Stuff reports:

Justin Lester has donated his $60,000 Wellington mayoral car budget to the arts.

The new mayor has decided to give the cash, provided by Wellington City Council for the role, to the city arts portfolio budget to help up-and-coming artists.

The arts budget funds a range of things including community arts and events, music concerts, art exhibitions, plays and cultural festivals.

“I don’t need it,” Lester said of his car allowance.

“We have said we will be a prudent council and these are savings we can make either by redirecting money to projects that directly benefit Wellingtonians or by forgoing payments that fit within the role of being a councillor.

“We’ll take every decision on spending, and saving, on a case-by-case basis.

A good move by the new Mayor.

The Herald reports:

The Corrections Department has agreed to take another look at whether a woman who is dying in prison should be released early.

Vicki Letele, 35, is eight months into a sentence of three years and two months for fraud.

She has terminal cancer and is expected to live for five months. The mother-of-three wants to spend her remaining time with her family.

The Parole Board has decided that Letele does not meet the exceptional circumstances test for early release.

But Collins revealed this afternoon that the Corrections Department would reconsider its position.

Until now, the department has opposed early compassionate release and has told the board that she is being adequately cared for in prison.

“Corrections chief executive Ray Smith has spoken to me today on this matter and advised me that he’s asked the chief doctor at Corrections to review the decision,” Collins said.

“It’s ultimately a decision for the parole board but obviously Corrections makes recommendations. So they’re reviewing [if] Corrections can properly look after the prisoner.”

So what is Letele in prison for? An earlier report:

A former mortgage broker has been convicted of fraud in the Auckland District Court over a scheme where she sold properties to low income families for a profit, using forged documents to allow them to obtain home loans.

Vicky Ravana Letele, a former director of Focus Property Investment, was found guilty on 10 charges under section 228 of the Crimes Act for dishonestly using a document.

Letele was facing 11 charges relating to 11 property transactions undertaken during the second half of 2010 with a total value of $3.9 million.

A former mortgage broker has been convicted of fraud in the Auckland District Court over a scheme where she sold properties to low income families for a profit, using forged documents to allow them to obtain home loans.

Vicky Ravana Letele, a former director of Focus Property Investment, was found guilty on 10 charges under section 228 of the Crimes Act for dishonestly using a document.

Letele was facing 11 charges relating to 11 property transactions undertaken during the second half of 2010 with a total value of $3.9 million.

The finance was then used to purchase properties from interests related to Letele and Kumar, who profited from the transaction.

The SFO said the case was one where inexperience had been exploited.

“Vulnerable investors are often targeted by those who are aware of their inexperience in dealing with significant financial transactions,” SFO director Julie Read said.

So the fraud was not insignificant, hence why she is in prison.

Now I agree that not releasing someone until they are a few days away from death is overly harsh, especially as she has children. So a review is good.

But I would caution on the “five months to live” as accepted fact. Even if a doctor does give such a specific prognosis, they can be wildly wrong.

I recall the case of the Lockerbie bomber allowed to return to Libya on compassionate grounds to die from terminal prostate cancer. It was said he had three months to live. In fact he lived for 33 months.

The Wairarapa Times-Age reports:

The death of a former Wairarapa MP has rekindled memories of one of the most bizarre election battles in New Zealand’s history.

Reg Boorman, 80, who was Labour MP for Wairarapa from 1984-88, and a veteran of the Malaya conflict in the late 1950s, died at his Bay of Plenty home on Sunday.

He entered parliament when the David Lange-led Labour Party swept the Muldoon government aside in a snap election, and served a single term.

But it was his manner of departure from politics that is best recalled.

In the 1987 election Mr Boorman clung to an election night majority by a mere 11 votes, reduced to seven on the final count, from National Party challenger Wyatt Creech.

This was cut to a paper-thin majority of a single vote after Mr Creech had sought a judicial recount, leading to Mr Boorman being nicknamed “Landslide” by his parliamentary colleagues.

The drama did not end there though as months later Mr Creech renewed his challenge, petitioning the Electoral Court to revisit the issue claiming some special votes should have been disallowed and in other instances voters were not qualified to vote.

The petition hearing was held at the then Solway Park Hotel, taking almost a month involving the top-guns of the law fraternity.

Mr Creech was represented by Brian Henry and Peter Gilkison, with then National Party MP Winston Peters who helped out by briefing witnesses.

Mr Boorman was represented by Colin Carruthers and Peter Ahern.

The end result of the petition was the final act in the topsy-turvy election, with Mr Boorman losing out to Mr Creech who was deemed to have a majority of 34.

In the process the electoral court found Mr Boorman to have breached the law by over spending on his election campaign, a finding that resulted in him being declared guilty of a corrupt practice.

Something the entire Labour Party also did in 2005!

People often get confused with this electoral petition. He did not lose the seat because of the over-spending. He lost the seat because Creech was found to have got 34 more votes than him.

And he wasn’t struck off the Electoral Roll as a corrupt person due to losing the seat. He was struck off for the over-spending. Despite being disqualified as an elector for five years, he was appointed by Labour to the Earthquake and War Damages Commission a month before the 1990 election.

Another myth is that Boorman was only found guilty of a corrupt practice because of the GST component of his spending. This is incorrect. He was in fact found to have spent far far more than the legal limit. Off memory around $28,000 against a $5,500 limit.

Despite this Labour changed the law in 1989 to remove Boorman from the corrupt practices list.

His wife of 30 years, Pauline Moran, was a Labour candidate for Wairarapa in her own right, gaining the party’s nomination for the electorate after her husband’s parliamentary tenure, but not succeeding in winning the seat.

This was in 1990 when Creech won by 4,141 votes.

Still all history now. Condolences to his family and friends.

The World Economic Forum has published its 2016 Global Gender Gap report. NZ is ranked 9th best in the world with an average gap of 0.781 – up from 0.751 in 2006.

The top ten are:

1. Iceland 0.874
2. Finland 0.845
3. Norway 0.842
4. Sweden 0.815
5. Rwanda 0.800
6. Ireland 0.797
7. Philippines 0.786
8. Slovenia 0.786
9. NZ 0.781
10. Nicaragua 0.780

A nice reminder that having a small gap can just mean people are equally miserable, such as in Nicaragua.

NZ is ranked top in the world for female literacy rates, secondary education enrolment and tertiary education enrolment. Also top for the number of female professional and technical workers.

In both 1800 and 1824 no candidate got a majority in the Electoral College. So what happens in the unlikely circumstance this occurs?

The 12th amendment says:

The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

In 1800 the House of Representatives took 36 ballots to elect Thomas Jefferson over Aaron Burr. In 1824 it took just one ballot to elect John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson.

The Electoral College votes are tallied on the 6th of January, and if no majority is found the House would start voting immediately. The new House takes office on 3 January so we don’t know who would be in control. But the Republicans control 33 of the 50 state delegations so unlikely not to be them.

Now what if none of the three candidates can get 26 states voting for them in the House?

And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President

But who elects the Vice-President if a tie in the Electoral College?

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice.

This has happened once in 1836.

So the new Senate would elect the Vice-President. And on 20 January the Vice-President would become the Acting President if the House had not elected a President.

What if there was a deadlock in both the House and the Senate?

Federal law provides for the Speaker of the House to become the Acting President if there is no President-Elect or Vice President-Elect. So there will be a President, one way or another.

The Herald reports:

Diary prices have surged at Fonterra’s latest GlobalDairyTrade auction, with the key whole milk powder price up nearly 20 per cent.

The GDT price index was up 11.4 per cent, taking the average price to $US3327 ($NZ4644) per metric tonne, on Wednesday morning. The index is now at its highest level since July 2014.

Whole milk powder, the company’s biggest product, was up 19.8 per cent to $US3317 per tonne.

The index is now at 1,001 – double the low of 514 in august 2015.

But still a long way off the high of 1,691 in Oct 2007.

The Auditor-General reports:

I found no evidence that the arrangements entered into as part of the Saudi Arabia Food Security Partnership were corrupt. To understand whether there was corruption, we looked at whether there had been an abuse of power for private gain or an offence against the Crimes Act 1961 by a Minister or an official. The payments did not amount to bribery or facilitation payments. Instead, they were made as part of a legally valid contract for services. Public money was spent within the necessary financial approvals.

So nothing illegal.

That said, I share many New Zealanders’ concerns about the arrangements. I found significant shortcomings in the paper put to Cabinet in support of the decision to enter into the Saudi Arabia Food Security Partnership. The contract’s benefits to New Zealand were unclear in the Cabinet paper, the business case, and its subsequent implementation.

It is not clear on what basis the amounts paid to the Saudi Arabian investor’s company under the contract were arrived at. A key objective of the Saudi Arabia Food Security Partnership was to remove a perceived obstacle to a free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council. That agreement remains unsigned, although in two recent joint statements (in April and September 2016) New Zealand and Saudi Arabia have indicated progress, including towards completion of the free trade agreement.

In my view, settlement of a grievance was provided under the guise of a contract for services. The Saudi Arabia Food Security Partnership was the result of a need to resolve a diplomatic issue and, in the view of Ministers, to settle a Saudi Arabian investor’s grievance. The situation was complicated by views about live sheep exports. The contract does not outline those different policy objectives or the complexities. Importantly, the contract does not specifically reflect the settlement component relating to the grievance.

This lack of transparency, both at the time of the decision and subsequently, has led to the concerns from the New Zealand public about the nature of the payments made. To date, explanations from Ministers or officials have not resolved those public concerns. Without transparency, people will speculate. This report is an opportunity for the complete story to be told.

At a lower level, but still important, we found that:

• Ministers and officials gave mixed messages to Saudi Arabia;
• there were shortcomings in the contract for services; and
• the timing of a payment was not best practice.

To date, slightly more than $8.7 million has been spent. There are some benefits, such as an improved diplomatic relationship and business opportunities, but whether those benefits are a good return on investment is unclear to me. Given the level of public interest, and that the benefits of the spending remain largely uncertain, I expect the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (the Ministry) and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) to assess and report on what the Saudi Arabia Food Security Partnership has achieved once all of the $11.5 million (increased from $10 million for the additional cost of exporting pregnant ewes) has been spent.

And this has been my criticism of it. It is bad wasteful spending that has produced few benefits. The deal was sold as settling a legal dispute, but there was no serious threat of legal action.

I hope the Government takes the criticism on board and says it won’t do any such deals again, and especially one so lacking in good analysis.

I found some significant shortcomings in the Cabinet paper, including that it:

• did not clearly explain that the Al Khalaf Group would own the goods and services costing the New Zealand Government $6 million;
• did not identify how the $10 million figure was arrived at (a figure that has since risen to $11.5 million);
• signalled the risk of a claim against the Government based only on the $20-$30 million figure that the Cabinet paper said was suggested by the Al Khalaf Group (there was no assessment by Ministry officials of the substance of that legal risk);
• did not include any analysis about whether there were any other potential obstacles to the signing or ratification of the free trade agreement, apart from the concerns of the Al Khalaf Group about the export of live sheep or the assertion by the Gulf Cooperation Council that this was the only obstacle to the free trade agreement; and
• identified that New Zealand exports could double to $3 billion in five years if a free trade agreement was signed with the Gulf Cooperation Council, without including any analysis.

Based on these significant shortcomings, I am concerned at the lack of robust analysis and the quality of information that was provided to Cabinet on this matter.

Pretty shoddy quality to say the least.

The Government may see this as an exoneration as the AG found it was legally sound. They should not. The criticisms of the AG are significant and the quality of the decision making something that should be unacceptable no matter who is in Government.

The Onion is famous for its satirical news coverage where it breathlessly reports on mundane events.

The NZ Herald seems to have given up on real news, and is now turning into a non funny version of The Onion with its story on a lawyer doing a restaurant review.

Every day millions of people review a product or service online. A negative review on a restaurant is not news.

But not only does the NZ Herald think this is news, it made it a major Page 3 story.

No wonder circulation dropped 7.8% in the last year.

Stats NZ reports:

The unemployment rate fell to 4.9 percent in the September 2016 quarter (from a revised 5.0 percent in the previous quarter), Statistics New Zealand said today. This is the lowest unemployment rate since the December 2008 quarter. There were 3,000 fewer people unemployed than in the June 2016 quarter and 10,000 fewer over the year.

“The number of people employed in New Zealand was up 35,000, or 1.4 percent, in the September 2016 quarter,” labour and income statistics manager Mark Gordon said. “This strong growth in employment, coupled with fewer unemployed people, pushed the unemployment rate below 5.0 percent for the first time in nearly eight years.”

The working-age population increased by 24,000 people (0.7 percent) over the quarter, to reach 3,739,000.

Changes in the last year are:

• 144,000 more jobs (6.1% increase)
• 106,000 more FT jobs and 39,000 more PT jobs
• 9,000 fewer unemployed
• 34,000 fewer not in labour force
• Labour force participation rate up from 68.4% to 70.1%
• Unemployment rate drops from 5.5% to 4.9%
• Number of hours worked up 6.7%
• Underutilisation rate down from 13.2% to 12.2%

Also average weekly earnings up are 1.8% to $1,146 a week from $1,124. With 0.2% inflation this is a 1.6% real increase.

The average hourly earnings are also up 1.8% from $29.31 to $29.84. Female earnings up 2.0% and male earnings 1.7%.

The NZ Herald reports:

The FBI has been accused of having a “double standard” in releasing potentially damaging material about Hillary Clinton while sitting on “explosive information” about Donald Trump.

US Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid wrote to FBI director James Comey about his decision on Friday to publicise the agency’s discovery of new emails related to Hillary Clinton’s private server.

“The double standard established by your actions is clear,” he wrote in the letter.

“In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and co-ordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity.

“The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public.

“There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.

“By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicise it in the most negative light possible.”

The natural instinct in politics is to attack.

But the Democrats are making a bad situation worse.

The FBI is much much more highly regarded than politicians, and especially Hillary Clinton.

The more the Democrats attack the FBI, the worse they look, and the more damage they do to Clinton’s campaign.

The Herald reports:

Fewer teenagers are learning to drive with more people aged over 75 on the road than people aged under 20.

The Statistics NZ figures show young Kiwis are “falling out of love” with the car, the Greens say.

And separate data from the Ministry of Transport shows the number of licences being issued each year increased until 2010, before dropping back to levels of a decade ago.

About 3.5 million people in New Zealand held a driver’s licence in 2012, but by June last year, that figure had dropped by about 100,000.

The Greens say the drop in young people with licences is a good reason for the Government to rethink its motorway expansion projects.

Transport spokeswoman, Julie Anne Genter, said the data suggests the Government should be investing less on roads.

The Greens look for any excuse to oppose roads. Julie Anne used to say that the Government had miscalculated the benefits of roads as oil prices were going to double and treble. And then the price of oil dropped by half. But the Greens still maintain nyet to all roads.

A sensible transport strategy includes spending on both roads and rail. But the Greens never ever support a new road or motorway.

The drop in licences is interesting but may be as simple as people are waiting longer to get a licence.  What is the more useful data is actual road usage.

Anna Lorck writes in the HB Today:

If there’s one issue that could be the making of the Hawke’s Bay region, it’s taking a stand on genetically modified (GM) food production.

Absolute nonsense. Several dozen countries and hundreds of regions have banned GM food production. Can you name one of them? Can anyone? Have any of them done better economically than areas that have not?

In 2004 all 54 regions of Greece declared themselves GM free. How has that gone for them eh?

Our Hastings District Council also sees this as a defining issue for our region. It is the first council in New Zealand to protect our fields, orchards and other productive lands from GM releases.

That is not their job. That is the job of the EPA with actual scientists, not politicians.

It is also keeping our options open: in 10 years we will review that position, and if the world and has moved on, so can we.

Nonsense. Not one adverse event in 30 years yet the hysteria continues unabated.

So sad to see a Labour candidate campaigning against science.

538’s polls plus model now has Trump at 30% to win.

He has now taken the lead in Florida by 0.4%. Clinton leads in states with 294 electoral college votes and Trump 244. He needs to pick up 26 more votes.

The closest states are:

• Maine 2nd District 0.1% (1)
• North Carolina 0.2% (15)
• Nevada 0.9% (6)
• Colorado 3.8% (9)

If he does not win Colorado but picks up the others it would be 272 to 266 to Clinton.

Other states he is less than 5% behind are:

• New Hampshire 4.2% (4)
• Pennsylvania 4.3% (20)
• Michigan 4.4% (16)
• Wisconsin 4.7% (10)

Radio NZ reports:

The Labour Party cannot rely on Auckland Council to pay half of the cost of its light rail proposal for Auckland, with mayor Phil Goff questioning whether the council should have to pay anything.

So Labour’s bribe for the byelection didn’t even have the support of Phil Goff, who was in their caucus up until a few weeks ago.

The city’s new mayor Phil Goff agreed, but questioned whether the council should have to put anything toward the network, as it could be treated as a road of national significance, and be fully funded by central government.

Except it is not a road. It is a local rail link.

Goff seems to think that everything in Auckland should be funded by the taxpayers of Gore, Whanganui and Hastings.

“It will be carrying far more passengers than many other roads around New Zealand that are funded 100 percent, so we’d want to negotiate between the Labour Party position of 50 percent funding and what would currently be paid for a road of national significance by central government, which is 100 percent,” he said.

Roads are funded 100% by road users through road user charges and petrol tax. The equivalent for light rail would be for that to be funded 100% by those who actually use it.

So Goff is advocating that Wellingtonians should not have their petrol taxes spent on local roads such as Transmission Gully but instead be used to fund Labour’s light rail bribe for Mt Roskill.

Shalom Kiwi writes:

The late Israeli diplomat, Abba Eban, once said that, “if Algeria introduced a resolution [at the UN] declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.” Yesterday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) took another step toward realising Eban’s absurdity.

Shalom.Kiwi recently reported on the UNESCO executive board’s decision to formally adopt a resolution that effectively erases any historic connection between the Temple Mount and Jews or Christians. Now the World Heritage Council, another group within UNESCO, has just passed a similar resolution.

The Temple Mount is sacred to all three major religions. It is appalling that a UN body tries to rewrite history and erase the connection between it and Judaism and Christianity.

It is in fact the holiest site in Judaism, regarded as the place where God’s presence is most in the world. They regard it as the spot where God created the world and also gathered the dust to create Adam. It was the site of the Second Temple and tradition has it the Third Temple will be built there one day.

Sunni Muslims regard it as the third holiest site in Islam, after the Sacred Mosque in Mecca and Mosque of the Prophet in Medina. Muslism regard it as where Muhammad ascended to heaven.

It is hard to describe how vile it is to try to erase any linkage between The Temple Mount and Judaism, as it is their most holy site. It would be like trying to declare St Peter’s as having no connection to the Catholic Church.

There has been no statement by a New Zealand politician on either of the recent UNESCO votes. At the time of publication, New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs & Trade, Murray  McCully, had not responded to a request for comment.

We should condemn the vote.

Stuff reports:

A national day marking the 19th-century New Zealand Wars has been set: October 28.

It is same day as the signing of the 1835 Declaration of Independence.

The first commemoration day, in 2017, will be hosted by the Te Taitokerau tribes in Northland.

After that, the commemorations will move from year to year to recognise battle sites around the country.

This is a commemoration day, not a public holiday. So no day off work.

Having said that I’d be in favour of swapping Labour Day for NZ Wars Day – a far more relevant day.

The NZSF and ACC announced:

The NZ Super Fund and ACC today settled their investment in Kiwi Group Holdings Limited (KGHL), the owner of Kiwibank.

NZ Super Fund has taken a 25% stake from NZ Post for $263 million. ACC has invested $231 million for a 22% stake, with the $494 million deal valuing KGHL at $1,050 million.

NZ Super Fund Chief Executive Officer Adrian Orr said: “Investment opportunities of this size and potential are rare in New Zealand. As a New Zealand investor with a long-term view, strong financial expertise and available capital, the NZ Super Fund is in an excellent position to help Kiwibank achieve its long-term promise.

“We are delighted to become part of the Kiwibank story and look forward to working with ACC and NZ Post to support Kiwibank’s on-going success. We believe Kiwibank will make an important contribution to portfolio returns over the long term and take pleasure in adding another major New Zealand investment to the Fund.”

This is a tidy move. NZSF and ACC have professional fund managers who will do a far better job monitoring the performance of Kiwibank than a couple of staff at Treasury (with respect).

It also gives NZ Post additional capital without needing to bother taxpayers.

Someone let James into the top secret knowledge that the Govt owns NZSF and ACC! https://t.co/yusSrvXLnI

— David Farrar (@dpfdpf) October 31, 2016

Meanwhile James Shaw is trying to be an idiot by claiming this is a privatisation!

The Herald reports:

Labour MP David Cunliffe is retiring from politics.

Cunliffe told caucus of his decision today.

Labour leader Andrew Little said Cunliffe intended to step down next year, likely within six months of the next election to avoid triggering a byelection in his New Lynn electorate.

Cunliffe was taking up a role at the Auckland-based management consultancy Stakeholder Strategies Ltd.

“He has made a strong contribution to the party as the MP for New Lynn since 1999 and as a former leader and finance spokesperson,” Little said.

“He was a Cabinet Minister in the Fifth Labour Government where he held the portfolios of Health, and Information and Communications Technology, and Immigration.”

Cunliffe has been an MP since 1999 in the Titirangi and New Lynn seats.

This is not a surprise.

The leadership was not suited to Cunliffe, but I believe he could have been a very good Labour Minister of Finance. He has one of the strongest business backgrounds of any MP.

He was also a very good Comms and ICT Minister in the Clark Government.

Little demoted him to the back bench after becoming leader and made it clear he did not expect Cunliffe to be in any Cabinet he led.

His departure opens a chance for another MP in the historically safe Labour seat of New Lynn, although in 2014 Cunliffe’s majority had dropped to 4,557 and National was beating Labour in the party vote.

It would be difficult, but not impossible to win New Lynn. Alfred Ngaro is very well regarded.

I wish David well in his career outside politics. Always enjoyed working with him when he was a Minister and have admired his abilities, even if disagreeing with his politics.

Maori TV report:

It’s understood Tainui leader Rahui Papa will consider contesting the Hauraki-Waikato candidacy, sources say other leaders have also been approached by the party to put their names forward to contest the party’s candidacies including Ngāi Tahu leader Mark Solomon for Te Tai Tonga, Shane Taurima for Tāmaki Makaurau, Ngarimu Blair for Tāmaki Makaurau, Moana Maniapoto for Tāmaki Makaurau and Willie Jackson for Tāmaki Makaurau.

Rapa, Solomon and Blair are the effective heads of the major Iwi in each area. They would all have very good chances of winning the seats off Labour.

Taurima is a former Labour candidate and broadcaster and Moana Maniapoto a well known singer.

It will be very interesting to see if they do stand, and who gets selected.

Biologist Bob Brockie writes:

Greenie alarmists spread needless fears about science.

They have long spread misinformation and lies about genetic engineering (GE), claiming it has never done any good, only harm. But these claims fly in the face of scientific evidence.

In separate reports, the OECD and the American Academy of Sciences reviewed more than 1000 scientific studies of GE earlier this year. They found that farmers using GE got bigger crops, made more money and used less insecticide than conventional farmers. They concluded that GE has never harmed anybody, nor harmed the environment.

Every claim made about the harm from GE has not eventuated.

Greenies hate fracking, claiming it pumps hundreds of chemicals into rocks and these contaminate aquifers. But they’re wrong – 99.5 per cent of the anti-fracking fluid is sand and water, and the miniscule remainder is a mix of 13 chemicals which you would find in your kitchen, bathroom or garage.

And fracking has been wonderful for greenhouse has emissions, allowing the US to significantly reduce its emissions as fracking has  given them energy independence.

The NZ Herald editorial:

Labour’s first big shot in the Mt Roskill byelection – a pledge to invest $680 million in a light rail system – has rightly been labelled “pork barrel” politics by senior government figure Steven Joyce. …

In reality, all the players should be holding off pledging funds to the big-ticket items which Auckland is going to need in the coming years.

Last year’s Auckland Transport Alignment Project had much going for it in that it got all the key parties together to settle on the direction of the region’s transport system over the next three decades.

The light rail project, meant to run from Wynyard Quarter to Mt Roskill, is a component of the strategic plan, which budgeted for a $23.7b investment in the first 10 years alone.

Clearly the numbers are sizeable, and most likely subject to change.

Just yesterday the Greens were highlighting congestion problems with a road-only additional harbour crossing, saying some form of rapid transit was essential to future-proof the $4b tunnel to be built sometime between 2030 and 2050.

Who can say with conviction that the transport technology in use today will still be with us in 10 or 20 years?

Pushing ahead with the Dominion Rd light rail scheme might, or might not, be the right project to lift up the pecking order.

Such however are the scale of the transport pieces that it would be a mistake to cherry-pick one when it could simply create costly snarl-ups in another part of the Auckland transport mosaic.

And the experience in Australia is the huge cost blow outs occur when politicians do cherry pick.

In my view you should leave politicians out of it, and have any transport project with a BCR greater than say 1.5:1 automatically funded.

The latest ABC poll finds:

• Trump 39% favourable and 58% unfavourable for a -19% net favourability
• Clinton 38% favourable and 60% unfavourable for a -22% net favourability

The net favourabilities in October of election year for recent candidates has been:

1. Obama (2008) +29%
2. Reagan (1984) +22%
3. Clinton (1996) +20%
4. Clinton (1992) +20%
5. Bush (1988) +17%
6. McCain +13%
7. Bush (2000) +12%
8. Dole +12%
9. Gore +7%
10. Obama (2012) +6%
11. Romney -4%
12. Bush (2004) +3%
13. Kerry +2%
14. Dukakis +1%
15. Bush (1992) -6%
16. Mondale -11%
17. Trump – 19%
18. Clinton (2016) -22%

Every other winning candidate has been elected (for first term) with at least a +12% approval, and Clinton is at -22%.

Clinton’s unfavourables by demographics are:

• Nonwhites +22%
• College grads -10%
• Women -11%
• All – 22%
• White women -25%
• Non grads -29%
• Men -35%
• Whites -36%
• White men -51%