The Washington Post reports:

As the Nevada Democratic convention voted to award a majority of delegates to Hillary Clinton — an accurate reflection of her victory in the state’s February caucuses — Sanders backers charged the stage, threw chairs and shouted vulgar epithets at speakers. Security agents had to protect the dais and ultimately clear the room.

Sanders supporters publicized the cellphone number of the party chairwoman, Roberta Lange, resulting in thousands of abusive text messages and threats:

“Praying to God someone shoots you in the FACE and blows your democracy-stealing head off!”

“Hey bitch. . . We know where you live. Where you work. Where you eat. Where your kids go to school/grandkids. . . Prepare for hell.”

Veteran Nevada reporter Jon Ralston transcribed some of the choice voicemail messages for the chairwoman, some with vulgar labels for women and their anatomy:

“I think people like you should be hung in a public execution. . . . You are a sick, twisted piece of s— and I hope you burn for this!”

“You f—ing stupid bitch! What the hell are you doing? You’re a f—ing corrupt bitch!”

Such charming people. And these were not e-mails or Facebook rants but voice messages and text messages.

Stuff reports:

Labour will legislate for medicinal cannabis “pretty quickly” after taking office, leader Andrew Little has confirmed.

Little said cannabis products should be available to anyone suffering chronic pain or a terminal condition if their GP signed off on it.

Labour MP Damien O’Connor has drafted a bill for Parliament that would shift the onus of decision making on medicinal cannabis away from the minister to GPs and medical professionals.

In a wide ranging Facebook Live interview with Stuff on Wednesday, Little said Labour would pass O’Connor’s law “pretty quickly” after the next election, should it win.

But on the wider issue of decriminalising cannabis, he wanted to see more evidence.

“I don’t have a moral thing about recreational drugs…my own experience of dealing with it as an issue was when I was a union lawyer, when employers started to do drug and alcohol testing and I did a lot of work on that.

“The medical evidence that came back to me overwhelmingly was that a lot of the cannabis available in New Zealand had very high THC (mind altering substance tetrahydrocannabinol) levels. For brains that are still developing in their late teens and early 20s cannabis use even to a modest degree can still cause long term brain damage. So I’d want to know we are addressing that real risk to that issue.”

Both approaches seem sensible. I’d wait to see the results of legalisation in the three US states which have done so, and see if drug related harms have increased due to legalisation. If not, then we should follow cause.

After a trough in the polls, Little believed Labour was bouncing back and said that was shown by the response to him out and about New Zealand. People were stopping him in the street, shaking hands and taking “selfies”.

“There is a mood shift, there’s a changing expectation.”

I agree there is a mood shift about Labour, but not a good one for them!

Stuff reports:

While 7-year-old Emma battles a lung disease at Starship children’s hospital, her mum is facing another struggle against “discrimination” as she tries to find a place for them to live.

The family is one of many finding it difficult to put a roof over their heads in Auckland, as the Government comes under pressure to deal with those living in cars, garages and on the streets.

Mother-of-three Rhiannon, 44, told media at a Green Party event she had been struggling to find a house after her landlord decided to sell their current place in March.

She had been made redundant two years ago while her relationship also ended, and faced “discrimination” from private landlords and property agents when trying to find a rental.

“As soon as you tell them you’re a sole parent with three children, or that you’re on a Work and Income benefit, they’re not interested in you in this kind of competitive market.” …

Work and Income had offered to lend her money for the family to stay in a boarding house, but she didn’t want to take her children there.

They were on the Housing New Zealand waitlist, but were told it would take at least 18 months to find a place – even though they were high-priority because of Emma’s health.

“I felt like being sick – I was sitting in my car when they rang me and said that, and I just felt like I was going to have a breakdown.”

Rhiannon said she and Emma were currently at Starship children’s hospital while her other two children stayed with family and friends, but she wanted a proper roof over their heads.

“I’m a good tenant, I’ve always paid my rent, and I just really want to get my kids together and back to their schools and live a normal life.”

What is interesting in this story is no surname is given. The media asked for it, but it was refused. Despite this the media have reported the claims.

Now I’m not saying that the situation is not exactly as it has been portrayed. It could well be, and probably is. There are some people who have very tough circumstances and need more assistance.

But there have been dozens of other cases where claims have been made, and further information has come out which gives a different version of events.

Without a surname, it is simply impossible to verify the claims. Media should refuse to report such claims, unless they can be verified. Otherwise it is just propaganda.

Without a surname, you can’t check if there have been any cases at the Tenancy Tribunal involving the person, – for example.

I would have less of an issue with the surname being supplied to the media and then being asked not to publish it – because at least then the media themselves could verify the claims. But the media have agreed to report the claims, without having any information to allow them to verify it. That is a very bad thing.

Stuff reports:

Reading Cinemas Courtenay in Wellington lowered the price of its standard tickets from $16 to $10 – indefinitely. It has taken a similar step in Auckland.

Gold Lounge tickets, which gives gave you more wriggle room in recliner seats at back of the cinema, are now $15.

Victoria University senior lecturer of film Miriam Ross said: “There have been concerns for a long time now that movie attendance is in decline – and that is definitely the case in the US, the UK and wider Europe.

“Now we are seeing that general decline in Wellington.”

Reading Cinemas Courtenay had possibly come to the realisation that they could not compete with the niche audiences that the smaller cinemas attract, Ross said.

“So if they drop the prices, they may be able to entice their own audience back . . . I think this is part of an incentive to get bums back on seats.”

Great to see the prices drop. We’re seeing competition work in two ways.

The first is between cinemas, with many people choosing smaller more cosy cinemas over the larger ones. So the larger ones need to drop prices to attract people back.

The second is between watching it at the cinema, or watching at home with a home theatre system.

John Bishop writes in NBR:

The advocates of a sugar tax also argue that price rises worked for tobacco, so why would they not also work for sugar.

I think there are three differences.

The first is that over time smoking became more and more socially unacceptable; smokers became social pariahs. That hardly applies to sugar consumers, whatever health damage their habit might be causing.

Second, the places where one could smoke were progressively reduced. No one is suggesting that consumption of sugar should be confined to certain designated areas.

Should there be a ban in cafés on sugar sachets on the table, or on selling cakes with a sugar content over a certain level? Good luck with that idea.

Third, the price increases in tobacco were large and regular. But even then it took years for people to cut out tobacco (and there was taxpayer funded assistance to do so through Quitline and the like). None of that will likely apply to a sugar tax. (Or a fat tax for that matter.)

The tax on tobacco is now around 400%. A pack which would normally cost $4 costs $20 due to the tax.

A 10% or even 20% tax on sugar would raise a lot of revenue but have minimal impact on sugar levels, let alone obesity.

I blogged on a troubling case in the Netherlands involving a woman in her 20s who was allowed to have an assisted suicide/death due to PTSD.

I’ve been e-mailed by an MP a translation of her case notes, which indicate she had ailments beyond PTSD. The translation is:

Character suffering, information and alternatives By patient, a woman of 20-30 years, had serious mental suffering, including a refractory posttraumatic stress disorder and severe refractory anorexia nervosa. there Also, there was a chronic depression, chronic suicidality, self-mutilation, dissociation / pseudo-hallucinations and obsessions and compulsions. Were her complaints Fifteen years ago started after sexual abuse.

The patient has had various therapies, both ambulatory and in various clinical centers. Also is They treated very intensively with medication. Her suffering was increasing and more and more came somatic problems. She was tube feeding through a PEG tube, suffered from urinary retention, which a suprapubic catheter was placed, and was suffering from constipation, which they got colonics. She also had chronic anemia, electrolyte disturbances and renal impairment.

About two years before the death has taken place for multidisciplinary consultation Following the euthanasia of the patient. There is then a second opinion from an expert asked trauma treatments. On the advice of these expert then has an intense occurred trauma treatment. This treatment was temporarily partially successful.

According to her treating psychiatrist no other treatment options were more present and there was no sight more to improve her quality of life. His vision was confirmed by a another psychiatrist and the medical superintendent of the mental health institution to which he was attached. Healing was no longer possible. The treatment was still only palliative in nature.

The suffering of the patient consisted of continuous mental suffering by continuing mood swings and flashbacks, ongoing abdominal discomfort and the very poor physical condition and deplorable condition in which it had found itself. Despite years of fighting and contributing to the intensive treatments were her mental and physical condition as bad backward that they experienced no quality of life anymore. Patient was cachectic severely weakened and almost completely become bedridden and dependent on the care of others; there was no perspective or hope for her. She had constantly felt that she was dying, but did not die.

They suffered from the hopelessness of her situation.

The patient experienced her suffering as unbearable. The doctor was convinced that suffering for the patient was unbearable and hopeless prevailing medical opinion.

There were no acceptable options for the patient more to relieve the suffering.

So seems it was a more complex case than the media reported.

Glenn Reynolds writes:

It is a common misconception that socialism is about helping poor people. Actually, what socialism does is create poor people, and keep them poor. And that’s not by accident.

So true.

Under capitalism, rich people become powerful. But under socialism, powerful people become rich.

Also very true.

The daughter of Venezuela’s socialist ruler, Hugo Chavez, is the richest individual in Venezuela, worth billions and billions of dollars. In Cuba, Fidel Castro reportedly has lived — pretty much literally — like a king, even as his subjects dwelt in poverty. In the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as Hedrick Smith reported in his The Russians, the Communist Party bigshots had lavish country houses and apartments in town stocked with hand-polished fresh fruit, even as the common people stood in line for hours at state-run stores in the hopes of getting staples.

Socialism means everyone but the socialist rulers are poor!

George Orwell explained the phenomenon in his Animal Farm, many decades ago. But people keep falling for it: Like Ponzi schemes, socialism is an evergreen form of fraud, egged on by suckers eager to believe the lies hucksters tell them.

Which brings me to Bernie Sanders. The Washington Post recently ran a pieceoriginally entitled “Bernie Sanders’s plans have surprisingly small benefits for America’s poorest people.” Among other things it noted that “In general, though, Sanders’s health-care plan would benefit affluent households more than it would poorer ones.”

Likewise, a paper from the left-leaning Brookings Institution notes that the biggest beneficiaries of Bernie’s free-college proposal would be rich kids:  “Under the Sanders free college proposal, families from the top half of the income distribution would receive 24% more in dollar value from eliminating tuition than students from the lower half of the income distribution.”

Labour in NZ is pushing for the same – a massive wealth transfer from taxpayers to the wealthiest people in NZ – college graduates.

Stuff reports:

The Government has no plans to sell Landcorp despite it being labelled by Deputy Prime Minister Bill English as a “poor investment”.

The government-owned farming company was grappling with a significant drop in its revenue against increasing debt levels caused by the fall in milk price, English told farmers at the DairyNZ Farmers’ Forum at Mystery Creek.

“It’s a very low returning asset, so you have $1 billion tied up in that organisation and it pays taxpayers very little, in some years nothing so it’s a poor investment. However, we’re committed to keeping it.

Why? NZ has thousands of dairy farms owned by farmers. Why does the taxpayer need to own scores also?

Landcorp made a net operating loss of $8.9 million for the half year ending December and its half year revenues were $108.8m, down from $115.1m. The state owned enterprise blamed the fall in revenue on 22 per cent contraction in milk revenue.

Landcorp expected to report a net operating loss of between $8m and $12m for the 2015-16 year, below that of the previous year where a net operating profit of $4.9m was achieved. The report blamed the fall in milk prices as the reason for the loss.

There is a huge opportunity cost having $1 billion tied up in Land Corp. If that was released one could use it to pay for say $1 billion of new schools or hospitals. Alternatively reduce interest payments by $60 million a year or so freeing up that money for health or education spending.

The Herald reports:

The Ports of Auckland must be moved for the growth and prosperity of the city, say three mayoral candidates.

Their comments came after a survey of 328 small business representatives by MYOB revealed 39 per cent would vote for a mayoral candidate who proposed to move the port.

The survey also found 31 per cent opposed a move while 32 per cent said it would not affect their vote.

During a mayoral debate yesterday on Newstalk ZB, Phil Goff, John Palino and Victoria Crone said moving the port was important.

Good to have three candidates in favour. What matters though is how explicit they’ll be in taking steps to make it happen. Platitudes are easy, policy is harder.

Speaking to Leighton Smith, Mr Goff said the port would reach capacity for bulk cargo probably within the next three to 10 years and for container traffic within the next 24 to 40.

“At a certain point Auckland port will not be able to take any further traffic and I am not in favour of the port expanding into the harbour.

“The second reason is that there is 75ha of prime central business district land there that I think would produce a better return than a port.”

He said moving the port would also reduce congestion on Auckland’s motorways.

Great, so what is your plan? Where would the money come from to pay for a move?

Victoria Crone said the port couldn’t grow with the city and was therefore obsolete.

“We have moved on and our economy is no longer driven by [the port]. It is an important part of it but it is not the main driver.”

She said it was important to take a 50 to 100-year view of the port, which would enable people to see the port would not have the capacity to serve the city.

“Our focus has to be on how do we move it, how do we move it cost-effectively, how do we keep the business communities in Auckland as little affected as possible when we go through the move and then we have an incredible piece of land with significant infrastructure opportunity that we can then open up to all of Auckland.”

Ms Crone suggested the land could then be used for “a combination of economic and social living, vibrant night life, we need a ferry terminal, people have said we need a stadium, we could look at a Sydney opera house”.

Would be amazing to have that land available for other use.

John Palino argued the business part of the port should be sold.

“If we sell the business part of the port, the value in the port is really the real estate … so we could look at Tauranga and Whangarei and possibly create a deal with them where we sell them the port or we sell someone else the port.

“We [then] give them the ability to run that port for up to 10 years but the deal would be that in 10 years the port has to be removed.”

A specific idea as to how it could be done.

The Herald reports:

Few beneficiaries had benefits cut for taking drugs last year.

Beneficiaries with work obligations are now required to take and pass a drug test when asked to as part of a job application, with sanctions applied to their benefits for failing the tests.

Last year, there were 31,791 referrals for drug testable positions nationwide and just 55 sanctions for failing a drug test, according to Ministry of Social Development (MSD) figures.

Whangarei Citizens Advice Bureau co-ordinator Moea Armstrong said the low number of beneficiaries failing drug tests proved most people were “really desperately keen” for a job and not doing drugs.

That’s good.

He said workplace drug tests should be up to employers and he didn’t see why the Government needed to be involved in the process. Mr Reid said beneficiaries were under enough pressure without the threat of having their benefits cuts for failing drug tests.

It is up to employers. They decide if they ask a job seeker for one. What the Government has said though is if you are on a benefit and turn jobs down because you won’t take a drug test – well the taxpayer won’t keep funding you.

Bay of Plenty-based Te Tuinga Whanau support service executive director Tommy Wilson said he believed the drug testing policy was working.

“I know first hand that it’s working because we have a lot of people within our organisation that come from past drug use and are doing better because they have that put on them,” he said. “I am encouraged that people are being more responsible, realising how important work is and what it can do for the mana of a family to have a parent working.”

It would be good to have some before and after data – ie how many job seekers on a benefit refused drug tests before there were sanctions for doing so, compared to the failure rate now?

Bernard Hickey reports:

Economist and former Reserve Bank Chairman Arthur Grimes, who has researched the effects of the Metropolitan Urban Limit on land prices, said he also supported its removal and a change to infrastructure financing, as well as the relaxation of density limits. Along with other researchers from Motu, Grimes found in 2008 that land prices inside the Auckland boundary were 10 times higher than outside the boundary. See my 2009 article on that here  and subsequent Productivity Commission research showing similar results here.

“I’m partial to removing whatever they want to call it this week — the Metropolitan Urban Limit or the Rural Urban Boundary,” Grimes told Interest.

“There are two urban growth boundaries in Auckland. One is a horizontal one and one is a vertical one, and it’s important to get rid of both of them,” he said.

Grimes said he opposed the recent practice of progressive extensions of the RUB, which simply gave land owners serial monopolies on land that pushed up land values.

“The way it’s been discussed in the draft Unitary Plan really shows a misunderstanding of basic economic principles and is almost designed to give people their own specialised monopoly for a while that forces up the price of land.”

Grimes points out very well the problem of just moving the boundary.

Grimes also supported moves to finance the infrastructure needed for development with targeted rates, pointing to other similar tools used overseas such as as (Tax Increment Finance) TIFs.

“These sorts of things are quite mainstream internationally and would seem to me to make a lot of sense to investigate. I can’t see major fishhooks in them and they’re definitely worth looking at,” he said.

Grimes also said Councils also had low debt ratios in New Zealand and linking rates payments to infrastructure bonds was an accepted and sensible practice.

I’ve previously blogged in support of Twyford’s infrastructure bonds proposal, so that the costs of infrastructure to new properties is funded through targeted rates over time, rather than up front.

Property Council CEO Connal Townsend said he agreed with Labour’s call to abolish the Rural Urban Boundary.

“The Rural Urban Boundary is a barrier to entry into Auckland’s land market which will continue to distort market behaviour. An artificial boundary that chokes land supply is counter intuitive,” Townsend said.

He said he also agreed a rethink of infrastructure financing was needed.

“We know that paying development contributions through targeted rates over a number of years is workable. And, we already have the Local Government Funding Agency which more and more councils are starting to make use of,” Townsend said.

The property people support it.

Business NZ also welcomed Labour’s proposal.

CEO Kirk Hope said providing more land for building was needed.

“With agreement on this issue between both main political parties, it is to be hoped that local government planning decisions will take heed of the need to focus on land and housing supply,” he said.

As does business.

USA Today reports:

The Islamic State has lost 45% of the territory it once held in Iraq and 20% of areas it controlled in Syria, according to new estimates by a U.S.-led coalition combating the extremist group.

That’s good news. A long way to go, but losing territory is important. ISIL is not Al Qaeda. Their appeal and legitimacy comes from holding territory.  There will always be Islamic terrorism (sadly) but ISIL as an entity can be defeated by loss of territory.

New Zealand has played a role in this, with our training of Iraqi troops. The opposition would have had us do nothing but take in more refugees. By supporting and training the Iraqi troops, we are helping with ending the suffering of those who were living in territory controlled by ISIL.

Far better to help stop creating refugees, and making their homes safe again, than doing nothing to stop ISIL.

Stuff reports:

A spat has broken out between two political rivals over the use of a prominent Hamilton billboard in the lead-up to October’s council elections.

City Councillor and mayoral hopeful Rob Pascoe has accused fellow Councillor Andrew King of stymieing free speech after he rejected a request by Pascoe to hire a billboard above King’s Frankton business.

King owns several billboards on the corner of Greenwood Street and Killarney Road, as well as at other sites in the city.

Pascoe made inquiries to hire a billboard above King’s business during the month of September as part of Pascoe’s mayoral campaign.

However, his bid was rejected on the grounds the billboard was “politically incompatible” with King’s own views.

Pascoe was told King’s other billboards were also off-limits.

He has since booked billboard space in Whitiora and along Anzac Parade in Hamilton East.

“I guess it’s disappointing as I have a limited budget and booking billboards at three different sites would have given me coverage over the city,” Pascoe said.

“I feel Andrew is negating free speech by not allowing me to use his billboards.

No he isn’t. That’s ridiculous. King owns those billboards. They are his personal property. You have no more right to put your own skins on them than you do to stick up a hoarding in his backyard or on his car.

The Herald reports:

Labour wants the Government to abolish Auckland’s city limits to get people out of cars, caravans, garages and tents.

Labour housing spokesman Phil Twyford said the urban growth boundary had to go because it has fuelled the housing crisis and people would not be forced into bad circumstances if the Government acted.

“The Government should rule out any possibility of an urban growth boundary in Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan if it is serious about fixing the housing crisis,” Twyford said.

“Over 25 years the urban growth boundary hasn’t prevented sprawl, but it has helped drive land and housing costs through the roof. It has contributed to a housing crisis that has allowed speculators to feast off the misery of Generation Rent, and forced thousands of families to live in garages and campgrounds,” Twyford said.

I’m stunned, but in a good way.

Twyford had been showing signs of getting it for a few months now, acknowledging that land supply restrictions were a huge issue. Every expert report into housing says the artificial restriction of land for housing is the biggest factor, and other measures will be ineffective if you don’t fix this.

I thought that Labour would have some imprecise policy such as supporting some movement in the boundary. I never thought they would come out and say abolish it.

This is excellent they have. Huge kudos to Phil Twyford for getting Labour to agree to this. They’ve done a lot of things wrong in recent times, but this is a sign they are doing some things right.

But Twyford said the urban growth boundary created an artificial scarcity of land, driving up section costs. Land inside the boundary is up to ten times more valuable than rural land.

“It is not enough for the council to progressively add more land zoned for development here and there. That just feeds the speculation that is an inevitable result of having the boundary.

Twyford is dead right – moving it is not enough.

National needs to get some balls, and come out with the same policy. Auckland Council should be left under no mistake – abolish the boundary, or Parliament will step in and do it.

There is a less dramatic way to abolish it. Labour’s candidate for Mayor Phil Goff could adopt this as policy. Also will Twyford get the Labour-aligned City Vision candidates to support abolishing the boundary?

This announcement by Twyford makes him my MP of the Week, MP of the Month and maybe even better than that. It is a seriously good policy that will make a huge difference to Aucklanders if implemented.

UPDATE: You can sign a petition here (from the Taxpayers Union) calling on the Government to adopt Labour’s policy on abolishing the Auckland Metropolitan Urban Limit. The more people who sign the petition, the more pressure on National to do the right thing and sign up to Labour’s policy.

Jonathan Coleman announced:

As of 31 March 2016, there were over 7,880 doctor full-time-equivalents and 22,500 nurse full-time equivalents employed by DHBs – that’s almost 2,000 more doctors and nearly 4,200 more nurses compared to 2008.

In total the number of doctors and nurses working in DHBs across the country has increased by over 6,100 since 2008 – an increase of 25 per cent.

This includes around 1,100 more senior doctors, an increase of 36 per cent, and almost 1,100 more senior nurses, an increase of 40 per cent.

That’s a 23% increase in the number of FTE nurses and a massive 34% increase in the numbers of doctors. Not by coincidence there are now fewer managers and administrators.

The Washington Post assigns characters:

• Donald Trump: Robert Baratheon
• Hillary Clinton: Cersei Lannister
• Bernie Sanders: Ellaria Sand
• Ted Cruz: Tyrion Lannister
• Jeb Bush: Stannis Baratheon
• Marco Rubio: Renly Baratheon
• John Kasich: Rickon Stark
• Martin O’Malley: Ned Stark
• Carly Fiorina: Margaery Tyrell
• Ben Carson: Gregor Clegane
• Mike Huckabee: The High Sparrow
• Chris Christie: Jorah Mormont
• Rand Paul: Khal Drogo
• Rick Perry: Robb Stark
• Lindsey Graham: Davos Seaworth
• Scott Walker: Jon Arryn

Some of them surprise but their reasoning is pretty sound.

Chris Trotter writes:

Labour’s response to the “Panama Papers” has left me cold.

The Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Little, lacking hard evidence of criminal behaviour – of any kind – has opted to unfurl his party’s banner on the moral high ground.

He has accused the law firms involved in servicing foreign trusts of participating in a “grubby little industry”.

He’s probably right about that. Shielding rich people from their tax obligations hardly constitutes a noble calling.

My problem with this approach is that it all sounds a bit like a student union SGM, where the deployment of high-flown rhetoric is inversely proportional to the debaters’ command of useful facts.

And of course the leader and half the front bench are former student politicians!

The facts arising out of the Panama Papers are reasonably simple to summarise:

• New Zealand is not a tax haven in the generally accepted definition of that term.
• Changes to New Zealand legislation have put this country at risk of being perceived as a tax haven.
• The Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, took advantage of our legislative laxity to promote New Zealand as a politically stable and corruption-free hiding place for their clients’ assets.
• The National-led Government’s responses to IRD warnings that New Zealand was at risk of losing its corruption-free reputation were wholly inadequate.
• The entire problem can be solved easily: simply by toughening-up the disclosure provisions of the relevant legislation.

If Labour had been willing to assess these facts dispassionately, and with an eye to presenting itself as a credible alternative government, its handling of the Panama Papers would have been very different.

From the outset, it would have made it very clear that its number one priority was to protect New Zealand’s international reputation. That being the case, it would have been very careful to avoid calling their country a tax haven.

Their treatment of the Prime Minister would also have been different. Rather than attempting to associate him with the dubious behaviour of Mossack Fonseca, they would have acknowledged that the offending legislation had evolved gradually, under both Labour and National, and offered to make its remediation a bi-partisan effort.

Having sought out and obtained the best advice available from tax lawyers and accountants about how the legislation might best be rewritten to eliminate its usefulness to entities like Mossack Fonseca, Labour would then have approached the Government with an offer to rush through the necessary changes under urgency.

A much more intelligent approach than what they did. Their obsession with Key blinds them. Hopefully they will ignore Chris’ advice.

If all of the above has a faint ring of familiarity to it, that’s because my suggested responses are modelled on the way John Key handled the so-called “Anti-Smacking Bill” back in 2007. Rather than exploiting the mounting toll of damage the issue was inflicting on Helen Clark’s Labour Government, Key arranged for the bill to be passed overwhelmingly with National Party support.

The electorate was startled – but impressed – by Key’s magnanimous gesture towards his political opponent. Here was a man who was prepared to forgo petty partisan advantage for the wider public good. As he strode into the media conference alongside Helen Clark, the television audience saw not a political opportunist, but a future prime minister.

Clark’s right-wing opponents were furious with Key for rescuing her from the anti, anti-smacking backlash. Key just shrugged. He knew that at the perceptual level that truly mattered, he had just made huge gains. In his own, and his party’s, audition for the role of wielder of state power, National was now in front.

Andrew Little preaches a mean sermon, and his finger-wagging is second-to-none. But in that all-important audition for political power, his handling of the Panama Papers has done Labour no favours.

Another own goal.

The Guardian reports:

Isabelle Attard, a French MP from Normandy, stood outside the French parliament flanked by dozens of protesting female politicians and feminist campaigners. Armed with placards and loudspeakers, they demanded an end to a dangerous French taboo: the everyday groping, harassment, sexist comments and sexual assault that women are still subjected to in parliament by male politicians.

“We can no longer stay silent,” Attard said. “Women must feel able to speak out.” Riot police stood by on the sidelines. …

Attard, 46, an independent MP in Calvados, is one of eight women who came forward this week with allegations against the Green MP and deputy speaker of parliament, Denis Baupin, ranging from harassment to sexual assault.

Between 2012 and 2013, Baupin allegedly sent Attard and other MPs barrages of lewd daily text messages in parliament, ranging from “I like it when you cross your legs like that” to proposing during meetings that she become his lover or texting her that he liked it when she resisted.

Sandrine Rousseau, 44, an economist and spokesperson for the Green party, Europe Écologie Les Verts (EELV), told an investigation by Mediapart and France Inter radio that during a party meeting, Baupin had cornered her in a corridor, pinned her against the wall, held her breasts and tried to kiss her by force.

Elen Debost, another politician in the party, allegedly received about 100 messages of serious sexual harassment from Baupin such as: “I am on the train and I’d like to sodomise you wearing thigh-high boots.” Baupin resigned this week as deputy speaker of parliament and a judicial preliminary inquiry was opened. His lawyer vehemently denied what he called “mendacious, defamatory and baseless” charges.

Doesn’t sound too baseless when they have the text messages. Amazing that this level of harassment happens at all in their Parliament, let alone by a Deputy Speaker.

David Fisher writes:

Tony Robertson is a stone-cold killer and rapist who has never taken responsibility.

After he murdered Blessie Gotingco, he worked hard to avoid responsibility for doing so but the evidence was such that it must have been easy to banish “any reasonable doubt”.

When the calls for the inquiry came, the question turned. It effectively asked: “Did somebody else enable Robertson to murder and rape through inaction or incompetence?”

A Government-ordered inquiry by long-time public servant Mel Smith found “Robertson, and only Robertson, can be held responsible for what happened to Mrs Gotingco”.

Robertson did what he did and no one else need shoulder the blame. Corrections and police staff did their jobs when it came to Robertson.

In this awful case, it all comes down to a young man whose character is fundamentally deficient due to a deviant and murderous streak which sets him apart from almost everyone else.

The sad reality is that once someone has served their full sentence, you can’t stop them committing further crimes once released if they are determined.

This is one of the reasons I support three strikes – so the worst of the worst are not released once it is clear they will continue offending.

Robertson was considered for parole on four occasions. The board was confronted with an angry and violent young sex offender who refused to admit guilt in the face of overwhelming evidence. It kept him inside as long as it could. Robertson knew when he was getting out, and it wasn’t early. He told the board: “I will do my time and go out on my statutory release date in December 2013.”

And that was the target date — the point at which there was no legal way to keep Robertson in jail and away from the rest of us.

And he came out and killed almost straight away. So very very sad for the family and friends of the victim. Hopefully this time he will never be released.

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Stuff reports:

The Labour Party diverted a press conference that was to be held outside a supposedly overcrowded South Auckland house after its occupants denied they had housing problems.

Oh dear. They can’t even organise a photo op competently, so how on earth could they run a country?

Other media had reported there were 17 people living in the Bairds Road, Otara home including in a tent on the front lawn.

But as media waited on the street for Labour leader Andrew Little on Tuesday a man came out to say he was the owner of the house and the claims had been greatly exaggerated.

The tent had been erected because the family were renovating, said the man, who declined to give his name.

“They say there’s 17 people living here, it’s not true,” he said.

So the media all reported this claim uncritically, and you wonder why trust in media is falling. We only find out the truth because Labour was moronic enough to arrange a press conference outside the house, without anyone actually talking to those who lived there in advance.

The Atlantic reports:

In the last two years Venezuela has experienced the kind of implosion that hardly ever occurs in a middle-income country like it outside of war. Mortality rates are skyrocketing; one public service after another is collapsing; triple-digit inflation has left more than 70 percent of the population in poverty; an unmanageable crime wave keeps people locked indoors at night; shoppers have to stand in linefor hours to buy food; babies die in large numbers for lack of simple, inexpensive medicines and equipment in hospitals, as do the elderly and those suffering from chronic illnesses.

That socialist revolution is working well then.

You wonder how many people have to die before people get it.

A case in point is the price controls, which have expanded to apply to more and more goods: food and vital medicines, yes, but also car batteries, essential medical services, deodorant, diapers, and, of course, toilet paper. The ostensible goal was to check inflation and keep goods affordable for the poor, but anyone with a basic grasp of economics could have foreseen the consequences: When prices are set below production costs, sellers can’t afford to keep the shelves stocked. Official prices are low, but it’s a mirage: The products have disappeared.

Yet in NZ some politicians push for rent controls, not realising that it would inevitably lead to an even greater shortage of places to live.

When a state is in the process of collapse, dimensions of decay feed back on each other in an intractable cycle. Populist giveaways, for example, have fed the country’s ruinous flirtation with hyperinflation; the International Monetary Fund now projects that prices will rise by 720 percent this year and 2,200 percent in 2017. The government virtually gives away gasoline for free, even after having raised the price earlier this year. As a result of this and similar policies, the state is chronically short of funds, forced to print ever more money to finance its spending.

Quantitative Easing on steroids!

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government can no longer afford to provide even rudimentary law and order, making Caracas, the capital, by some calculationsone of the most murderous cities in the world. Drug traffickers run large sections of the countryside. Prison gang leaders keep military-style weapons on hand, and while grenade attacks still make the news, they are nothing new. Recently, the police captured an AT4 antitank rocket launcher—basically, a bazooka—from a suspect.

The breakdown of law and order is so severe that even children are being robbed. At Nuestra Señora del Carmen school in El Cortijo, a struggling neighborhood of Caracas, supplies for the school-lunch program have been stolen twice this year already: Thugs have broken into the school’s pantry late at night after fresh food is delivered. The second burglary meant the school couldn’t feed the kids for at least a week.

So sad for those living there.

And it is about to get worse as the Herald reports:

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday extended the economic state of emergency in the South American country by 60 days. Yesterday he warned that authorities will seize any factories which stop production, and throw their owners in jail.

Oh yeah that will help.

Maduro said a complaint by factory managers that they were lacking the hard currency for raw materials was “whingeing” and their threat to close was a declaration of “economic war”. Any factories which stopped working would be “occupied by the people”, Maduro said in a televised speech. “We will do it. We will take over all the plants paralysed by the bourgeoisie,” he said. “Any who does not wish to work, let him leave.”

So he wants mobs to invade the factories. I think Mugabe has tried that approach!