinion open to her and one that she was entitled to present in her role as a political reporter.

That is the key thing – they hid their assumptions. They have no one to blame but themselves – but tried to blame Vance instead.

Bill English has announced a minor reshuffle due to the retirements of Murray McCully and Hekia Parata.

• Nikki Kaye becomes Education Minister (from Parata)
• Gerry Brownlee becomes Foreign Minister (from McCully)
• Mark Mitchell becomes Defence Minister (from Brownlee) and moves inside Cabinet
• Nathan Guy becomes Civil Defence Minister (from Brownlee)
• Simon Bridges becomes Leader of the House (from Brownlee)
• Nicky Wagner becomes Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration (from Brownlee)
• Amy Adams takes some house building (from N Smith)
• Tim Macindoe made Minister of Customs and Associate Education and Associate Transport
• Scott Simpson made Minister of Statistics and Associate Environment and Associate Immigration

Looks to be all pretty sensible. Huge kudos to Nikki Kaye for taking on such a huge portfolio at such a relatively youthful age. Also a big vote of confidence in Mark Mitchell in giving him Defence,

Danyl Mclauchlan reviews the NZ Project by Max Harris:

Max Harris’s book The New Zealand Project is an urgent attempt to confront the monumental issues facing our country. It is a bold, unashamedly idealistic vision of what the future of New Zealand could, and should look like. It confronts our deepest problems – political, cultural, social and economic – and proposes radical solutions. It is a book about values: a book about change, and hope, and love, that dares to consider the impossible. I found it conventional and frustrating, and deeply, deeply depressing.

Why?

If you pay more attention to politics, and read online commentary, or go to political conferences, or progressive hui, and listen to more brilliant left-wing intellectuals agree on What Must Be Done, it gradually becomes apparent that the progressive left has the answer to every problem in politics, except for the problem of how to actually persuade voters to listen to them, and thus affect meaningful political change.

Ouch.

All the talk about What Must Be Done starts to feel less like activism and more like a form of fantasy roleplaying, only instead of pretending to be dragon-slayers, or vampires, progressive intellectuals pretend to be people who are relevant to contemporary politics.

Personally I am a fan of fantasy roleplaying. I am currently a Norse warrior fighting Catholics in the 900s.

Civics education is his preferred solution. It comes up in almost every chapter. Schools should teach children to think what Harris wants them to think: that would solve an awful lot of problems.

I think a number of countries have succesfully trialed this method.

But what about reframing politics via the values of care, community and creativity? Won’t politics with those values beat politics without any values every time? Let’s think about this. Harris’s main complaint about New Zealand politics is that it is dominated by neoliberal ideology. In his chapter on social infrastructure he talks about the homeless, and how we need to help them. And I agree. But when Harris challenges his own argument, as he frequently does, he writes about “hearing people on talkback radio” who say that the homeless are there because they’ve made bad choices, so we shouldn’t help them. Harris reminds the reader that one of his cornerstone values is caring, and that politics should be about those values so we should agree with his policy solutions (housing the homeless and “an end to public and political indifference to homelessness”).

But neoliberalism is more sophisticated than angry blokes on talkback radio, and Harris should realise this because he’s written an entire book denouncing it. What a neoliberal economist or politician would say to his argument is: “Yes! We need values! Caring and community must be at the heart of politics and economics. That’s why we need to understand that people respond to incentives, and make choices based on perceived consequences. If you minimise the individual cost of making bad choices by mitigating the consequences and transferring the cost of those choices to the community, more people will make bad choices, and the cost to the community will be much, much greater. By trying to help them you’ll make many more lives worse, because you’ve encouraged more people to make bad choices, and you’ve made the lives of everyone else in the community much worse as well because they’re meeting those higher costs. To truly honour those values of community and care we need to do the opposite of what Harris wants to do.”

One of the reasons Danyl can be such a good analyst if he understands how the other side thinks. He is right that those on the right will also say we want care, community and creativity. We just disagree on how to achieve them.

Now everyone has values and everyone agrees on them and the debate is about the correct policies to support those values. This needs to be litigated, and the neoliberals – or their conservative or populists heirs – will respond with their own arguments and data, which many intelligent and reasonable people will find genuinely more convincing that those of the progressive left. Now we’re in a world in which the left does not occupy the moral high ground because only they have values and everyone else is an idiot or a monster

Too many on the left do believe that they are the only ones with values, and the right are uncaring monsters or idiots.

As a result there’s still an optimistic faith in those circles that the left’s problems aren’t institutional, or intellectual, or cultural, or social, but rather something that can be solved by finding just the right combination of clever words and metaphors to deploy against its foes.

All they need is a left version of Crosby Textor!

Politics is technocratic because modern societies are complex: many things could be better, but almost everything could be much, much worse, and all the high-minded values in the world are worthless if you can’t keep the lights on.

People value an economy that provides them and their families jobs and a decent income. They value hospitals and schools that are safe and trusted. An electricity system that keeps the power on, a communications network that connects them etc.

The Herald reports:

A man who emigrated to New Zealand has been convicted twice for sex offending since his arrival in 2012 – including while on bail – but will not be deported if his record stays clean for the next five years.

The decision by immigration officials has been criticised, particularly as the man did not completing any rehabilitation programmes or offence-related courses in prison.

The Herald can reveal that Sultan Ali Abdul Ali Akbari arrived in New Zealand from Afghanistan in October 2012 on a resident visa.

In February 2013 Akbari indecently assaulted a woman and was convicted.

Then in 2015 he was jailed for two years and one month for five charges of indecent acts on girls aged 8 and 10 and indecently assaulting an 18-year-old.

That offending happened while Akbari was on bail awaiting trial on the 2013 charge.

At sentencing in the Auckland District Court a pre sentence report stated Akbari’s risk of reoffending was “moderate to high”.

The authorities are nuts to let this guy stay in NZ. In Australia he’d already be on the way home. He’s sexually assaulted four women and girls and is at a moderate to high risk of reoffending.

The Herald can reveal Akbari holds a residency visa but has been granted a deportation liability suspension, removing the ability to deport him back to Afghanistan for five years.

Suspensions can only be granted by the Immigration Minister or a “delegated decision maker”.

In this case a senior INZ official granted Akbari’s suspension.

Immigration spokesman Marc Piercey said: “It’s important to note that if this individual reoffends within the five year suspension period he will breach the conditions of his suspension and will be liable for deportation.”

Why let him assault a fifth women? Madness.

“Other factors included family connections and support in New Zealand, as well as the conditions in the relevant home country and the reasons and circumstances which resulted in a grant of residence in this case in the first place.”

Tough. Yes Afghanistan is not a great place to live but he should have thought of that before all his sexual assaults here.

The polls were right – the top two candidates for French President were centrist Emmanuel Macron and National Front leader Marine Le Pen.

From a policy point of view my preferred President would be Francois Fillon but he deservedly got punished for having his wife on the state payroll for over a decade, despite her not doing any actual work.

The top five candidates were:

1. Macron 23.7%
2. Le Pen 21.7%
3. Fillon 19.5%
4. Melenchon (far left) 19.5%
5. Harmon (socialist) 6.2%

The Socialist Party has been one of the two main parties in France. The current President is from that party. To come 5th and only get 6.2% is humiliating.

The polls indicate Macron should beat Le Pen with 60% to 65% of the vote so he will be the first modern President not from either of the two main parties.

Anne Tolley announced:

Social Development Minister Anne Tolley says the number of people receiving a main benefit has continued to fall, with the proportion of the population on a main benefit (9.6 per cent) the lowest it’s been in a March quarter since 1997.

“At the end of the quarter there were 278,236 people on a main benefit, a decrease of 1,655 (0.6 per cent) compared to last year,” says Mrs Tolley.

“Those receiving Sole Parent Support had the largest drop in the last 12 months, falling by 4,175 (6.3 per cent).

“Budget 2015 increased the amount of places for work-focused case management meaning we now have nearly 50,000 sole parents receiving extra advice and guidance. It’s great to see this targeted support is helping more families into independence.

This is excellent news and shows the benefits of welfare reforms.

Over the last six years there are now 53,000 fewer people on a main benefit. That is a drop of 16%.

Those on jobseeker benefits have dropped by 25,000 or 17%.

The huge drop is a 30% reduction in sole parent benefits, by 27,000. We have a wealth of data that children brought up for sustained periods in welfare dependent households have much much more challenging lives.

The level of supported living benefits has only dropped by 1.1% but as that tends to cover people with permanent incapacity, no surprise.

Also pleasing is the number of under 25s on welfare dropped by 28%. Again data shows us that if someone spends time on welfare very young, they are more likely to stay on there for an extended period. Probably or that reason the numbers on welfare for greater than a year has dropped 16% in the last year.

Considering these drops have happened against a rising population, makes then even better news.

Stuff reports:

A district councillor has come under fire for questionable remarks made on Facebook – barely two months after apologising for his last “racist” rant.

Six formal complaints about councillor Murray Chong have been made to the New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) following a post made to his personal Facebook account on Sunday.

His critical commentary saw him ask who else was tired of “Natori and Labori” giving into “so called” Maori rights.

This is just more pathetic political correctness. Murray Chong is absolutely entitled to have views that are in opposition to what National and Labour have done in the area of Treaty rights.

Those who file formal complaints with the Council are effectively saying they they don’t want anyone to express conservative views on Treaty issues and they will try and get them sanctioned for doing so if they hold public office.

It is quite legitimate to take his views into account when deciding whether to vote for him. It is illegitimate to try and muzzle him through a Council complaints process.

Stuff reports:

Wellington’s mayor is steaming in off a long run-up, and his target is the Basin Reserve’s historic Museum Stand.

The heritage-listed stand, which once contained the players’ tea room, was opened on New Year’s Day 1925, but has not been open to spectators since 2012 because it is earthquake-prone.

Strengthening it could cost up to $8 million, but knocking it down is estimated to cost about $800,000.

After years of debate on its future, Wellington City Council is aiming to make a decision by August. And it is now clear what mayor Justin Lester and his deputy Paul Eagle prefer.

“It’s going to be a very expensive option to have it strengthened and restored, and I’m not sure that can be achieved,” Lester said last week.

I tend to agree, but the same applies to the Town Hall which they are going to spend $100 million on!

The current closure of the Museum Stand deprives the ground of about 1000 seats, and the masterplan recommends demolishing it and creating a new grassed bank for spectators.

That seems sensible. If you want to watch cricket from a stand, we have the Stadium. The Basin is where you go to from cricket from the grass banks.

Left writer Polly Toynbee despairs:

Was ever there a more crassly inept politician than Jeremy Corbyn, whose every impulse is to make the wrong call on everything? It’s not excitingly flamboyant red radicalism that has done for Labour, but his sluggish incompetence at the absolute basics of leadership.

How rarely he has had the chance to wield any power, but on Wednesday he had the very real authority to stop certain calamity for his party and call out Theresa May’s game-playing chicanery. The mother of all bombs is about to drop on Labour, but what does he do? He says: “I welcome the prime minister’s decision to give the British people the chance to vote for a government that will put the interests of the majority first.” What?

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act was designed to stop prime ministers dashing opportunistically to the polls when momentarily at the peak of their popularity. May can only gain two-thirds majority in the Commons if Labour agrees to its own annihilation – which he welcomes. Will this be the last disastrous disservice he does to his party?

And May got the votes, helped by Corbyn.

Who knows what other clumsy damage he may inflict during the campaign. And afterwards, he might not go. Remember Tony Benn celebrating the millions of votes for “socialism” under Michael Foot’s 1983 political suicide manifesto, though Labour had crashed to epic defeat? Fantasy politics reign again when Momentum responds to May’s announcement by tweeting about the “path to victory for Labour”.

Among a few of the three-quarters of Labour MPs – 172 – who voted no confidence in Corbyn last year, I hear strange sounds. Thank God! This will put them out of their misery, as if shooting the sick dog Labour party would put it out of its misery. This election could purge the party’s mortal disease, like a toxic dose of mercury. Never mind if the cure is worse than the illness, at least it ends this time of total paralysis. But that’s another kind of fantasy politics.

This is from the leading leftish journalist in the UK!

Stuff reports:

Would-be Australians will face tough new hurdles – including a new English language and “Australian values” test – and have to wait several more years before being eligible for citizenship, under a major shake-up of the migration programme.

Migrants could be asked whether they support female genital mutilation and forced marriages, or whether it’s acceptable to strike a spouse at home, under proposed values-based citizenship test questions to be put to the public for feedback.

Applicants will also have to demonstrate they have attempted to integrate into Australian society, providing evidence of a job, the enrolment of their children in school, and even membership of community organisations.

An excellent idea. We should do that here.

In NZ there is little incentive to become a citizen as permanent residents have almost all the rights of citizens. I would place a value and premium on citizenship by only having citizens eligible to vote (but grandfathering in all permanent residents as of the date the change is made).

Becoming a citizen should be more than just saying this is the place I want to reside in. It should be about saying “I wish to be a New Zealander”.

The Herald reports:

Labour is shipping in foreign support for its election campaign with dozens of United States’ Democrats signalling an interesting in helping with the campaign.

Excellent. The more people who helped on Clinton’s campaign the better!

The move was uncovered by Te Tai Tokerau contender Hone Harawira, who says it’s “really dumb” of Labour to enlist foreign support “to tell Maori people how to vote”.

But it’s been seized on by Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis as an example of Harawira’s “desperate” attempts to win the seat. …

The Herald asked Harawira if the link up with Dotcom had provided any lessons when it comes to accepting help from foreigners.

He had a one-word response: “Don’t.”

Harawira said his community networks let him know the US support for Labour was on its way after a marae was sounded out to be used for accommodation.

“From what I understand it is to target voter areas where Labour is struggling to get attention.”

Harawira said that was likely to be the Maori vote and it showed “Andrew Little doesn’t think he’s got the Maori volunteer base to get the job done”.

“To bring Americans in seems weird, disconnected and surreal. To do what? Tell Maori how to vote?”

Davis – who wasn’t involved in arranging off-shore support and was unaware of it – said Harawira had hooked up with Dotcom last election in a deal which allowed access to the tycoon’s wealth to fund a joint campaign.

“If he’s going to get millions from a foreigner and he’s complaining about people coming to help, that’s just total hypocrisy.”

This reminds me of Dotcom’s Moment of Truth where a German, a Brit, an American and an Aussie spent a couple of hours lecturing NZers on how they must throw out the evil National Government.

Stuff reports:

Bolger says neoliberal economic policies have absolutely failed. It’s not uncommon to hear that now; even the IMF says so.

But to hear it from a former National Prime Minister who pursued privatisation, labour market deregulation, welfare cuts and tax reductions – well that’s pretty interesting.

“They have failed to produce economic growth and what growth there has been has gone to the few at the top,” Bolger says, not of his own policies specifically but of neoliberalism the world over.

He laments the levels of inequality and concludes “that model needs to change.”

This interview comes as no surprise to me at all. I’ve heard Jim Bolger speak many times since he left office, and he seems to get more left wing in his views everytime. The last time was middle of last year and I commented to a colleague that he now seemed to be to the left of Helen Clark.

This evolution of views is not unique to Jim Bolger. Malcolm Fraser has done similar in Australia.

Stuff reports:

The new National candidate for Rangitata is Andrew Falloon. 

Falloon, born and raised in the region, said it was a “great honour being chosen by local National members to run for Parliament in my home electorate”.

“Rangitata, or Mid and South Canterbury, is deeply a part of who I am and my family’s history. I know our communities well – their aspirations, and the challenges they face.”

He said he would work hard to earn the trust of local communities to “represent them in a National team that will build on the successes of the last few years”.

After studying political science at the University of Canterbury, Falloon has had several researcher or advisory roles in Parliament. He currently works as an Associate Director at the New Zealand Bankers Association.

Falloon will replace current Rangitata MP Jo Goodhew, who has held the seat since 2005. Goodhew was stripped of her ministerial roles during a cabinet reshuffle in December, and announced soon after that she would not seek re-election. 

Falloon said Goodhew had been a “fierce advocate for our area and regional New Zealand”. 

I know Andrew well. He is a great guy who will be a good MP if he retains the seat.

While the seat has a huge majority of 14,107 I think it could be a closer contest than last time. The Labour candidate in 2014 was disowned by the party leadership for his anti-semitic comments about John Key. The new Labour candidate Jo Luxton seems to be one of the better Labour candidates, and of course the retirement of the incumbent MP.

The Herald reports:

Spark is doing away with the public telephone network and replacing it with a next-generation IP-based network, it was announced today.

The telco said the new network, to be progressively rolled out in the next five years, would bring together all voice communications: landline, mobile, video or data-based.

The Converged Communications Network (CCN), as it will be known, will require significantly less infrastructure than the old network, and Spark said today that it would be doing away with some 1300 tonnes of equipment.

This is pretty significant, even thought not surprising. The main phone network is moving to over the Internet.

I can recall when the Internet was something you accessed over the phone network – soon it will be vice-versa.

Who remembers the beeping of the old modems?