The Dom Post editorial:

Mayor Justin Lester says “it’s not my job to create chaos or fear or hysteria.” Of course it’s not. But he wouldn’t have created any chaos or fear or hysteria if he had simply delayed his “business as usual” declaration for several days.

As it is, Lester reopened the central business district the day after a massive quake struck. He is now in the odd position that the more the city looks, the more trouble it finds, and the more buildings have to be evacuated.

It simply isn’t true that, as he said yesterday, “not that much has happened in the past few days.” More and more buildings are being evacuated, either as a precaution or as a result of apparent defects.

Lester says he took the decision on the advice of experts and even that Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee agrees with what he did.  But Brownlee said yesterday that he was “a little surprised, after closing the city on Monday, the decision was so very quick to say it was OK on Tuesday.”

Brownlee said he  was “unhappy about that, and we are going to have to talk to them.” And the politician is not the only veteran of the Christchurch earthquake to suggest that the Wellington mayor was too hasty.

It isn’t a great look to have had significant buildings deemed at risk of collapsing after the CBD reopened. They are a small proportion of the total, but they do pose a risk to neighbouring buildings – not just themselves.

The Herald reports:

A British tourist allegedly gang-raped in Dubai faces a prison sentence and needs £24,000 (NZ$42,200) for legal fees after police accused her of having “extra-marital sex”.

The 25-year-old woman was reportedly arrested and charged after going to the authorities about the alleged attack by two Britons last month.

She is now on bail, but is not allowed to leave the country and is said to be “absolutely terrified” of being imprisoned for breaching strict laws on sex.

The woman, who cannot be identified, was on holiday in Dubai when her ordeal unfolded, The Sun reported.

She is said to have been lured into a hotel room by two British men, who are alleged to have both raped her while filming the attack.

The woman’s family claimed the men flew home to Britain just hours later.

When she reported the attack to police, the alleged victim was then herself charged with having sex outside marriage.

Maybe the UN Human Rights Council could condemn this, if they are not too busy discussing whether they like the name of NZ’s new Ministry of Vulnerable Children.

Stuff reports:

The Government has moved to transfer the decision-making power over fluoridation of regional water supplies to district health boards. 

New legislation has been put before Parliament to remove the authority from district councils, which could come under intense pressure from opposition groups against fluoridation. 

It was a health issue, and so was best decided by DHBs, said Health Minister Jonathan Coleman. 

I can’t imagine any DHB will decide against fluoridation so I suspect this will result in de factor fluoridation in all areas.

About 2.3 million New Zealanders were already drinking from fluoridated water supplies. Those were town supplies were fluoride was added to top up levels from the low amount which naturally occurs. 

So only around half currently covered.

According to a Government-commissioned report by Sapere Research Group, found New Zealanders living in fluoridated drinking-water areas had 40 per cent lower lifetime incidence of tooth decay among children and adolescents.

There was also a 48 per cent reduction in hospital admissions for the treatment of tooth decay among children aged 0 to 4 years and a 21 per cent reduction in tooth decay among adults aged 18 to 44 years.

In adults aged 45 years and over, a 30 per cent reduction in tooth decay was found. 

Pretty compelling data.

Fran O’Sullivan writes:

There will now be a contest for resources as the main South Island transport link is rebuilt and defective Wellington buildings are removed.

What is a pity is that CentrePort is not a listed company, as it would have had to make much more full disclosure about the vulnerability of newer commercial buildings on reclaimed port land.

This is a good point. We often overlook that having at least partial private ownership of companies massively increases transparency.

It would be great for every Government and local Government SOE to have even a small portion listed on the NZX as this would actually increased public transparency.

The Herald reports:

David Bain was “disgusted” with the Australian judge for refusing to meet with him while considering his compensation bid for wrongful imprisonment.

Bain said his rights were “completely abused” by Justice Ian Callinan QC who made “extremely hurtful” comments in finding Bain did not prove his innocence “on the balance of probabilities” of killing five members of his family.

Justice Callinan didn’t refuse to meet him. Bain never asked for a meeting.

On the matter of whether David Bain should have been interviewed, Callinan said no request was ever made to him and “no ‘expectation’ that I do so was ever suggested to me”.

“Had any expectation on the part of [Bain] that he would be personally interviewed been communicated to me, I would have needed to consider whether that would be appropriate and helpful, having regard to several matters.”

These included whether to interview Bain in an inquisitorial way, if the Crown should cross-examine him, and if this would turn the process into a “de facto trial”.

There is thank goodness a final settlement in the case. Personally I think Bain has done pretty well getting almost a million dollars despite the finding that on balance of probabilities he was the killer.

Stuff reports:

President-elect Donald Trump is announcing his choices for three key administration jobs today, naming Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Kansas Rep Mike Pompeo to head the CIA and former military intelligence chief Michael Flynn as his national security adviser.

All three have been fierce critics of President Barack Obama and current US policy. …

Flynn was a critic of Obama’s military and foreign policy long before he began advising Trump on national security issues during the presidential campaign. As national security adviser, Flynn would work in the West Wing and have frequent access to the new president.

The 57-year-old built a reputation as an astute intelligence professional and straight talker when he became the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012. After retiring two years later, he made clear he took issue with the Obama administration’s approach to global affairs and fighting Islamic State militants.

Flynn’s appointment may be the most important. He is willing to call a spade a spade and recognise that the Islamic element of Islamic State is not coincidental – recognising the political element as well as the religious.

Flynn was a three star general whose background is mainly intelligence (good for the NSA). He headed up the Defence Intelligence Agency and was Assistant Director of National Intelligence.

He was deployed for the Grenada liberation in the 1980s and has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It was Obama who appointed him to head the DIA, but since retiring he has been very critical of their strategy. He is in fact a registered Democrat.

I suspect Flynn’s appointment will see a change of strategy in Syria where effectively it will be conceded Assad is the lesser evil (but still evil) and the US will work with Russia and Assad to remove territory from Islamic State control.

Stuff reports:

Convicted sex offender and murderer Phillip John Smith is suing the Department of Corrections over the hairpiece he wore in his South American escape.

Smith, who is serving 33 months in Auckland Prison for his 2014 escape while on temporary release, claims that Corrections’ failure to return his hairpiece violates his human rights.

This is disgraceful. The UN Human Rights Council needs to investigate.

Happy beyond belief to announce the birth of Benjamin Farrar this week.

He was a healthy nine pounds and seven ounces at birth (4.3 kgs) and the consensus is he has my nose and my partner’s eyes.

As other parents will know, it doesn’t become real until you hold them in your arms for the first time which I got to do a few seconds after he was born.

Both baby and mum doing well.

If there is less blogging over the next few months, or even years, it will probably be because I’m busy changing nappies and being a dad!

While I always thought Clinton would beat Trump (and was wrong) I did also say that if Sanders had won the nomination I thought Trump would beat him as he is too left wing to be electable.

My theory was that his socialist agenda would unite the entire right behind Trump from establishment GOP to business lobbies to the Tea Party.

It seems my theory had some merit.  Kurt Eichenwald at Newsweek has details of what the Republicans were going to hit Sanders with if he was the candidate:

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Yep there is an explanation but explaining is losing.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s

Amazing. He was basically unemployed until he was almost 40 when he became a Mayor. He was the ultimate stererotypical hippie railing against injustice from his parent’s basement.

and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills

Yep he couldn’t pay his bills as he wasn’t working so he just stole it from a neighbour!

and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

If only they had done the same research on Trump!

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs.

Whoops, but the best is yet to come:

Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

Trump would have slaughtered him. Any of the Republican candidates would have.

The Herald reports:

Musician Lizzie Marvelly has dismissed speculation she will run for the Labour Party at the next election.

She said today she was flattered by the suggestion she could seek the nomination in Rotorua.

“But this is just a rumour – no truth to it,” she said.

I wonder who will stand then, now Coffey has fled and Marvelly has said no?

Fran O’Sullivan writes:

How many more major earthquakes can New Zealand sustain without crippling the country’s ability to maintain current economic growth rates?

It’s an unpalatable question.

But away from the cameras, that is exactly the question which John Key and Bill English should be pondering.

Whether they like it or not, they will have to reorder their fiscal priorities so the major infrastructure challenges in Auckland and Christchurch can still be addressed, at the same time as they gear up to fund what will be another very significant rebuild. Not all of the costs will be covered by insurance.

It looks like the cost is going to be in the billions, not the hundreds of millions as first thought.

The world’s reinsurance market players will be reassessing New Zealand risk.

At what stage do they think there is a pattern?

So too, should the political leaders in Auckland and Christchurch; two cities which are after further substantial central government capital injections to accelerate their own new infrastructure.

Given the new funding pressures the Government now faces, it is frankly about time that mayors Phil Goff and Lianne Dalziel also faced up to fiscal realism and extracted some capital by selling down council’s stakes in commercial companies to help fund their own patches.

Fiscal reality is indeed what they need. It is almost selfish for them to insist taxpayers should fund their capital desires when they have shareholding in commercial companies they could sell down to fund investment in areas they do need to own.

Key’s confidence-building abilities are obvious. He has had plenty of experience fronting the disasters that have plagued New Zealand since his prime ministership began: the global financial crisis; the Canterbury earthquake, the Pike River mine disaster and the subsequent Christchurch earthquake.

But having another spate of serious earthquakes within such a sort timeframe will also affect key sectors such as tourism, construction and insurance.

I can’t recall another period with so many challenges.

The critical issue is the Government’s finances.

After the first 7.2 Canterbury earthquake in September 2010, English warned “we’ve got to be in a position where we can handle another recession and another earthquake and frankly we won’t be there until 2020”.

Then central Christchurch was reduced to rubble in February 2011. While that earthquake registered only 6.3 on the Richter scale it had huge intensity.

This current series of earthquakes is different. There had already been more than 10 severe earthquakes (since the 7.5 earthquake at 12.02am Monday morning) at the time this column was written.

Even Parliament was rocked by another major aftershock yesterday as the Finance Minister spoke about the Kaikoura earthquake recovery.

Typically, English was sanguine. The economy was in good shape; there were Budget surpluses and relatively the level of debt was low.

Yet better placed than a few years ago but could still pose some challenges.

Max Rashbrooke writes:

In the midst of the earthquakes last night, it was striking to compare the performance of two key public and private institutions, Radio New Zealand and Uber, and the things that motivate them.

As dozens of people noted, RNZ put in a stellar performance: Susie Ferguson rushed to the studio, and she and others provided a steady stream of calm, clear, important information, delivered both quickly and accurately. The driver for them was – I think we can assume – not financial but altruistic: wanting to help a frightened and confused public understand what was going on and how to react.

In contrast, according to reports on Twitter, Uber’s surge pricing – a process that increases the price of a ride when demand is high – pushed the cost of hiring one of its drivers to 2.8 times the usual amount.

Comparing a public broadcaster to a private transport provider is rather strange and I don’t think tells us anything. The better comparison is public vs private media and public vs private transport providers.

So let’s compare media responses to the earthquakes. Yes Radio NZ did a very good job by all accounts. But so did the two big private media companies – Fairfax and NZME. I found the Herald and Stuff sites excellent with updates, and also the reports by their staff on Twitter.

So I don’t see any difference there.

As for transport companies, well the public transport companies all closed down generally – no trains and sparse buses if any.

Taxis are private sector also but let’s look at how they reacted compared to Uber. I am pretty sure that few off duty taxi drivers jumped into their cars at midnight after the earthquake rather than stayed at home with their families.

Uber however has a model which incentivised their large pool of drivers (none of whom have fixed rosters) to make themselves available so more people could get transport. Uber itself made no or little extra money from this – the drivers did.

What would have sorted things out very clearly is a classic public sector process: finding out people’s circumstances, assessing their need based on their overall situation not the size of their wallet, and allocating resources (rides) accordingly. Of course Uber doesn’t do that because it’s not a public service. But that brings us round again to what performs well, especially during tough times – and that, unsurprisingly, is both the public sector’s spirit and its processes.

OMG. I’m sorry but the though of some committee forming to decide whose needs are greater and get first priority to grab a taxi is farcical. This was an earthquake. People are the best judge of their own situation as to how bad their need is.

I normally won’t pay surge pricing of more than 2.0 but if it was after an earthquake I’d happily pay 4.0 pricing to mean I got a lift as quickly as possible to get home.

And if I didn’t want to pay Uber’s surge pricing then I could call a taxi and wait for one to become available.

Liam Hehir writes:

The press was christened the Fourth Estate in response to the French Revolution, during which the Third Estate effectively overthrew the other two. This could never have happened were it not for an explosion in newspaper and pamphlet publishing that excited debate and increased popular awareness of the affairs of state.

Given that we are still experiencing the repercussions of this event, the subsequent designation of the news media as a vital force in public affairs has always been taken for granted.

Not so much any more, perhaps.

Hillary Clinton got 500 media endorsements to just 26 for Donald Trump, yet the voters ignored the overwhelming consensus of the media and elected him.

If you go by readership size, of the top 50 newspapers, not one endorsed Trump.

I’ve previously expressed the view that claims of media bias should be treated with some caution. It’s not that it doesn’t exist (journalists are only human, after all). But because they cover controversial topics, reporters are always going to be accused of bias even when they go to great lengths to be balanced.

If you are a partisan of a particular candidate, party or cause, the chance are you will find fault with any coverage of the subject. It’s just human nature.

That being said, it’s impossible to maintain that the American media was an impartial chronicler of the last election. The manner in which it pushed for Hillary Clinton’s victory was evident from the nature of its coverage and behaviour of American journalists themselves.

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory, ABC’s Martha Raddatz – who actually moderated one of the debates – struggled to hold back tears as she talked about the Clinton loss. In mid October, it was revealed that a staggering 96 per cent of campaign donations coming from journalists went to the former secretary of state.

And what could be inferred from such conduct was more or less confirmed by Wikileaks. It turned out another debate moderator emailed Clinton’s campaign chair to, among other things, brag about how he had successfully baited Trump, solicit question ideas and even offer campaign advice.

Another prominent reporter was caught repeatedly running copy by the campaign for approval prior to publication. The questions in upcoming CNN debates were leaked to Clinton’s staffers on multiple occasions.

Again part of the falling trust in media.

It sometimes looks that, their forebears having done so much to sweep the First and Second Estates from power, America’s reporters have now come to see themselves as the aristocrats and clergymen of the twenty-first century.

They certainly sound like would-be aristocrats when they talk about the lower income voters who flocked to Trump. You get the feeling that for many covering the election, “the peasants are revolting” is an observation that carries more than one meaning.

Jokes about hillbillies, rednecks and white trash may comfort you about your perceived superiority, but they also reek of the same hauteur that characterised the gentry of old.

Not much better are the anguished pieces about how these poor benighted people aren’t to blame for their ignorance and what is really required is a better method of “explaining” to them why their values are wrong. Both approaches boil down to the same basic idea: that the serfs lack the dignity and agency required for citizenship.

Good observation.

Rob Hosking Rodney Hide writes in NBR:

The first and toughest job in policy making is determining the problem. My experience is ministers and bureaucrats look bewildered when they’re asked what problem they’re trying to fix. They then blurt meaningless claptrap.

So I shouldn’t be too hard on Labour in opposition having no idea what problem its Future of Work report is supposedly addressing. But it’s a troubling omission.

The closest it gets to a problem definition is Grant Robertson saying by way of introduction that the goal is “to allow New Zealanders to face an uncertain future with confidence.” 

The problem by implication is that the future is “uncertain,” that New Zealanders are not facing that uncertainty “with confidence” and that here’s policy to fix that.

NZers are in fact very confident overall.

So what’s the problem? I have no idea. But I also can’t make either head or tail of much of the policy that Labour proposes.

The report summarises 64 policy recommendations.

These include such gems as “Continue to support Gateway and STAR” (whatever they are), “Support hop-on, hop off training” (whatever that is), “Create new employment-relations framework and collective-agreement targets” (sounds scary), “Address unequal pay” (how exactly?), “Develop regional infrastructure partnerships with post-settlement iwi” (because tribalism in partnership with government will surely work), “Reform education and adopt culturally inclusive learning methods” (reforming education is always good and there’s always room for more inclusivity), “Aim for ICT to be the second largest contributor to GDP” (the government is rubbish at picking winning businesses, so let’s pick an industry), “Appoint a chief technology officer to create a technology roadmap for the next 5-10 years” (because planning tsars worked so well in the past), “Develop a just transition plan for climate change led by an Independent Climate Commission” (let’s shut down fossil fuel use and reverse the industrial revolution in a way that’s fair).

So do you feel better about the future now?

It’s hardly a rallying cry. “Don’t fear the future, vote Labour.” “Support Gateway and Star, vote Labour.” It’s rubbish policy and terrible politics.

Incredibly light weight for something that took two years.

Labour would benefit greatly from having members who have actually experienced work and know what they’re talking about. 

Sadly, the report highlights Labour’s lack of connection with business and the working world. It reads as if it has been written by second-rate teachers, union officials, career politicians and low-level political operatives. That’s because it has been.

The best thing Labour could be doing for itself and the country is recruiting people who have actually been in the workforce Labour says it cares so passionately about. Or better yet, recruit members who have employed people with their own capital at risk and thereby make the workforce possible.

How many Labour MPs have ever employed other people?

The Herald reports:

A petition against Destiny Church’s tax-free status is gaining momentum as Brian Tamaki hits back over the backlash to his homophobic sermon blaming gays, sinners and murderers for earthquakes.

The petition, on Change.org, sprung up after the self-appointed Bishop’s Sunday sermon in which he told his congregation the earth “convulses under the weight of certain human sin”.

The petition, set up by Aaron Smithson with a single signature, has now attracted more than 15,000 supporters.

“With the recent news from the self-appointed “Bishop” Brian Tamaki that gays were to blame for the earthquake in Kaikoura, I call upon John Key and the New Zealand Government to classify Destiny Church as a hate group and strip them of their tax free status,” Smithson said on Change.org.

Cabinet Ministers should not decide who qualifies as a religion or charity based on public statements. That is a job for officials and/or the courts.

But my view is that no religion should have special tax status under the law. A religious group should be treated the same as an other NGO or aspiring charity. If they qualifies as charitable then they should gain the tax benefits of being a charity but there shouldn’t be special extra legislative benefits such as tax free land.

The Democrats are locked out of Government at almost every level after these elections. The stats are:

• State lower houses – 17 out of 50
• State upper houses – 13 out of 50
• State governors – 15 out of 50
• State control (governor and both houses) – seven out of 50
• US House – 193 out of 435
• Senators – 46 out of 100
• Presidential states won – 20 out of 50 (plus DC)

So the Democrats have control of only seven out of 50 states. By contrast the Republicans have full control in 26 out of the 50 states. In 2009 the Democrats had control of 27 states, so a huge reduction to seven.

They have gone from 28 Governors to just 15.

This is the worst level of representation for Democrats since the Civil War and the best representation for the Republican Party in their history.

The House won’t change without an implosion (possible with Trump) and 76% of the Senate seats up in 2018 are Democratic held and hence very unlikely to change hands.

Also if we look at the judicial branch, things are grim. The Supreme Court will soon have a 5-4 majority of Republican appointments but there are three Justices already older than the average retirement aged so it could ed up 7-2 on the court.

And if we look at the Circuit Courts of Appeals they are currently dominated by Democratic appointments – 93 to 75. But on average a President appoints 30 per term and has a net gain of 15 so should end up around 90 to 78.

Professor Claire Robinson writes:

History suggests that National will overcome the ‘ third-term blues’ to win another general election. Since 1998, the party leading the opinion polls in July of the year preceding the election has gone on to win the highest proportion of the party vote come election day. I’ m prepared to make a similar prediction for the 2017.

Here’s the polls in those July years:

• 2016 National 27% ahead
• 2013 National 17% ahead – won
• 2010 National 17% ahead – won
• 2007 National 12% ahead – won
• 2004 – National 4% behind – lost
• 2001 – National 13% behind – lost
• 1998 – National 6% behind – lost
• 1995 – National 18% ahead – won
• 1992 – National 0% behind – won
• 1989 – National 21 ahead – won
• 1986 – National 4% behind – lost
• 1983 – National 5% behind – lost
• 1980 – National 1% behind – won (but lost popular vote)
• 1977 – National 5% ahead – won (but lost popular vote)

So some fairly good history there.

Early deciding voters tend to base their decisions on a longstanding predisposition towards a particular party, as well as performance measures they know or can estimate long before the actual date of the next election. Over the past three election campaigns an astonishingly high 73.8 per cent of National voters have reported reaching their voting decision before the start of the election campaign.

These voters know the National-led government, their policies, their ways of working and John Key’ s leadership. National has a track record of stability and, incredibly for a third-term major party, has shown very few cracks in caucus unity.

Caucus disunity is often fatal. Muldoon lost in 1984 after a failed coup. Labour lost in 1990 after two effective coups and huge disunity. National lost in 1999 after the split with NZ First and a coup. Clark was the exception having lost in 2008 despite only minor disunity.

Jim Bolger and Helen Clark were leaders of the Opposition for 4.5 and six years respectively before becoming Prime Minister.

John Key was leader of the National Party for just under two years before he became Prime Minister, but the opinion polls had already switched in National’ s favour when he took on his leadership role.

Doesn’t help when the Mayor of Kaikoura refers to you as David Little!

Labour might be thinking it has a bit of time up its sleeve. After all, only two-thirds of Labour’ s supporters reach their vote decision this far out from the campaign; the other third wait until the campaign to reach their decision. But Labour will have to work hard for the late deciding vote.

On average 41 per cent of voters who reach their decision during the campaign give their vote to a minor party. The next highest cohort (31.9 per cent) give their vote to the major party that ends up winning the highest proportion of the party vote. Labour hasn’t won the majority of the late deciding vote since 2005.

It is also by no means guaranteed that joining forces with the Greens will see their combined vote rise. Late-deciding Labour and Greens voters tend to “eat each other’ s lunches”.

Labour tends to drop support in an election campaign, not gain it.

Here in their drop in support from the beginning of election year to election day:

• 2014 – 9%
• 2011 – 6%
• 2008 – 1%
• 2005 – 6%
• 2002 – 4%
• 1999 – 6%

So Labour has never gained support in election year in any of the last six elections.

The Herald reports:

An Auckland Council executive has responded to public backlash against the spending of $500,000 on a new city slogan, saying it is a small part of a bigger “Auckland Story”.

No, no, no. Stop now. If the slogan cost $500,000 how much will the entire story cost?

The city’s proposed new global brand – The Place Desired by Many – was worked on by three project staff over two years, while 115 council staff attended workshops.

Reaction to the slogan has been mostly negative.

Act leader David Seymour slammed it, and offered some alternatives of his own.

And they are:

• The place where my kids will afford a home before I die
• the place where I’m not stuck in traffic all the time
• the place where my consents get processed within the 20-day statutory requirement
• the place where my rates bear some resemblance to services rendered.”

Much better.

Matt Heath writes:

At least US politicians get four years for their money. New Zealand’s three years is ridiculously short.

Here, a new government gets in, spends a year working out how to govern, does some good stuff for a year in the middle, then starts campaigning again. Democracy would be so much better if there was less of it.

How about we run a six-year term with a maximum of one month campaigning? That way a government could try long-term plans, for the good of the nation not just short-term popularity.

A six year term is a bit too much but three years is insanely short. Four years would be good.

However no way you can restrict a campaign to one month. Sure for official campaigning, but in reality campaigning tends to start the day after an election – it just increases in tempo the closer you get.

The Herald reports:

Spain’s ruling Popular Party has presented a proposal to the nation’s Congress that could result in a ban on the way social network users gain comic revenge on politicians.

The reform aims to curb the “spreading of images that infringe the honour of a person” and says Spain’s 1982 law covering this area is outdated due to the internet.

Campaigners for free speech see the proposal as an attack against the sometimes irreverent humour and political expression in “memes” – images altered digitally – many of which have poked fun at Mariano Rajoy, the Popular Party (PP) leader and conservative Prime Minister.

Good luck enforcing that law.

Jason Krupp writes:

Light rail is once again a topic of discussion around New Zealand dinner tables after newly elected Auckland Major Phil Goff stated that this transport mode is part of the city’s future. Auckland is not alone. The Greater Wellington Regional Council is also looking to review a plan to put in a light rail line through the southern suburbs as a means of fixing the city’s congestion problems.

The alarming thing about these proposals is the risk associated with them. A crude rule of thumb when it comes to light rail is these projects almost always come in over budget, never meet deadlines, and seldom achieve usage forecasts.

This is well supported by anecdotal evidence such as Sydney’s light rail project in the western suburbs, where costs have blown out by 250%. Washington DC’s street car project opened nine years late, and is unlikely to ever recoup the costs of construction, let alone break even.

The evidence is not  just anecdotal. A comparative analysis of 58 rail projects across 28 countries found that the average cost overrun was 44.7%, and of the 25 projects where data was available, average passenger traffic was less than half of what was originally forecast (-51%).

So let’s say these projects had a BCR of 1.0 – the benefits would equal the costs. Say $100 of costs and $100 of benefits. The average actual cost was $145 and the average actual benefit was $49. So that BCR projected to be 1.0 turns out to be 0.34 – a huge waste of money.

Essentially, there is a governance problem when it comes to project selection. 

This occurs because funding for projects, like light rail networks, is by its nature limited. And one would reasonably expect that only those projects with a high ratio of benefits to costs would be given the go-ahead.

An unintended consequence of this process is it creates an incentive for project promoters and project managers to deliberately overestimate benefits and underestimate costs to beef up this ratio and get the project over the line. The temptation to tip the scale is especially strong where there is no punishment for doing so, as the project promoters will have moved on by the time the real costs are tallied.

We see this in Wellington where politicians declare they can design a light rail system for half what the experts costed it to be.

His fix is to put in  sufficiently big counter incentives in place to ensure that project promoters stop producing biased forecasts. At the low end of the scale this involves commissioning independent peer reviews of project proposals, while on the other end he recommends professional and even criminal penalties for those who produce deceptive forecasts.

The question is whether this should be extended to the people who make this promises in the first place. I would argue that the answer should be yes.

Surely if, as Flyvbjerg proposes, forecasters are to be made accountable for the forecasts they produce, those who propose projects should also be made to account for their proposals. The danger is of course that too few projects get proposed because politicians fear to put their necks out, but this could be ameliorated by setting a best practice test. For example, should the costs on a project blow out, politicians that can show the forecasts used to support the project were based on independent and peer reviewed analysis will be absolved of liability.

This has appeal. Have it as a similar test for company directors – recklessness.

The light rail line being proposed from the Wynyard Quarter to Dominion Road in Auckland may indeed provide more benefits than costs. Indeed, as has been argued by Greater Wellington Regional Councillor Roger Blakeley, there may be ways of restacking Wellington’s light rail project so that it delivers a benefit cost ratio significantly higher than 0.05 (which was what the first cost benefit analysis on this project showed in 2013).

But if they are so confident in these forecasts, let them put their money where their mouths are.

Here is what so scary in Wellington. The official BCR is 0.05 which is insanely low. It is around the same as putting $1 billion of bank notes through a blender and $50 million survive.

But on the basis of past experience of light rail projects that BCR may be too optimistic. Based on experience that $1 billion cost would blow out to $1.45 billion and that $50 million of benefits will turn out to be $25 million. So the BCR might turn out to be 0.017!!!

If politicians vote to go ahead with this, having had expert advise on what a waste of money it will be, they should be held liable.