The SMH reports:

Internal tensions within the Greens have boiled over, with members of the hard-left of the party grouped around NSW Senator Lee Rhiannon forming their own faction dedicated to the “fight to bring about the end of capitalism”.

Venezuela has managed this very successfully. That must be their role model.

Senator Rhiannon is a “former” communist who authored scores of pro-Soviet articles. Her surname is adopted from Welsh mythology as it sounds better than Lee Brown!

The formation of the group calling itself “Left

Renewal” is an escalation of an ongoing battle between the so-called eastern bloc of the Greens and the group they dismiss as “tree Tories”.

I quite like the name tree Tories!

On Thursday Senator Di Natale described the Left Renewal’s manifesto as “ridiculous” and “ill-thought through” and suggested its members consider joining another party.

The communist party perhaps?

Following a meeting in Sydney on Wednesday night, Left Renewal issued a statement of principles that includes the “rejection of the state’s legitimacy”.

“We believe . . . that capitalism is a violent and antagonistic relation between workers, and those who exploit them. As workers, whether or not we are waged, we experience perpetual violence and that this violence must be brought to an end. We therefore fight to bring about the end of capitalism,” it states.

“Capitalism depends upon violent and authoritarian divisions within the working class, such as elitism, sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, religious sectarianism, and ableism (among others). It is only with the abolition of these authoritarian relations that we will be able to create a thriving movement capable of transforming society and so must challenge these wherever we encounter it.”

You know it is a doozy when they get both transphobia and ableism into the same sentence!

Merry Christmas from the Farrar Family!

Top employment lawyer Peter Cullen writes:

One of the positive consequences of the disaster was the new Health and Safety at Work Act,  which was the first significant reform of health and safety law in more than 20 years.

There is a terrible irony for the Pike River families that the new legislation which came about as a result of the tragedy is now preventing the re-entry to the mine they are pushing for.

In deciding not to allow re-entry to the mine, Solid Energy will be concerned about breaching the Act.

Unlike previous legislation the Act carries hefty penalties, and by allowing people into the mine when they know it to be dangerous, Solid Energy could face severe sanctions.

The Act has a wide scope, placing duties to ensure safety in the workplace, so far as reasonably practicable, on any person conducting a business or undertaking. Now individuals involved with the management of businesses can face penalties personality.

Conduct that is reckless as to the risk of death, serious injury, or serious illness (and certainly knowing the risk places Solid Energy in that category) carries a fine of up to $3 million, or for an individual, a $600,000 fine and/or five years imprisonment.

So if Solid Energy has a report from experts telling them it is not safe to re-enter the mine, they would be taking a huge risk to ignore that advice.

It doesn’t matter that some other group has their own advice. If the advice commissioned by the board says it is unsafe, and you cherry pick some other piece of advice, bang each director faces up to five years jail and $600,000 fines. And these fines can not be insured against.

So the typical Solid Energy Director is paid around $50,000 a year. And the Pike activists want them to risk $600,000 fines and five years jail.

Under the Act it is not necessary for someone to actually be killed or injured in the workplace for sanctions to be imposed. Failure to comply with a duty to ensure health and safety, which exposes persons to the risk of death, serious injury or illness, carries a fine of up to $1.5m or $300,000 for individuals.

Even if no one is exposed to the risk of death, serious injury or serious illness, but a duty within the Act is not complied with, you can be fined up to $500,000, or $100,000 for individuals.

So even if no one dies or is injured, just bypassing their duty of safety first could see massive fines.

Solid Energy would face huge liability if the mine was re-entered, not to mention how disastrous it would be if harm to more people occurred in Pike River.

The prime minister has said the issue is not a political one, it is a health and safety one, and he is most certainly right.

Except Winston Peters and Andrew Little are trying to make it a political issue.

Audrey Young reports:

The Israeli Government has recalled its ambassador from New Zealand after the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning Israel’s continued settlements.

New Zealand co-sponsored the resolution, which said the settlements violate international law and undermine a two-state solution in Israel’s conflict with Palestine.

The resolution was passed 14-0 at the last council meeting of the year, and New Zealand’s last meeting in its two-year term as an elected member of the Security Council.

I have mixed feelings on this. On the substance I don’t support Israel building settlements in the occupied territories. They just make a peace settlement way more difficult. An eventual peace settlement won’t be on the exact 1967 borders but comprise an equivalent area. However the more settlements there are the less flexibility there is on what those areas will be, and the harder an agreement is.

However the UN has a terrible bias against Israel and a history of passing resolutions that only call for action by Israel, and nothing from the Palestinians. So it is regrettable this resolution followed that path also.

Steven Joyce released:

The New Zealand economy continued to grow solidly in the September quarter, posting a higher than expected 1.1 per cent growth rate for the quarter and 3.5 per cent over the last year, Finance Minister Steven Joyce says.

“New Zealand’s focus on developing a strong and open economy is delivering good results for Kiwi families, especially relative to most of the rest of the developed world,” Mr Joyce says.

New Zealand’s economic growth in the year to September was the fifth strongest in the OECD ahead of Australia (1.8 per cent), the USA (1.6 per cent), Canada (1.3 per cent) and the Euro Area (1.7 per cent).

3.5% is very good growth.

Growth in the quarter was strong across 13 of 16 industries, including:

• Business services (up 2.0 per cent)

• Transport, postal, and warehousing (up 3.7 per cent)

• Construction (up 2.1 per cent)

• Manufacturing (up 1.2 per cent)

That manufactured manufacturing crisis is still going strong!

The Herald reports:

A video has emerged that appears to show two young girls being embraced and kissed by their parents before leaving to complete suicide missions.

The 7-year-old girl was reportedly sent to a police station in the Syrian city of Damascus last week where explosives she was carrying were remotely detonated. Her 9-year-old sister was reportedly stopped at the Ministry of Interior before she could carry out her mission.

Chilling footage shows a man lecturing the two children about the suicide attack.
“You are not going to be afraid because you are going to the heavens, right?” he says.

“No,” one of the girls answers.

Afterwards the girls say “Allahu Akbar”.

Syrian journalists are reporting the adults in the footage are the parents of the children.

The woman is asked why she is sending her daughters to jihad even though they are so young.

“No one is young when it comes to jihad as every Muslim is supposed to participate in jihad,” she replies.

I’m trying to think of a punishment bad enough for these parents but can’t. The fact they are happy to kill their own children means that they have no empathy. They won’t be afraid of death as they are sure they are going to heaven.

Maybe have the surviving child fostered off to a atheist couple?

Stuff reports:

US President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday called for the United States to expand its nuclear arsenal, which would be a radical shift in US policy dating back decades.

In a tweet that offered no details, Trump said, “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Trump’s suggestion would reverse a long-standing policy under both Republican and Democratic presidents to reduce the number and the role of nuclear weapons, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. Russia and before it, the Soviet Union, hold a similar policy.

Since President George HW Bush’s administration, it has been US policy not to build new nuclear warheads.

There are times when I think Trump might not be an awful President and then there are times when I think he could be an absolute disaster – and this is one of them.

The last thing the world needs is a new nuclear arms race. The US and Russia have enough nukes to blow up the planet many times over.

The Herald reports:

A group of Auckland families are facing a bleak Christmas in cramped motel rooms that are costing taxpayers thousands of dollars each week.

The Herald visited a motel in South Auckland today where several tenants have been housed under the Ministry of Social Development’s emergency accommodation scheme.

Hazel Waipouri and her two granddaughters have been living in a single-bedroom unit at the motel, which the Herald has agreed not to identify, for four months.

Why is she in emergency accommodation? Why did the Herald not spend 30 seconds searching the Tenancy Tribunal and find this eviction from a state house for unpaid rent.

Now remember as a state house they get a massive subsidy so the rent is only 25% of their income. If they are on a benefit, it can be paid direct from the benefit. The rent was only $52 a week but even that was unpaid for at least 15 weeks. And now she wails to the media that the motel is costing taxpayers $1,000 a week.

Joyleen Taihia, her partner and four children have been living in a two-bedroom motel unit for 11 weeks, at a cost of more than $2000 a week.

And she has been to the Tenancy Tribunal three times. Unpaid rent of $3,050 in April 2016.

This is frankly terrible journalism without a shred of research. Why not ask the first person quoted why they didn’t pay a miniscule $52 a week in rent?

A fascinating quote by Andrew Little:

English was seen as a compassionate conservative “and there’s probably something in that,” Little said.

But he also favoured smaller government, so his flagship “social investment approach” – which targets cash towards those most in need to avoid greater costs later – simply moved money around rather than adding cash to social services.

This sums up more than anything all that is wrong with Labour.

Social investment is about spending more money at an earlier stage so people live better lives, and become more self reliant. So it is about spending more on education, health, welfare, getting them into a job, training, rehabilitation, drug counselling etc so that they end up a productive member of society who can look after themselves and their families.

This of course means that you avoid the costs of someone being non-productive and on welfare, in prison, unable to read, a drug addict etc.

But Little says that this is simply moving around. That the real aim of government shouldn’t be to have people more self-reliant, but instead to spend more cash on social services. They see spending as the desired outcome.

Labour builds an electoral majority by having as many people as possible reliant on state spending. That is what matters to them.

Once again I emulate the annual Fairfax predictions, with my own. Here’s my 20 for 2017:

1. Jacinda Ardern will be elected MP for Mt Albert in the by-election
2. No one from the 2014 National intake will be made a Minister before the election
3. The 2017 election will be at a later date (during the year) than the 2014 election
4. The second highest ranked male candidate on Labour’s list (excluding those in seats Labour is expected to win) will be Trevor Mallard
5. Winston Peters will poll higher than Andrew Little as Preferred PM in most polls in 2017
6. The 2016/17 year will end in a surplus of greater than $1 billion
7. The official cash rate will rise in 2017
8. National will poll higher than Labour and Greens combined in at least 90% of public polls
9. Shane Jones will stand for NZ First and be ranked in the top three on their list
10. Helen Clark will return to New Zealand to become Vice-Chancellor Auckland University
11. John Key will be knighted in the 2017 Queens’ Birthday Honours
12. Steven Joyce’s first Budget will deliver tax cuts
13. Labour will lose at least one of the six Maori seats they hold
14. Labour and Greens will do a “dirty” (their former terminology) deal in Ohariu
15. NZ First will get more votes on election night than the Greens
16. US President Donald Trump will visit New Zealand
17. Malcolm Turnbull will be rolled by his own caucus in 2017
18. The Greens will again declare more large donations than Labour in their annual return to the Electoral Commission
19. David Seymour’s euthanasia bill will be drawn from the ballot
20. Cameron Brewer will be selected as National’s Helensville candidate
    

A few people got very excited that Bill English said he wouldn’t describe himself as a feminist and further doesn’t quite know what it means.

This question is always a trap. If you answer yes then you will be given a long list of ways in which you don’t live up to feminist ideals, and if you answer no you will be condemned as not believing in equality.

Many people (including myself) define a feminist as someone who believes in equality for women. On that definition around 98% of the population is a feminist, which probably makes it not a particular meaningful definition.

Most people differentiate the two though. Danyl McL blogs on a poll from the UK:

When split out by gender, women were more likely to identify as feminist, with nine per cent using the label compared to four per cent of men.

But men were more supportive generally of equality between the sexes – 86 per cent wanted it for the women in their lives – compared to 74 per cent of women.

Sam Smethers, the charity’s chief executive, said: “The overwhelming majority of the public share our feminist values but don’t identify with the label. However the simple truth is if you want a more equal society for women and men then you are in fact a feminist.

So over 80% of people in the UK support equality for women but only 8% of women (and 4% of men) identify as a feminist. So Bill English falls into that category.

If your only criteria for being a feminist is supporting sexual equality, then Gareth Wilson points out:

My thought experiment when this comes up is the feminist trio Leni, Alice, and Tammy. Leni is proudly racist, and believes only white people are capable of civilisation. Alice is a radical libertarian who would let half the population starve if it would motivate the other half to work harder. Tammy is a devout Christian who sincerely believes you’ll go to Hell for having an abortion, or teaching evolution. But they all genuinely believe that women are equal to men, and deserve all the opportunities and privileges that men have. If you don’t believe all three are feminists, then your broad definition that you use to bully people into describing themselves as feminists isn’t actually what you think a feminist is.

Matthew Hooton also points out:

Anyone who thinks feminism is simply about equality should have a quick re-read of, say, The Whole Woman by Greer. It is a far richer doctrine than mere equality and quite understandable for a Catholic conservative like Bill English – and many other people besides him – to be cautious about wholehearted identification with the term.

So even though I’m happy to say I’m a feminist as I support equality for women, most people don’t see a feminist as just being about equality – but about a wider political ideology. so holding it up as a litmus test for fitness to not very enlightening.

The Herald reports:

X Factor winner Beau Monga has been charged with assaulting a woman, just days after performing at an anti-violence breakfast.

The 22-year-old appeared in the Hamilton District Court today on five charges – three for breaching a protection order and two for male assaults female, reported Fairfax.

He pleaded not guilty to all charges. …

Monga and his father were guest speaker’s at a breakfast for anti-violence charity White Ribbon Day in Hamilton on November 25.

So almost certainly he already have a protection order against him when he spoke at the breakfast.

Would be a good idea for organisers of such events to ask guest speakers some basic questions such as are you the subject of a protection order.

The Herald reports:

Kiwi age-group triathlete Amy Stretton is devastated after being suspended for two years by Triathlon New Zealand for providing an incorrect time at a world championship event.

Her Auckland coach is adamant Stretton is capable of swimming the time and said she wasn’t given a chance to defend herself at the TriNZ disciplinary commission.

The commission handed down a two year ban from all competitions after finding Stretton’s time was not genuine and that it was likely she acted deliberately, given the absence of any explanation to the contrary.

Stretton, a physical education teacher at Onehunga High School, posted a swim time of 55min 27secs for 4km in the 30-34 age group at the Oklahoma ITU long distance world championships in September. She was more than eight minutes faster than the leading elite female at the end of the swim.

Not only was she faster than the leading elite female, she was faster than the leading elite man.

The full report is online here and a good read. First there is some form:

That at a previous event in New Zealand (the 2015 Taupo Ironman 70.3 Event) Ms Stretton had an initial swim time corrected by race management following discovery that she had started the race in a bunch earlier than she should have.

And how did she do at Taupo:

That at Taupo this resulted in a corrected swim time for Ms Stretton of 41:12. This compared, for example, to the fastest swim by an Elite Man (Dylan McNeice) of 23:43

Around half the speed of McNeice.

At Oklahoma, Mr McNeice was one of the three Elite Men to post the fastest swim time in their section of 56:47. Suggesting Ms Stretton had to have swum a full minute faster than him to complete the swim in Oklahoma in the time recorded and subsequently claimed by her;

So that is a huge improvement!

What is likely to have happened in this case is that Ms Stretton identified a time that she thought she could swim the required distance, and then orchestrated her swim to try and match that time. It is not clear how this would have been done, but we do note that the swim was a two-lap event, and the swimmers were not required to exit the water between laps. That, coupled with the absence of any mechanism to check her completion of the two laps (including the absence of any GPS data) means it is entirely possible that she orchestrated the swim of one lap in the time she hoped people would accept as a possible time for two.

If there was no checking you had done two laps, then easy to do.

Also of interest:

The Commission has been made aware that Ms Stretton has previously been suspended by TriNZ for a breach of TriNZ’s rules and regulations. That was for dishonestly representing that she had been selected for a TriNZ Elite team, and included the fabrication of a letter on TriNZ letterhead for provision to a third party. In the present circumstances Ms Stretton does not come before us therefore with a ‘clean record.

Pretty compelling case.

Stuff reports:

National Party MP Todd Barclay has been reselected to contest the Clutha-Southland electorate at the 2017 general election.

Barclay was voted to remain in his position ahead of former Merrill Lynch investment fund manager Simon Flood at the National Party Clutha-Southland candidate selection meeting in Winton on Wednesday.

“I’m thrilled with the result tonight and look forward to getting on the campaign trail and earning the right to continue to serve Clutha-Southland in Parliament,” Barclay said.

“I will be going forward into 2017 campaigning hard for Clutha-Southland, talking about my track record of success at delivering for local communities in Bill English’s strong, stable, positive National-led Government.”

Flood announced he would challenge Barclay for the role last month.

I understand the vote was not close, but overwhelmingly for Barclay.

National has quite a history of MPs being successfully challenged for nominations – John Key, Judith Collins and John Carter all entering Parliament this way.

Less common is an unsuccessful challenge. The last unsuccessfulful challenge I can recall is 22 year old Ruth Richardson against Sir Roy Jack in 1972 for the Rangitikei nomination. Sir Roy won and became Speaker (again) in 1976.

Phil Quin writes at Stuff:

Andrew Little’s own reshuffle displayed no less confidence than English in the security of his leadership.

In fact, Little is proving himself astoundingly effective at reshaping the caucus in his image. Which other leader of recent times can claim to have dispatched three former predecessors

True. Goff, Shearer and Cunliffe all gone. Little will be pleased with that.

meanwhile lumbering his only credible future rivals (Grant Robertson and David Parker) with portfolios to which they are glaringly unsuited?  

It is clear to anyone paying attention that Robertson and Parker have each other’s job – but, for Little, there are obvious advantages in keeping such talented frontbenchers out of their comfort zone.

This is so true. Robertson would be a natural at foreign affairs and Parker is far more credible in Finance. But by having them both in jobs they are unsuited for, they pose no threat.

Unlike Michael Cullen, who schooled himself assiduously on fiscal matters, Robertson appears to spend most of his spare time in university common rooms, where he is beloved by student politicians.

This has not gone unnoticed among Wellington businesspeople with whom I’ve spoken.

In many cases, they cast their electorate vote for Robertson, but do not believe he is a credible finance spokesperson.

Both Julie-Anne Genter and James Shaw have come across as more credible economic spokespersons than Robertson.

Unlike English, Little’s supreme confidence in his position stems not from robust polling, but from a party constitution that makes changing leaders midstream next to impossible.

This is especially the case given Little controls 20 percent of the party — in the form of affiliated unions – that give him an unbeatable head start ahead of any potential challenger. 

Leader for life!

J Murphy writes at news.com.au:

Sixth isn’t bad but first is better. Part of why we now have net inwards migration from Australia after decades of going the other way.

New Zealand gets glowing praise in the report.

They praise it for high levels of personal freedom, but especially for being “a nation with the strongest social capital in the world, where 99 per cent of New Zealanders say they have family or friends to rely on in times of need. “

(Could this amazing social capital be why NZ seems to be able to manage political stability and orderly transitions while we suffer through political incompetence and repeated back-stabbing?)

The PM transitions have been a contrast!

The Washington Post reports:

President-elect Donald Trump has named Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) as his director of the Office of Management and Budget, signaling his intent to slash spending and address the deficit as president.

Mulvaney, 49, was elected to Congress in 2010 in the wave that brought a cohort of younger, staunchly conservative members into the House. Mulvaney quickly staked out ground as one of Congress’s most outspoken fiscal hawks — playing a key role in the 2011 showdown between President Obama and House Republicans that ended in the passage of strict budget caps.

He has been an advocate for spending cuts, often taking on his own party to push for more aggressive curbs to government spending.

Trump’s policies were to massively increase spending but he has appointed as head of OMB someone who wants to greatly curb spending.

The federal deficits blew out under both GWB and Obama and is unsustainably high. Eventually they need to get back into surplus where tax revenue matches or exceeds spending. Mulvaney may be the person who can help do that.

Mulvaney is also an advocate of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

Trump could push for that along with term limits.

Among Mulvaney’s chief duties will be overseeing the most dramatic overhaul of the nation’s tax code since President Ronald Reagan. Trump has pledged to streamline the process for individual households and slash the rate for corporations from 35 percent to 15 percent. The changes are a central component of the administration’s promise to boost economic growth to 4 percent or higher, a message that resonated with voters still bruised by the Great Recession but that many economists say is unsustainable.

In addition, Trump has said that stronger growth would mean his tax proposal would not contribute to the national debt, and he has vowed not to cut expensive but popular entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. But experts have been skeptical of those claims, and Mulvaney would be responsible for reconciling the numbers.

Trump’s numbers are nonsense. if Mulvaney can find a way through Trump’s rhetoric to actually eliminate the deficit, that would be a great thing.

The Herald reports:

Police said that the driver who rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in the heart of the German capital, killing at least 12 people and injuring nearly 50, did so intentionally and that they are investigating a suspected “terror attack.”

The truck struck the popular Christmas market outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church late Monday as tourists and locals were enjoying a traditional pre-Christmas evening out near Berlin’s Zoo station.

“Our investigators are working on the assumption that the truck was intentionally driven into the crowd at the Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz,” Berlin police said on Twitter.

Cowardly monsters who do this.

Unverified reports are that the driver is a refugee from Pakistan. This will increase the backlash against refugees, if correct.

The Herald reports:

Auckland Council’s events agency Ateed committed half a million dollars to Duco Events to help fund boxer Joseph Parker’s world title fight – before looking at the event’s business case and backing out.

So they pledged $500,000 before even looking at the business case!

The event happened in Auckland without the $500,000, so Auckland got all the benefits from the event and all that happened is that there was not a $500,000 wealth transfer from ratepayers to Duco. It was classic wasteful corporate welfare.

ATEED needs hard headed executives who won’t pledge money at the mere mention of an event, but will take a long hard look at the business case and assess whether the event would happen without ratepayer funding.

The Auckland Council need to appoint directors of ATEED who will appoint executives like this.

The contract was drawn up by Duco after Ateed chief executive Brett O’Riley agreed to give the promotions company half a million dollars, before knowing if the event met council’s strict public funding rules.

Amazing.

It can be revealed that on the same day O’Riley emailed Auckland mayor Phil Goff and councillors, to say funding discussions with Duco were “at an early stage, I wanted to update you with what we know currently”, Duco was emailing O’Riley – thanking him for a phone call and “confirmation that ATEED is in for $500k.”

If I was Phil Goff I would not be happy.

Ateed also confirmed it had funded Parker’s previous fight, against Carlos Takam in Auckland on May 21.

Ateed refused to confirm how much money that deal was worth, saying “withholding the information is necessary to enable Ateed to carry out commercial activities without prejudice or disadvantage.”

Oh bullshit. Handing out wads of ratepayer money is not a commercial activity.

Rodney Hide looks at what Gareth Morgan said is the TOP way of talking politics:

•”Be nice”;
•”talk ideas and policy, not personality”;
•”stick to the evidence”;
•”avoid name-calling”.

And then Rodney looks at how Gareth demonstrates these principles on Twitter:

To Tessa Burrows: “Pse have the self control to read & comprehend b4 u blab.

Thankfully the av public is smarter.”

To Ross Marks: “do your homework dickhead, TM [TradeMe] is less than 1/4 of my wealth.”

To Andrew Riddell: “if you’d read the book you’d know why dropkick. Typical tall poppy crap for a kiwi nobody.”

To Bryce Pearce: “yeah let’s not talk about the arguments, let’s just be bitchy. Jesus you’re a w***er.”

To Locrates: “Abuse is the lowest form of intellect. Try counselling.”

To Dermott Renner: “Sure, some of the top 20% don’t give a damn. Charming model for your children.” “Boy, some nutters out there.”

On ACT’s Dr Jamie Whyte: “He’s against fairness. He’s a moron like all libertarians.”

To Thomas Mead: “Try arguing & u better know what you’re talking about. I do & there’s no time here for fools.”

To Marchmain: “I answer fire with fire, always have. If u have a question ask it, otherwise FO – is that so hard?”

As Rodney says, very revealing.