Stuff reports:

A US mother has been shot by her toddler while driving on a highway in Wisconsin.

The two-year-old boy was in the back seat when he accidentally fired the weapon, reported NY Daily News.

His mother, identified by WISN-TV to be 26-year-old Patrice Price, was struck in the back and found unresponsive at the wheel, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office said.

Medical officials began CPR but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

“Initial witness accounts indicate that a child in the back seat of the vehicle got a hold of a gun and discharged the firearm, sending a single bullet into the driver’s back,” the office sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Putting a two year old in a back seat of a car with a loaded gun surely qualifies for a Darwin Award?

Stuff reports:

Bad tenants are being unfairly let off the hook for property damage after a court decision, landlords say. 

The Court of Appeal ruled last week that tenants who caused a fire by leaving oil unattended on a stove in 2009 could not be held financially liable.

The Residential Tenancies Act states tenants can be made to pay for damage caused by neglect or carelessness. The Property Law Act says they are not liable for damage from “perils” beyond their control such as fire, storm, earthquake or volcanic eruption.

Leaving oil unattended on a stove seems pretty careless to me.

Landlords and property managers say that while last week’s appeal court decision may have been fair, the ruling opens the floodgates for tenants being excused for severe negligence and deliberate damage.

One Christchurch property manager, who did not want his business identified for fear of jeopardising live Tenancy Tribunal claims, said they had lost two applications in the last few days seeking orders for tenants to pay landlords’ insurance excesses after damage.

The harm included carpets covered in drink stains and cigarette burns, damaged walls, and ignored plumbing leaks which led to water damage, he said.  

“The Tenancy Tribunal said they had made their ruling because of the Appeal Court ruling. They definitely used that as an excuse to exonerate tenants for any damage,” the property manager said.

So what is the possible impact:

The property manager said the rulings would lead to higher insurance premiums pushing up rents, or landlords excluding risky tenants such as families with children. Insurance companies could also insist landlords take only insured tenants, he said.

“The good tenants will have to pay the price for what the bad ones do”.

Requiring tenants to be insured could well be the outcome.

Stuff reports:

Twice as many Australians support Helen Clark to lead the United Nations than Kevin Rudd.

And even Labor voters prefer the former Kiwi prime minister to Rudd, a poll has found.

The Essential poll, released on Wednesday, indicates that Australia’s two-time former prime minister would no longer muster the widespread public support that characterised the “Kevin 07” election campaign and kept his leadership ambitions alive against Julia Gillard after being dumped by his party in 2010. …

The Essential poll found 45 per cent of 1020 people surveyed thought Clark would be a better leader for the UN, with just 21 per cent opting for Rudd.

Wow, that will hurt Rudd. His own country prefers Clark to him y a massive margin.

A good result for Team Helen.

The Telegraph reports:

Almost half of Britons pay no income tax while the richest are now shouldering the biggest burden on record, a new analysis has found.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the proportion of working-age adults who do not pay income tax has risen from 34.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent, equivalent to 30million people. 

Over the same period the amount of income tax paid by the richest 1 per cent has risen from 24.4 per cent to 27.5 per cent, meaning that 300,000 people pay more than a quarter of the nation’s income tax.

It is much the same here. Almost half the households pay less in income tax than they get in direct payments such as benefits or child/family tax credits.

Chris Trotter writes:

The bitter truth is that if a beneficent angel were to uplift the best politicians from Labour, the Alliance (before it disappeared) the Greens and the Mana Party, and drop them into a divinely crafted political entity that might – or might not – continue to exploit the still potent Labour brand, then the Government of John Key would be in real trouble. The current Labour Party bleats on (and on, and on, and on) about being a “Broad Church”, but the sad truth remains that its reservoir of recruitment has never been shallower.

A genuinely “broad church” party of the Left would balance off Andrew Little with Hone Harawira, Jacinda Ardern with Laila Harré, Stuart Nash with John Minto, Kelvin Davis with Annette Sykes, Grant Robertson with Julie Anne Genter and Annette King with Metira Turei. The whole spectrum of alternative power: from Soft Centrists to Hard Leftists; would be covered.

While I have serious doubts about the electoral appeal of such a group, Trotter has a point that Labour is attracting relatively few denizens of the left.

That Labour’s fatal apostasy [the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief or principle] has rendered such a divinely appointed caucus little more than a pipe dream is the besetting tragedy of progressive New Zealand politics. Its embrace of neoliberalism in the mid-1980s left Labour with the political equivalent of syphilis. Sadly, every one of the many attempts to administer the Penicillin of genuine progressivism (God bless you Jim, Rod, Laila!) was rejected. Consequently, Labour’s bones have crumbled and its brain has rotted. Small wonder that the other opposition parties are reluctant to get too close!

They’re at 27% in the average of the polls, which is 6% worse than three years ago.

The Herald reports:

John Key’s personal lawyer cited a conversation with the Prime Minister when lobbying a Minister about a potential crackdown on the lucrative foreign trust industry.

Ken Whitney, the executive director of boutique trust specialist Antipodes, wrote to then-Minister for Revenue Todd McClay on December 3, 2014, over concerns Inland Revenue were sizing up the sector.

“We are concerned that there appears to be a sudden change of view by the IRD in respect of their previous support for the industry. I have spoken to the Prime Minister about this and he advised that the Government has no plans to change the status of the foreign trust regime,” Mr Whitney wrote in an email.

“The PM asked me to contact you to arrange a meeting at your convenience with a small group of industry leaders who are keen to engage to explain how the regime works and the benefits to NZ of an industry which has been painstakingly built up over the last 25 years or so.” …

Mr Whitney denied any conflict of interest between his role working for John Key and lobbying the government, or any preferential treatment from Ministers.

“As you can imagine, naturally, I do speak to the PM from time to time on personal business. So I just used the opportunity to bring it up, to inquire – and who we should we talk to. And his response was ‘Minister McClay,'” he told the Herald.

Mr Key said there was nothing unusual or inappropriate about Mr Whitney raising the issue with him or referring to the discussion with the Prime Minister in his letter to Mr McClay.

“No, because that happens all the time. There’s nothing unusual about it. People ask me about particular issues. I don’t live in a vacuum. I do what is absolutely the correct thing to do, which is send them off to the minister. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done on a million of other occasions which was to direct them to the minister and let the ministers get on to do their work.”

Mr Key said his talk with Mr Whitney followed a story which said Inland Revenue was changing its approach to foreign trusts – a report Key said was inaccurate.

“There was a story in the Herald, he asked me about it, I said to go and see the minister. After that I never had any involvement. I didn’t even know what he’d done. I just knew there weren’t any changes as far as I knew.”

The Prime Minister’s Office stressed he was not involved in any subsequent discussion about reviewing the foreign trust industry.

While the substance of the story might be trivial (PM referred his lawyer to the appropriate Minister), the perception is pretty horrible. It gives the opposition an avenue to tie the PM in.

I think this makes it more likely there will be law or policy changes, as the Government won’t want to be seen to be doing nothing.

Having said that it is still far from obvious to me that there is anything wrong on the NZ side. NZ shares all information on trusts with other countries so long as we have a tax agreement with them. The problem is a few countries like Panama have chosen not to have one.

Stuff reports:

Three of Wicked Campers’ most offensive vehicles have been banned from New Zealand’s roads, following a landmark ruling.

In a ruling from the Classification Office – the first time it has made a decision about a vehicle –  the organisation ruled that slogans on three of the controversial Australian company’s vehicles qualify were “objectionable publications”.

The ruling means that the vans are banned from public places in New Zealand with immediate effect, and Wicked could face a fine of up to $200,000 per offence if it continued to use them.

The banned vehicles depict a cartoon of the Cat in the Hat with drug paraphernalia, Snow White about to snort cocaine and Shaggy and Scooby Doo about to smoke marijuana.

I was worried that the Classification Office might get too enthusiastic and use their powers to ban slogans which are sexist. That would be a step too far. Yes they are offensive and I support the efforts of campgrounds and the like to say vehicles with them are not welcome on their private property.  But banning sexist slogans on vans would be like banning offensive t-shirt slogans.

But by only banning the three designs showing children’s characters doing illegal drugs, the Classification Office has not gone too far.

In its ruling, the Classification Office says the “size and colourful nature” of the images on the vans – including a depiction of Snow White using cocaine – means they would attract the attention of children and young teenagers.

Drug use as promoted on the vans would have “serious short and long term harmful impacts on the psychological and physical health of children”, the ruling said.

While there was “a certain tolerance” for the depiction of drug use in films and DVDs, their viewing could be controlled, while the Wicked vans “cannot be easily covered, or displayed only in restricted areas or to select persons”.

The Classification Office said it considered an R16 classification, but it would have been too difficult to enforce for a vehicle.

“The classification of these campervans as objectionable removes all doubt as to their unsuitability for their intended purpose.”

So far so good, but …

It would now consider a number of other vans submitted by police for classification.

It will be interesting to see if any others are banned.

Stuff reports:

Worksafe NZ has been accused of “grossly exaggerating” workplace injuries and fatalities in a major television advertising campaign.

But the Crown agency is sticking by its “Home Time” campaign, indicating it uses a definition that classes “severe injuries” as much more common than “serious” ones.

Most people would regard severe and serious as very similiar terms. If anything you’d think severe is worse than serious.

Worksafe’s campaign contains a statement from Griffins Foods chief executive Alison Barrass that “last year more than 23,000 people were severely injured or killed in New Zealand workplaces”.

By linking it to killed, it makes you think these are injuries just short of death. Maybe lose a limb, or be off work for months.

But Statistics NZ data indicated only 450 people were killed or seriously injured at work in 2014, said Ian Harrison, principal of Wellington economics consultant Tailgate Economics.

450 vs 23,000!

Harrison, who previously worked for the Reserve Bank and World Bank, has filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority, describing the advertisements as “deceptive”.

Figures published by Worksafe NZ on its own website indicated there were 44 workplace fatalities in the year to April 2015 and 3384 “serious harm notices”.

So the Worksafe ad uses a figure 50 times larger than Stats NZ and seven times larger than their own website.

It defined a severe injury as a work-related claim that required more than seven days off work, while a serious injury involved hospitalisation and a higher risk of death, he said. 

So severe is a week off work. I doubt most people would think of that as servere.

Harrison believed people were likely to be misled by that.

“The viewer is being led to believe that tens of thousands are ‘not coming home’ each year because of death or serious injury.

I’m with Harrison. This is not a good start for Worksafe.

His report is here. It will be interesting to see the decision of the ASA.

UPDATE: Worksafe responds:

WorkSafe New Zealand’s Home Time advertisement states that “last year more than 23-thousand people were severely injured or killed in New Zealand workplaces.” That is completely correct.

The 23,000 figure relates to ACC data for severe injuries, which require more than 7 days off work. Severe injuries can include everything from falls from height to being hit by moving objects. Not only does that mean that thousands of New Zealanders suffered severe work-related injuries it also represents a huge loss of productivity.

‘Severe injuries’ is one of the three official measures that are used to track progress towards the Government’s target of reducing workplace injuries by 25 per cent by 2020 (along with fatalities and serious injuries).

Tailrisk Economics has focused on the ‘serious injury’ measure as if it is the only valid measure. It is not.

The Home Time advertisement sets out the case for New Zealand needing to do a better job at keeping people health and safe at work – and WorkSafe stands by that 100 per cent.

Note:

• Severe injuries are defined as work-related injury claims that require more than a week off work (and excludes what are called ‘gradual process injuries’).

• Serious injuries are defined as hospitalisations with a higher chance of death.

• Tailrisk Economics is wrong when it suggests the Home Time advertisement refers to 23,000 deaths and serious injuries. As explained above, the 23,000 figure relates to severe injuries and deaths.

A smart pick by Ted Cruz. If he gets the nomination (which is unlikely) this will help in the general in two ways:

1. Voters are guaranteed a historic first either way – either the first female VP or the first female President
2. Fiorina can attack Clinton more aggressively than Cruz can, without being called sexist etc

Her business record would be more of an issue if she was the presidential candidate, but I don’t think it will be an issue as VP.

I actually said a few months ago I think she’d be a good VP choice.

But of course it is more likely Trump will be the nominee. Will be interesting which poor sucker he picks to be his VP candidate. He has said it will not be an outsider like him, but someone with political experience.

Eric Crampton writes:

It is very, very easy to break a beautiful tax system. Here is the recipe for doing it.

Start by finding some product that seems a little frivolous – a bit of a luxury – and preferably one that’s mostly used by people that the typical voter does not really like anyway. Say, for example, the fancy beard oil used by hipsters to maintain their elegant facial appendages.

Then, find some cause that nobody could object to. Something really motherhood and feijoa pie. Tieke recovery. Who doesn’t love the New Zealand saddleback and support its recovery? Nobody.

Add the two together and propose a tax on hipster beard oil to help fund Tieke recovery programmes. Who could object? Hipsters are at best a mild nuisance, and at worst a looming threat to national identity; beard oil seems the height of frivolous consumption; and Tieke are a perennial entry in Bird of the Year competitions.

The bundle is an economic abomination. If Tieke recovery is the best use of the next public dollar, it is best regardless of whether we tax hipsters’ beard oil. And if a tax on hipsters’ beard oil is the most efficient next tax to impose, then the government should tax it regardless of whether the money raised is used to cut other taxes, fund Tieke recovery, or fund something else entirely.

Many countries have a tax system where hundreds or thousands of different products have different tax rates applied to them. I’m glad we don’t in NZ, and hope we don’t change.

My starting point for anyone advocating a new tax, is that they should identify an existing tax to eliminate or reduce so that overall tax levels on families and businesses doesn’t increase.

Scoop reports:

Genesis Energy will keep its two coal and gas-fired units at Huntly Power Station operating until 2022, having previously said they’d be closed by 2018, after wringing a high price from other electricity generators who wanted to keep them as back-up.

The Auckland-based power company has signed a ‘swaption’ contract with Meridian Energy “and other market participants”, according to a statement from Meridian chief executive Mark Binns. Meridian, but no detail of the trigger price for firing up Huntly has been given and there is no indication of how much of up to 150 Megawatts of additional capacity is committed to Meridian versus other generators.

Meridian only owns wind and hydro power stations and appears to have led the charge to pay to have the two 250 megawatt Huntly ‘Rankine’ units on standby for any periods of low inflows to hydro lakes that could compromise security of electricity supply. The contract will make up to 100MW available year-round and an additional 50MW in the winter months, from April to the end of October.

The move will disappoint environmental campaigners seeking less fossil fuel use in the New Zealand electricity system, which is roughly 80 percent renewable at present, with a target of 90 percent renewable by 2025.

By 2025 it is likely Huntly will have closed anyway. The decisions on individual power stations are for the company directors. It is not a decision for Government. The Government has correctly placed a charge on greenhouse gas emissions, so that coal costs more than previously. But if Genesis has decided it is more profitable to keep it open for now, that is fine. The price they pay for emissions through the ETS will help pay for offsets such as forestry. That is why an ETS is a good market response, rather than central Government decision making.

Energy Minister Simon Bridges said the move was a “pragmatic” and “transitional” measure, while the national grid operator Transpower also welcomed the decision.

“There were times in 2019 that we forecast a shortfall of energy, which could have been difficult to manage,” said chief executive Alison Andrew in a statement. “In extreme cases (for example a dry year when the hydro lakes are very low), we could have experienced a situation where consumers would have been asked to conserve their power usage.”

Basically without Huntly there would have been risks of power shortages. As more generation comes online, Huntly won’t be needed eventually.

The quarterly disclosure is out. The highest expenses for non-Ministers is:

1. Andrew Little $36,009
2. Kelvin Davis $24,016
3. Nuk Korako $23,984
4. Metiria Turei $23,011
5. Kanwaljit Snigh Bakshi $21,350
6. David Carter $21,027
7. Jacqui Dean $20,749
8. David Cunliffe $20,613
9. Stuart Smith $20,406
10. Meka Whaitiri $20,357
11. Clayton Cosgrove $20,296
12. Nanaia Mahuta $20,157

For Ministers (domestic travel) the top are:

1. John Key $41,886
2. Te Ururoa Flavell $38,941
3. Steven Joyce $35,807

The Telegraph reports:

Open borders across Europe have allowed Isil to plant sleeper cells across the continent and in the UK, poised to launch Paris or Brussels-style massacres, America’s intelligence chief has warned.

James Clapper, the US Director of National Intelligence, warned the free movement of citizens around the EU was “in conflict” with the need to protect security.

He said there is evidence of fanatics from Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil) in Britain, Germany and Italy secretly plotting outrages like those witnessed in France and Belgium.

Being an island nation has its drawbacks. It makes it harder to trade, and harder to travel.

But there is a real plus, in that it makes us easier to have relatively secure borders.

Stuff reports:

Sergeant Cameron Browne told the authority that, when he entered the bar with police last month, Andrews was at the DJ booth.

“He used the PA system to tell patrons that the police officers were not real, they were in fact strippers,” Browne said.

“He encouraged patrons to pay police $20 to strip, and continued to encourage patrons to taunt police until the compliance was complete.”

Heh, I find that pretty funny actually.

The officers also testified to often finding intoxicated people in the bar. Some reported seeing drunk people leaving through an upstairs window. 

Thom said he assessed two drunk women, barely able to stand, in the bar who “were among the worse I have seen in some time”. 

Based on serving drunken patrons, it is possible the bar should lose their licence – but not for joking the Police are strippers.

The challenge is determining if they were served at this bar while drunk, or whether they drank elsewhere and then came to Ruby Rabbit.

The Herald reports:

The number of permanent name suppression orders issued by the courts has halved in the past five years. In 2011, 640 people received permanent suppression for criminal matters in the district and high courts. The next year, the number dropped to 407 and has slid even further to 317 in 2015. Over the same five-year period, the number of people appearing in court has fallen by about 25 per cent, according to information from the Ministry of Justice.

Good to see the law change working, and fewer people getting name suppression. That is a significant drop.

The Herald reports:

A top New Zealand property expert opposes a land tax and says a stamp duty is a far better option.

Dean Humphries, a national hotel broker and a former Auckland University lecturer, was responding to PM John Key talking of a land tax and said that would not resolve the issues around foreign buyers purchasing houses here.

“Stamp duty is a no-brainer and could bring in tens of millions of dollars annually. Land tax is the most draconian thing I’ve ever heard of. Where does the Government get their advice from? Stamp duty is so easy because you pay up front at the time of purchase and just a percentage of what you’re paying. It’s just the easiest thing to do and the tax can be used for a multitude of things,” Humphries said.

Key is threatening to apply a land tax to foreign-based house buyers if there is evidence they are pushing up New Zealand house prices – and it could also apply to Kiwis abroad.

Actually a land tax is better, in my opinion (and that of Tax Working Group).

A stamp duty can be avoided by having a trust purchase the land, and then just changing the trustees. Also stamp duty would encourage people to never sell their properties, while a land tax encourages people to use their properties (not land bank them).

However this is all premature. The Government has said that IF the data shows there is a high proportion of foreign buyers, then a land tax is the best option.   The data may show that relatively few buyers are non-residents.

Stuff reports:

Tourism bodies are calling for a single Australia-New Zealand visa to boost international visitor numbers on both sides of the Tasman.

The trans-Tasman visa would make long-haul flights ot Australia and New Zealand more enticing and allow the two countries to be marketed as a single destination, say the Tourism and Transport Forum Australia and Tourism Industry Association New Zealand.

The two bodies have written to the Australian Minister for Immigration and Tourism in support of their call.

They want a regional visa that would allow international tourists to travel between both countries.

Sounds a great idea. Many tourists coming to one place do want to visit the other.

“A temporary Trans-Tasman Visa arrangement was implemented during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in which visitors travelling between 26 January and 5 April 2015 only required an Australian visa to travel over to New Zealand.

“A three-month visa was granted upon arrival in New Zealand to those holding an eligible Australian visa through the period,” the two industry groups said in a statement.

“Australia and New Zealand are long-haul destinations – it makes a lot of sense for us to package the two countries together in a joint regional visa to prospective international tourists who are weighing up the long flight to our countries,” said TTF chief executive Margy Osmond.

“The reality is that if you are coming halfway around the world to Australia or New Zealand you want to make it worth your while, just as travelling to Europe we visit a multitude of countries on that continent not just one.

“Seamless travel between Australia and New Zealand for our own citizens and international visitors is a goal we should be strongly pursuing to make our two nations a more attractive destination in what is a cut-throat, competitive tourism market.”

A 2014 TTF investigation suggested a joint visa scheme could increase the number of international visitors to the region by 141,300 people by 2020.

Not sure how robust that number is, but am sure it would help boost tourists numbers.

The key would be to make sure that there is policy alignment on who can get a visa.

After easily winning five further states Trump now has 927 delegates, needing just 310 of the remaining 651.

He’s won 50.9% of pledged delegates and needs just 47.6% of the remaining delegates.

It is now mathematically impossible for Cruz to win prior to the convention. It is Trump or a contested convention and the odds are looking good for Trump.

On the Democratic side Clinton has 62% of the delegates to date and needs just 286 more of the 1,397 left. That’s only 20.5%.

If you ignore superdelegates, Clinton has 56% to 44% for Sanders. To beat her on pledged delegates Sanders would need to win 59% of remaining delegates.

Stuff reports:

Hospital bosses were warned about a childbirth educator’s controversial and dangerous teachings 10 years ago, but it appears nothing was done.

Antenatal teacher Adith Stoneman is being investigated after it was revealed she was teaching “old wives tales” to expectant mums, including advising women to use castor oil for induction, at publicly-funded classes at Waitakere Hospital in west Auckland.

It has now emerged other parents were alarmed by her non-scientific approach, which has strengthened calls for greater regulation of the childbirth education industry.

Auckland mother Jenni Hunter said she complained to Waitemata DHB in 2006 after Stoneman told her class that immunisations were linked to autism and Vitamin K caused cancer in children.

So for 10 years this midwife has been funded by taxpayers to give false information to pregnant mothers. That’s outrageous.

Hunter has joined calls for an overhaul of the way childbirth lessons are run.

“I want to know that all antenatal classes are checked so they provide balanced, evidence-based, practical information.”

Last week, a maternity health campaigner called for a national evidence-based curriculum, auditing of childbirth lessons and a single advice source for expectant parents.

The auditing is the key thing.

Parents have shared their own bizarre lessons from childbirth classes across the country on social media.

* “We should only have our baby in an environment we felt comfortable having sex in.”

* “We were told medical intervention pretty much meant that you had done something wrong.”

* “A c-section was the worst that could happen to our baby.”

* “Pain relief blocked the ‘love hormone’ from mother to child. Lucky I disregarded that when I went into hospital as I ended up having an emergency c-section.”

* “Talking about [caesareans] would be bringing on the negative side of birth.”

* “Rather than doing an internal exam of a woman’s cervix, a midwife should tell how far along she is by the look on her face.”

* “[Give] your baby untested remedies … ‘the [baby’s] body would take what it needs and excrete the rest’.”

* “You fail as a mother if you can’t breastfeed … [and] that natural birth is the only way.”

* “Don’t get induced, don’t have an epidural, don’t have a c-section … unfortunately [I] had to have all the above and felt like I had failed.”

Most midwives are highly professional and excellent at their jobs. But there is a small minority who have a near religious view that childbirth should never involve any medical intervention, and they give misinformation to parents. As it is a taxpayer funded service, the Government and DHBs need to ensure that the advice being given is based on knowledge, not prejudice and opinion.

From Tim Blair:

1. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal Environment.

3. The day after the first Earth Day, the New York Times editorial page warned, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

5. “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born,” wrote Paul Ehrlich in a 1969 essay titled “Eco-Catastrophe! “By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”

6. Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”

7. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” declared Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for Earth Day, in the Spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.

8. Peter Gunter, a North Texas State University professor, wrote in 1970, “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”

9. In January 1970, Life reported, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”

10. Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time that, “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”

The sad thing is that many of those who made the predictions are still around pushing their hysteria.

Buried in a rugby piece was this nugget:

From the Hurricanes’ perspective, Fatialofa began exceeding expectations the moment he arrived.

The 23-year-old lock was preparing to play for Auckland in last year’s provincial premiership final when the Hurricanes called. He’d figured a chance in Super Rugby had passed him by again, until that offer of a wider training group berth in Wellington came through.

It was in February’s pre-season match against the Blues in Eketahuna that Fatialofa first began to indicate he would be more than just a body to hold hit shields at practice.

“That was actually a funny story, old Eketahuna, because I wasn’t meant to play that game,” Fatialofa said.

“Then I found out on the morning of the game that I was in the 23 and then much closer to kickoff I found out I was starting. Two other locks were meant to play but James Blackwell went down and Blade [Thomson] went down and I ended up playing 80 [minutes].

“But that was probably the chance I needed to show what I’m about.”

This time last year the 2010 New Zealand Secondary Schools’ representative was working as a teacher aide in west Auckland. He was grateful for it too, given how hard it can to find gainful employment when you your provincial side requires you fulltime for four or five months of the year. 

“It was a pretty cool school, a charter school,” said Fatialofa.

“The kids there were on their second or third-chance school but I enjoyed them. They were mostly Pacific Island and Maori.

“It was testing times for the first couple of weeks, while they were sussing me out. But I ended up really enjoying that job and was pretty gutted when I had to leave when the ITM Cup started.

Remember that Labour, Greens and NZ First want to close down every charter school in NZ.