Stuff reports:

Police have recruited a former Navy sailor who killed a stranger with a punch to the head to testify of the dangers of late night bars.  

Grenville McFarland, 30, was jailed for the manslaughter of Tarun Asthana, who he killed with a blow to the head in November 2013. 

Police approached McFarland to give evidence to the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority that bars should close earlier to prevent similar tragedies.

This makes my blood boil. The Police are parading around a convicted killer and trying to turn him into a victim, by saying it wasn’t his fault he killed someone – it is the fault of the bar that was open late at night.

This is fucking disgraceful.

Why don’t they also get a convicted rapist to give evidence that he only raped someone because he had had a few drinks, and hence bars should close earlier to help prevent rape.

But Asthana’s mother Yvette said McFarland should take responsibility for his actions rather than blame late night opening hours. 

How disgraceful that the victims of this killer, now have to endure the Police parading him around and effectively implying he was not responsible for his actions.

Yvette Asthana said: “He has to learn to take ownership for his actions. He absolutely should take responsibility for his actions. I pray that he takes ownership.”

She said she missed her son every day. “It’s three years since my boy passed. Tarun was very much a gentleman.”

Tarun’s friend Eddie Lo, who works in the hospitality industry, said closing times were irrelevant in Tarun’s death. 

“Maybe he would have been in a different place, and maybe Tarun would be alive (but) it’s not about the opening hours, it’s about New Zealand’s drinking culture,” he said. 

“My professional opinion is very simple. You can’t blame alcohol. You blame the choices you make.” 

Exactly. Thousands and thousands of people enjoy a drink after midnight and don’t get violent and don’t kill people.

The Police are out of control when it comes to their attempts to force their desire for bar hours on the public. To parade around a convicted killer who blames his crimes on a bar being open is appalling.

A nice obituary in Stuff about John Schnellenberg:

John Schnellenberg was born in Berlin the day before the Nuremberg laws were enacted, depriving German Jews of their rights as citizens. He and his parents narrowly escaped the Holocaust, fleeing Germany in 1938 with the aid of a British diplomat who knew his father. His grandparents were not so fortunate, dying in Theresienstadt concentration camp.

The Schnellenbergs got as far away from Nazism as they possibly could have, settling in Wellington in 1939. Schnellenberg’s father, who had been an executive with the Ford Motor Company in Berlin, acquired a garage – Gunnion Motors – in Wakefield St.

But while Wellington provided the family with a sanctuary, their adopted country presented challenges too.

Living as part of a small Jewish community in an overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon society wasn’t always easy. New Zealand in those days was suspicious of outsiders – more so than ever during the war years, when someone with the name Schnellenberg was likely to be viewed as an enemy alien. The irony that he was Jewish, and therefore had more to fear from the Nazis than anyone, would have been largely lost on insular New Zealanders.

It was at the suggestion of a sympathetic primary school teacher that Hans Wolf Schnellenberg became simply John, although he retained his second name.

Schnellenberg attended Rongotai College before beginning a career with Shell Oil, where his work included economic forecasting. But it was through his involvement in politics that he came to public and media attention.

His parents voted Labour, largely out of gratitude for being granted entry to New Zealand by the government of Michael Joseph Savage, but Schnellenberg gravitated to the National Party.

While living in Upper Hutt, he stood unsuccessfully for the Heretaunga electorate in the 1972 general election and later became one of the few party members to openly challenge the direction National was taking under its authoritarian leader, Robert Muldoon.

Described by his son David as a classic liberal, Schnellenberg co-founded an influential party think tank called Pol-link, whose promotion of liberal principles and forward-looking policies attracted attention and support from a news media whose relationship with Muldoon might be characterised today as Trump-ish.

I recall Pol-link. It was a very influential and respected group that made a difference.

Schnellenberg quit Shell in 1975 and went into business with his wife Sonia, running a Lower Hutt bookshop that they called Mister Pickwick. There he put into practice his enthusiasm for digital technology, providing his customers with online access to American research databases previously accessible only by university libraries. Later again, he opened an early Apple computer dealership.

Books were a big part of Schnellenberg’s life. As David Schnellenberg observed at his funeral, he regarded them not as mere items to be sold but as windows to new worlds of ideas, enlightenment and entertainment.

As people who have been to my home will know, I’ve got close to 3,000 books!

History and politics in particular fascinated him. He was a great admirer of Winston Churchill and had read, often several times, virtually everything written by or about the British wartime leader. He acknowledged Churchill’s flaws, but what counted to Schnellenberg was that Churchill, almost alone at first, had stood up to Adolf Hitler.

The Boris Johnson book on Churchill is a good read.

A diminutive man whose eyes twinkled behind his glasses, Schnellenberg was a charmer and a gentleman whose face almost permanently wore a genial, knowing smile. He loved to talk and he loved to laugh.

Lunch with Schnellenberg in Masterton’s Cafe Strada or Entice Cafe was liable to be frequently interrupted by conversation with whoever happened to be passing the table. Although a relatively recent arrival in town (by Masterton standards, at least), he seemed to know everyone.

He died in Wairarapa Hospital after a short illness and is survived by Sonia, David, his daughter Debi and several grandchildren.

My condolences to the family.

The Herald reports:

During his appearance Harding – who was representing himself – questioned what his charges were.

The presiding justice of the peace – who later asked Hawke’s Bay Today not to be named- told Harding he was facing a number of outstanding matters, as well as new charges related to burglary, not living within the standards of his release, and protection order breaches.

As Harding was taken from the dock after his appearance, he said if a certain person was not released from prison, “I’m going to kill a cop everyday”.

They should charge him with that also.

In 2004 he stabbed a woman several times in her back, in front of her two children. He did this while on bail for other offences. We can’t know for sure, but I’d say he’d be a prime example of someone who would accumulate three strikes and be kept in prison, to keep people safe.

The Herald reports:

Smokers needing help to quit can get a subsidy for nicotine patches, gum or lozenges that can save them hundreds of dollars.

But the Maori Party thinks the Government should look at extending that subsidy to e-cigarettes.

Making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025 is a key Maori Party goal and co-leader Marama Fox has been outspoken on the issue, calling an Imperial Tobacco spokesman a “peddler of death, destruction and misery” in a television interview last year.

Plain packaging for tobacco is on the way and the Government has carried out consultation on its proposal to legalise the sale of e-cigarettes in New Zealand.

Currently, nicotine patches and gum can be bought, but nicotine e-cigarette liquid must be bought from overseas.

A decision on legalising e-cigarettes is expected in the first half of this year.

Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox acknowledged the jury was still out on potential harm and benefits from “vaping” e-cigarettes, and New Zealand research and studies should be supported.

If evidence backed the product’s use, then the Government should subsidise vaping as a tool to help quit smoking.

“What we also have is statistics that show vaping is harm-reducing, not cancer-causing. We also have statistics that show vaping is a good cessation tool, that move people off cancer-causing combustible cigarettes onto something that, while it’s still addictive because it has nicotine in it, doesn’t cause smoking-related illnesses and isn’t a burden on the system.

Marama Fox is right that vaping or e-cigarettes are a reduced harm product. Public Health England estimated they are 95% less harmful than cigarettes. This doesn’t mean they are harmless, just greatly reduced harm.

I don’t think the Government should subsidise them. I just think they shouldn’t tax them, and make them as easy to purchase as normal cigarettes.

The Herald reports:

His plans for a regional fuel tax are dead in the water so a central city congestion tax looks like ultimately being the solution for Auckland’s transport funding woes, says mayor Phil Goff.

But that could take years to implement and means the immediate funding gap remains a live issue which needs to be addressed with help from the Government, he says.

Talking to The Economy Hub Goff said he was trying to take the pressure off the rate payer and “bring a greater element of user pays into our funding system”.

User pays is good. But that should include all users – which includes bus and rail users.

“I’ve had this discussion with Steven …I think he’s wrong and he thinks I’m wrong. But he’s the minister so he gets to make the decision.

“I think where he and I do agree is that a congestion tax ultimately is going to be the solution,” Goff says.

“If you look at what Singapore is doing, they’re running it off a GPS system so you pay more during hours of peak congestion. It does influence behaviour and does help de-clog the streets.”

Sounds sensible.

The budget has options for rates rises of between 2 and 3.5 per cent.

Goff’s preference is for a 2.5 per cent increase.

“That’s quarter of what the rate increase was in 2015/16. I’ve done that deliberately because there needs to be a discipline on council that we watch our expenditure and we make sure we can do more with less.”

Goff pledged no more than 2.5% which is fair enough, But many Councillors pledged no more than 2% and said they would not vote for more than 2% so the numbers could be very close.

Karl du Fresne writes:

I shudder when I see someone advocating a hate speech law. So should we all.

Police Commissioner Mike Bush didn’t go so far as actually advocating a law prohibiting “hate speech”, however that may be defined, but obviously it was on his mind. In fact he’s talked to the Human Rights Commission about it.

I imagine it would have been a meeting of minds. After all, it’s the nature of bureaucracies to want their powers expanded. 

Combine this with the pervasive school of thought in modern government which holds that a feckless society needs paternalistic minders to keep it from getting into trouble, and almost any busybody law becomes possible.

If we were to have speech police, could George Orwell’s Thought Police be far behind?

A hate speech law would mark a radical and dangerous extension of existing police powers: from protecting people and property against clearly identifiable threats, such as assault and theft, to making value judgments about whether a citizen has crossed the blurry line between fair comment and something much darker.  

Yep.

Happily, on this occasion both Justice Minister Amy Adams and Police Minister Paula Bennett squashed Bush’s idea.  They rightly pointed out that existing laws are perfectly capable of dealing with public statements likely to incite hostility against, for instance, ethnic or religious minorities. Check out Section 61 of the Human Rights Act.

Anyway, what was Bush doing raising the matter in the first place? Since when was it the role of the Police Commissioner to suggest new laws that would restrict fundamental liberties such as the right of free speech?

The Police should be there to enforce laws, not advocate for new ones.

But the commissioner’s action is entirely consistent with the role police have increasingly taken upon themselves, which is that of moral custodians. Already we have seen, in recent years, a marked change in the way the police view their duties. 

Traditionally their function was to protect people against lawbreakers and to apprehend criminals. But the modern New Age police take a much broader view of their role. They have morphed into mother hens, constantly clucking about all the things we’re doing wrong. They think we need to be protected against ourselves.

This is most conspicuous in matters relating to alcohol consumption. The police have a legitimate interest in minimising the road toll, but their moralistic crusades against drinking resemble nothing so much as the shrill campaigns of late-19th century prohibitionists who were convinced that liquor would be the ruin of us all.

They need to be reminded that alcohol consumption is not only legal, but for centuries has been the lubricant of social intercourse and celebration.

Of course a small minority of people drink to excess and behave badly. A recent example was the woman videoed shouting abuse at a group of Muslims in Huntly, which Bush seized as justification for a discussion about hate crime legislation. 

But Newstalk ZB talkback host Tim Beveridge got to the heart of the matter when he said the real problem in the Huntly incident wasn’t racism or xenophobia; it was drunkenness. 

The question, then, is whether an isolated outburst from a pathetic drunk justifies a senior public servant talking about the need for hate speech laws.

No.

Harry Howard writes:

I like the monarchy, and I don’t think Margaret Thatcher was the devil incarnate. Nor do I think that Donald Trump’s ascension to the US Presidency is an example of fascism in orange-tinged form. I also voted for Brexit. Indeed, the majority of students I meet aren’t “radical”, and are at least receptive – or would be, if exposed to reason and debate – to changing their minds. 

This is why I was shocked to find a poster, put up for all to see, but aimed at staff and PhD students, advertising an “informal discussion” organised by the Sussex Centre for Conflict and Security Research. The discussion would be centred around, “dealing with right-wing attitudes and politics in the classroom”.

How dare students not all have left wing views.

I did wonder though: perhaps the person behind the poster, maybe an assistant unfamiliar with politics, had lazily used the term as a substitute for something like “nasty ideas”? Instead I discovered that it had been consciously used by the organiser of the discussion, Professor Jan Selby, the current director of the above mentioned SCSCR, and former head of the International Relations department at Sussex. 

Of course it was the professor.

Unconvinced by his confusion, I clarified that I was surprised at the suggestion that right-wing views needed dealing with. Surely, I asked, the university classroom is supposed to be a place of discussion and debate of all opinions, even uncomfortable ones? I also asked him to confirm what was meant by “right-wing”.

He never did, which is somewhat revealing, but the university now says the label referred to “extreme attitudes” such as racism, sexism and homophobia. So not only are seasoned academics happy to falsely conflate bigoted views with right-wing politics – when they are plentiful on the Left too

So basically they’re saying all racists, sexists and homophobes are right wing and implying all right wingers are the above.

The central point is that universities should be intellectually diverse from top to bottom, rather than echo chambers of left wing opinion. 

Alas that battle is lost.

USA Today reports:

Canada’s immigration system, which President Trump praised Tuesday night, has served as a model for countries around the world because it focuses more on immigrants who can contribute to the economy than those with little more than family ties.

About 63% of those granted legal permanent residence in Canada — the final step before becoming citizens — are admitted for their economic skills, with only 24% admitted based on having family members living in the country. The U.S. system is reversed: 63% of green cards are given to immigrants with family connections, and only 13% given based on economic reasons.

Canada was also the first country to use a point system to grade economic immigrants — a 100-point scale that rewards foreigners with PhDs and extensive work experience in specialized fields.

During Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, he praised the system used by Canada, Australia and “many other nations” during a portion of his speech that called for reforming an “outdated” legal immigration system that hurts American workers.

“Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration, and instead adopting a merit-based system, will have many benefits,” Trump said. “It will save countless dollars, raise workers’ wages, and help struggling families — including immigrant families — enter the middle class.”

This is also the system NZ uses, and is a far better system than the current US green card system. Much of the focus is on illegal immigration, but they also have issues with legal immigration. Immigration done well is a huge benefit to a country, but it should be based on the skills, education, wealth, employability etc of the immigrants.

Stuff reports:

The tills will be quiet in Wellington this Easter Sunday when thousands of cruise ship passengers are in town.

Wellington City Council ran out of time to consult on new trading laws, leaving some retailers angry they won’t be allowed to open this year.

Retail NZ spokesman Greg Harford said the delay meant both retailers and visitors would miss out.

They didn’t run out of time to consult. They failed to consult. Other Councils managed to do so. The law change was known long ago.

Spokesman for the council, Clayton Anderson, said there wasn’t enough time to consult on Easter opening for next month but it would review the laws and consult retailers later this year.

In August 2016, Government gave councils the power to decide if shops can open on Easter Sunday.

Is the Council saying seven months is not enough time?

Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive John Milford said the Easter closure was a missed opportunity for city retailers but sympathised with the council.

Earthquake strengthening and other, more important, issues had to be dealt with first, he said.

“Under normal circumstances it would have gone through the process.

Surely the Council can do more than one thing at a time?

A useful post at The Spinoff by Jenny Webster-Brown on the clean water package. Some extracts:

Is the threshold for safe swimming changing?

Not really.

The current National Policy Statement for Freshwater (NPS) requires rivers and lakes to have less than 540 E. coli/100mls to be safe for swimming. This is also the threshold proposed in the Clean Water package. This threshold corresponds to a 5% (or 1 in 20) risk of infection during full immersion in a water, which is a level of risk accepted internationally for swimming.

In the NPS there is also a lower threshold (less than 260 E. coli/100mls) recommended for the best quality river and lake waters (the “A” grade waters), but it is not the limit for a water body being considered safe for swimming.

So the threshold has stayed the same, and is the standard one used internationally.

In the NPS, 95% of the monitoring data has to be below the 540 E. coli/100 ml threshold for a water to be considered swimmable. However, under the proposed Clean Water package, a river or lake swimming site can exceed this threshold more than 5% of the time, and still be considered swimmable.

Instead, there are different grades proposed: A, in which the threshold is exceeded less than 5% of the time; B, exceeded 5-10% of the time; and C, exceeded 10-20% of the time. All of these grades are considered safe for swimming, with access to further information recommended for C. There are two lower grades: D, in which the threshold is exceeded 20-30% of the time, and E, exceeded more than 30% of the time, which are considered only intermittently safe and unsafe for swimming respectively.

So instead of a binary system, there are five grades.

While it may appear that the risk of infection could be up to four times higher in a C grade water compared to an A grade water, this is not likely to be the case. In the types of rivers and lakes most amenable to swimming, E. coli concentrations are typically only high after heavy rainfall. Swimming in a flooded or swollen river is a bad idea for many reasons other than risk of infection. At the time you choose to go for a swim in, say, a C grade (or “fair”) river water, the risk of infection may very well be exactly the same as for an A (or “excellent”) river water. However, if you were to swim every day, under all river and weather conditions, in a C grade river, your risk of infection would indeed be higher than if you did the same in an A grade river.

This part is the key. Much of the time both an A grade and C grade river will be very safe – massively under the threshold. But heavy rain (hard for Government to control) will push them over.

The proposed new system for assessing swimmability, with five different grades based on how often a water exceeds the E. coli threshold, provides a “step ladder” for water quality improvement. This appears to be a more practical and motivational approach for regulators and communities seeking safer swimming in their waterways, than the system currently embodied in the NPS. The NPS has different thresholds, and methods of determining compliance with these thresholds, for swimming and wading, and offers little incentive to achieve swimmable status. The Clean Water package also proposes better mechanisms for the public to access useful information on the swimmable status of a waterway.

An app listing the status for every waterway would be great.

LawFuel has released their annual power list of NZ lawyers. The top 20 are:

1. Dame Patsy Reddy, Governor General (last year 48)
2. Andrew Bridgman, Chief Executive, Ministry of Justice (1)
3. Mark Berry, Chief Executive, Commerce Commission (3)
4. Una Jagose Solicitor General (31)
5. Rob Everett , Financial Markets Authority (15)
6. Jeremy Salmond, Chief Solicitor, Treasury (7)
7. Brian Dickey, Crown Solicitor Auckland (20)
8. Mark Verbiest, Directory (22)
9. Kathryn Beck, Law Society president
10. David Goddard QC (6)
11. Mai Chen, Solicitor (14)
12. Katherine Anderson, Legal Chief, Auckland City Council (9)
13. Robert Fisher QC, Arbitrator, Barrister (8)
14. Rebecca Kitteridge, SIS
15. Alan Galbraith QC, Barrister (5)
16. Brendan Horsley, Deputy Solicitor General (10)
17. Peter Watts QC, Barrister, Academic (17)
18. Nick Kynock, Enforcement, FMA
19. David Williams QC, Arbitrator, Barrister (12)
20. Matt Whineray, NZ Super Fund

The list excludes judges and politicians.

Stuff reports:

But in an Opposition two-step Labour leader Andrew Little on Thursday first announced he was nominating Peters for the intelligence and security committee – with the Greens support.

Peters will join Prime Minister Bill English, Little, and two Cabinet ministers; Chris Finlayson and Amy Adams, on the statutory committee that oversees the intelligence agencies the SIS and the GCSB.

Shearer quit Parliament late last year.

The Greens were keen to have their representative replace him on the committee but they will endorse Peters, who has been a member of the committee in the past. 

Peters said Labour had raised the appointment with him.

“I said I would not be interested, unless the National Party leader was to endorse it at the very start. It is meant to be non-political and across the political divide.”

He was told English had endorsed it, so he had agreed. He said he had not had a chance to think about the Greens’ stance.

Peters is a good choice for the committee. Unlike the Greens he does not want to abolish the SIS and GCSB.

Steven Joyce and Amy Adams announced:

New Zealand’s first social bond will help around 1,700 people with mental illness into work, Finance Minister Steven Joyce and Social Investment Minister Amy Adams say.

“The social bond approved by Cabinet in December 2016 has successfully raised the required finance so is now operational as New Zealand’s first social bond,” Mr Joyce says.

“Social Bonds are an innovative method of providing social services for people with complex needs – where a financial incentive is offered to a consortium of providers and investors if they can achieve a result with a service which is demonstrably better than what has been previously achieved with the old way of doing things.

Social Investment Minister Amy Adams says this social bond is another example of the social investment approach designed to get more effective delivery of services to those who most need them.

“One of the difficult challenges in getting people off benefits and back into work is how best to help people with mild to moderate mental health challenges and achieve sustainable long-term results. Government agencies have struggled with this issue for a long time,” Ms Adams says. 

It will be very interesting to see how effective this is. I hope it is.

The bond will be delivered by APM Workcare. APM Workcare is an experienced and successful provider of vocational rehabilitation and disability services, with around 150 employees. They have assisted more than 24,000 people across the country to return to work after injury or unemployment, using a model of individualised support and wrap-around care.

The service will be voluntary, and will be available to those who are living in the Auckland suburbs of Manukau, Manuwera, Clendon, Papakura, Pukekohe and Waiuku. APM Workcare will deliver services to up-to 1700 people over the 60 month duration of the bond.

Sounds like they do great work.

One of the investors is Janssen, who say they are investing because:

Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson Company in New Zealand, sees the pilot bond as an opportunity to support and learn from a pioneering initiative designed to test a new, more effective, outcomes-based approach to funding healthcare and other social services. In particular, the bond presents an opportunity to achieve improved mental health outcomes for New Zealanders, a healthcare area in which Janssen has over 60 years’ experience.

Jim Rose writes:

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund should stop trying to beat the market.

Last week’s spat between Mr English and the Super Fund regarding its chief executive’s pay is another reason why it should be turned into a passive index linked fund.

The Cullen fund attempts to beat the market. To do so it needs some seriously well-paid investment professionals. You do not beat the market on B-team pay rates.

You quickly drop onto the C-list if your portfolio faces constant political interference.

First, it was whether it should invest more in New Zealand. Then the fund should disinvest in politically unpopular shares. Now it should get A-grade results with the B-team pay rates. This will never stop.

Nope.

The taxpayers would be better off if the Super Fund invested in passive index tracker funds.

These funds buy a portfolio with the same weighting as the entire share market and trades as little as possible. This minimises management expenses and trading fees.

Yes, a super fund that is a passive index linked fund would never beat the market, but it would never under-perform it, either, and would be cheaper to run.

An accountant or two would be needed at the Treasury to send and receive the cheques, read the annual reports and audit documents to make sure the money is still there.

You can constantly beat the market, but it is very expensive.

Hedge funds have trouble beating the market for more than a few years in a row after management fees, despite the top hedge fund managers earning more than $1 billion a year. To get on the top 25 list of hedge fund managers you need to earn at least $400 million a year.

That makes whatever the New Zealand super fund is paying its team to beat the market small potatoes.

Makes $1 million look cheap.

Taxpayers contributed $14.88b to the Super Fund from its inception in 2001 to the suspension of contributions in 2009.

In the nine years in which contributions were made, the company tax rate of 28 per cent could have been up to 10 percentage points lower but for those investments. Imagine how much richer New Zealand would be if investors only paid an 18 per cent company tax rate on building their businesses.

The Super Fund must beat the market every single year to make up for the deadweight social cost of its funding through taxes and a premium for the investment risk added to the Crown’s portfolio.

The taxpayer should quit while the going is still good. The Super Fund should become a passive share index tracking fund that minimises management expenses and the risk in the Crown’s portfolio.

An 18% company tax rate would attract lots more investment to NZ, which means more jobs and higher incomes.

Stuff reports:

Labour is to treat the Greens as “first cab off the rank” for post election talks in a signal it is firming up its plans to work in coalition with its allied party.

No surprise, but it is meaningless unless Labour and Greens can get 61 seats between them. If Labour poll around 40% this means something, but at 26% it means almost nothing.

But would he be prepared to leave the Greens out of government if Winston Peters insisted and Labour needed NZ First to govern?

“I think that is unlikely.”

Far from unlikely, it is highly likely. Winston has made this clear many many times. In fact I understand he has said he won’t even support Green MPs becoming Under-Secretaries.

Stuff reports:

Neighbours are furious a landmark tree in Christchurch is being cut down.

“This owner has spat on the whole community,” said Mt Pleasant resident Eddie du Plessis, who lives two doors over. “We have almost 50 people who are passionate supporters of saving the tree. He has to live with himself now. “

The neighbours don’t really understand the concept of private property do they. It is not their tree.

The 21-metre manna gum tree was thought to be about 90 years old and was dangerous, owner Simon Harty​ said. “We believe this species of tree drops limbs without warning. In our opinion, this tree has outgrown this site.”

Maybe the neighbours could plant their own trees.

The Herald reports:

The details of Goff’s policy on “sensitive spending”, flagged in December and still being worked on, could include elected representatives and officers having to release details of credit-card spending, including hotel, meal and entertainment costs, he said.

That would be a good step.

Goff was concerned at a 43 per cent rise in staff travel costs over two years at Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (Ateed), saying he had received an assurance from the agency that there were robust business cases and spending was appropriate in each case.

This is the same agency that wanted to throw hundreds of thousands at a boxing match.

Also in good news:

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has ruled out the city stepping in to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games, should Durban fall over as the host city.

South Africa’s sports minister Fikile Mbalula has cast major doubt on the Games, because of the costs involved.

He says he doesn’t want to raise expectations and say everything looks good, because it doesn’t.

“We gave it our best shot but we can’t go beyond. If the country says we don’t have this money, we can’t,” Reuters quoted Fikile Mbalula as saying.

Goff has told Radio Sport that 2022 would be too soon for Auckland to host the Games with the city already under incredible fiscal and infrastructure pressure.

A good call.

From Eventfinda:

In April 2017, women’s rights activist, champion of free speech and best-selling author Ayaan Hirsi Ali will make her first appearance in New Zealand to discuss the current world political climate, Islam, and a plethora of other vital topics.

Infidel. Heretic. Apostate. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has courted controversy over her years in the public eye, earning widespread criticism amongst the liberal left and death threats from the religious right. April will see her come in Auckland to add her voice to the heated debate about Islam’s place in a modern liberal democracy.

Born in Somalia to a devout Muslim family, Hirsi Ali underwent female genital mutilation as a child and escaped an arranged marriage in 1992 by seeking political asylum in the Netherlands. Leaving her religion behind, she famously collaborated with director Theo van Gogh to produce Submission, a short film that ultimately led to van Gogh’s assassination and the subsequent call for her own.

Moving to the USA in 2006, Hirsi Ali is now an American citizen and has since founded the AHA Foundation in defence of women’s rights, and served as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. Hirsi Ali has been previously named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and is a New York Times number one bestselling author.

Following on from the release of her 2015 book ‘Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now,’ April will see Ayaan Hirsi Ali in New Zealand for the first time and Think Inc., in association with Loop, invite you to step inside the controversy with ‘Hero of Heresy.’

The event will consist of a lecture from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, followed by a discussion with the event host, and conclude with an audience question and answer session.

I’d love to go to that. It is 6.30 pm Sunday 9 April at the Bruce Mason Centre.

Tim Worstall at Forbes writes:

The economic numbers for Scotland haven’t added up for some decades now, that’s why the English have had to subsidise the place for so long. Given the various talk about a second independence referendum and the possibility of Scotland leaving the Union that is the UK a new attempt has been made at totting up quite how badly the numbers do work out. And the answer is that the gap between spending and taxation is so vast that Scotland would be, effectively, bust as a government and rectifying that would entail cuts of such magnitude as to produce a Greek-style depression in the country.

Yep, that bad. The numbers are:

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) forecast the gap between public spending and taxes raised will hit an “unsustainable” 9.4 per cent of GDP in 2017-18.

This is more than three times a prediction for the rest of the UK as a whole at 3 per cent and follows the dramatic collapse in oil revenues.

Douglas McWilliams, the think-tank’s chief executive, also said if Scotland were independent today the deficit would be even higher at 12 per cent.

So what would Scotland have to do:

Because of Keynesian multiplier effects, there would need to be cuts of about 15 per cent of GDP. That’s roughly on the scale of what has happened in Greece, which has led to a fall in GDP of a quarter

That would be a depression on par with the Great Depression.

David Seymour announced:

ACT has announced a policy of Rewarding Self-Improvement in Prison at today’s party conference.

“The cost of crime and the prison system is running away. This is largely due to a reoffending blowout which sees 48% of prisoners return within four years,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“The fact is, a large chunk of the prison population simply lacks the skills to lead normal, productive lives. 60 to 70 per cent of prisoners lack the functional literacy required to read a tenancy agreement, an employment contract, or even the road code. It’s no wonder they return to crime after leaving prison.

“ACT believes that incentives matter; that individual responsibility works. Penalties should be tough on repeat offenders. But at the same time, prisoners need positive incentives to become productive, law-abiding citizens after their time in prison.

“Prisoners should be able to earn a reduction in their overall sentence by successfully completing literacy, numeracy, and driver licensing courses. This would provide an incentive for prisoners to upskill and ready themselves for a normal, non-criminal life outside of prison.

“The policy wouldn’t apply to the worst violent or sexual offenders. And it wouldn’t help white-collar criminals study for diplomas or degrees. Prisoners who are already literate, numerate, and licensed to drive could instead be eligible for incentives if they act as mentors to other prisoners, helping them earn qualifications.

“As seen in similar programmes overseas, this policy would save taxpayer money through reduced sentences and lower rates of recidivism.

Sounds like a great policy to me.

It has been praised by Kim Workman, the Sensible Sentencing Trust and the Howard League for Penal Reform.

The Telegraph reports:

An autonomous drone that can transport humans will start ferrying passengers around Dubai this summer. 

The head of Dubai’s transportation agency said that self-flying taxis would start taking people across the city starting from July.

The city will use the Ehang 184 for the airborne service. The Ehang is a drone that can fly without human direction and carry a single passenger and their bag. It can take one person on a journey up to 23 minutes long. …

The Ehang is electric-powered and can travel for about 31 miles with a person and bag that weigh up to 100kg. It can go at speeds of up to 63 miles an hour and takes two hours to charge fully. 

Air taxis sounds good to me.