Oliver Hartwich writes at NBR:

We should acknowledge the past years have been challenging for New Zealand because of the combined effects of the global financial crisis and the natural disasters that have occurred domestically. Against these odds, New Zealand has done much better than most of the developed world. It has produced solid economic growth, created jobs and thereby established a much better fiscal position than, say, Australia.

As a nation, we have worked hard to get to where we are. Now is the time to share our progress. We have to share it with those who have contributed to it. We also want to share it with our children to whom we want to leave a bright future.

To do so, we want to help those who need it most. For high income earners, the top income tax rate is modest and internationally competitive. But that top rate of income tax is reached relatively early, so we should focus tax cuts in the lower bands and look as much to the effective marginal tax schedules as to the income tax rates. These tax cuts would make a difference to middle New Zealand, particularly at a time when people on ordinary incomes are stretched by high rents and property prices.

I agree. The rate of the top tax rate at 33% is pretty good internationally. While a case could be made for lowering it, I think the better thing is to focus on increasing the threshold at which people move to the top and second top tax rates.

People move onto the top tax rate at $70,000 which is very low. And the second top tax rate of 30% gets hit at $48,000 – below the average income.

Acknowledging this housing crisis, we should use a second tranche of the surplus to help councils deliver more infrastructure quickly. For example, the government could pass on the GST revenue from new housing construction to councils. This would be an investment into the infrastructure that New Zealand needs for the future, and it would address one of the main reasons for the housing crisis.

Some extra spending on infrastructure would be a good thing.

Finally, we should use the surplus to pay down debt. Circumstances beyond our control have increased the Crown’s indebtedness over the past years. We should not leave it to our children and grandchildren to pay for it. Instead, let’s sort out our books now and reduce government debt to where it was before the global financial crisis.

Bringing down the Crown debt ensures the government has fiscal room if another natural disaster strikes.

Or another recession. On average we get one every ten years or so. We have had:

• 1967 – recession
• 1976 – recession
• 1987 – sharemarket crash recession
• 1997 – Asian crisis recession
• 2008 – GFC recession

This would be my narrative, to share New Zealand’s progress in equal measure between lower income-band tax cuts, investment in local infrastructure and leaving a better fiscal future for future generations.

This is what I’d like to see from the Government. The parties of the left sadly seem hostile to any reduction in the tax burden. They would blow everything on extra spending. But a balanced Government would have everyone share in the progress the New Zealand economy has had.

Photo from Sam MacDonald.

Enter captions below – as always funny not nasty.

Stuff reports:

The man being tipped to be the United States ambassador to New Zealand under Donald Trump supports waterboarding and once won the title of “America’s Sexiest Man”.

Former US senator Scott Brown, 57, also doesn’t appear to have any ties to New Zealand, but he did tell GQ Magazine in 2015 he “always wanted to go”.

Brown has led a varied life, and was a promising basketball star as a youngster before embarking on a military career where he rose to the rank of colonel. He also spent years as a male model in the 1980s.

Most of the stories on Brown have focused on the trivial. He has a serious political record, and would in fact be a very credible appointment. Some of his background:

• Active in Massachusetts Army National Guard for 35 years, rising to rank of Colonel in the JAG
• Member of Massachusetts House from 1998 to 2004
• Member of Massachusetts Senate from 2004 to 2010
• Junior Senator from Massachusetts in US Senate from 2010 to 2012

Brown also happens to be the father of singer and basketballer Ayla Brown.

Far from being an insult, Brown would be one of the most politically experienced Ambassadors we’d have. Most recent Ambassadors (and they have all performed well) have been donors, not former elected officials.

Rcent Ambassadors:

1. Mark Gilbert, donor
2. David Huebner, lawyer
3. William McCormick, donor
4. Charles Swindells, donor
5. Carol Moseley Braun, former US Senator
6. Josiah Beeman, former political staffer

Now nothing wrong with donors being Ambassadors – many of them have been excellent. I’m just saying that Brown stands out as having had a serious political career.

The Guardian reports:

A graphic Labour pamphlet warns voters in Copeland that a Tory victory in the by-election will “cost mums their children” in an open letter aimed at highlighting the risks of NHS cuts in the constituency. …

If the Tories are voted in they’ll take it as a green light for the local NHS closures. Their cost-cutting will cost mums their children. …

The previous Labour byelection leaflet also included a quote from unnamed midwives, warning “mothers will die, babies will die, babies will be brain-damaged”.

An even nastier version of NZ Labour’s “National will evict you” tactics in 2005.

Stuff reports:

Wellington’s beggars are working to a roster system, switching places regularly at begging “hot spots” and employing comical tactics to maximise their earning power, business owners say.

It’s a business not a necessity.

The Dom Post editorial:

Labour believes O’Connor will have cross-party appeal. The risk is that significant numbers of voters from Labour and the Greens will spurn O’Connor and even vote for Dunne as a lesser local evil. They would be perfectly entitled to do this.

After all, many liberal voters won’t buy the argument that they should support someone like O’Connor for the greater good of a change of Government. Right now a returned National-led government looks much more likely anyway.

I think the Greens may get a surprise as to what their voters do in the absence of a Green candidate.

Dan Hannan writes:

Here’s a startling fact: There have been eight leaders of the British Labour Party in the past 40 years. Seven of them failed to win a single general election. The exception, Tony Blair, was a Labour politician only in the most technical sense. Leftists saw him as a disguised conservative, a cuckoo in the nest. To this day, Labour activists use “Blairite” as the worst of insults, viler even than “Tory.”

That’s quite a fact.

Mind you in NZ, only two Labour leaders since 1972 have won elections, and there have been nine leaders since Kirk.

All over Europe, traditional parties of the Center-Left have been losing badly. As I write, opinion polls show the French Socialists in fourth place, the Dutch Labour Party in seventh. Greece’s PASOK, the leading party since the early 1980s, is now polling at 7 percent. Spain’s PSOE, which had a comfortable majority as recently as 10 years ago, has been displaced by the more radical Podemos. Social Democrats in former communist countries, such as Poland and Hungary, have, if anything, fared even worse.

What is going on? The immediate explanation is clear enough. The established parties of the Center-Left backed the merger of Europe’s currencies in the 1990s. As the euro brought poverty to the south and tax increases to the north, voters turned against the politicians whose fingerprints were on the murder weapon.

That, plus failed immigration policies.

Rachel Smalley writes:

So while I have some compassion for the plight of these students, the law is the law. Their applications are fraudulent. They cannot be allowed to stay in this country. Imagine the precedent that would set? They can leave the country by their own free will, or be forcefully deported. If police have to enter that church and forcefully deport them, then so be it.

And I also question the role of the Church in this. The Unitarian Church. These nine students are not asylum seekers. They are not going to face political or religious persecution if they return to India. Their lives are not at risk so quite why the Church has stepped in here is a little baffling. The Church is sheltering illegal immigrants who have committed fraud. That is not the role of The Church. That is not, in my opinion, God’s work.

Well said.

What is also interesting is that almost every caller into an Indian radio station supported deporting them. They said that these scams are well known, and that the students were probably well aware the agents had done fraudulent applications – in fact that is why the agents were used.

The Herald reports:

With the smell of new road seal lingering in the air, Transport Minister Simon Bridges cut a ribbon this morning to mark the completion of the four-lane 18km Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway, north of Wellington.

“We are right now on the best road in New Zealand,” he declared.

He had lost count of the number of people who had come up to him during his travels saying they had wanted the road for a long time.

“One elderly gentleman told me yesterday that he had been wanting this since he was a young man, and he thought it was a fable, but today the fable becomes reality, and it’s very exciting to see.”

It has been a long time coming and it is going to make a huge difference. The current SH1 goes through the middle of Paraparaumu and Waikanae shopping areas, which means traffic lights and congestion.

The new SH1 will be four lanes the entire way with no intersections. It will also now allow people in Paraparaumu and Waikanae to drive from one town to the other without going all the way to the old SH1. Great for those down the beach ends.

Labour and Greens of course opposed this Expressway, demanding it be scrapped. People should remember that when they drive on it.

It is part of the overall Wellington Northern Corridor Road of National Significance which has a BCR of 1.2 and will result in four lanes from Wellington Airport to Levin. Will be a great day when we have that.

Stuff reports:

Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox is threatening to walk away from the Government over new legislation that doesn’t ensure Maori children are placed with whanau when the state removes them from their home.

Prime Minister Bill English isn’t budging on the wording in legislation to overhaul Child, Youth and Family (CYF), which would remove the priority to place a child with a member of their family or wider hapu if possible or someone with the same cultural background. 

“Just because we want to provide a safe and loving home doesn’t make it mutually exclusive to a Maori home,” Fox said.

“We’re not talking about putting a child back into an unsafe home – that’s stupid – but just because it’s a Maori home doesn’t make it an unsafe home and that’s where we want to make it explicit in the law.”

The current law requires a Maori child removed from her parents to be placed with another Maori family, and if possible a member of their extended family.

This law has been a horrible failure as the reality is that if some members of a family are dysfunctional, then other members often are also.

The proposed law doesn’t say do not place Maori children with Maori families. It even says this is preferable. But it says that the first priority is what is best for the safety and welfare of the child.

Both English and Social Development minister Anne Tolley maintain that’s it’s possible for children to stay connected with their culture without being placed in family care.

They’ve got support in NZ First leader Winston Peters who agrees there’s no place for a “whanau first” approach.

“I’ve known of too many children thrown from pillar to post between whanau members. I also know of hundreds of Maori who have been massively successful because they were lucky to have relations who would look after them.

“But to apply a blanket whanau-first principle just does not in the circumstances make any sense,” Peters said.

Exactly. A blanket approach is not sensible. It is the status quo, and is to be blunt a miserable failure.

The Telegraph reports:

Labour is now the third most popular party among working class voters, a new poll has revealed, as the party faces a close-run battle with Ukip to hold on to one of its key seats in the north.

Research undertaken by YouGov found that Labour ranks behind Ukip and the Conservatives among lower-income voters for what could be the first time in the party’s history.

A trend around the world possibly as the working class abandon parties of the left.

We see this in New Zealand also. How many working class males still vote Labour?

It comes amid dire polling for Labour which shows the party trailing the Conservatives by almost 20 percentage points on its equal lowest level since Mr Corbyn became party leader.

The latest YouGov poll for The Times put Labour at 24 per cent, matching a survey for the company in December last year. 

UK Labour is now polling as badly as NZ Labour!

The Herald reports:

The Government is refusing to introduce driving tests for foreign motorists because it is afraid of losing the “almighty tourist dollar”, a victim of a car crash said today.

Newshub journalist Karen Rutherford said ministers needed to stop “pussy-footing around” and require long-stay tourists to prove their driving ability before getting behind the wheel.

Rutherford was among a group of people who presented a 8600-signature petition to New Zealand First leader Winston Peters outside Parliament today calling for tourists staying longer than three months to sit a full license driving test, or at least an online test.

If the only test was reducing the number of accidents we would have a speed limit of 30 km/hr on open roads. All road safety issues are about benefits and costs.

Foreign drivers who stay over a year do have to get a NZ Drivers Licence. One year is also the time frame in which you are seen as a long-stay not short-stay person.

Is the number of accidents caused by foreign drivers increasing? No. It has been fairly constant at around 6% of all accidents for the last decade. And in that time tourism numbers have increased 30%.

So would requiring tourists who are here more than three months make much of an impact. The data suggests next to nothing.

In 2016 there were 1,817,136 tourists here and only 40,336 stayed for more than three months. That’s 2.2%.

So this measure would impact just 2.2% of tourists in NZ. If tourists cause 6% of all accidents then you might expect a 0.13% reduction in the road toll – and that is only if you make the generous assumption that having them sit a NZ licence test will mean they are guaranteed to have no accidents.

So the proposal, while well intentioned, will achieve basically nothing.

No Right Turn blogs on Ohariu:

If you’re a Green voter in Ohariu, it looks very much as if Dunne is the lesser evil. At least he doesn’t support the “right” of police to beat or even shoot you with utter impunity. At least he’s not a rape apologist (in fact, on civil liberties, including intelligence oversight, Dunne is pretty good. Certainly better than the average National MP). If I still lived in Ohariu, he’d be getting my electorate vote. Because civil liberties are more important than whether Andrew Little gets a bigger salary.

How many other Green Party supporters feel the same way I wonder?

Stuff reports:

Finance Minister Steven Joyce has signalled that cutting the top tax rate paid by lower and middle income earners is his top priority for tax cuts. 

Actually he said he wants to reduce the impact of marginal tax rates on lower and middle income earners which could mean adjusting the thresholds as well as the rates.

The Government’s position was that any road pricing initiative on existing motorways and highways would be as a replacement for petrol taxes and road user charges not in addition to them.

Also it was not interested in introducing a regional fuel tax, Joyce said.

He and Transport Minister Simon Bridges had told the Auckland Council on Thursday “we do not see regional fuel taxes as part of the Government’s mix for transport in Auckland because they are administratively difficult, prone to leakage and cost-spreading, and blur the accountabilities between central and local government”.

My preference is congestion charging for new roads.

Nigel Roberts writes:

Unlike the Scandinavian states, however, New Zealand does not have multi-member parliamentary electorates. We have single-member districts. So too does Germany (which – like New Zealand – has a mixed-member proportional, MMP, parliamentary electoral system), and significantly – as the New Zealand Electoral Commission’s review of MMP pointed out – any vacant seat (electorate or list) in the German Bundestag “is filled by the ‘next-in-line’ candidate of the same party”.

To avoid the unnecessary expense of by-elections, New Zealand could do what the Germans do: we could simply fill parliamentary vacancies by appointing the “next-in-line” list candidate from the same party to the position for the remainder of the parliamentary term.

A sensible solution that preserves the proportionality of Parliament and saves millions of dollars.

Once a government has been installed in office in New Zealand after an MMP election, it really is debatable whether voters in one electorate – representing less than one-seventieth of the country’s population – should have the potential ability to bring down a government by changing parties in a by-election.

To enhance government stability, to avoid unnecessary expenditure, and to end electoral contests that are often little more than meaningless charades, New Zealand should give serious consideration to following in the footsteps of many other nations with proportional representation voting systems.

We should discard the dubious pleasure of holding parliamentary by-elections.

A persuasive argument.

The Herald reports:

Pike River victims’ families say the Government’s commitment to leave the coal mine unsealed and inspect it with drone technology falls short of their requests, but is still “very positive”.

Prime Minister Bill English agreed today to put a halt to permanent sealing of the mine on the South Island’s West Coast following talks with the families at Parliament.

English refused to grant their request to re-enter the mine’s drift but agreed to look into sending a drone or other unmanned technology into the mine to investigate further.

The families’ spokesman Bernie Monk said the meeting at the Beehive was “very positive” and that they had made more progress with English than they had under previous Prime Minister John Key. …

Following the meeting, English said the Government was bound by health and safety laws.

“This decision is not about politics, it is about safety. We lost 29 lives in that mine and I will not risk losing any more.”

English said the families’ proposal for re-entering the mine – which was written by two international mining experts and published in December – was not a detailed plan “and therefore does not make the case for a safe re-entry”.

“Any decision to re-enter would also have to be made in accordance with our current workplace safety law, so the new directors would still have to take responsibility without indemnity for all aspects of safely entering the mine,” he said.

“It’s highly unlikely a new set of directors would decide it could be done safely.”

The current board chair was explicit:

The chairman of Pike River Mine owner Solid Energy, Andy Coupe, has told MPs he would resign if a re-entry of the defunct mine proceeds.

“I would resign as a director [if a re-entry went ahead]. I would resign if that happened on my watch,” he told a select committee on Thursday.

He says even if a re-entry was ordered by the Government, he would still “seriously consider” resigning.

He’d face five years in jail if he didn’t resign,so of course he’d resign.

He also revealed that cost is a factor in the decision to avoid re-entering the mine.

“Reducing safety to a significant degree does come down to cost. You need to build another egress, which you’re looking at $100 million.”

So $100 million for another egress which might possibly make it safe to enter!

Robots had been tried at the mine in the past but had failed, he said. But the Government had recently been approached by experts with proposals for unmanned access.

No harm in trying robots again.

Mike Hosking points out:

Labour are experts … they want to circumvent the law, the very law we have in place as a result of the tragedy in the first place … they want to hand out exceptions to laws to solve the grief of the families.

A more irresponsible argument is hard to dream up.

You can dismiss Winston’s showboating because it’s Winston, but Labour, the party of the workers and the unions, the party of the miners and the mining industry, the party who would scream to the roof tops and back about workers’ safety … decide in election year, that all of that can be placed to one side.

Their view appears to be that the royal commission and its resulting recommendations are worth less than being straight, honest and upfront with families, who for all the right reasons, are failing to see common sense.

Indeed shameful from Labour, and especially Little.

And also in related news, the Court of Appeal rejects the appeal against the decision not to prosecute Peter Whittall. They find:

The Prosecution Decision and District Court Decision were lawfully made. There was no unlawful agreement to stifle the prosecution by payment of money.

Rather Worksafe properly and independently considered Mr Whittall’s conditional reparation undertaking, amongst other factors, in concluding it was no longer in the public interest to continue prosecution.

The other factors being they thought it was extremely unlikely they would win a trial due to both the burden of proof and the unavailability of many witnesses.

Lee Suckling writes:

Ever wondered why you can’t find ingredients lists or nutritional information on alcohol labelling?

So have we.

When a delicious “adults only” bottle of Lewis Road Creamery’s new Chocolate Cream Liqueur arrived on our desks, we looked at the label, noticed the absence of information about sugar and general calorie content, and began to wonder. Why do alcohol products not list what’s in them? …

Labelling fits within Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)’s jurisdiction. “Because the ingredients used in the manufacture of alcoholic beverages are ‘substantially transformed’ during fermentation, providing a list of ingredients is unlikely to provide useful information for consumers,” says Lorraine Haase, communication and stakeholder engagement manager at FSANZ.

“As most alcoholic beverages are of minor nutritional significance, except for their energy and alcohol content, they are not required to provide a nutrition information panel.”

It remains unclear why FSANZ decrees “energy and alcohol content” as insufficient in order to enforce mandatory nutrition labelling.

I think alcohol should include the energy or calorie count on its bottles. A full nutritional panel isn’t needed, but just the level of calories or kilojoules would be very useful information for consumers.

Willie Jackson writes:

There’s no getting away from the fact that a lot of our work ironically has occurred under the National and Maori Party government. I make no apology for this because as the CEO I must advance the interests of my community with whomever is in government. The fact is however my organisation is underfunded in every area of Maori development. Whanau Ora is a classic example. This is a programme where we are making real change in peoples lives empowering whanau to take control of their families and we are getting outstanding results yet the funding is minimal and pales in comparison to what mainstream agencies receive. This is a message that Labour party leader Andrew Little gets and one of the primary reasons why now I am committed to working with Labour.

It is good to hear Willie Jackson so enthusiastic about Whanau Ora and saying it is making real change in people’s lives.

However he has been misled into thinking Labour supports Whanau Ora, let alone will increase funding for it. Labour have constantly said it isn’t working and last election said they would review it, which is code for scrap it.

Why else have I joined Labour?

Because Andrew Little promised you a high list ranking?

The Herald reports a submission from Wellington journalist David Barber whose wife suffered from early onset Alzheimer’s:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to make a personal submission on voluntary euthanasia which I believe to be one of the most critical issues facing society today.

I wish to speak on only one aspect – the need for provision of an end-of-life directive to be included in legislation allowing physician-assisted dying.

Why do I feel so strongly on this issue? My wife was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease at the age of 48.

Two years later, I had to make arrangements for her to attend a day care centre so that I could continue working.

As her condition deteriorated I could no longer care for her and at the age of 52 she was admitted to a secure unit at Porirua Hospital. …

She was a strong, capable, independent and proud woman and her rapid decline with its consequent loss of dignity distressed her, me and our children enormously.

Her advanced Alzheimer’s meant she was incontinent, unable to feed and dress herself, or recognise friends and family.

A pioneering female journalist and a feminist before the word became fashionable, she could no longer write, read, or take part in the social intercourse that made her a popular friend to hundreds of people we met around the world.

She spent her days in Porirua endlessly walking the confined corridors of the secure unit – it was a prison of necessity because while Alzheimer’s patients pose no threat to society, they wander and have to be locked up for their own safety.

That was her “unbearable suffering” – a phrase you are hearing much about.

One can only imagine how terrible that must be.

I knew Frances well and I know that she did not want to live in that condition and would have welcomed the ability to choose an end to her suffering had she retained her mental faculties.

She could have lived in misery for another 30 years or so – an unbearable prospect for anyone – and her early demise was a blessing for her and us all.

I submit that an End-of-Life Directive requesting a physician’s help to end suffering if a person developed severe dementia should be included in far-sighted legislation.

It will, of course, have to be signed and witnessed before the onset of dementia with all the safeguards one expects to be included in the new law permitting physician-assisted dying.

This will be one of the most challenging aspects of any law change – do you allow advance directives.

Spending years with dementia is the biggest fear of many people – it is feared more than cancer, for example – and I suggest that anyone who has experienced the horror of watching a loved one suffer the ravages of that most terrible of diseases would prefer a merciful release.

I believe a law change is inevitable because the majority of people want it – 66 per cent are in favour, according to a survey published in the New Zealand Medical Journal last month.

I want to stress that people like me are talking only of “voluntary” euthanasia for those who want the choice to end unbearable suffering.

I hope that stories like mine will help convince the committee to recommend a compassionate new law that upholds the human right to die, as well as to live, as we wish.

I would like to finish with an anecdote about a young American soldier caught in a hail of machine gun fire as his unit landed on a Normandy beach on D-Day in 1944.

The bullets tore through his chest, shot off an arm and blew away most of his face. His pain was unimaginable; his fate obvious. He begged his mates to end his suffering with a bullet.

… Is there anyone in this room who would have denied him ?

A truly moving submission.

An Emerson College poll found:

• 49% of voters consider Trump truthful compared to 39% who consider the media truthful
• 90% of Republicans consider the media untruthful
• 47% of independents consider the media untruthful

Jenna Lynch reports:

Labour leader Andrew Little has pulled a u-turn on dirty electorate deals, accepting a Valentine’s Day gift from the Greens, The Dunne Deal.

The Greens will step aside and not run a candidate in Ohariu, giving Labour’s candidate Greg O’Connor a free run to take out Peter Dunne.

Just don’t call it a deal to Andrew Little.

“It’s not a deal,” he says. His more palatable term is “electoral accommodation”.

It’s a sensitive topic because the Labour leader himself criticised these deals during his first election back in 2011 when ACT stood aside for National in the seat he was vying for – New Plymouth.

“If you’re a party and you’re fighting in a general election you put your candidates up and you put your people up and we’ll be the judge. People don’t like being deprived of that choice,” he said at the time.

They may indeed find people don’t like being deprived of a choice in a general election seat.