The Listener writes:

Earlier this month, Social Development Minister Anne Tolley announced a radical overhaul of services for at-risk children. How radical? That became clear when Tolley corrected a television interviewer who mentioned Child, Youth and Family, the Government agency charged with looking after vulnerable kids. “CYF is gone,” Tolley said with brutal finality. “It’s finished.”

The public has yet to grasp the scale of what Tolley proposes. Suffice it to say that rather than continue trying to renovate the dysfunctional and discredited CYF model, Tolley intends to pull it down and start afresh. And although the entity that will replace CYF has yet to be announced, the principles and priorities that will shape it are clear.

Key points are that the new agency will intervene early – at birth or even before – where evidence points to children being at risk, rather than waiting until things have reached crisis point; that it will provide a single point of contact and accountability to replace the hopelessly fragmented and disjointed support services operating now

It is arguably the most radical reform this Government has attempted.

Tolley says keeping families together remains the best outcome, but not if children are at risk. The system will also aim to ensure children are not repeatedly shuffled from one unsatisfactory environment to another, as happens now. A safe, stable and loving environment will take priority over misguided reliance on family.

This is sadly very necessary.

In a perfect world, having the auntie, cousin or grandparents look after kids whose parents have failed them is what you should do. Of course you want to keep them in the family.

But the sad reality is that if one part of the family is highly dysfunctional, the other parts often are also. All too often they go from the frying pan to the fire.

She is likely to have had a powerful ­Cabinet ally in Finance Minister Bill English, an enthusiastic proponent of social investment – the idea that spending money on at-risk children ultimately produces an economic return in the form of higher educational achievement, better employment opportunities and less expenditure on prisons and welfare. That will have helped sell Tolley’s proposals to Cabinet ministers who might otherwise have baulked at the extra $500 million required to make it happen.

There’s a lot of spending the Government does I’m not keen on. But I’m all for the $500 million extra if it really makes a difference in protecting the most vulnerable kids.

Of course you have to have an economy that is strong enough to fund the extra spending.

Political opposition to the plan has been muted, indicating a cross-party acceptance of the need for root-and-branch reform. Greens co-leader Metiria Turei could find nothing more out­rageous to object to than the ­possibility that some work might be contracted to private providers –  heresy in the eyes of those who still insist, despite the failure of the existing model, that the state alone is equipped for the job. Significantly, Children’s ­Commissioner Russell Wills – no cheerleader for the Government – calls the proposed reforms visionary.

They are again their most important reforms.

The Herald reports:

Auckland Council’s plans for higher density housing cannot succeed unless the city also expands further into the countryside, says the council’s chief economist.

Chris Parker said the only way to contain Auckland’s runaway house inflation – up $70,000 last month to $820,000 on a median price house – was to open up more rural land to relieve price pressure on a “dysfunctional” urban land market.

The council’s flagship compact city plan, based on more people living in apartments, terraced houses and townhouses within city limits, was necessary but unable to work by itself.

“Intensification won’t do it – not alone, it’s got to be part of a package,” Mr Parker told the Herald in an interview for the Home Truths series.

“Intensification increases the opportunities for what can be done on each piece of land and it increases the value of land underneath.

The hope is that you can spread more houses on top of it, but the problem is we’re in a race we can’t win.

“The rate of increase in land [prices] is always faster than the rate at which we can build houses on top.”

Mr Parker said public opposition to intensification made the process more difficult, as this further delayed the introduction of high density homes while land prices kept rising.

He described Auckland land prices as a vicious cycle: speculation caused land owners to hold off selling, which pushed demand “through the roof”, increasing prices and creating further speculation.

The only way to break the cycle was “good old-fashioned, school kid level economics, which is simply to increase the supply of rural land into the urban land market”.

This is the same view given by almost every other expert on the issue. Everything else is tinkering. The cost of houses and land in Auckland is a result of a political decision by Auckland Mayor and Councillors not to make more rural land available for urban use.

Mr Parker also suggested that private companies – or even home owners – should be allowed to provide roads and water services for new subdivisions to bring down costs.

The cost and organisation of infrastructure by council-run bodies is one of the big obstacles holding up the provision of new housing, partly because councils are only allowed to take on low levels of debt.

However, Mr Parker said it was already accepted that private companies provided electricity and telecommunications. “Why don’t we change our headspace to think the same way about roads and water? No one’s had that discussion,” he said.

Also an idea well worth looking at.

Peter Dunne has announced:

A $303 million overhaul of New Zealand’s fire services will create an organisation “fit for the 21st century”, the Government says – and your insurance could cost more to help pay for it.

The NZ Fire Service, mainly responsible for urban parts of the country, will merge with the National Rural Fire Authority and more than 40 other rural fire services to create a single organisation – Fire and Emergency New Zealand.

This is a very good thing, as finally there will be one fire authority for NZ. The status quo has seen silos with professional firefighters, volunteer firefighters and rural firefighters.

Announcing the merger to firefighter representatives, Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne described it as “the single biggest change to happen to our fire service in around 70 years”.

“There was a recognition that we needed to have a fire service that was fit for purpose for the 21st century, that was flexible, modern and efficient.

“We’re not grafting one bit on to another – we’re building a completely new organisation.”

The changes would put the country’s 12,000 volunteer firefighters in a direct relationship with the main organisation for the first time, while recognising the increased medical and emergency work being carried out by firefighters.

In the past the professional firefighters union (and some officers) have basically hated the volunteer firefighters as they see them as unpaid scabs or the like. 20 years ago the relationships were toxic. While there are still challenges, my understanding is that relationships are far better today.

The Herald reports:

Trump said that as president he would call a Nato summit to pressure allies who had failed to hit spending targets and move the focus of the bloc away from Russia and on to terrorism and migration. Calling both the mission and structure of Nato “outdated”, the property mogul noted that just four of 28 countries were spending the required 2 per cent of GDP on defence – “our allies are not paying their fair share”.

Most of what he says on foreign policy is nonsense (such as having Japan and South Korea develop nuclear weapons) but he may have a point on NATO countries.

The country with the biggest spend on defence is Saudi Arabia at 12.9% of GDP. Russia spends 4.1% and the US 3.3%.

The UK is 2.0%, France 1.9% but Germany just 1.1%. Italy 1.5%, Spain 1.2%, Austria 0.8% etc. They all pledged in 2014 to increase their commitment to 2% but most are well off.

This is a huge announcement by the Royal College of Physicians:

A new report released today from the Royal College of Physicians, ‘Nicotine without smoke: tobacco harm reduction’ concludes that e-cigarettes are likely to be beneficial to UK public health. Smokers can therefore be reassured and encouraged to use them, and the public can be reassured that e-cigarettes are much safer than smoking.

Yet in NZ it is illegal to sell them, while legal to sell cigarettes.

The Royal College has done a 200 page report which concludes:

• E-cigarettes are not a gateway to smoking
• E-cigarettes do not result in normalisation of smoking
• E-cigarettes can act as a gateway from smoking
• Long-term harm from e-cigarettes  is likely to be very small, and substantially smaller than that arising from tobacco smoking
• Long-term health risks associated with e-cigarettes are unlikely to exceed 5% of those associated with smoked tobacco products, and may well be substantially lower than this figure.

This report is from the Royal College of Physicians, not any industry body.

If the Government is serious about getting cigarette use in NZ under 5% by 2025, they should urgently be reviewing our laws and regulations to both allow e-cigarette sales (implements are but not nicotine)/

As unpopular as they are with some people, there is no doubt the Coalition’s turn back the boats policy has led to a massive reduction in both drownings at sea, and also in the numbers of people held in immigration detention.

So the number in detention has fallen from 13,000 under Labor to just over 2,000 under the Coalition.

And the number of children in detention is now zero, down from 2,000 under Labor.

Since 2013 not a single person has drowned at sea while trying to reach Australia.

Under the previous Labor Government a massive 1,138 people drowned.

The simple fact is the hardline policy has worked – it has reduced drownings and massively reduced the numbers in detention. The lesson is that putting the people smugglers out of business was in fact the most humane policy.

The Guardian reports:

Naz Shah, the Bradford West MP accused of antisemitism, has been suspended from the Labour party “by mutual agreement” after David Cameron said it was “extraordinary” that someone who appeared to have suggested Israelis should be deported to the US continued to hold the Labour whip.

She effectively called for the destruction of Israel, saying it should be relocated to the US. This then led to Livingstone defending her by saying Hitler was a Zionist.

Obama may not have been a great President, but he does perform well at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. His jokes manage to be funny, but not nasty. A good mix of self-deprecating humour and humour at other politicians.

Trump can take a joke also. He actually took part in a Comedy Central Roast which is exceptionally brutal.

Stuff reports:

In a crackdown over unsafe and, at times, inhumane labour practices, all foreign fishing boats must now be reflagged with the New Zealand flag. 

The substantial law-change came into effect on Sunday, after a four-year transition period, and means all vessels operating in New Zealand waters must follow New Zealand law. 

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said the change would ensure fair standards for all fishing crews in New Zealand.

This is a very very good thing. The conditions on some of the foreign flagged vessels were akin to slavery. The conditions were what you’d expect in North Korea, not vessels operating in NZ, catching NZ quota.

“Reflagging gives us full jurisdiction over areas like employment, health and safety conditions on vessels fishing in New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

“The reflagging is carried out by Maritime New Zealand and requires operators to ensure fishing vessels fully comply with our maritime rules and the Health and Safety at Work Act. It also requires the crew to have appropriate New Zealand-equivalent qualifications,” Guy said.

Nine vessels so far had been reflagged, three were in the process of reflagging and could not fish in New Zealand waters until they had. 

About nine had decided not to fish in New Zealand waters, Guy said.

So 12 have or will reflag and nine will fish elsewhere.

The industry as a whole catches fish worth more than $650 million a year, the majority of it filling Maori iwi fishing quotas. The export industry is worth more than $1.5 billion a year. 

It is somewhat ironic that rather than use the quotas to create jobs for local Maori fishers, instead it was used to hire foreign vessels to do the fishing. Now that is their right to use the cheapest source of labour, so they get the best return on capital. But a useful reminder about how assumptions are not always correct about perceived benefits.

The Herald reports:

South Korea may seem an unusual pick for a role model, but researchers want policymakers to follow the Asian nation lead to better protect Kiwi kids from junk food.

As the ink dries on the Auckland University team’s study revealing the extent of unhealthy food choices outside the school gate, they urge a closer look at South Korea’s “green food zones”, which ban sales of unhealthy foods to children within 200m of schools.

Lead researcher Dr Stefanie Vandevijvere says the Special Act on Children’s Dietary Life Safety Management relies on a list of unhealthy foods and drinks that cannot be sold or advertised to children.

She wants New Zealand lawmakers to allow councils to limit new convenience stores and fast-food and takeaway outlets near schools after her group found a large majority have an unhealthy-food shop within 800m of their school. 

They found 68.5% of schools have a dairy or fast food outlet within 800 metres of the school.

So what?

800 metres is a pretty long distance. Are they saying that is a problem?

Dairies are pretty useful places.

Why stop at banning dairies near schools? Even worse there are some dairies near homes where children live. Maybe we should ban dairies from being within 200 metres of a child’s house also!

This map by Stephen Davis (HT Stats Chat) shows how almost all of Auckland is within 800 metres of a school. So basically the research is uselsss. I suspect it was of course funded by the taxpayer.

Bernard Orsman writes:

Auckland’s political right is fragmented and facing failure in the Super City elections, warns former mayor John Banks.

Vic Crone, John Palino and Mark Thomas are splitting the centre-right vote for the mayoralty while a new National Party-backed Auckland Future ticket has emerged – to run a separate campaign from its long-established Communities & Residents (C&R) stablemate.

Banks, who has tasted victory and defeat at Auckland local body elections, says it is impossible for the centre-right to win the mayoralty with three mayoral candidates.

“The centre-right needs to sit down and clearly identify a candidate of preferred choice. There is simply not enough momentum from the centre-right to overcome the fight between the three candidates.

“[Labour MP] Phil Goff is getting some serious momentum that is going to be difficult to catch,” Banks says.

I agree that a three way split between centre-right candidates will hand Goff the Mayoralty on the plate.

At some stage no doubt a media organisation will conduct a poll in Auckland. My suggestion would be that any candidate under say 10% drops out, as you have no chance of winning if you’re in single figures at this stage.

Stuff reports:

Wellington Airport has submitted resource consent applications to extend its runway, which could allow long haul flights to land in the capital.

Planners sent the application, which is more than 5000 pages long, to the Wellington City Council and the Greater Wellington Regional Council on Thursday afternoon.

The councils will now check the application to see whether additional information is required. According to the airport, the application could be publicly notified by June.

The airport wants the application to be heard by the Environment Court as soon as possible. That could potentially clear the way for construction starting in 2018.

Wellington Airport is 66 per cent owned by NZX-listed infrastructure company Infratil, with the balance owned by the Wellington City Council.

I’m all for extending the runway. But the vast majority of the cost should be borne by the owners of the airport, in approximate proportion to their share-holdings.

The application seeks permission to extend the runway by 354 metres. Funding for the project, which is estimated to cost $300 million, has not been secured, with the airport indicating it wants financial input both from local, regional and central government.

So far the National Government has said it is “unlikely” that it would contribute funds towards the project, with Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce questioning why a subsidy is needed, given Infratil’s profitability.

There is only a case for a Government contribution if they are convinced that having a longer runway in Wellington will lead to more people deciding to visit New Zealand. I can’t imagine there is a single person out there who will decide to come to NZ because they could now fly direct to Wellington. Maybe a few public servants in Australia?

The Guardian reports:

Scottish Labour’s manifesto launch setting out plans to heavily tax the rich has been overshadowed by a poll suggesting Labour could come third behind the Tories in Scottish elections for the first time in more than a century.

Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, said her party’s plan to raise income tax to 50p for the wealthiest earners represented the “big choice” facing voters on 5 May, and she claimed the Scottish National party would need to make cuts of £3bn.

Maybe NZ Labour will advocate a 50% tax rate also?

An Ipsos Mori poll for STV found that the Scottish Conservatives were two points ahead of Labour in the regional vote to select 56 MSPs, and one point behind in the constituency vote to chose 73 directly elected members.

Echoing other polls putting the two parties neck and neck, Ipsos Mori’s projections suggest the Tories would take 23 seats and Labour 20 – the latter 17 seats down on its tally in 2011.

Labour behing the Tories in Scotland is almost unthinkable. That would be like Labour being behind National in the Maori seats in NZ.

Stuff reports:

Things are going so well for Opotiki, the district’s mayor claims they don’t need an election.

Mayor John Forbes has suggested Opotiki not take part in local body elections, although when asked if that should be for voters to decide, he said “democracy is incredibly important”.

Forbes said the elections risked distracting the council during a critical phase in the district’s development. Adding, elections often meant important work was placed on the back-burner. 

“I strongly believe in democracy, I think it’s really, really important,” Forbes said. “But there’s also an old adage: If something isn’t broke don’t fix it, and the council’s functioning very well.”

John Key probably thinks the Government is functioning very well also, but he doesn’t advocate no elections as they are a distraction.

He said the councillors were doing a “good job”, and if they weren’t he wouldn’t be suggesting an unopposed election.

“I’ve got a council working really well, so lets just carry on working hard on what’s good for our district.

“If I didn’t think we were doing that, I would say we [council] should all put our hands up, either stand down or ask the community to elect again.”

Forbes believed a council being re-elected unopposed had not happened anywhere else in New Zealand.

“I can’t think of any other councils who would want to do what I’m suggesting here. But we’re a small community, who know our council very well.

“When I talk to other mayors from around the country, a lot of them would like some change on their councils. A lot of mayors stand down because they feel they have had enough or not as good at the job as someone else might be.

It’s good the Mayor is so pleased with his Council. That is rare. Also good that they think things are going so well. But their perspective may not be shared by all – hence the point of elections.

News.com.au reports:

Backers waving US flags and pro-Trump signs were met by opponents leading to a shouting match between about 50 people outside City Hall in the Orange County community.

At one point, an opponent unleashed a handheld pepper-spray device on the pro-Trump crowd.

Five people, including two girls ages eight and 11, were exposed to the eye-stinging spray, police Sgt. Daron Wyatt said. Three were treated at the scene by paramedics.

How disgusting.  No doubt the person is against Donald Trump because he is not as kind and caring as the activist who thinks pepper spraying five year olds is freedom of speech.

Stuff reports:

It works for cats and it works for cows, so should cyclists also be required to have a bell so you can hear them coming?

That could soon be the case in Wellington, after the city council proposed changing its rules to “strongly encourage” every cyclist to have a bell for warning pedestrians when they are about to whizz past.

I’m not sure this is a great idea.

If a cyclist does not have a bell and they are coming up behind pedestrians, then the onus is on them to slow down and only pass in a safe manner.

If they have a bell, they may think that all they have to do is ring it, and the onus is on the pedestrians to get out of their way.

CNN reports:

Australia has ordered 12 new submarines at a cost of $39 billion, becoming the latest nation to upgrade its fleet in a region where the seas are getting crowded.

French defense contractor DCNS beat competitors from Japan and Germany to the massive contract, which Australia described as the “largest and most complex” in its history.

Australia said the new 4,700-tonne Shortfin Barracudas will offer superior sensor performance and stealth characteristics, while maintaining the range and endurance of previous models.

That’s a huge purchase. A$50 billion. That would be the equivalent of NZ spending around $10 billion on our navy.

Stuff reports:

Labour leader Andrew Little has ended a secret trip to Iraq where he says he wanted to see first hand the work of Kiwi troops.

The invitation to visit troops at Iraq’s Camp Taji was issued by Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee, after Labour opposed the deployment.

Little’s trip was not announced till after he and Brownlee returned to Dubai on Thursday.

Little says he accepted the invitation to go because it was important to see for himself the work Kiwi troops were doing and the conditions they were working under.

The Opposition leader also met Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled Al-Obedih and senior military officials from the Coalition forces in Iraq.

Good of the Government to invite Little to go, and good that he attended. In the unlikely possibility he becomes PM, he will have to decide on future deployments.

“Labour opposed the deployment because the Iraqi Army’s track record was poor, even after years of training by American and other armies.

“The situation in Iraq, as well as Syria, remains hugely challenging and it is not yet certain how the Iraqi security forces will address issues of motivation and discipline, and continuing ethno-sectarian divisions across the whole army.

“It’s obvious the needs Iraq has won’t be met in the two year period the Government set for the mission. The Government must now be open with the public about the demands being made of it and its plans.”

Labour opposed the deployment, but their reason for doing so has been proven invalid. The Iraqi Army is now winning battles and the training has been cited as a major factor.

Brownlee, who was on his second visit to Taji, said the Kiwi taskforce had trained more than 4000 Iraqi troops since being deployed alongside Australian troops in 2015.

National MP Mark Mitchell also accompanied the group.

“I thought it was important to offer the Leader of the Opposition an opportunity to see Task Group Taji in action for himself, and for Mr Mitchell, as the relevant select committee chair, to have first-hand experience of the mission.”

Task group Taji provides a range of training to the Iraqi Security Forces.

“This training includes basic weapons handling, counter IED, combat first aid, obstacle breaching techniques, planning for combat operations, the laws of armed conflict and human rights.

“It was pleasing to hear from senior Iraqi commanders that Task Group Taji-trained troops have on a number of occasions captured and held towns and territory from D’aesh using their newly attained skills.”These commanders speak highly of the training and intend to cycle units back through Taji for further training when possible.”

Over the last year Islamic State has lost significant territory.

Little will now visit the Zaatari Refugee Camp, where 80,000 refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria are now based.

“New Zealand has had a history of supporting humanitarian causes. We believe the Government must double the refugee quota and that we should be stepping up support for the people who are suffering in these camps,” Andrew Little said.

Labour often says we should treat causes, not symptoms. The misery of the refugees is being caused by Islamic State. If Islamic State is not defeated, the number of refugees will continue to increase massively. So why does Labour say NZ should help refugees, yet opposes doing anything to reduce the number of refugees?

The Herald reports:

One of TV3’s biggest and most popular stars, newsreader Hilary Barry, has quit the network.

Her departure is the second high-profile casualty at TV3 in the past year after John Campbell left in May when his show Campbell Live was dumped.

The Weekend Herald can reveal Ms Barry, who has been with the company since 1993, resigned on Thursday. There is speculation she is headed to rival broadcaster TVNZ.

This is a huge loss for TV3. Barry is pretty much their most well known face. They’ve lost many other top presenters and journalists also. It is hard to see how they turn around their decline.

The Guardian reports:

Jeremy Corbyn has been forced to suspend his close ally Ken Livingstone for making inflammatory remarks about Hitler and Zionism, after facing a revolt among Labour MPs about antisemitism within the party.

With just a week to go before crucial elections, Labour was engulfed in a row over Livingstone’s future and wider concerns that a series of scandals involving antisemitism was damaging its reputation.

It was the second time in two days that Labour has had to take action over complaints of antisemitism. The Bradford West MP Naz Shah was suspended over Facebook posts from 2014, including one suggesting Israelis be deported to the US.

In defending Shah, Livingstone intensified the row by claiming Hitler had supported Zionism “before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews”

Linking Zionism to Hitler – only in the UK Labour Party.

Mad Ken Livingstone can’t tell the difference between forced deportations and voluntary migration. It’s like claiming Islamic State is pro-immigration as they have created so many refugees.