Stuff reports:
There is a high risk New Zealand’s tobacco black market could grow significantly, costing the Government over $10 million a year, a declassified document says.
A Stuff investigation last year, which included a reporter purchasing 80 grams of the illicit product, highlighted how easy it is to buy illegal tobacco online.
Police have also raised concerns the black market is fuelling armed robberies and burglaries in Christchurch.
This shows the problems of increasing taxes on a product. There comes a point where more and more people turn to the illegal black market.
Increased excise taxes on tobacco are and have been an effective way of reducing the numbers who smoke. I’m supportive of them. But tax alone won’t do it. If you keep increasing the tax, you’ll keep growing the black market.
The document outlined a possible scenario in which the market could reach a “tipping point” – where illegal tobacco is so much cheaper than legal tobacco that the market begins to boom.
It goes like this: increasing tobacco thefts, illegally imported tobacco, and sales of home-grown tobacco lead to an increased illicit supply.
The increased supply causes the price of illegal tobacco to drop.
The black market increases as cash-strapped smokers turn to illicit sources, therefore making New Zealand an attractive destination for illicit tobacco imports.
This is why the Government can’t rely on tax increases alone and should look to make reduced harm products such as e-cigarettes easier to purchase than normal cigarettes.
Media coverage suggested the black market tobacco trade is booming across the ditch, with reports it is worth more than $1 billion.
Organised criminals are attracted by the huge money at stake and the softer penalties compared to those for importing and dealing drugs.
Customs estimated that black market tobacco made up 2 to 3 per cent of the New Zealand tobacco market, compared with Australia where it was over 14 per cent.
So the question is how do we avoid the Australian experience?
The Herald reports:
Labour leader Andrew Little has confirmed discussions between the party and former Police Association president Greg O’Connor – saying O’Connor “lines up perfectly” with Labour’s calls for better police resourcing.
True they agree there. But Labour has opposed many many Government policies that O’Connor supported. For example their current policy is to abolish the three strikes law. I’m pretty sure O’Connor was a supporter of that.
Stuff reports:
A west Auckland beggar who says he makes up to $150 a day claims a “begging syndicate” aggressively targets shoppers.
Conrad is one of a number of beggars in Henderson’s Lincoln North Plaza. Some of the other beggars – shoppers complain – are aggressive and allegedly work as part of a begging “syndicate”.
Conrad, who did not want to give a surname, says he is one of at least six beggars who consider the plaza “their spot”. He claims he earns between $100 and $150 a day begging at the mall.
Why work when you can get more money begging?
He says he is not aggressive when he begs. “I just ask,” he said.
A local retailer, who requested not to be named, says the beggars use scare tactics and shout at people who do not give them money.
“Most of our customers just give them loose change because they are too scared.”
So it is stand over tactics.
The Herald reports:
Close to tears, New South Wales premier Mike Baird has revealed the ill health of his parents and sister has contributed to his shock decision to resign.
Baird unexpectedly released a statement on Twitter this morning saying that after 10 years in politics, he had decided to retire from public life.
At a media conference in Sydney soon after, an emotional Baird said the ill health of his parents and sister had contributed to the shock decision.
“There is a strong personal cost that comes in public life,” he said.
There certainly is. But still unusual to resign after less than three years as Premier.
Unlike Key who left with very high approval ratings, Baird had got quite unpopular by giving in to the wowsers. He tried to ban greyhound racing and introduced liquor laws that killed off Sydney nightlife and have been very unpopular. Everything the Police and public health activists have been demanding in NZ they got in NSW, and it has killed Sydney nightlife.
It is a lesson to NZ politicians who might be tempted to do the same.
Note only one poll in December, so the average is of Roy Morgan only.
The monthly newsletter summary is:
Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 104, December 2016
There was only one political voting poll in December 2016 – a Roy Morgan. This means the monthly average reflects that poll only.
The average of the public polls sees National 17% ahead of Labour in December, down 7% from November.
The current seat projection is centre-right 57 seats, centre-left 53 which would see NZ First hold the balance of power.
We show the current New Zealand poll averages for party vote, country direction and preferred PM compared to three months ago, a year ago, three years ago and nine years ago. This allows easy comparisons between terms and Governments.
In the United States just before he is sworn in at the 45th President, Trump has a negative 6% favourability. No other recent President-Elect has had a negative favourability rating before they took office.
In the UK Jeremy Corbyn’s net approval rating continues to plummet, now hitting -43%.
In Australia Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party is rising in the polls.
In Canada after a series of gaffes such as his praise for Fidel Castro, PM Trudeau’s approval rating has dropped by 14%, but is still a relatively strong +12%.
We also carry details of polls on National’s leadership, when the summer holidays should be plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.
This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail. If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://curia.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e9168e04adbaaaf75e062779e&id=8507431512 to subscribe yourself.
Stuff reports:
Labour leader Andrew Little has promised to table a bill in Parliament to help re-entry to the Pike River mine drift. …
“The only excuse the Government has given so far for not helping the families get re-entry to the drift of the mine is they are concerned about liability of the directors. Well, we can fix that through legislation.”
Little said he the proposed bill would take liability from the Solid Energy directors and allow experts to go into the drift “to see what can be recovered”.
So the former head of the miners union that campaigned and demanded safer workplaces is now saying he will pass a law removing health and safety liability from the most dangerous workplace in New Zealand, where 29 people died.
What a sad hypocrite.
John Armstrong writes:
Bill English has done the right thing in following John Key’s example and opting to maintain National’s prime ministerial boycott of national day commemorations at Waitangi. …
The new prime minister’s decision to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps, and stay away from Waitangi, is the right one not only for himself.
It is the right one for the National Party.
Of even more significance, it is more likely than not the right decision for the country.
The brutal truth is that while the Treaty’s influence has grown to the point where it is now cemented into New Zealand’s unwritten constitution, Waitangi Day is sinking under the weight of its conflicting roles.
It doubles as a mechanism for acknowledging legitimate Maori grievances past and present while also serving as the country’s national day and which is about projecting an image of unity and happy families.
Divisiveness and inclusiveness are oil and water. They don’t mix.
No they don’t.
Id like to see us have a Waitangi Day and a New Zealand Day. One to focus on the Treaty (which is important) and one to focus on celebrating everything great about New Zealand (which can include the Treaty but is far more than that)
The Herald reports:
A Green Party candidate is aiming to be the first refugee to become an MP in New Zealand.
Auckland barrister Golriz Ghahraman, originally from Iran, has been confirmed as a candidate for the general election.
She says electing a refugee to Parliament would send a strong message during a global refugee crisis and at a time of rising anti-refugee and immigrant sentiment.
“It would be historic for New Zealand and I think it will mean something at this particular moment in a time when we are seeing one of the worst humanitarian disasters in a lifetime in the Middle East,” Ghahraman said.
“To say that someone fleeing that part of the world could actually be so accepted, that she could take part in a democratic society, would be really meaningful.
“Especially with the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Brexit, I got to the point where I thought some of us who are witnessing this actually need to put our hands up and be at the table in the higher levels of governance.”
Her family fled Iran’s repressive Islamic regime in 1990 when she was 9 and they were granted political asylum in New Zealand.
“Having an ambitious, educated mother, she was mostly the driver of us moving away, and she had a lot of trouble continuing to work because she wouldn’t adhere to Islamic dress codes and eventually it became dangerous for us,” she said.
The family travelled to New Zealand on the advice of a relative, who was also a refugee, and found the country was “incredibly welcoming”, she said.
The 35-year-old has since built up an impressive CV as a human rights lawyer in New Zealand and overseas. She worked as a prosecutor at United Nations tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, where heads of state were on trial for mass atrocities. After getting her masters degree in International Human Rights Law at Oxford University she also worked on the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia.
Great to see a refugee do so well in New Zealand they gain a Masters from Oxford and want to stand for Parliament. There will be many areas where I disagree with her, but I welcome her candidacy.
The Greens are certainly doing far better than Labour in attracting young talented New Zealanders to stand for them.
David Seymour writes in Stuff:
We probably shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, but the Gold Card is one of those annoying fixtures on New Zealand’s policy landscape. In its own small way, it represents everything wrong with New Zealand politics.
Cynics might think I’m just annoyed because it provides an answer to the question “what has Winston Peters actually done for the last 20 years”, but he probably didn’t even think of it himself, anyway.
If stories around Wellington are true, the way it came about borders on corruption. It was not done to benefit over-65s. It was the work of a very crafty bus company lobbyist who thought “how can I get an extra few million dollars of taxpayers’ money thrown at our industry?”
Of course, just asking for money would not work, the private benefit had to be dressed up as some kind of public good. What could sound nobler than combining senior citizens with public transport? So, he fed the idea to New Zealand First, et voila.
Yep a genius move from the lobbyist who managed to get taxpayers to hand over tens of millions of dollars to transport operators.
Perhaps those less-than-admirable means could be justified by noble ends, but what is the justification for taxing $26 million dollars a year so that anyone, including millionaires, can take a free ferry to lunch on Waiheke Island?
If (and that is a big if) there is a problem with affordability of public transport, it should be targeted on need not age.
This post is part 2 in a 3 part series coinciding with the end of the Presidency of Barack Obama on January 20th and covers a variety of domestic policy matters. Obama claims the economic turnaround after the GFC, Obamacare and environmental issues as his signature achievements. This is a more critical look at some highlights of his 8 year term.
Economic recovery
Despite the enactment of a near $1 trillion stimulus package in 2009 designed to attempt to lift the US out of the 2008 post GFC recession, it was clear that the stimulus was targeted more at Democrat constituencies such as budget strapped left leaning cities and protecting various unions such as the infamous bailout of General Motors that shafted bondholders to protect United Auto Workers jobs. Obama sheepishly had to admit when the results of the stimulus fell far short of expectations, that there weren’t as many “shovel ready” jobs as he thought. In fact, Prof Alan Blinder at Princeton and Moody’s economist Mark Zandi calculated in 2012 that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or ARRA (as the stimulus was called) actually cost more than the economic growth it generated for a net loss of $51 billion!
The failure of the stimulus and of Obama’s economic policies in general have resulted in the worse recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. This chart below, produced by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, tracks all post WW2 recoveries in terms of GDP growth over time and the Obama recovery (2007 in red) has been the longest and slowest recovery from any of the 12 post war recessions.
Obama’s 8 years in office have resulted in the following negative economic statistics:
Obamacare
Obamacare (or the Affordable Care Act as it is more formally known) is President Obama’s signature piece of legislation and touted by him and his supporters as one of his greatest domestic policy achievements. Expanding the availability and affordability of healthcare has been the dream of several Presidents given the US’s unique, complex and costly healthcare system. Unfortunately, Obama came to the task with plenty of liberal ideological baggage and he only sought big top-down solutions to the problems. Rather than look at raft of simpler and less complex reforms that would free up the clunky insurance based system, he proposed a complex jam down that added new layers of cost and complexity. When it was apparent that he was uninterested in any market based reforms as proposed by Republicans, he opted for the big government driven overhaul that was replete with mandates and taxes. Obama made it clear he was going to pass this reform come hell or high water and so it was that, unique in US legislative history in the case of landmark groundbreaking legislation, he did so without a single vote from the opposing party.
So unpopular was Obamacare from the outset and the way Obama and the Democrats chose to implement it, that it led to the unprecedented loss of the normally very safely Democratic Massachusetts senate seat vacated by the death of liberal icon Ted Kennedy. Scott Brown led a people’ revolt based around denying Obama a filibuster proof majority in the Senate to stop Obamacare. Down to 59 seats after the January 2010 MA special (like a by) election, Obama was forced to engage in legislative sleight of hand via what is called reconciliation. Only budget bills can pass the Senate by simple majority, all others are subject to the filibuster which the GOP senators were more than prepared to use. Senate Democrats created a shell budget bill and emptied it out and inserted the Obamacare legislation wording inside the shell and passed that new ‘budget’ bill by simple majority, parliamentary chicanery that poured fuel on the fire of an already unpopular law.
Why has Obamacare been so unpopular when its goals (to extend healthcare to the uninsured) were so altruistic? There are 4 main factors that led to its widespread popularity:
1 – Obama promised that premiums would stabilize then go down due to economies of scale. In fact, they went up, in some states massively. Some families have seen their premiums more than double over the last 5 years. This occurred because the whole edifice was premised on forcing the young and healthy to buy insurance when normally they opt out because their medical needs are infrequent and cheap enough to cover out-of-pocket. Many refused to buy costly polices despite possible fines thus forcing insurers to try and recover the costs of the unhealthy people they were now forced to cover and that could only be done by increasing premiums. This problem has escalated over time not improved so the year-on-year premium increases have gotten worse not better.
2 – Obama promised repeatedly that if you liked your doctor you could keep your doctor. In reality, many of the plans offered through the exchanges offered only approved doctors on proscribed networks forcing many to give up existing doctors; sometimes specialists that were long sought after due to them treating unique even life threatening conditions. Many were forced by financial necessity onto networks with so few available doctors that long waiting lists to be seen became a feature for many forced to find a new GP on their new network.
3 – Obama promised if you like your plan you can keep your plan. In reality, employers were forced by compulsory mandates to offer comprehensive mandated coverage for all employees in a one-size-fits-all mentality meaning people were paying for coverage of things they never needed (e.g. if you don’t smoke or drink, you don’t need cover for drug/alcohol treatment or if you are a couple over 55, you don’t need cover for obstetrics). This meant people’s policies often were changed as employers and the self-employed looked for more affordable options. This usually meant a big increase in deductibles and a much higher out of pocket contribution as well as lower aggregate coverage caps all coupled with higher premiums. Many millions of people ended up with inferior and yet more costly cover.
4 – Problems with the exchanges. Creating the Obamacare insurance exchanges (online marketplaces to compare insurance policies on offer) became a massively costly exercise at the Federal level and for several states that tried to set up state exchanges. The Federal exchange cost hundreds of millions of dollars and yet was virtually inoperative on the day of launch and it took months before it was remotely functional. Several states poured tens of millions into state exchanges that were never functional and had to be abandoned in favour of the using a state portal on the federal exchange (as many smaller states opted for). Furthermore, as the fiscal instability and unaffordability of the whole Obamacare system got worse and worse for the insurance companies, more and more pulled out of the exchanges leaving many in counties across the US with only one costly insurance option available in the exchange. Right now, one third of Americans live in counties with only one insurance option on the exchange.
Federal government subsidies are available for lower income earners to take the sting out of the premium increases but for the middle class and self-employed, health insurance for many has become prohibitively expensive whilst the good coverage they had enjoyed for decades was now curtailed and limited. This was one of the hidden reasons why Clinton lost the election because she was not committed to anything more than tinkering round the edges of what had become a very unpopular policy and the 2017 Obamacare policy renewals with hefty premium increases arrived about 10 days before the November 8th election. Obama did help 20 million more people get coverage but did it on the backs of the remaining 270 million (who had coverage) who now pay a more for an inferior product. Messing with healthcare has come at a huge cost to the Democrats who can place some of the blame for their losses at the House, Senate and State level fairly and squarely on the shoulders of Obamacare.
IRS targeting of conservatives
Early in Obama’s second term it was revealed that the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS – the US equivalent of the IRD) had deliberately targeted right wing advocacy groups for special attention when applications were made for charitable tax exempt status. Specific provisions of the tax code allow advocacy groups with not-for-profit trading activity to solicit tax free donations under certain conditions. Liberal groups applying were subject to normal scrutiny and receive authorsations within the usual time frame. Conservative groups (specifically those associated with the so-called Tea Party movement) were subject to petty time wasting delays, excessively intrusive questioning, endless requests for additional paperwork and key, high profile conservative groups were subject to random audits. This targeting was done in the latter part of Obama’s first term creating the impression that Democrats were trying to silence conservative opposition in the run up to Obama’s 2012 re-election.
When this illegal activity was uncovered, the IRS maintained at first it was a rogue operation initiated from a regional office only in Ohio. When it panned out to be a head office (and higher) request, the key senior manager at the IRS responsible for administering and driving the policy (Lois Lerner) refused to answer questions put by Congressional investigators by pleading the 5th Amendment (the right to not incriminate one’s self in court), reinforcing conservative views that she has something serious to hide. Congressional investigators subpoenaed her email records and were met with lengthy and elaborate stonewalling with excuses like her hard drive and cell phone emails had been destroyed. It became clear that the Administration was trying to hide the involvement of the White House because it exercised what is called Executive Privilege over almost all communications with the IRS over this matter. Frustrated at the lies and obfuscation by the IRS Commissioner John Koskinan, some Congressional Republicans called for his impeachment. It was a scandal that the MSM were relatively uninterested in covering. Had the Bush White House IRS appointees targeted liberal groups in like manner, it would’ve gotten Watergate level coverage.
Fast and Furious
Fast and Furious was the name given to a programme organized by the head office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a division of the Department of Treasury. The aim of the programme was to flush out potential US based suppliers of illegal arms to the Mexican drug cartels. Undercover agents entered registered US arms dealers to make purchases of weapons posing as cartel members and these sales were supposed to be tracked. Various regional managers in the ATF voiced serious objections to the programme as the tracking mechanism were weak and ineffectual. Rather than snap supposedly rogue gun dealers in the US (none were found to have breached firearms sales restrictions), the Administration become responsible for distributing hundreds of high powered pistols and semi-automatic weapons into the hands of the ruthless Mexican cartels. This fueled a fresh orgy of violence that led to the deaths of thousands of innocent bystanders in the increasingly brutal war between the cartels over the drug turf, some of which spilled over the border into US border states. Border Patrol Office Brian Terry and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jamie Zapata were both identified as being murdered by weapons allowed into cartel hands by Fast and Furious.
The scandal within this scandal was the attempt by the Administration to blame the existence of the failed programme on the Phoenix office of the ATF when in reality, knowledge and approval of the programme went at least as high as the head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Eric Holder. Holder was proven to have lied to Congress when he testified under oath that he had no knowledge of the programme when evidence was unearthed that he did know. This led to an unprecedented motion of contempt passed by the House of Representatives. While Obama stuck by Holder and did not sack him, the scandal tainted Holder stayed for the remainder of his tenure and he resigned part way into Obama’s second term and was replaced by Loretta Lynch.
VA waiting lists
The Veterans Administration is the only 100% government run health system in the US (apart from those on Indian Reservations) and provides free health care to all US military personnel and their families. Even Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the poor) are programmes that involve Federal government subsidies towards private sector health providers. In terms of the level and quality of service the VA provides vets, it has been a weeping sore for some time. In April 2104, it exploded into a full-blown scandal when it transpired that the Phoenix VA Hospital administrators had been leaving vets on lengthy waiting lists for essential medical treatment that then led to the untimely death of 35 vets and then covered up the failure in its systematic reporting on meeting wait list targets all the while pocketing large bonuses for supposedly exceeding the targets. On further examination, it turned out that five more VA hospitals across the country had been indulging in a similar cover up.
In 2014 The Secretary of the VA General Shineski eventually resigned over the scandal but the mid-level managers who perpetrated the fraud were never fired but placed on gardening leave with most eventually reinstated due to the complex, arcane union driven appeals process. Obama appointed Proctor and Gamble CEO Robert McDonald as the new VA Secretary and offered soothing spin about the problems being cleaned up but it appeared that little of substance was done to address the underlying systemic management failures that lay behind the scandal other than to ask Congress for billions more in funding.
Executive Amnesty on Immigration
Democrats in general (and Obama in particular) see illegal immigration as being very much to their political advantage. By allowing illegals in by not properly policing the borders and not catching up and returning illegals caught by law enforcement and supporting a path to citizenship, it means a steady flow of new Democrat voters.
Rising illegal migrant numbers has lead to an increase in violent crime in border states (as some of the Mexican drug war spills over into the US), state education and health budgets are strained by the influx of new children that can’t speak English and people who get sick and go to county emergency rooms. Whole suburbs of cities get taken over by Hispanic migrants and US citizens become the unwitting victims of the random acts of violence (murder and rape) by illegals and their gangs.
Because illegal immigration is mostly unpopular with the majority voting public, attempts at immigration reform flounder in Congress. Democrats universally oppose anything other than no real border controls and a full path to citizenship and elite moderate Republicans are usually weak on border enforcement and support some kind of amnesty and a path to citizenship albeit slower and harsher than what Democrats want. Rank and file voters revolt when these alliances unite in Congress and attempt to reform the system and the issue gets postponed over and over again.
Even with a record House majority and a filibuster proof Senate (2009 – 2010), Obama could not get his permissive reform passed so he decided to cut through the usual legislative pathway and passed a sweeping amnesty by Executive Order bypassing Congress by using his power as the head of the Executive through such things as:
Such unconstitutional conduct has been stopped at the Federal appeals court level but is indicative of Obama’s disdain for normal lawmaking and seeking to impose an unpopular policy on an unwilling electorate to please the ideological leanings of his own party via the back door.
Decline of race relations
Politicisation of the bureaucracy is a feature of the American political system with over 3,000 political appointees who fill the upper echelons of every US Federal Government agency. Nowhere in the Obama Administration was politicisation taken further than ever before than in the Department of Justice. It proceeded to act on a number of race based issues that skewered dramatically in favour of what is called affirmative action including:
The response of radical black advocates was to form the Black Lives Matter movement (generously funded by left wing billionaire George Soros). BLM has aggressively targeted police departments all over the US and this has fueled the rise of targeted random shootings of mostly white police officers. Since Ferguson almost 20 policemen have been shot by radical anti-cop activists in ambush style killings. BLM protests are intrusive and sometimes violent and in key minority dominated cities, has led to riots and lootings. The level of intrusive policing has scaled back leading to an increase in property and violent crime across large cities in the US with heavily black populations the most glaring example being Chicago which has seen a sharp upswing in gun related shootings and killings.
Solyndra
Solydra was a rapidly growing manufacturer of solar panels based in California that became a darling of the new Obama Department of Energy that was heavily focused on alternative energy sources. In 2009, Solyndra was given over $500 million in combined grants and loans and proceeded to build a fancy factory in Fremont, California, one of the most costly and bureaucratic places in the country to open a new factory. By 2011 it had shut its doors and gone bankrupt leaving 1,100 people out of work. Upon investigation, it turned out that the company’s finances were shaky from the start and its business plan very weak but Obama’s highly ideological anti fossil fuel Energy Secretary Steve Chu wanted a showpiece of the Administration’s commitment to green energy and ignored the objections of more savvy business analysts at the Office of Management and Budget and pushed ahead with the loans to create a great green energy photo op for President Obama. The scandal had political overtones with major Obama donor billionaire Jim Kaiser accused of channeling some of the D of E loan back to Democrats via his campaign donations due to his position on the Solyndra board. There were several similar but smaller defaults on loans made to politically favoured green energy companies.
Spying on journalists
In one of the most egregious and naked displays of power in the entire Obama term came when Eric Holder’s Department of Justice ordered agents to track the movements, phone calls and emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen ostensibly because they believed him to be the source of leaks to the North Koreans. Holder initially tried to deny he’d signed off on the surveillance until forced to admit that he did under oath. The reporting of this surveillance was perhaps one of the few times when the Obama Administration came under withering fire from the MSM; many of their reporters decrying the chilling effect such spying would have on free speech and their to get their confidential sources for stories to open up.
Environmental overreach
The Obama Administration EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has been one of the most ideologically aggressive in its history. When it was clear that Obama could not get Cap and Trade or a Carbon tax through even the heavily Democratic Congress, he resorted to the enactment of the environmental movement’s aggressive anti-fossil fuel anti-business agenda by executive edict via EPA findings and rulings. The EPA used older legislation such as the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act to drive coal mines and coal fired power plants out of business, to restrict oil drilling on Federal land and in the Gulf of Mexico and to punish industry through zealous interpretations of these laws forcing some into costly and sometimes bankrupting litigation. The ultimate irony came when the EPA itself was the cause of a massive chemical spill into the Colorado River that had a devastating effect on local Indian tribes. The EPA were utterly unrepentant and attempted to deny blame all the while prosecuting business aggressively for far less egregious offences. The EPA also displayed contempt at attempts by Congress to scrutinize its efforts and have it follow laws rather than govern by regulatory fiat via aggressive Findings. The EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was found to have used a series of private email addresses via which she communicated with environmental lobbyists to avoid Congressional scrutiny.
Obama’s intensely ideological stance on environmental issues was most apparent in the way he handled the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Despite strenuous efforts to avoid any environmentally sensitive sites, Obama did the bidding of the various environmental groups by stalling the approval for years with needless ‘reviews’ before finally killing the deal killing with it the tens of thousands of well paying mostly union jobs that would arise from its construction. The irony is the environmental damage from oil shipped by rail (from the huge rise in oil rail car accidents and spillages) could have largely been avoided by transporting the oil via the Keystone pipeline.
Conclusion
Obama has left a very chequered domestic policy legacy. There were serious scandals that were poorly reported by a largely sycophantic press and his signature liberal initiatives have largely collapsed and failed under the predictable burden of their own ideological flaws. Obama’s legacy will be quickly erased by President Trump mostly because very little of what Obama was bipartisan and so lodged in the popular psyche of Americans.
Stuff reports:
Australia has declared the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) not dead ahead of key trade talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Sydney on Saturday, despite opposition to the trade pact from US President-elect Donald Trump.
The talks between Australian Prime Minister Turnbull and Abe also come amid heightened regional tension as China asserts its claims over the disputed South China Sea, setting up a potential clash with the incoming Trump administration.
“Talk of the TPP being dead is premature. We need to give the Americans time to work through this issue,” Australian Trade Minister Steven Ciobo told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio on Friday.
It’s dead Jim.
Tom O’Connor writes in Stuff:
The recent discovery of human waste along a popular cycling track in Taupo was as predictable as it was avoidable. …
But do we really want further increases in the hordes who already clog our special places each summer simply to provide increased profits for the self-serving exploiters of the tourism industry?
No doubt they will trot out the mindless and false mantra that tourism brings jobs and extra money that eventually flows into the nation’s economy. Most of the tour packages are sold offshore and most of the jobs are poorly paid. Furthermore, we could also say the same about drug trafficking.
First Mr O’Connor equates tourism to drug trafficking.
Secondly he just ignores the fact tourism brings in around $10 billion a year to New Zealand, and the tourism sector has around 110,000 jobs.
We need to be doing much more than simply throwing the doors to New Zealand open to endless crowds of tourists who will crowd and foul our scenic places, pose a danger on our roads and put unbearable pressure on limited infrastructure. We need national regulations for mitigation and that must include a realistic cap on visitor numbers.
This may be the stupidest proposal of all time. Or at least for a few months.
Scores of countries have visa free travel to New Zealand. To have a cap on tourist numbers means we would have to impose visas on every country on Earth. It would also break several agreements we have. The result would be a massive decrease in not just tourism, but all travel to NZ and also would mean many countries would retaliate with a visa requirement for NZers.
I don’t know a single country in the developed world that has a cap on visitor numbers. There is a reason for that.
Yet Mr O’Connor wants this because someone took a shit by a cycling track.
By this logic New York should scrap the New York marathon because some competitors answer the call of nature where they shouldn’t.
The Herald reports:
Chris Liddell, the Kiwi joining Donald Trump’s administration as an assistant to the President and director of Strategic Initiatives, is one of New Zealand’s leading businessmen.
The 58-year-old’s impressive C.V. includes stints as the chief financial officer of Microsoft and General Motors.
While at GM, he helped engineer its US$23 billion float in 2010 – at the time one of the biggest sharemarket listings in history.
The chairman of accounting software maker Xero, the father-of-two has held positions as the CFO of International Paper, a chief executive of Carter Holt Harvey and co-CEO of investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston.
A companion to the New Zealand Order of Merit, Liddell also chairs Next Foundation – an environmental and education fund.
Liddell told the Herald in late 2015 that he sees philanthropy as a natural extension of his business career. “I don’t see them as two separate things – just a natural part of life’s journey.” Liddell said at the time that he came from a “relatively poor” background.
“My father died when I was young and left my mother with five kids at school,” he said.
“If it hadn’t been for the New Zealand education system and all the other things that we benefit from in New Zealand, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that I’ve had.”
Liddell is a globally successful Kiwi. Regardless of what you think of Trump he is President of the United States for the next four or eight years, so having a Kiwi in his White House should be beneficial to us.
If the reports are correct that he is an Assistant to the President, that makes him a very senior staffer. The three levels of staff are:
And below that are all the staff not directly appointed by the President.
Former Clerk of the House David McGee writes:
New Zealand has a three-year term for Parliament. This is short by international standards. Only the United States House of Representatives, at two years, is shorter among major nations.
It is not unreasonable to expect that persons who are elected to Parliament will serve out the full term of this relatively short period. That is, after all, the basis on which they offered themselves for election in the first place.
Yet, increasingly, membership of Parliament for a maximum of three years is seen as being at the convenience of each member perhaps more accurately at that of the member’s party, rather than as an obligation undertaken when elected.
Thus there has been a noticeable tendency for list members who are intending to step down at the next election to resign in the final year of the term (either voluntarily or at the party’s prompting) so as to make way for a candidate who is expected to have an ongoing interest in a parliamentary career.
In this way, for many members, the already short parliamentary term becomes an even shorter one. For every member a parliamentary career is converted into something that one has the ability to leave costlessly in political terms at any time, rather than being a commitment to public service for the life of a parliament.
In my view this is deleterious to the institution of Parliament and to the sense of obligation that members should feel to it.
“New blood” is infused into Parliament at the not infrequent intervals that a general election provides.
It does not require members to retire early to provide it. Members in the final year of a Parliament can and should be expected to contribute to its work for the full term that they have signed up to regardless of their intentions to stand or not at the next election.
Consequently, there should be stronger disincentives both to members and to parties to prevent the early jumping of ship that has become endemic.
In the case of list members, the remedy is quite simple: any vacancy occasioned by resignation should not be filled.
That would certainly stop the resignations.
Not filling such a vacancy would largely eliminate list resignations as they are almost always promoted by the parties themselves.
They would cease to occur if this meant that a party’s votes in Parliament would be permanently reduced.
No way Russel Norman and Kevin Hague would have bailed if the Greens did not get new MPs to replace them.
Electorate members, on the other hand, do represent constituents and it is unacceptable not to full such vacancies.
The present law allowing vacancies arising within six months of a general election to be left unfilled is inherently undemocratic and should not be extended.
But resignations occurring further out from this period need to be discouraged.
Consequently, as a condition of being declared elected, electorate members should be required to enter into a bond to serve through the full term of the parliament.
The amount of the bond would not cover the full cost of a byelection (indeed, that would not be its intention) but it should be sufficiently high to provide a financial disincentive to resignation for the member and for the party backing the member.
Would also be effective. However possibly less so. A by-election costs a party up to $100,000 anyway so if the bond was say $25,000 then it might not be much of a deterrent.
In the case of both list and electorate members, resignation without these consequences would be permitted on health grounds proved to the satisfaction of the Speaker or the Electoral Commission.
Sounds fair.
But there may be ways to game such a system. An MP could take out citizenship of another country (if eligible) and use that as a way to force their departure from Parliament with sanction. Another is if they gain a job as a public servant.
Audrey Young has the numbers on how significant this is:
In the 20 years before MMP began in 1996, there were 14 vacancies – nine caused by resignations of MPs and six by deaths while in office.
In the 20 years since MMP there have been 48 vacancies – 30 of which have been by list MPs resigning, according to data from the Parliamentary Library.
So more than tripled.
The Herald reports:
Labour and the Green Party will release joint policies in the coming months and plan to tour the country with a joint policy statement – as well as have their leaders deliver “state of the nation” speeches at the same event.
This is excellent. I encourage Labour to include the Greens in all their major media events.
The Herald reports:
Prime Minister Bill English would have been entitled to feel quite cock-a-hoop when he rolled up to 10 Downing St for his meeting with Theresa May early this morning.
The Times newspaper has run a joint opinion piece from English and May in which they pledged their troth to one another by vowing to sign a free trade agreement once May had triggered Brexit and removed Britain from the European Union.
The speed with which New Zealand pelted up the aisle the minute the UK announced it was to be single was almost unseemly. But it paid off.
The opinion piece talked up the possibility of a Commonwealth trade area as well as committing to a bilateral New Zealand – UK agreement.
In it the leaders say that, as Britain prepares to leave the European Union, “we are determined to open a new and exciting chapter in the close friendship between our two countries”.
That will involve working towards a “bold” new UK-NZ Free Trade Agreement. And, while the UK is part of the EU, it will continue to support an EU-NZ FTA.
Would be great to have FTAs with both the UK and the EU. I suspect we will get a far cleaner FTA with the UK.
Stuff reports:
Labour leader Andrew Little is to run as a list-only candidate in this year’s election, opening the way for councillor Paul Eagle to win the party’s nomination for the Rongotai seat.
His decision means the leaders of the two biggest parties – Little and Prime Minister Bill English – will not contest constituencies although the leaders of all the other parties in Parliament have signalled they will be standing in electorates.
Little has previously been defeated in the New Plymouth seat twice by National backbencher Jonathan Young but it was long rumoured he may seek to stand in Deputy Leader Annette King’s Rongotai seat, where he lives, if she stood down – a decision she made late last year.
There can be little doubt Little wanted the seat. He has lived in Rongotai for many many years and it is a rock solid seat for Labour – a seat for life. And as Andrew wants a long career in politics, of course he wants it.
But he wasn’t assured of beating Paul Eagle who has long been Annette’s favoured replacement. It says something that the Labour Deputy Leader was not willing to support the Labour leader to take over her seat.
Four of Labour’s top six MPs are based in Wellington. That shows how isolated they have got.
Also of interest is that if Labour do worse in 2017 than they did in 2014, Little might not even get back to Parliament as a List MP!
With the second term of President Barack Obama about to end in five days’ time on January 20th, it is appropriate to look back on his Presidency and determine the success or otherwise of his terms in office. This analysis of the Obama Presidency will be broken into 3 sections over the next few days:
1 – Electoral impact of his Presidency on his own party’s electoral fortunes.
2 – His Domestic Policy legacy
3 – His Foreign Policy legacy
Back in December 2014 just after the disastrous 2014 midterm elections where the Democrats lost control of the Senate, I posted this http://wp.me/peNSN-nvg producing charts from renown University of Virginia Political Science Professor Larry Sabato comparing the losses of Congressional seats, State legislators, seats and Governorships under each 2 term President since World War 2. On the strength of results up to and including 2014, Obama had been the worst post war President in terms of the losses his party suffered under his Administration.
With the 2016 Presidential Election seeing the defeat of his Democrat Presidential successor Hillary Clinton and Republicans remaining in control of the both the House and the Senate, it is time to revisit the sum total of how his party has fared under his full 8 year Presidency. Please note that the last table is my work but I have tacked it underneath Larry Sabato’s previous tables and used his numbers for the previous elections (except for the 2008 Democrat senate numbers because for all of 2009, Obama had filibuster proof majority of 60 in the Senate until the Democrats lost the Massachusetts senate seat of Ted Kennedy in a special election in January 2010).
As you can see, Obama has presided over higher losses at EVERY level of government and, in the case of State legislatures (and their members), the losses have been staggering and close to twice as much in percentage terms as the average losses for a 2 term President.
By any electoral measure, Barack Obama’s Presidency has been a disaster. He has left his party out of power and bereft of a substantial bench of replacements at all levels of government. A final indicator of the dire plight the Democrats find themselves after 8 years of an Obama Presidency; in 2008 Democrats had what is called the trifector (control of the Governorship and BOTH State legislative chambers) of 16 states. This has plummeted to just 5 (California, Hawaii, Oregon, Connecticut and Rhode Island)!
Family First released:
Almost a decade on from the passing of the controversial anti-smacking law, a poll has found continued widespread rejection of the law and an admission that 2 out of 3 NZ’ers would flout the law if they believed it reasonable to correct the behaviour of their child. …
In the independent poll of 846 people undertaken by Curia Market Research, only 23% of respondents believe a smack that is reasonable and for the purpose of correction should be a criminal offence – similar to levels in a 2014 poll. 72% disagree with the current law (72% – 2014) and 5% were unsure / refused to say. Opposition to the law was highest in provincial and rural areas, amongst current parents of children under 18, and National and NZ First supporters.
In a further question, 65% of respondents say they would smack their child to correct their behaviour regardless of the anti-smacking law. 28% said they wouldn’t, and 7% were unsure or refused to say. NZ First supporters were most likely to flout the law.
Curia did this poll for Family First and we have done similar ones for many years. What is interesting is how consistent they are. You may have thought over time there would be less disagreement with the law, but in fact it has remained at around 70% since at least 2010.
By Senor John Stringer – formerly “coNZervative” (and perhaps again).
FINAL: I mentioned in earlier posts about the famous May Square where Argentines protest (where that Athenian style Catholic basilica and the French revival architecture is). This of course is where ‘The Mothers’ still gather to protest “The Disappeared” under the military junta of Juan Peron. On the ground now around the square are these painted templates of the bonnets of the mothers commemorating their decades long vigil (and lack of justice).
The only Russian Orthodox church in Buenos Aries. The cross faces a different way that normal; that is because Russian church crosses always face Russia.
I loved the public sculpture of Buenos Aries everywhere, commemorating everything or just art for arts sake. This enriches Buenos Aries and I hope we emphasise this a lot more in Christchurch as part of the rebuild: extravagant; quirky; fun; inspiring. Here are some samples.
This stunning Donatello-style door
A fountain with bronze sculptures of bull-rushes
An modernist eagle; and this seat is very cool; they have lots of them scattered throughout the city – it is sold metal but looks soft and comfortable
I guess it dissuades the homeless sleeping on them so pedestrians can sit.
Argentines are really in to the gaucho culture (cowboys) of the pampas and you’ll see sculptures along that vein quite a lot like these two; one a brightly painted horse the brown one is covered in glitter. This was an idea taken up in Christchurch using giraffes and Sydney did it also but with Rio Christs.
Below is “The First Murder” and shows Adam and Eve with Abel. It is truly beautiful and worked in marble. It amazes me how anyone can capture such softness and fluidity carved from a lump of marble (I really admire good sculptors) . The faces and fingers and feet are exquisite
Above: The Monty Python foot?
Below: Typical street scenes in Buenos Aries
Off the streets some of the malls are opulent – much more attractive than NZ malls which seem utilitarian by comparison. Others are cheaper and have rows of small shops (above right) where smaller traders can operate. In some cases they have erected an atrium roof between two buildings to create a mall but not just any roof – a facsimile in Italian or French or Classical style.
You can see above (right) how a glass partition separates two Corinthian columns and spans across to another building to enclose the mall; quite clever.
There was also this enormous Christmas tree still up and the ceiling mural is painted in the style of Diego Rivera (Frida Kahlo’s husband). Argentines are quite open about male and female nudity and we were surprised to see murals of full frontal female nudity where kids pass through with their parents.
You can see here the French influence in this mall mural. There were other more riské murals which you’d never see in a NZ mall.
There are obviously all sorts of restaurants in BA of varying quality and cost to suit your taste like this posher restaurant below. But on our last evening we selected this pirate bar with really cool pirate sculptures in-the-round inside the restaurant and fixed to the exterior. I liked the pirate bandannas of the waiters.
Food costs are comparable with NZ; taxis are cheap ($5 approx) so use those to go everywhere; I recommend the three-hour city bus tour (max 12); we felt perfectly safe and coped perfectly with zero Spanish. The archietcture and arts museums were my highlight and from BA you can skip easily over to Uruguay to see the spectacular ‘Niagara’ falls there. Now that AirNZ flys directly I think Argentina is a great option for a getaway from NZ.
As we sat in our pirate lair on beer and burgers a dramatic electric storm without thunder (like that storm in War of the Worlds) came in like a fireworks display or a rolling menace out of Mordor. The sky flashed blue and purple-pink every few seconds as it rolled up the avenue. A fitting conclusion to our visit. ~ J.
Stuff reports:
New Zealand police say they have laid charges against yachtie Alan Langdon.
Langdon left Kawhia in December on a six-metre catamaran with his six-year-old daughter, Que. He told Kawhia residents they were headed to the Bay of Islands, but wound up in Australia 25 days later.
Search operations failed to locate the pair. They arrived in Queensland on January 11.
“A 49-year-old man is due in Te Awamutu District Court on 25 January 2017, charged with taking a child from New Zealand,” Detective Sergeant Bill Crowe said on Sunday.
Pleased to see this. Having one parent effectively try to steal a child so the other parent can no longer contact them is hideously wrong.